At DoorGrow, we have organized our clients into Tribes to provide them with connections, community, and support.
In today’s episode, property management growth experts Jason and Sarah Hull quickly talk about the importance of having these kinds of connections and being socially active as a property management entrepreneur.
[01:16] Why we created DoorGrow Tribes
[03:08] Find people on your same path
[04:54] The neighbor strategy
[06:04] In-person events for property managers
“You go faster together.”
“It's really surprising to me how many property management business owners do not know anybody else that does property management.”
“You need somebody you can look up to somebody that's ahead of you.”
“The in-between moments at conferences, events where you get to connect with people, make friends are probably the most impactful.”
[00:00:00] Jason: It's really surprising to me how many property management business owners do not know anybody else that does property management.
[00:00:07] They don't really have a relationship or friendship. They're not connected.
[00:00:13] All right. Welcome DoorGrow property managers to the DoorGrow show. 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 property manager.
[00:00:33] DoorGrow property managers 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, along with Sarah Hull, co owner and COO of DoorGrow.
[00:01:16] Now let's get into the show. All right, today's topic, we were chatting about what we should talk about, and we're about to head out on a trip. Where are we going?
[00:01:25] Sarah: We are going to Salt Lake City, Utah. And what are we doing? We're doing a tribe event with our clients.
[00:01:31] Jason: Okay. She's excited.
[00:01:33] Sarah: I am so excited. This is our first one. We're kicking it off live.
[00:01:36] Jason: All right. So we've organized our clients into tribes because we've got this awesome, amazing mastermind, and we wanted people to be able to get to know each other because this Is really important. The in between moments at conferences, events where you get to connect with people, make friends are probably the most impactful and maybe even profit evoking in like instances in interactions that you have at the entire event a lot of times. And so we want to really facilitate those for our clients and get them connected and get them creating some relationships. So we're going to be doing something fun. We are. Yeah. So what's the agenda? Why don't we tell them?
[00:02:15] Sarah: Yeah. So we're just hanging out. We're spending a full day together. So our clients decided where we were going. We had all of our clients submit their ideas for a location and then what we're doing when we're there, like some sort of activity. And then everyone voted and this was the one with the most votes. So off we go. So we are going hiking in Little Cottonwood Canyon.
[00:02:37] Jason: Okay. Yeah. And I hear it's beautiful. So it's going to be awesome. So we're going to see that. Everybody's going to be mixing a little bit of business in there and we're going to be having some good conversations and my intention while I'm there is just to benefit everybody that shows up as much as I can as coach. Right. And I'm sure that's Sarah's goal as well.
[00:02:56] And we've got to go catch a flight. So we're going to keep this really brief. It's going to be a short episode. So, why is it important to have a tribe or to have friends or to have connections in your industry as an entrepreneur?
[00:03:08] Sarah: Oh, it's so important, and in fact, studies have shown that this is arguably the most important thing that you can do so that you can be successful in your business and in your growth and in your life is just be connected to other people who are working on similar things and like on a similar path and they're growth minded. And a lot of people unfortunately don't have that.
[00:03:34] So we provide that in our mastermind.
[00:03:37] Jason: A lot of you have heard the phrase, they say that you're the sum of the five people that you spend the most time with, and I think this is true in property management, your business and your relationship with your business will be the sum of the five property management business owners that you are the most connected to.
[00:03:53] And so somebody they can also support. You know, you need these relationships. You need somebody you can look up to somebody that's ahead of you, and we definitely have people that are ahead of others in our mastermind, and then you want people that are on the same path as you, because a lot of the people, like if you've got 200 doors and you're trying to hang around people with a thousand doors, yes, you'll learn some stuff.
[00:04:12] But also the game's changed. And the things that you need to do right now to grow your business are different than how they grew their business probably 10, 20 years ago, some of these guys or gals, right? And so you need to be doing what's current. And a lot of times they're watching you to see what the next thing is or they use you as the guinea pig.
[00:04:30] They don't want to make big sweeping changes or mistakes. Small companies, you're more nimble. You get to experiment. You get to do cool new things. And we do a lot of cool new things at DoorGrow with our clients. And so you need at least five friends. And it's really surprising to me how many property management business owners do not know anybody else that does property management.
[00:04:51] They don't really have a relationship or friendship. They're not connected. And we've been focused on this strategy of the neighbor strategy. Which you can check out by going to neighborstrategy. Com. If you'd like to get access to this free training, it's really cool. And it gets you connected to your neighbors.
[00:05:07] And it helps you both make more money and get each other more business. It's a no brainer. It's one of our favorite growth strategies. And we've got two of our clients are in the Salt Lake area and they've been handing business back and forth to each other. One does focus on more on focuses more on short term, one focuses more long term and they've been feeding each other business using this neighbor strategy.
[00:05:30] And it's not just sending business back and forth. It's a little bit deeper than that. And I teach you how to convert cold leads that might come in that you can field for or give to other people into a 90 percent close rate, warm lead. And so check this training out. You want to give this to all of your neighbors, get them to do it, and you're going to make a lot more money and they're just going to feed you business.
[00:05:49] Warm leads, 90 percent close rate, easy stuff to close. Really cool. So go out and get some neighbors and maybe join the DoorGrow mastermind and get into our tribe groups and start coming to our events and make some connections. Anything else we need to say about it?
[00:06:04] Sarah: I don't think so. I think we're excited about all of the things that we're doing cause we're rolling out a couple of different styles of events.
[00:06:11] Of course we're keeping our main one, our DoorGrow live. We're going to do that once a year. It'll be every May. So mark your calendars. It'll be every May. And then in the meantime, in the interim, like for our clients, we want to provide an opportunity for at least once a quarter for us to get together, like in person.
[00:06:28] So the DoorGrowLive will always be an Austin. The tribe events, it's like once a quarter, we have the opportunity to just get some face time and get some time around each other.
[00:06:38] And I feel like every time we do an event like this, the group that attends, they're just so bonded and it's like awesome to see. So we did an event back in. April and then in May we had our DoorGrow live and a lot of the people who attended our April event also attended DoorGrow live and they were like their own little like pod of people.
[00:06:59] They were messaging each other like in the old group and. Because you just get so like, comfortable around each other and it allows you to really like create a relationship and a connection that's not on the screen because that's like the thing now everybody's like, "Oh, I like, this is how I socialize with people is on a screen," that it's not like genuine real connection.
[00:07:19] Like it's very different when you're like face to face with someone and you can. Like feel their energy. That's really hard. Unless you're Roya Mattis, that's really hard to do through a screen.
[00:07:29] Jason: Cool. All right. So make sure you start getting around some property managers and get connected to some business owners because as entrepreneurs, we kind of isolate.
[00:07:38] We feel alone a lot of times, especially in the early stages of our entrepreneurial journey. Eventually you realize the fastest way forward is to be connected. It's masterminds, it's coaches. It's getting connected with other people. It's allowing other ideas. It's not all available on YouTube and reading a book and stuff you can just do on your own.
[00:07:57] Right? You go faster together. So let's get together. So that's our message today. And until next time to our mutual growth, check us out at DoorGrow.com. We would love to support you and your growth and move you through the DoorGrow code. If you go there, there's a free training. If you click the pink button on the homepage and you can learn all about what we do, how it can help you grow, book a call with our team and watch a whole bunch of testimonials and case studies of people that are scaling the shit out of their businesses. So we'll talk to hopefully you soon because you deserve this and you should be moving your business forward and should stop feeling frustrated, tired, and drained by your business. This should be fun. You should be making a lot of money. All right. That's enough. Talk to you soon.
[00:08:39] Bye everyone.
[00:08:40] 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!
[00:09:07] 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.
At DoorGrow, we love showing off the awesome entrepreneurial people we get to coach and work with every day.
In today’s episode, property management growth experts Jason and Sarah Hull sit down with DoorGrow clients Jill Lyons and Alex Platt to talk about their journey in property management and with DoorGrow.
[03:00] Starting a journey with coaching
[07:26] Finding support as an entrepreneur
[12:18] The path to success is hard work
[16:54] Getting out of the business
[19:28] The importance of good company culture
[21:20] The impact of coaching
“Done is better than perfect.”
“The more valuable you are to your business, the less valuable your business is.”
“If you don't mind working, you don't set up boundaries.”
“Just being open to the thought and the idea is enough to make it work.”
[00:00:00] Jason: The more valuable you are to your business, the less valuable your business is. Ooh, like that one.
[00:00:07] Welcome DoorGrow property managers 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 property manager. DoorGrow property managers 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 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 along with Sarah Hull, co owner and COO of DoorGrow. Now let's get into the show.
[00:01:13] Our guests today... we've got Jill and Alex. Jill Lyons. Alex, what's your last name? Platt. Okay. I just know he's always with Jill, Alex. So we're really glad to have you on the show. And the topic of today's episode is like, we want to talk about your journey with DoorGrow because you've been with us for a little bit. So, why don't you introduce yourself and explain like kind of how you got into property management.
[00:01:39] Jill: Well, I must've taken an insane pill along the way, but I like it. My name is Jill Lyons and I own and I'm broker of Relaxed Realty Group in Sarasota, Florida. Currently we manage about 500 homes. We have like maybe 520 now and our rent roll, we just surpassed 800,000 this month, so I'm stoked and happy and proud. And you know, I love the business. There's never a day that's not that I feel like, "Oh my gosh, it's, you know, Monday." I never feel like that. So it's every day is a joy. Not every instant is a joy, but every day is a joy.
[00:02:12] Jason: So let's Alex, why don't you introduce yourself and tell us what is your role?
[00:02:17] Alex: So, my name is Alex and I've worked with Jill here just over a year and a half, or going on almost two years when I got my real estate license. My wife started with Jill, Miranda, and she's been with Jill for what, 10 years now? Started with a business with her and I do the operations here. So operations and BDM.
[00:02:38] Jason: Awesome. Okay, cool.
[00:02:41] Jill: So he came from a customer service background with T Mobile for the last 10 years. It's great. Corporate's a great, but there's a lot more opportunity here and oh my God, he's great with people. Of course He's not " to brag about himself. So I'll brag about him. So he will put on multiple hats and do everything that whatever needs to be done.
[00:03:00] Jason: Cool. Yeah, you guys make a good team. We've enjoyed having you in the program. So why don't we start with what problem problems were you dealing with when you first came to DoorGrow? Like what challenges were going on?
[00:03:14] Jill: So I would say my strengths are that I love to sell and talk to people and help people. So, you know, that was naturally there and I grew the business with success with growing doors. And I was in a kind of a comfortable, I would say position as. Having a good amount of owners and properties, but I want to start exiting the business and it was just way too 'me centered,' you know, what do we do? What do we do with people coming to me? You know, I don't mind working. Like I say, so unfortunately, if you don't mind working, you don't set up boundaries, you don't set up corporate structures. My flow, there was nothing corporate about me.
[00:03:49] If I wanted to step away, which I did this year, hired the operations manager, but I'm like, now what? And now what do you do? I'm an engineer by education. All I know how to do is build a spreadsheet and show people returns. So I was looking for ...I always believed in coaches. I've been coached since day one of my business.
[00:04:07] So coaching is definitely something I believe in, but the coaching company I used was really just real estate working with buyers and sellers. So I hadn't ever got the property management business aspect of it and setting up the business and the structure. So when you watched one of your podcasts and listened to your podcast, and I liked what you had to say, so I-- "let's let them get us to that next level."
[00:04:32] Jason: Watch the podcast, listen to the podcast, and now you're on the podcast.
[00:04:36] Jill: I know, I'm like, what do I have to offer? That's the first thing, I'm still listening and learning.
[00:04:42] Jason: You know, there's a lot of people listening out there that would dream of having 520 doors, having an amazing operator, having the operations running smoothly and being on your journey, stepping out of the business, like this, that's a dream for a lot of property managers.
[00:04:58] They're still in the thick of the mud and wondering if there's a light at the end of the tunnel.
[00:05:03] Jill: So they don't believe that I'm going to step out.
[00:05:05] Alex: She's a workaholic. So, you know, it's a little bit of yin and yang.
[00:05:09] Jason: You know, entrepreneurs, it's a tough thing. I've known a few entrepreneurs that have like exited their business and then they were bored and they started another business. It happens. So entrepreneurs, we want to stay busy and we want to do the things we really enjoy doing. So you just have to find something you maybe enjoy doing more.
[00:05:29] Jill: I don't know. Yeah, no, I'm not closed to what's next, but I don't know. I'm still here.
[00:05:35] Jason: So let's chat about, and maybe this is a question for Alex. So Alex what did you see when you first came into the business? Some of the challenges in how to like support Jill and how to get her out of the operational stuff. And what challenges did you see that DoorGrow so far been able to help with?
[00:05:54] Alex: So luckily with your program we got to revamp everything. I mean, your Rapid Revamp was amazing. I mean, we got to go from rebuilding and rebranding our logo and everything. So I really enjoyed your class, especially with the whole cycle of suck, making sure that you're not holding onto those owners that are sucking up all your time and, you know, using. A lot of your resource when it comes down to it. I would say those were the biggest things and especially your systems that you have. I mean, I think the Flow is going to help a lot for us to map out each and every one of our procedures that we have on an operational standpoint.
[00:06:33] Jason: Okay. So for those listening, DoorGrow Flow, our process software, which is pretty cool. So the Rapid Revamp, I mean, and you guys made a lot of changes. Yes. Changed your pricing.
[00:06:43] Alex: We changed our name.
[00:06:44] Jill: You changed the name. I said I would never, ever do that!
[00:06:49] Sarah: She's like " I'm not rebranding." I'm like, "okay, we don't have to rebrand." And then she's like, "I think I'm going to rebrand." I was like, "wow! All right, let's do it."
[00:06:58] Jason: Everybody says they don't want to do it. But what I love about entrepreneurs is that if you show them how to make more money, they're pretty okay with it. They're pretty okay with making more money. So, and I think the training, we do a good job in converting people into wanting to make more money. "Here's how it'll make you more money if you do the right things with your branding." So website. Did we help with that?
[00:07:23] Alex: We're almost there. We're on the tail end of that portion of it.
[00:07:26] Jason: So for those that have not been exposed to DoorGrow. Maybe they're just listening to this podcast. They're like, "I don't know if these guys are legit. Kind of looks like some sort of one of these Influencer sort of guys," or I don't know what people think before they become a client but what would you say to those that are on the other side of the paywall and maybe struggling?
[00:07:51] Jill: For me, honestly, if I would have found this 10 years ago, it would have happened faster, my growth and where I am now would have happened faster and more organized. I kind of wing it and I'm the type that, you know, I don't want to spend any money unless a bunch of sitting in the bank. And I probably, if I would have opened up the bank and gotten the coaching and the programs from a property management company versus just from, you know, where I got my assistance from, which I had when I did buying and selling, which I hate it. So I kind of kept my things rather than going into property management coaching and training. It would have definitely made it faster and less painful, and I would say that's the biggest thing that I wish I would have found you sooner, but you know, you always find people when you're supposed to find them and entrepreneurs tend not to be, in my opinion, people that go to business school because they just want to do it. They jump in head first. There's no rhyme or reason to how we do it. So the organization is usually where we struggle the most. And just networking and having the beginning, I just went to Google and figured everything out on my own, rather than reaching out to an organization like yours, that's more specific for us and NARPM, which, you know connected me to other property managers and how are they doing it? And why did I have to create the wheel and do it all my way? I didn't even know that there was anything like this.
[00:09:16] Jason: Yeah. And you had been in NARPM for a while before joining DoorGrow.
[00:09:20] Jill: Yeah. I'm heavily involved in NARPM. I'm the president of our local chapter. So that definitely has made helped my business, and the connection and they have a lot of tools that have helped me significantly realize that it is a business and with systems. But but there isn't the sales support, you know, they don't have you, Jason. It's not energetic and make me go, "yes! I'm going to do it!" With you and with everybody around! You know, it's just like the connections.
[00:09:48] Jason: Yeah. I know you have both really enjoyed the operational pieces as well, and you've attended quite a few of our scale calls on Friday that Sarah runs. What what things have you taken away from on the operational side of things?
[00:10:04] Jill: So what would you say, because you deal with that more? I kind of say, go do it.
[00:10:07] Alex: So, I take a lot of the way, honestly, you guys definitely on those calls go over a lot of different systems that are in other people's companies, to be honest. And we try to take piece by piece and just kind of make it our own when it comes to this. I think it's developing more of the systems that we have. As far as like a specific system, I think we talked about maintenance heavily. And the processes over how other companies do it and what we do with our maintenance. So it's kind of getting every pieces of everybody's input on that stuff to kind of lay out what maybe we should change, you know?
[00:10:45] Jill: I will say that as far as operational, we were in pretty good shape with that. It's not technicalogical. So you have DoorGrow flow. I'm just talking with Errol tomorrow. So it's been on my list of things to do this whole year to set up flow and get that going so that it's more clear how we do things because when we have a new employee, I can't just hand them, "these are our thing," we have to manually tell them or give them a checklist, which doesn't really help. So, I have to hire Errol cause it stays on my list every single month and it hasn't been done. That's what I'm going to pass the buck on versus the website. I'd like to do the marketing. So we need to finish all of this by the end of the year. That's on our list. Does it check the list? We're at the last, getting to the last quarter. So you give us the tools. It's just setting it up. That takes a lot of time and concentration time. And Errol seemed to be I met him at DoorGrow live, you know, in Texas. And yeah, he was talking about processes and creating them. Like I talked about property management, so he's going to be our guy. I'll see how it goes.
[00:11:47] Alex: We have a lot in our heads, obviously. So, that's getting it all down to where if somebody needs to know something, it's much easier.
[00:11:56] Jason: Yeah we're planning on doing some more stuff with Errol Allen, who Jill's speaking with, and he's currently playing around with our DoorGrow flow software and testing it out as well.
[00:12:05] So I think it's going to be a game changer for the market. So Sarah's had a lot of interaction, I think, with the two of you. What's been your perception of why they do so well as clients?
[00:12:18] Sarah: Oh, well, so there's a few things that I'd like to kind of. Point out and give you guys like major kudos on. First is, I think you're just open. Sometimes we have people who are very resistant. They're like, " that won't work," and "I'm not going to do it like this," and "I can't do this," and "that's not in my market," right? And I think the difference is just being open to the thought and the idea is enough to make it work because if you go into something and you think, "oh, this won't work," well, you're probably right. Then it's not going to work. But you guys are very open and you also, I love this about you guys, you take action. You just come in and you're like, "this is what we're going to do," and then you take action, you implement and you get it done. I think, to date, they are the fastest people who have completed everything in the Rapid Revamp. Like, they get a medal for that. Like, every time, they're like, "yep, we're done with this," I'm like, "oh, wow, okay!" They just get it done. It's like they just put their heads down. They know what they need to do. They put in the work and they get it done and then they go, "okay, great, we did that. What do we need now? Like what's the next thing that we can do to either like build on top of that or like take us to the next level? And I think you guys are really great at that. And I think you, you work very well together. You know, you balance each other out. You like ping well back and forth, back together, and I think that gives you the ability to move things along so quickly.
[00:13:44] Alex: It's great to have ideas that we can bounce off of each other and make it a solid process and get it out of the way and move on to the next one.
[00:13:52] Jill: Well, and I love a checklist. So you have a checklist. I want to see checks on there. I don't want to see them open. So I think that myself, I can be more reactionary property management. Our phone is always ringing. Things are always happening. You know, I can easily not get anything accomplished in a day and be busy the whole day. So with the Rapid Revamp it has me be on track along with handling the things that come on you know all day but I have to get my things done
[00:14:18] Alex: And the nice thing about your dashboard was the fact that you could assign things, we would take them and split them up and be like, "okay, you're going to do these and they're assigned to you" and then I could assign ones to me so we can you know, handle what we needed to.
[00:14:30] Jason: Cool.
[00:14:31] Sarah: Yeah. Yeah. I think that was really awesome just to see you guys because every time I check in with you, you're like, "Oh, yeah, we're done with that already." Like, okay, let's see what's the next thing for you guys? And you already knew! You were never like, "Hey, I don't know what I'm supposed to be doing. Like, you just like stayed the course. And sometimes it's hard for entrepreneurs to do because there's so many shiny objects. There's so many of them, right? Like, "Hey, I'm coming in, I'm doing this one thing and that's it," and then along the way, there's like some other little thing that's like, "Hey, I need your attention."
[00:15:04] And it's so tempting to go, "Ooh, but I could focus on that." Like, " let me just go over here for a second," and like, you guys just stayed the course. You like stay on point. And I think that's that's something I really have to give you guys like a huge compliment on because it's hard to do that. It's really difficult to do that. And you guys do it really well.
[00:15:25] Jill: Thank you.
[00:15:26] Jason: Yeah. And so you've interacted with several of our team members, right? It's not just the Jason show or the Jason and Sarah show. And I think that's what a lot of people think. Could you just comment a little bit on DoorGrow's team? You don't have to remember everybody's names, but yeah.
[00:15:43] Jill: Well the two that I've probably enjoyed the most is Clint. He's like the coolest surfer dude in the whole wide world, but he's sharp as a tack. You know, "we're just going to buy a $5 million company." He's the exact person to teach you how to be cool and do acquisitions and whatnot.
[00:16:03] And that you can see why he's so successful because he's a joy to listen to.
[00:16:07] Jason: Yeah, he's fun.
[00:16:08] Jill: And ironically considering an acquisition in the middle of all listening to him and he took his time out, sent me a lot of information and questions I should ask and what due diligence I should do. So, I mean, his wealth of all the years that he's done that, enticed in a few documents was, I could have never created that. And then Roya, she's a ball of energy and I'm all into manifesting and all that. So, I mean, not many people you can feel through a computer screen with their energy, you know, that's heard of talent that she has.
[00:16:43] Jason: Yeah, she's our dangerously powerful mindset coach. And teaches the advanced sales stuff.
[00:16:51] She's yeah she's had quite an impact. Yeah.
[00:16:54] Jill: Yeah. For sure.
[00:16:56] I went to DoorGrow live, which was fantastic to connect with everybody. But thanks to DoorGrow and Alex being also trained as a DoorGrow. I'm taking my first three week vacation in 10 years.
[00:17:08] Jason: That's amazing. That's awesome. Yeah. Yeah. That's awesome. Your business will be in good hands with Alex and and we've got his back. So. For sure. So awesome. Yep. Property managers, if you're listening to this and you have not taken a significant vacation in the last five years, when's your turn? Maybe it's time to reach out and let us help you take- this is one of the most common things that we hear, especially this summer.
[00:17:36] Lots of our clients are taking vacations like for the first time ever, or in the first time in a long time, or it's a longer vacation than they've been able to take.
[00:17:45] Sarah: Brandon and Mark, they took off the majority of July, both of them, took off the majority of July, and they're like, "things were fine, like things were okay," I'm like, "that's great, that's how it should work," and if we set it up that way, then things can work that way.
[00:18:01] Jason: For sure. Yeah, one of our mentors had this quote, I don't know where it came from, but he said, the more valuable you are to your business, the less valuable your business is. Ooh, like that one. So Jill's working on making herself less valuable to the business. I've made DoorGrow less of the Jason show, and we've got all these amazing coaches and yeah, and that's the goal, right? We're able to provide more value and it allows us to be more free as entrepreneurs. To do the things that we really enjoy doing and eventually maybe to do nothing. If that's really the goal. I don't know. Jill, will have to find something to do. She's going to trap the world. She'll think we're not going to do nothing. Exactly. We're not going to do nothing. I don't think Jill knows what to do.
[00:18:43] Jill: We just want freedom to not always to be working.
[00:18:46] Jason: There you go. Yeah.
[00:18:48] Sarah: You can choose the things you do.
[00:18:50] Jill: Yeah.
[00:18:51] Jason: Well, we've really appreciated having you both in the program. You know, the, Sarah mentioned about you, but what I've noticed is Jill, you have this gift of positivity, it seems to rub off on everyone around you. We've really enjoyed having you in the program. Everyone's like, "Oh, we love Jill." All of our coaches and team members love Jill. And you can see Alex has like got a positive, you know, energy going on as well. And so you've created a really good culture on your team and in your business. And I don't know if it's always been that way, but I know that's something that's important to us at DoorGrow is making sure everybody has good culture with their business and with their team. So can you touch on culture just a little bit?
[00:19:30] Jill: Well, I think connection and culture is the most important thing. If I don't have it here, how is a client going to want to be attracted to us? You know, how is that going to work? You know, if you don't have a positive look on the industry, the business... I mean, this is anybody that calls us is frustrated with property management and say, "here, we love to do property management." They're like, "I need you!"
[00:19:51] you know, tenants and everybody gets to complain to us and we have to listen to them and, you know, do our job, but in these walls of this company, we don't have to do that. We can vent to each other. We can laugh. We don't complain. We more laugh about situations than we do complain. And I think I've been a good leader as far as that goes. But I think that also because I have that energy, I want to attract that energy. And so those people are, who are working here and stay.
[00:20:18] Jason: I love that. I mean, I think having a culture in which complaining is not the norm. I mean, it's easy to complain in property management. Right? And I'm sure there's a lot of you listening that are like, " I complain all the time. I complain every day," like reducing that complaining in the business and creating a culture where the team don't see that it's totally okay to just complain all the time. Because if you're complaining about your clients, they're going to feel that. They're not going to want to work with somebody that's, they know is just going to be complaining about them behind their back.
[00:20:47] And so I think that's really powerful. And I think that there's a lot of joking in property management, and I think if you can't laugh about it, then you're just going to be hurt by it, and so...
[00:20:58] Jill: and the only way you make a lot of money is to do the things that nobody wants to do.
[00:21:02] Jason: There you go. And they will pay you a pretty penny to do it.
[00:21:05] Alex: Yeah, we don't have one person that dreads coming to work every day. That's for sure. Everybody's like, "oh shoot. It's monday. Let's go!"
[00:21:11] Jill: We're a little family.
[00:21:13] Jason: Awesome. Yeah, I love that. You have a good culture. So, cool well, anything else we should chat about? What are the biggest takeaways you feel like you've gotten from being part of working with DoorGrow for those listening?
[00:21:28] Jill: I think first of all to make sure that I express my purpose to everybody, you know, start with the person.
[00:21:34] Jason: Has that changed your close rate? Has that changed how clients respond to you?
[00:21:39] Jill: Oh, just overall being brave enough to start with that, you know, I always assume they don't care, you know they're not calling for my me personally, but they are, you know, and some would get to know me on a personal level over time, but I never started the conversation with that.
[00:21:54] I always started it with "I love property management" and I think they could feel our energy, but not deep down what my life purpose is. So, and how I could tie that back into having them become our client. But it gets a personal, it makes it a personal fit right away or not.
[00:22:11] Jason: Yeah. They either trust your motives and like them or they don't, but they, at least they know what your motives are. Otherwise they're just going to assume you just want their money.
[00:22:20] Jill: Yeah. The name change was a huge one. And then the third, I think final one for me is. When you did your stack deck and it wasn't like perfectly animated with all these designs and it looked great. And I'm fine with it. I stopped judging my marketing to have to be the caliber of Coca Cola.
[00:22:40] I don't have designers out there. I don't want to spend design. So just produce it and get it out there and make it look kind of quirky and we're quirky anyway. So I don't know why I was thinking that we had to be this high level, corporate marketing program in order for it to work.
[00:22:54] Jason: I think done is better than perfect for sure.
[00:22:57] That's one of my
[00:22:57] Alex: favorite things is like, no, just get it complete and then we'll move on and we'll get the next thing done.
[00:23:03] Jason: Yeah. Done makes money. And you've made a lot of changes. You've gotten a lot of things done that are going to help shore up leaks that make you a lot more money. And. Yeah. A lot of people get really caught up on things being so perfect.
[00:23:14] They don't get as nearly as much done. So kudos to both of you for implementing and taking action. So, well, we appreciate you coming and hanging out with us here on the show. What do you feel like, what are some tangible results besides the brand? Revenue doors, any other shifts that you've seen in the business since joining?
[00:23:33] Jill: Well, we've gotten rid of a lot of the properties. I had the guts to say to a couple owners, you know, "You have to either sell this property or find another manager because it's too much of a liability. And I'm scared to because X Y Z and so should you." And obviously it's a great time to sell last year. So this is the time get to get a better asset, 1031 exchange it, or let's you know, we need to drop it by the end of the year. I didn't, you know, say we're going to drop you on 30 days, but they, most of them, most of those as a consulting, they trust us and know us and they sold those properties. We have two that are closing this week, our last two that are closing and we had problems. Yeah, problems. So we've gotten rid of a lot of problems since the beginning and liability issues, you know, you know, liabilities. So that's that's, I think our biggest deal and it's allowed other doors to come in.
[00:24:28] It's amazing what you let go just energetically things will fill its place. So door wise, I would say we're at about the same, but revenue has gone up 20%.
[00:24:38] Alex: We've been getting higher-end properties instead of, you know, things that were D class properties that we didn't want.
[00:24:44] Jason: Love it. 20 percent more revenue. Awesome, that does not suck.
[00:24:48] Sarah: And getting rid of the problem, right?
[00:24:55] Jason: Well, we appreciate you being clients and we're super excited to see your progression through the DoorGrow code, and this business I think that could easily be at a thousand doors in the next two to three years. It's totally doable, especially if you start doing some of the acquisition deals, like it's going to be really interesting once you get some of these systems in place, then you're ready to just scale like crazy. So excited to see what you do. All right. Well then we'll go ahead and wrap up. Appreciate you being on the show.
[00:25:25] Thanks for hanging out with us, Alex and Jill. Thank you. Great.
[00:25:29] For those listening, if you want to be like Alex and Jill and make good decisions and grow your business in a healthy way, and maybe increase your revenue 20%. aNd clean up your portfolio and optimize your sales pipeline so you make more money, more easily reach out to DoorGrow.
[00:25:45] We would love to take a look at your business and see if we can help you. The answer is: we can... most likely and see if you'd be a good fit for our program. You can check us out at doorgrow. com. There's a big pink button on the home page says "I want to grow." click that. Do the three steps there to see if you'd be a good candidate to work with us, and until next time to our mutual growth. Bye everyone
[00:26:08] 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!
[00:26:35] 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.
Being a business owner can be incredibly stressful at times, and property management entrepreneurs know exactly how stressful it can be.
Today, property management growth experts Jason and Sarah Hull discuss how property management entrepreneurs can reduce and manage their stress.
[03:07] Why property managers are so stressed
[12:18] The secret to stress relief is… going for walks!
[13:42] The magic of mini breaks
[19:42] Taking care of your physical health to reduce stress
[22:52] You put too much pressure on yourself
[27:41] The problem with starting multiple businesses
“You put up with whatever situation you create.”
“The beautiful thing about having a business is that you can create the business. You can build it around you and you can structure it in a way that allows you to reduce your stress, especially once you start to build a team.”
“The business can take as much of you from you and your life as you're willing to allow it.”
“In order to have more than one successful business, you must first have one successful business.”
[00:00:00] Sarah: You put up with whatever situation you create and the beautiful thing about having a business is that you can create the business, you can build it around you, and you can structure it in a way that allows you to reduce your stress especially once you start to build a team.
[00:00:17] 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.
[00:00:33] 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.
[00:01:05] I'm your host, property management growth expert, Jason Hull, the founder and CEO of DoorGrow, along with Sarah Hull, co owner and COO of DoorGrow. Now let's get into the show.
[00:01:19] All right. So today I reached out to Morgan, one of our coaches on our team, and I said, "What should we talk about on the podcast? What are you running into with clients lately related to coaching?" Should I just read what she said or...? I'll sum it up. So basically she said a lot of property managers have a lot on their plates. A lot of y'all have a lot on your plate and you're not taking care of yourself. And, you know, this might sting a little to hear for some of you are not taking care of yourself right now, you know, you should be, maybe you should be eating better, you should be getting more sleep, you should be having less stress, should be like stepping up more as mom or dad, taking care of your kids, being part of the family, whatever it is, but you're just, you're not able to really be there in a lot of different ways because you are too busy being a martyr, too busy being a martyr, allowing property management to take over your life, allowing tenants to take over your life, allowing owners to dictate your life, and you're trying to please all of these other people. Probably matter a lot less to you than your family does, right? So that's what we're
[00:02:39] chat about today. We're going to talk a little bit about today, about how it's possible to have it all. You can have a successful business. You can manage your time well, you can get support. You can have the space to work with DoorGrow, have time for coaching. You can have it all. And she also mentioned other big challenges is related to this is juggling multiple businesses. So these are some of the things we can get into today. Where should we start?
[00:03:07] Sarah: Well, I think a good place to start is Let's address the elephant in the room, which is like stress. Stress in property management is super common because it is a very stressful business. It's a high pace, like fast moving business. Typically it's not something where hey, we have, you know, 18 days to figure this out and we could just take our time. Oftentimes it's like a fast moving, high pressure industry in general.
[00:03:38] And I think that there are definitely ways to kind of help like reduce and mitigate stress. I just don't know how often people actually do it, and for a while I was in that bucket too. I really, I was like experiencing burnout and I think that's really common for people is just to go, "well, this is just normal. Like I own a business and this is normal and this is what owning a business is. This is what property management is, you know, this is what it's like. I have to just put up with it. And you don't. You put up with whatever situation you create and the beautiful thing about having a business is that you can create the business you can build it around you and you can structure it in a way that allows you to reduce your stress especially once you start to build a team.
[00:04:29] Jason: Yeah, I think In building a business, any business, any industry, the business can take as much of you from you and your life as you're willing to allow it. And so it's really about setting healthy boundaries. And boundaries really aren't so much about telling everybody else, this is how you need to treat me necessarily.
[00:04:53] Boundaries are really just about what you are going to do and not going to do. That's it, like it's in your wheelhouse. A lot of times people think boundaries are about like trying to control somebody else or telling somebody else you're not allowed to do this to me or say this or do... that's controlling.
[00:05:10] That's not necessarily boundaries. Boundaries really are, "if you do these things..." If the tenant's going to treat or talk to me this way, I'm going to, you know, do this, or if the owner is going to treat me or talk to me this way, then this is going to be the consequence I'm going to do this since about what you're going to do.
[00:05:28] And one of the ways you can easily set a boundary you know, back when I had a job, which is a while ago, I'm pretty much unemployable now. I think most of the entrepreneurs listening would agree they're unemployable now. You just wouldn't probably be able to work for somebody else. You're enjoying too much freedom as a business owner, even if it's your stress and your problem, it's yours, right? But one of the things I had to do is I had a job where I was managing an entire like tech support team and I got all the escalation calls and the work was never done. It was endless. It was never gone. It was never like, at the end of the day, I completed everything.
[00:06:06] And could just go home and it was all done and I'm sure property managers feel they feel a lot like this.
[00:06:12] Oh, yeah.
[00:06:12] It's just it's never done.
[00:06:14] It's never done.
[00:06:15] Always outstanding stuff.
[00:06:16] Always more to do...
[00:06:17] ...work orders waiting
[00:06:18] Sarah: ...more you could do, where you're like, "well, okay i'm done, but let me try to see if I can get these things in" or like, "Oh, maybe now I have some time to focus on, you know, this thing." and it's this never ending loop. It's a never ending cycle.
[00:06:34] Jason: And when you know you have this endless to do list that you're always adding to. So it becomes a to die list because you're just making it bigger all the time. Probably there needs to be a cutoff, right? And so one simple boundary is you can say, "I'm done at 5 p. m." Like I'm going home and "I'm going to be with my family and I'm not going to work." Right. "I'm done." And now you need to set some things up, some systems in place so that you can be legitimately done by 5 p. m. Maybe it's you have an after hours call center. Maybe it's you've got somebody else on your team that has a phone, maybe the after hour stuff, you've got Filipino team members where it's like during normal hours for them, whatever, but you have some way of saying, "I'm done at five." Then from there on out, I get to be dad, I get to be family member, I get to like, feed myself, and I think this is like, in my study of like, men and women, I think men need this way more than women, but probably everybody needs this, but we need a time gap between work and family to transition.
[00:07:42] I mean, at least like 30 minutes to an hour to decompress, especially when we first walk in the door. So like, guys, you need some way to become human again, because you're in like focus work mode and Sarah knows, like, I'm not good in that space. Like if she tries talking to me in that period. Like I'm not listening well, I'm not present and I'm like everyone's frustrated Like it just it doesn't go well.
[00:08:10] Sarah: There's usually a lot of "hello??"
[00:08:12] Jason: Yeah, and I'm like ruminating on the last thing somebody said or something else and I'm just I mean I'm in problem solving mode And I have to like get out of that space.
[00:08:23] Sarah: Yeah, like you're physically here, but you're just mentally like yeah elsewhere. You're not, and it's weird because people in your life don't know that, especially like if you work from home or if you have kids are like, if you're here, like you're here, I should be able to talk to you or call you or walk in your office or, right?
[00:08:44] And it's about kind of training. It's like, "Hey, I'm here, but just pretend like I'm not, I know you can see me, I know you can hear me, but during work hours, you got to pretend like I'm not here because a lot of people work outside the home. So just pretend in your brain, like unless there is an emergency, like I'm not here," but it's weird because when you can see someone and they're physically there, you just kind of expect them to be, you know, available.
[00:09:12] So it's I think what something that you could probably do a little bit better is like in that transitional period. Like just either hang out in your office or like go upstairs to the media room or go take a walk or something so that gives you space to like decompress and then when you're ready then come around me because women, I think our brains work just a little different than men's do but like if you have computers like it's like we have like a thousand tabs open at all times. Now they're open like they're doing stuff in the background But maybe there's like three tabs that you're actually looking at right now, but all the other ones, they're just like back here, kind of spinning. And all of a sudden one of those tabs is like, "Oh, ping! Hey, we need you!" And we're like, "Oh, pull that tab open. Like, let's go into that." And he's like, "Whoa, I'm not even paying attention yet."
[00:10:00] Jason: I've heard it described that women's brains have what's called diffuse awareness, which basically means they're way better multitaskers than us, but they're aware of everything going on at the same time.
[00:10:12] The disadvantage is pretty prominent when it comes to like war or like focusing on one thing right then and trying to shut out all the extra noise and all that like crazy craziness. That's where guys really tend to excel because we're singular focus in our brain. We can literally stop thinking. We can actually just not think about anything.
[00:10:34] Sometimes women are like, "what are you thinking about?" And we're like, "nothing." We can actually do that. And women don't get that a lot. I don't get it. I don't know. Like, how do you not think? Yeah.
[00:10:44] Sarah: I think in my sleep too. Like I wake up with ideas that I didn't have the night before. And it's like just something was spinning around in my brain overnight.
[00:10:52] Jason: So another thing I've noticed is I'm a lot more burnout by the end of the day if I don't get breaks. And a lot of times we have this, we get this obsessive need, like "I need to hustle, I got to do." And we become less and less effective. We're less and less present and we're less and less efficient and we're getting actually less done.
[00:11:13] And so I find that for me, taking little breaks throughout the day, which I've been trying to do when I take little breaks throughout the day, it allows my brain to kind of unwind a little bit. It's like they say, if you keep a bow strung all the time, it loses its spring and you can no longer shoot arrows, right?
[00:11:31] It's no longer effective as a tool. You unstring the bow when it's not in use. And so finding times throughout the day to give a little bit of break I think also as a way of setting boundaries for yourself and saying, I'm not going to just hiho silver all day long... and that's a Lone Ranger reference, but hiho silvering is where you're just, "I'm going to go! I'm going to solve the day! I'm going to do everything blah, blah, blah!" And you just go. And you're not really effective. You're just running around, go, go, going, you're not taking time to think, plan, meditate, chill out. You're reacting. Yeah, you're very, yes, you're very reactive instead of in control. So so I think that's another way to mitigate stress.
[00:12:18] One of my biggest secrets for stress is just going for walks. It's a form of bilateral stimulation. It gets both sides of your brain to go back and forth. There's a form of therapy called EMDR therapy. I did, I worked with an EMDR therapist for a year, just from all the stress and trauma that exists in being an entrepreneur. My business coach at the time was like, "you need to go get EMDR therapy." And I was like, "okay, I'll go do it." And it was really helpful. But then I realized, you know what? The light moving back and forth or the vibrating paddle or having them move your eye back and forth. Bilateral stimulation also happens when you just go for a walk, and you just focus on feeling your feet while you think about whatever's stressing you out. And so, we like to go for walks.
[00:13:04] Sarah: Yeah, we do. I love walking. I feel better after walks, and I feel like I do a lot of really good thinking, on walks too. It's it just because I'm away from everything, like I'm not in front of a device. I don't have my phone in my hand or I probably have it like on me, but I'm not like on it. I'm not looking at something. So it allows me to just. Focus on the thing that I want to focus on instead of whatever is calling my attention at that particular time. So, you know, if you've got emails piling up, like, and you're not looking at your email, you don't know that you have emails piling up because it's not in front of you.
[00:13:40] So I really do like going for walks. I do want to circle back to the mini break thing. I have really great story to share. So years ago in my former life, I sold insurance. And I was newer to the insurance company and there was a woman, there were a couple women, but there was one woman in particular at this company.
[00:14:02] She hated my guts, like oh my God, she hated me so much. I think to this day she still hates me. It's funny to me. I laugh about it. Oh man, she was so mean to me. She was just nasty, like sweet to my face awful behind my back in a lot of different ways. So one time she did not think I was at my desk and I had returned to my desk and we had like little cubicle desks and she was kind of around the corner talking with another woman who didn't like me at the time, ended up liking me, but didn't like me at the time.
[00:14:32] And I hear her say, " I don't even know why she has a job here. She doesn't do anything all day. All she does is walk around. She's never at her desk. She just walks around all day long and she talks to people." And it was hilarious to me, like so comically funny to me. The better part was when she turned around to walk by me and realize, because she said that like a minute earlier and walked by me and realized, "oh shit, she probably heard that because she was at the desk."
[00:15:03] And she's in a way, she had a point. What she missed is the big picture. So her point was like "she walks around a lot" and I do, I have to walk around a lot. I always have to, like, even I work from home now. I'm like, let me get the dog's treat, let me get the dog's out, like I'm going to just go take a lap, I'm going to get up and go, you know, get a drink of water, or I'll make myself a juice, or a coffee sometimes, like, there's certain days, I do laundry, so like, in between things, I'm going in and doing laundry, even if I just get up, sometimes, like, I have a bathroom in my office, I don't use that bathroom, I will get up and walk across to the other side of the house to use a different bathroom, why?
[00:15:42] Because it gives me a mini break. So I'm really big on taking mini breaks. I always have been. And something I learned recently, I didn't know that I was doing this, but mini breaks are so good for you because they allow you to like, just kind of decompress take a break of like. First of all, it gives your eyes a big rest because now we're no longer staring at a screen.
[00:16:05] Second of all, if you get up and you're walking, now you are getting that bilateral stimulation. And you're also like getting, if you're, if you sit too long, it's just not good for your body. Like sitting too long is not good. Standing too long is not good. Walking too long is not good. So we have to find that balance. But though, for those of us, like property managers who are not out in the field, We're the ones who are like hey, maybe we're, you know, at the desk and maybe we're doing sales that a lot of times it's at a desk. Jill, get up like every so often get up, but I would get in that office. It was funny.
[00:16:40] It was a three story building. We owned all three floors, well, they owned and then I would like, I would go down in the basement and like, go talk to somebody for a few minutes. Instead of calling them on the phone, I would go walk down and talk to them and get what I need and then come back up. Upstairs was the kitchen. So I would go make myself a coffee, come back down. I would walk to the other side to go to the bathroom. That way I'm giving myself a mini break. But the funny thing about this is I was the most productive agent month over month in that company in what I did, which is personal lines.
[00:17:11] So they're big performer and I'm not going to mention names, but they're big performer, she was great. And she's amazing. She's so great. I came in and I blew her out of the water every single month over month. And I quote unquote did nothing. So it was funny for me because I just laughed at that.
[00:17:28] I was like, "Oh, this is rich."
[00:17:30] Jason: Right. Yeah.
[00:17:31] Sarah: But I was able to outwork and outperform anybody, and I still am because my stamina is just like I have now trained my body and trained my brain. But part of doing that is taking a break. If you say Sarah, you have to sit down for the next eight hours or four hours or three hours and just sit here and focus and do work like, I can't do that.
[00:17:53] I need mini breaks. So even like in between coaching calls or in between sales calls or when I was doing property management and I was doing sales calls, I wasn't sitting at my desk. I was on my phone. I only ever talk on speaker. Everybody knows this about me. I only ever talk on speaker. So I was holding my phone.
[00:18:10] It's a little annoying sometimes
[00:18:12] ...holding my phone like this, but I would be up. I'd be pacing. I'd be walking around. Sometimes it was just back and forth in a room. Sometimes I'd go like in my closet and I'd come out. I'd go like down the hall. I'd come back. But I was always up walking and that gave me like a little mini break and I wasn't getting sore.
[00:18:30] Like my hips get sore if I sit too long. So I think these mini breaks. There's gold in there. So make sure and if you are someone who lives and dies by your calendar, that's fine. Like at least every two hours schedule yourself like a five to ten minute mini break. Now this doesn't have to be long.
[00:18:50] Sometimes people are like, "Oh, I can't take a huge break because then I'm like sacrificing time and I'm not getting enough done." You will get more done and these are mini breaks. I wasn't up like "hey, I'm going to go gallivanting for like you know, 20, 30 minutes. It's a 5 to 10 minute mini break. It gives your brain a rest.
[00:19:10] It gives your eyes a rest. It gives you a chance to get up and move and you will get more done that way. Do you gallivant? I used to gallivant a lot.
[00:19:20] Jason: I don't even know what that means. I mean, I picture you like, I picture somebody like Monty Python or something. You should know that word. I've heard the word.
[00:19:29] I just can't picture what you gallivanting would look like.
[00:19:33] All right. So, so what's interesting is some people say sitting is the new smoking. I don't think, I don't know, but maybe it's that bad. But I, what I do know is my Oura ring and which measures my heart rhythm and heart rate and stuff and my apple watch, which also does this stuff are constantly telling me that I need to stretch my legs or I need to stand up.
[00:19:58] I get notifications. It can tell that my heart rate is being and my heart is being affected and my health is being affected when I sit too long. So there's, you know, this is a legitimate thing. So getting up and moving around, I have a standing desk and it's typically up unless Sarah's in the room.
[00:20:17] Yeah. I don't stand.
[00:20:18] Otherwise I'm sitting on a ball chair. And for those watching the video, I put this on my treadmill. I have a treadmill under my desk that I'm normally I'll walk on and I can get 10, 000 steps very easily just at my desk. And I find the days that I actually walk. I work. At the very least stand.
[00:20:36] I have a lot more energy. I was really fatigued yesterday because I didn't stand or walk and I was like super tired at the end of the day. And so, one thing I want to point out is the days that I exercise and anyone that exercises consistently knows this is true, the days you exercise, you have a lot more energy.
[00:20:57] It gives you a lot more in the tank and it doesn't even have to be long. It could be a seven minute workout. Google seven minute workout. It could be a 15 minute workout, which I do with my X three bar bands, which I think are really cool, or it could be going to the gym and like going to the gym after work.
[00:21:16] A lot of guys will do that because it'll give them that space to become human again and get back into their body and become present and kind of work out, you know, the stress of the day, but working out is a proven phenomenal way of decreasing stress. And it gives you more time. It gives you more time back. Anytime you invest into exercise is going to give you more time back. And people that work out know this. Some of the most like effective brains that I follow in entrepreneurism are very fit. And it's been proven that when you contract muscle tissue, it pumps chemicals from your muscles that feed your bloodstream and in your brain and make you able to function more cognitively effectively. I think also the effect of discipline because it takes discipline to exercise. If you can discipline your body and discipline yourself in exercise and working out, Sarah works out, I work out multiple times a week, right? That discipline translates into business.
[00:22:22] I think a lot like it's a big deal. And I've noticed that people that can focus on their body and focus on their health, their business becomes a reflection of that to some degree, and are there really fat, unhealthy, overweight people that making a lot of money? Sure. There's always exceptions.
[00:22:42] However, I know that for me, I'm a lot more effective in business if I'm taking care of my health. So, and that lowers my stress. So should we talk about the idea of putting too much pressure on themselves?
[00:22:59] Sarah: Yeah, I think we could talk about that. And I think this kind of boils down to, it's like the age old problem of like, "well, I own the business and it's on my shoulders. Like I'm the one that has to do it. Or like, I can't get somebody to do that piece." Like even if people hire, they'll hire out for things, but they still hold on to things that they don't like or they really wish they could offload, but they, for whatever reason, they have this like mental roadblock and they're like, "I cannot, I can't give that to somebody else.
[00:23:32] It has to be me. Like people want to talk to me. It's got to be me. Like, oh I have to know that part of the business. I have to do that part of the business." And it's complete fallacy. So you don't need to do any one particular thing in your business. You can set your business up so that you do the things that you actually like and enjoy and build the business around those things and those things might change.
[00:23:58] So in the beginning, I was just talking about this on the scale call Friday, I think. So in the very beginning, when you're like a solopreneur and it's all you, yeah, everything is going to fall on your shoulders because it's just you. When you start to hire though, you can start to give away things that you really don't enjoy doing.
[00:24:18] Most of the times, this is what I see people do is they're like, well, I really like this piece, so I'm going to keep that piece and I'm going to give away these other pieces. But every once in a while, I still see people that they're like, oh, well, I'll ask them like, "what do you do in your business? Like, what do you do?"
[00:24:35] And sometimes I'll get answers like, "well, I do everything. Like I do all of it. Ha." And like they laugh about it. It's not funny to me at all. That's pain That's like pain coming through and they're trying to like use humor to disguise it and That sounds pretty freaking awful.
[00:24:51] Jason: Sometimes laughter is the stage Before crying, so sometimes it's the stage before crying for a lot of people they're like...
[00:24:58] Sarah: yeah, so even these people they have a team and I'm like, well, what do you do? And they're like, "well, I do everything," like yeah, but then what does your team do and they're like, "well They do these things and I'm like, and what do you do?"
[00:25:09] They're like, "well, I do everything else."
[00:25:11] " So do you enjoy doing everything else?" Most of the times it's, they say, "no."
[00:25:16] "So then why are you continuing to do it?" And they have this idea like planted in their brain that it has to be them. And it doesn't, it does not have to be you. You do not need to put all this crazy amount of pressure on yourself to be like, it's not all you.
[00:25:33] You don't need to be the face of the company. You don't just because you own it. You don't need to be the face of the company and there will be, absolutely, there will be stages in your business where you are the face of the company There will be stages in your business where you are the company. It's you're like, "well, let me talk to the leasing department... that's me. Let me talk to maintenance. That's me. Let me talk to accounting. That's me," right? But at some point those things are going to shift and you're going to keep hopefully just the things that you really enjoy doing And if it's not something you really enjoy doing, you've got to be able to offload that and trust your team to handle that. That's also going to reduce your pressure noise a lot.
[00:26:09] Jason: That's a big challenge we see it a lot. And the default for every entrepreneur is you move through the solopreneur stage, doing everything yourself. You build a team the wrong way, typically, which is you build the team based on what the business needs instead of what you need.
[00:26:25] And then you're more and more miserable as the team scales and the business scales, your name is in parentheses next to every person on the org chart, because they all come to you with questions. And if you're dealing with that frustration, you really should be talking with DoorGrow and letting us help you get out of that. We're really good at helping people restructure their teams and get out of that pressure and noise. And if you're listening to this, you probably can't see it. You can't see how you're doing things wrong. You just know it doesn't feel right. You're like, "I'm wearing hats that I don't want to wear. And I have an entire team."
[00:27:01] And a lot of times it's because we have some false beliefs, like "I'm the business owner. So I have to do the accounting. Or I'm the business owner. So I have to like be the person doing sales." There's nothing you have to do. If you own the business, you're king or queen, like you set the rules.
[00:27:18] You can decide what you want to do. You can be the receptionist if that's what you want to be. That's your dream. You can outsource or like hire for everything else. Right. You can't see those sometimes accurately who you are and the things that you really do enjoy and what your purpose is. And so this is one of the things we help clients get really clear on and then restructuring their team so can be really helpful.
[00:27:41] So related to this, a common scenario or problem is a lot of business owners put more and more pressure on themselves simply by starting more and more businesses. And this can be a big challenge, like entrepreneurs are entrepreneurs. And they're like they love starting stuff. They're like, let's start some shit.
[00:28:00] They want to start more stuff all the time because starting is fun and sexy and exciting. And you can have this fantasy for the business and this new idea, and then making all that work and doing everything and all that is not so fun and exciting. So they're jumping to the next fun thing, and then they have the next thing they know, they have like nine businesses, you know?
[00:28:21] Sarah: Yeah. And I think the other thing I see a lot is, especially with property management, there's a lot of crossover, right? They're like, "well, I could do property management and that goes hand in hand with real estate. And then that goes hand in hand with doing appraisals, and then that goes hand in hand doing inspections, and that goes hand in hand with insurance, and that goes hand in hand with being a notary, oh, and I could start a maintenance company, and now I could do like a cleaning company, and I can do this, and I can do this, and I can, and you and yourself.
[00:28:50] Jason: Cool maintenance, roofing. Yeah.
[00:28:51] Sarah: And we've seen that, and a lot of times when we see that, It's like, it's completely premature because in order to have more than one successful business, you must first have one successful business. So you can't have a business that's like, eh, and then go, "well, I'm just going to start another successful business."
[00:29:15] Well, if the first one isn't working out so well, how you do one thing is typically how you do everything. So if you have a business that isn't going super well, and then you're like, "Oh, I'm just going to start another one." Well, your other one is probably going to mirror very closely what the first one looks like.
[00:29:33] Yeah. Right. So I think that's, it's like it's just like temptation and it's like opportunity and it's just because there's so much that you're like, "well, I don't need to pay somebody to clean houses. Like I could just start a company and then my company I'll pay myself." But the problem is, and I'm not saying I am like, so not saying do not start multiple businesses.
[00:29:58] What I am saying is only look at starting other businesses once the main one or your first one is super solid. Like when it's running really well, it really doesn't need you. If you can go for like a month or two without really handling or touching or doing anything in that business, So if I can take you and I can pick you up and drop you off on a like desert island and you come back and your company is just fine, now you can look at starting another business.
[00:30:30] That's not the case? Don't do it yet.
[00:30:33] Jason: Yeah. The company should be better than how you left it if you have a good business. Should be better. It should be growing. It should be healthy. Yeah, so we're going to wrap this up. But the first first thing I want to say related that is I've talked about the five currencies in the past.
[00:30:50] The currency of focus. Which Sarah is talking about is the most important currency related to growing and scaling a business. The less you're focused on, and the less you're distracted by, the more you can help that business grow and grow faster. And so, just keep that in mind. At DoorGrow, we can help you become more of that entrepreneur that can solve all the gaps and all the problems with your one business, and it makes you a better entrepreneur for all the others.
[00:31:18] We've seen that happen a lot of times with our clients. And that's our goal is to teach you to be the entrepreneur that can have the business of your dreams. The only reason you don't have it yet is you're not yet that person. So one of my mentors said, "Jason, you don't have the business of your dreams yet because you're not yet the person that can run it yet."
[00:31:36] Which was a punch in the gut at the time. I was like, he's right. So, and the other thing that I've learned is that opportunity entrepreneurs, we see it everywhere. It's everywhere. "Oh, there's a problem. I could solve that. There's a problem. I could solve that. Oh, you need a pool maintenance person? Well, you could start a pool maintenance company to for property management."
[00:31:56] Like you, there's a million things you could do. That doesn't mean you should. And Entrepreneurs, some of the most powerful things that we can do as an entrepreneur in focus is to just say no and turn things down and to not do things until we really get things solid, like you were talking about. So, all right.
[00:32:15] So for those that have been watching us for a while or listening to the podcast for a while, I mean, I've, I talked to somebody this week that was like, "I've been listening for like three years" and it was like the first conversation I'd had with them. If you're sitting in the wings, listening to us, when is it going to be your turn? When's it going to be your turn? When do you get to be the person that gets to be the person getting these awesome results that our clients are getting? Why don't you believe you deserve this? Why are you being so hard on yourself and making things so difficult? Why don't you reach out? It's one thing, like there's some great free stuff that we give out.
[00:32:56] We want to coach you. We want to mentor you. We want to help you. We want to support you in getting your business to actually become the business of your dreams. Have the day to day that you want, lower your stress, lower your pressure and noise, be more of what you are meant to be. More mom, more dad, more family, better pet owner.
[00:33:17] I don't know, whatever you've got, right. Taking care of the people around you. Like we want to help you become the person you were meant to become when you started this business if you're doing it correctly and we want to help you do it correctly. So reach out to DoorGrow. Have a conversation with us.
[00:33:36] If you have at least 20, 30, 50, 100 doors, we can start to help you. We can help you eliminate some of your crazy expenses, run lean. If you have 200, 400, or more doors, we know that this is a significant challenge place point for most people. They're sometimes the least profitable per unit they've ever been.
[00:34:00] They're the most stressed they've ever been. They have an entire team. We can get you out of this like we can help solve this. This is a more fun problem for us to solve than even just getting doors. Getting doors is not hard. We can help you do that. For those of you that have the challenge, getting doors is no longer a challenge.
[00:34:16] How do we deal with all these doors? How do we deal with all these team members? How do I become profitable? We want to help you with that. We can help you with that significantly. And if you have. 600 doors plus, you've got an awesome team, maybe even a thousand doors plus. And you're like, I really want to get more from this.
[00:34:34] I want to optimize this more. I want to support my team more. I want to invest in them. I want my BDM. I want my operator to be working with DoorGrow and to take things to the next level. I want to feed into them and give them success. Then reach out to door girl. We've helped clients go from 600 to a thousand doors.
[00:34:53] We've helped clients over a thousand doors, clean up stuff they should have done when they first started their business. Reach out to us. We want to help you out. There's no reason not to. Anything that you do with us. You're going to get an ROI that's far greater than our system is paying you. It's a no brainer and just goo DoorGrow. com and that's it. So anything else? All right.
[00:35:18] I hate when you do that.
[00:35:19] I know but I want to give you the opportunity to have the last word But all right until next time to our mutual growth. Bye everyone.
[00:35:26] 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!
[00:35:53] 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.
Last time we talked about the difference between cold and warm leads. So how do you take this information and use it to grow your property management business?
Join property management growth experts Jason and Sarah Hull as they reveal the top strategies and DoorGrow secrets for growing a property management business.
[01:09] Strategy 1: The Neighbor Strategy
[07:33] The 3 kinds of neighbors to target
[11:59] Strategy 2: The Review Strategy
[16:26] Strategy 3: Real Estate Agent Referrals
[20:26] Strategy 4: Presenting to Groups
[25:32] Strategy 5: Product Research Interviews
“Not all leads are equal.”
“There is just so much abundance, and if you put yourself in a scarcity mindset, you're going to experience that for sure.”
“There is no shortage of business if you're a property manager.”
“This like scarcity mindset, we have to kill it. We have to get out of it.”
[00:00:00] Sarah: Especially in the U S like there is no shortage of business if you're a property manager.
[00:00:08] 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.
[00:00:23] 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.
[00:00:42] 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 along with Sarah Hull, co founder and COO of DoorGrow now let's get into the show.
[00:01:09] All right. So the topic we decided to talk about today is how to get the best leads for property management. We talked about previously the difference between cold and warm leads, right? So not all leads are equal. And if you missed that episode, go check that out. I highly recommend it. It will save you a ton of money and time, wasting your energy, cash effort, et cetera. So today we're going to talk about some of the best strategies. We're not going to go into a lot of detail. If you want to go deeper with us, you can reach out and we can coach you through this stuff and help you grow your business without spending a bunch of money on marketing.
[00:01:51] All right. So why don't we kick this off and we can tell them a little bit about the neighbor strategy, which we have a really cool training on that we will give to the audience for free. We'll tell you how you can get it. Let's do it. So, do you want to intro that one?
[00:02:07] Sarah: No, you do it, because this is your whole thing.
[00:02:10] You set up the whole page, so you do it. I don't want to miss anything.
[00:02:14] Jason: So, the Neighbor Strategy is a really simple concept. And the concept is, you probably have gotten a phone call before, at your property management office, And somebody said, "Hey, do you manage in X area, in some sort of area?"
[00:02:30] And the answer was no. And you just said "no." Or your team just said "no." And they hung up and said, "nope! We don't. Sorry!" And that is a perfectly good lead that somebody, one of your neighbors would love to have. And you just threw it in the garbage. So the analogy I use, if you go to neighborstrategy.Com and get this free training, you'll learn how to make this strategy work, but it's really simple. Our clients never get told no. They reach out to neighboring property management companies to just explain this. "Hey, sometimes I get calls for your area and I usually just throw that gold in the garbage. Would you like to have it?" And they always say yes. And in that I teach how to convert, even if that's a cold lead that came in for them, I teach you how to convert that or have your neighbors convert that.
[00:03:23] If you share the neighborstrategy.Com landing page with them so they can learn the training how to convert that from a cold lead 10 percent close rate into a 90 percent close rate warm lead. So you're able to refine this gold for them, give it to them, and they can then get this gold and they're getting business. And so we've got clients that are doing that with each other that are in neighboring markets. You can even do this with property management companies that are in your market that focus on a different niche than you.
[00:03:52] So if you do single family residential largely or small multi, there might be commercial companies and they get asked, "Hey, do you, can you also manage my rental home" and "no," and they throw it in the trash. You would probably like to have that, right? And so the neighbor strategy is a simple way and you can stack and add neighbors all around your market neighboring property management companies.
[00:04:15] Capturing some of that rain that they can't capture that could go to you and companies that are in your market that are a different niche than you, and I give you scripts. I give you the language to use and I have drawings and I explain how this all works and how to convert these from a cold lead into a warm lead and how to get your neighboring partners to do this as well. It's really a simple strategy that is super effective.
[00:04:39] So I highly recommend you check out neighborstrategy.Com. Go get this free training. We want to give this out because we know that if you have neighbors that are doing this strategy, then everybody wins. Everybody benefits. This benefits the entire industry, and it's really simple. Like leads should not be getting lost. And we don't want them just going and searching on Google, becoming cold, desensitized, looking at cheap pricing and becoming terrible potential clients. That hurts the entire industry. So this is a way to benefit the entire industry, which is part of our mission here at DoorGrow.
[00:05:16] Sarah: I think with the neighbor strategy, let's just address the elephant in the room because everyone goes, "I don't want people to know what I know. Like I want to be different. And like, I want to keep my knowledge a secret, right?" that's why I hear this all the time where they're like, I don't want anybody else to know. And it's that kind of mindset that really holds us back because there is just so much abundance, and if you put yourself in a scarcity mindset, really, that's like, you're going to experience that for sure.
[00:05:43] Like for sure. Especially in the U S like there is no shortage of business if you're a property manager. Most people do not know what property managers are. The ones that know what property managers are, they might not have a great perception of what property managers do why because they may have been burned in the past. They may have had like a really bad experience.
[00:06:06] They may just go, "oh, well, yeah but you just do like rent collection like I could do that myself," and any of us property managers that have had a conversation like that, it's hard to not laugh when someone's like "I could do it myself." You're like, "okay, do it yourself. Call me when you're ready. Do it yourself, and if you blow it up so bad, I probably won't even want to help you at that point because it's just going to be a huge mess for me." But there's so much that goes into it, right? So we have to also kind of keep in mind that if we really think about it, like you can kind of break this down by almost any sector, right?
[00:06:42] So if you see like a fast food chain, like Burger King, Wendy's, McDonald's, very, very rarely are they the only one in a huge area. They do better when there's more of them, like, packed closer. So, it's funny because you notice this when we drive around. Every time there's like a CVS, we'll see a CVS, and very close by, somewhere there's a Walgreens. Why would that be, right? So, why do these multi million dollar companies choose to put a CVS here and right across the street, a Walgreens? If they were worried about competition, do you think that they would do that? Hell no. They'd be like, "well, if CVS is there, I'm going way over here." But they know that by putting two similar options close together, it's actually going to draw in more business.
[00:07:33] Property management works very similarly. And the other thing to kind of keep in mind with this is I think there are three like neighbors kind of to target. One is neighbors that are outside of your area. So if you cover. Like Austin, but I don't go to Round Rock. Well, then find somebody in Round Rock, right? Like find people who border the area that you cover. That's the first one. The second one is find people that cover the same area that you cover, but in a different sector, like Jason said. So maybe I only do residential. I might want to partner with somebody who does commercial. Because odds are, at one point in time, I'm going to find somebody who wants commercial, and I don't do it, and I'd love to have somebody to pass that on to, and vice versa.
[00:08:20] And the third one, and this is the one where everybody goes, "I'm not doing that," just test it and try it. And I used to do this myself, so I'm not steering you in a direction that I would never have done. Find someone in your area does the same exact thing that you do now. Everybody here goes, "Whoa, now that's scary. I'm not giving business away to my competitors." Well, here's the thing is not all business is business that you want to take. And that's something that you really have to get solid in is what business, what properties, what clients, what tenants do I want to take? And what do I want to have in my portfolio? Because if you work with us at DoorGrow. We train everyone on the cycle of suck. And it's super easy to get like trapped in that. And it's because you just take on everything. You do not want to take on everything. And it doesn't mean that they're a bad client Maybe they're just not a fit for what you do.
[00:09:16] Maybe you could tell like the relationship isn't probably going to be super great. So when I was running my business, I was happy to give those off to somebody else. Why? Because I would rather them work with another property manager, even if it is my competitor, I would rather give that to a property manager so that they at least have some kind of chance with their rental property versus, "well, I'm just going to do it myself."
[00:09:39] And we all know, guys, we all know how that works. So those are the three that you would want to target with the neighbor strategy.
[00:09:45] Jason: Yeah, didn't you get some leads coming from a neighbor?
[00:09:49] Sarah: Yeah. Yeah. I got mostly from like neighbors that were outside of my area. My competitors were the type that would just take on anything.
[00:10:00] And it was fun to me because I was like, "well, if they're not a fit for me..." because I was a lot more picky. So if they're not a fit for me, if then I'm not taking them anyway. It's not like, "Oh, well, I'm going to give Jason this lead that I want." No, you're not going to give away leads that you want, right?
[00:10:17] You're just, if you don't want to take the business, if it's not a fit, if you like, it's just not going to work out, then does it hurt to give it away? No. They're going to have a better experience with some property manager than trying to do it on their own. And we want investors to have a good experience with their rental properties, even if it's not with you, because they're going to then buy more investment properties, right?
[00:10:43] And this is going to like promote the industry. So this like scarcity mindset, we have to kill it. We have to get out of it.
[00:10:51] Jason: Yeah, I think one month you have five doors from a neighboring property manager one month.
[00:10:56] Sarah: I got like 17.
[00:10:57] Jason: Yeah Okay. Yeah, so and that's from one right? And so If people are intentional, especially if you're in you know larger markets if you can hit all the people that are around your market or people that get sometimes get called or Asked about your market then you can get a bunch of business, right?
[00:11:18] It can add up all right for sure.
[00:11:20] Sarah: Like we even have clients. We have a bunch of clients like in the like la orange county area, but it's so crazy there with the traffic like, you know, like yeah on the map It says it could take you like 15 minutes but because of traffic it might take you an hour and a half or like two hours, right? So we even have like clients in our program that like refer business back and forth just because they know, because of the traffic, they're like, "well, if it's on the North point, I just don't want to take it." So that's another... and that's people in the same area that do the same thing that they do. And it makes your life easier because now your operational costs are going to be lower because you're not trying to drive like two hours to go do an inspection.
[00:11:59] Jason: All right. Let's talk about reviews next. Cool. So one strategy that's helped some of my clients add easily 200 doors in a year, if they get this game dialed in is online reviews. Now, all of you know this game you think, and a lot of you try to play this game and you think you know how to get reviews, but what we focus on at DoorGrow is focusing on reviews as if it's a sales lead, like putting it into your pipeline, following up and getting the majority of every new tenant and every new owner to give you a review.
[00:12:34] And there's a way of doing this so that it doesn't sound slimy. And it doesn't sound like a used car salesman in a way that they want to help you back and reciprocate. And we have scripts for this. We have ways that we help clients do this. And we have a tool to facilitate that and make the process even easier, which is GatherKudos, which any of you can sign up for GatherKudos at GatherKudos.com. It can integrate with things like Property Meld, and it just makes a review funnel that makes it easier for you to get valid feedback in your business, whether it's good or bad. And if it's good, it pushes them to choose a review site and gives them directions how to do it. So it just lubricates that process, makes it so much easier for your prospects to leave good reviews.
[00:13:21] Because we know that the negative reviewers are highly motivated and the good reviewers need a little bit of motivation, and so we have a training called Reputation Secrets where we teach how this can work super effectively. We've got clients that are crushing their competition in getting more reviews because they're getting almost all of their tenants and owners to get reviews if they really build this growth engine out. They can at least get the majority of each new tenant and owner to give them reviews.
[00:13:51] And if you're growing and adding doors, you're getting new tenants, you're getting new owners, and you can then be also getting new reviews. And if you're crushing it at the review game, that's better than having the top spot on Google because reviews function like warm leads.
[00:14:06] Sarah: And then James and Brian, when they came into the program, like when Brian came on, I think he said they had some online reviews, but they were either like a two something or a three something online. So like not super great, right? Why? Because all the people who were angry were like, "I'm going to be a keyboard warrior." And then they focused on the strategy and they got up to over four stars. And I think that helped them break the thousand door barrier. Yeah. They had added like over 400 doors in one year.
[00:14:35] And this was part of the strategy that helped them do that.
[00:14:38] Jason: Yeah. And less than a year. So the cool thing about this strategy of building this particular growth engine is that this is one that is very easily done by your team. This doesn't have to be your BDM. It doesn't have to be a salesy person. It doesn't have to be the business owner. This one can easily be done by your team and it can be systematized. It can just be part of your tenant and owner onboarding process if you build this engine correctly. So, and I guess that's all we probably need to say about that one. Yeah, it's a really great strategy. Really simple great strategy
[00:15:13] Sarah: It's free. It's a free strategy. This is not costing you any kind of money. You're not, you know spending money on marketing or advertising or ads or nothing like that. And it's really great I had so many clients contacting me or prospective clients contacting me because they're like, "oh I saw your review."
[00:15:33] Jason: Yeah, this strategy also helps boost your local SEO. If you're familiar with local SEO or ranking, Google looks at review diversity. Which means getting reviews from lots of different channels. So GatherKudos, and our method helps with you getting more reviews, not just on Google, but also Yelp and maybe Angie's List, City Search, Thumbtack, whatever you have or using, right?
[00:15:57] And so, review diversity. review quantities, so getting more reviews on each of those channels, and the review ratings, like getting good ratings. This helps filter out the bad ratings as well and helps you capture it locally so you can actually do something to mitigate that and help those people, which is what they usually really want.
[00:16:16] And so it makes the whole process easier. So we highly recommend that strategy. Very easy growth engine to build out if you understand how and we train our clients on that. So let's talk about the one that probably is one of the fastest methods to grow a property management business. I mean, one of our clients that added over 400 doors at another client that I had 310 in doors in just a year. This strategy. If you have, especially if you have a full time BDM, and if you don't, we can help you with the hiring piece and training of a BDM so you don't make mistakes there because we get a lot of people coming from BDM coaching companies and BDM placement companies that do not have good experiences.
[00:16:58] And then we help them clean that up. And people don't even know that we focus on that. So this would be referrals from real estate agents or from a variety of other sources that we talk about. But this can be very effective, but usually is very ineffective. Most property managers try to focus on this and get very few referrals on a monthly basis.
[00:17:23] Sarah: Yeah. And I was lumped in that too. And then back in my insurance days, cause I was doing insurance and I was doing property management when I first started out. And I was like, "Ooh, I'll get referrals from everyone. And it'll be so great." Cause everybody would just send me business. And I was doing everything the wrong way. And I wasn't getting a lot of referrals. And then things started to shift when I realized, "Hey, this is not working the way that I wanted it to work." So I had to make some changes to make it work better. But everyone like, they just always go about it the wrong way because this is like, this is a really common thought is like, "Hey, I'll get referrals. Like this is how a lot of businesses work is on referrals. So I'll just do that." And then what happens is they start to focus on getting referrals. They Don't know exactly how to make it work, but they just think "hey, it's simple like you should just be able to send me business," and then they wait and usually nothing comes in or if something comes in it's like, "thanks, but that's not really what I wanted."
[00:18:24] Jason: Yeah, the secret is you actually have to destroy the idea of getting referrals in the mind of the people you want referrals from and get something better. And so I touched on that on some previous episodes, if you dig around, but this is some of the really magical stuff that we share with clients, how they can get more real estate agents, connecting them to investors and close a lot more deals. And this creates warm leads. They're easy to close. They're early in the sales cycle.
[00:18:54] You can charge more money than typical in these situations. And so it's a win, win for all three parties all the way around. This is a, this is the fastest way I know of to grow a property management business. It works really well, but there's a lot of pitfalls in this. There's a lot of mistakes. We've listened to phone calls of some of our, you know, clients, setters or BDMs trying to.
[00:19:20] Like get relationships created with real estate agents and doing the outbound partner prospecting stuff that we talk about and there's a lot of failures and We have to coach them through this and it this is a and a growth engine that takes probably 90 days to build effectively to get to work effectively. The first 30 days you're going to build that engine from scratch and the second 30 days, we're going to make some major tweaks and changes.
[00:19:48] And then the last 30 days is where you start to hit pay dirt, where we tweak things to get that last 10 percent of dialing things in. That gives you 90 percent of the results. And this is where the magic happens. And most people quit too early, don't do it enough. They just go present to a big real estate office meeting while people stare at their phones and wonder why nobody like gives them leads. And it doesn't work. And they're like, "I've tried referrals. I've tried that," you know, so we hear that all the time. You've not tried it the way that we do it cause it works. And if it's not working for you, you're doing it wrong. That's all I'll say.
[00:20:23] All right. So, let's talk about groups.
[00:20:26] Let's talk about groups.
[00:20:28] Sarah: So can we talk about the big mistake of groups? Sure. . So everyone goes, oh, a group, I'll do a BNI.
[00:20:35] Jason: Oh yeah. wah wah. or a Chamber of Commerce. So we hear this all the time, like, "oh, I go to the BNI or I go to Chamber of Commerce" and I mean, that one's really simple. And to throw people a bone, we get asked this all the time, "well, I'm thinking to join a BNI group." would that be effective? The answer is usually no, because the way BNI works is you're going to have one expert in each category, which means there might be one real estate agent there you might be able to get a referral from. You'll have one of, one property manager, which is kind of nice. You don't have competition, right?
[00:21:09] But the challenge is most of the people there are not your target audience, and a lot of them are not able to connect you to your target audience, and there are better groups available in which you can either create the group and own it, or you can go find groups that exist and be part of it, in which you can have an entire group of potential referral partners, or an entire group of potential clients. And that's probably the first big step is just like, if you're going to go hunting, go where the game actually is. So, now groups, we recommend you do groups after you get good at one on one. And the challenge is most people go and try and present to a group and they think this is going to be so great, and they have no way of collecting people's information that are interested in the group. They don't know how to optimize that. They don't know the things to say. They don't understand concepts like trial closes and getting people to buy into things. They don't understand how to create leverage and how to get leads.
[00:22:10] You should be able to walk away from any group situation with leads and appointments. Yes. With scheduled appointments. And we teach our clients how to do this, how to optimize this, and how to identify and capture the people that are quick, early adopters, the people that take a little bit more nurturing, and the people that are a bit more skeptical. And this is something that you do throughout your presentation if you're doing it effectively, but you really, it doesn't make sense to go do a group presentation if you're not good at selling yet, and you're not good at one on one interactions, and you haven't built up, you know, the ability to close deals one on one, because groups, you're not going to close people in a group situation.
[00:22:56] You don't close them. In a group situation, at best, you can get a one on one interaction typically scheduled, and then you can close them. So we need to teach you how first to be really good at one on one. And then you can graduate to doing the group thing, but don't waste a good group opportunity. These are not super common.
[00:23:16] If somebody is like, "Hey, I'll let you come present to my group," and you blow it. Yeah. Yeah. You wasted all, like you wasted probably hundreds of doors of business that you could have gotten if it's a decent sized group. One of our clients went to a group, used a presentation that we gave him and he was able to close in his first time. He went to this group, it was a realtor investors association, real estate investor association, a rea group, whatever. And he was able to present to like 200, 300 people, the group had like 500 and he walked away and he had been stuck at like 60 doors for the first three or so years of his business. He couldn't figure out how to get ahead. He got 20 doors that month from doing one presentation. He got four or five owners. They each give him like four or five units or something like that. And he was able to add about 20 doors a month from just hanging out at this group. And being part of this group, and it's, he spent maybe max about five hours a month investing time into this group.
[00:24:20] That is an amazing return. Five hours a month to get 20 doors a month, right? He was at 300 doors in six months of using the strategy. And then his business started to fall apart a little bit because he was adding too many doors. And back then, way back then, we didn't have the systems that we have to help clients with that problem.
[00:24:42] We're like, we need to help clients solve that problem. We're good at solving that problem now. Like how do I deal with all these doors that I'm getting on? Which is a problem we think is super easy to create for clients to start adding an up doors that it gets painful. So groups can be very effective.
[00:24:56] But make sure you get good at one on one first. You don't waste those opportunities. I've heard so many stories of wasted opportunities presenting to a group of real estate agents And then afterwards they're like, "I don't know. How'd I do? I don't know. I think I did okay. Some couple people came up to me and said I did all right."
[00:25:12] "Cool. Did you get any appointments or leads or anything scheduled?"
[00:25:16] "Nothing," right? So and then maybe a lead here will trickle in like over time, but that's not effective. So a lot of these growth strategies they stack and they compound on each other.
[00:25:28] Let's touch on one more to wrap this up. Last one. This is a strategy we love to use with startups because startups they don't have a lot of confidence. They don't have a lot of knowledge. They're lacking a lot of knowledge about property management, and one of the big gaps in knowledge that they don't have that a lot of you that have been doing this for a long time and you've talked to a lot of owners is they don't understand their prospects' pain.
[00:25:55] They don't understand the prospects concerns. They don't understand the language that their potential clients use, and they don't understand the objections that are preventing them and knowing all that. Sometimes can take people a decade to really dial in. And so our way of collapsing time on this dramatically quickly, like really fast is a technique called or strategy called product research interviews.
[00:26:18] And this is also a great way to get your initial pool of clients, even if you're starting from zero. And so this strategy can work very well. I call this the Trojan horse of selling, but you're going to interview and we have the script for the interview. We have the four phase process for doing this. If you do this correctly, if you interview people that have rental properties and you do this effectively, you will be getting clients because getting clients is about having conversations with your target audience. And this gives you an excuse and an in to be able to get to know your target audience, to ask them questions and allow them to help you and give you advice and to why they are not currently working with a property manager and then be able to deal with all these and learn how to deal with all these objections and then how to do the ultimate pitch and how to solicit them in a non salesy way to do and give you another opportunity to pitch. But you get to pitch during this interview, you get to pitch your services.
[00:27:22] To people that may not have considered property management before. So this is an easy way to get your foot in the door and get some of your first initial clients and build a relationship of trust. And that can be very effective. Did you want to say anything about product research interviews?
[00:27:35] Sarah: No. Michael used it. He was still over the 200 something door mark, and he used it, and I think he said he added like five or six doors in one week, and that was only after doing a few phone calls.
[00:27:48] Jason: He said 10. He added 10. I don't remember. Something like 10.
[00:27:51] Sarah: So, I don't remember exactly how many. I can go back and look at the stats.
[00:27:54] Jason: Yeah, Michael Sullivan, he was on one of our podcast interviews we just did recently, a really great episode. Highly recommend you check it out. But he was like, "well, I'll try this and I'm an experienced property manager." He just came up with a different excuse to interview people instead of saying, "Hey, I'm starting a business and want to get some feedback."
[00:28:10] He used a different strategy and use this strategy. And he was able to add doors from the first person that he interviewed. And we've had clients have that situation happen as well. So this can work. It's not just for starters, but it can work for anybody. In fact, this is the strategy I use when I first started our mastermind.
[00:28:29] I did product research interviews to figure out what, how can I create the ultimate mastermind? Cool. I'll just interview people and ask them, what do you want? It was a little bit more complex than that, but that's kind of the idea. And that allowed me then to say, "Hey, would you be interested in this if I launched it and it had some of what you mentioned and the stuff that I'm pitching you on?" And everybody says, yes. And then I probably closed about half of them. And so that's how I started the mastermind so that I had a nice cohort and a pool of people to kick things off with. So, and this is one of the strategies I've used over and over again.
[00:29:05] With new product launches or new offers to figure out how do I make this as good as possible? And this will help you make your product and your offer and your pitch as good as possible Really cool strategy and we've got the goods on how to do that as well And we've got other growth strategies, but these are some great ways to get leads that costs less money.
[00:29:26] They take less time and they get you more warm leads and you'll close more deals more easily at a higher price point. And then if you do cold lead advertising, so there you go. And that's how to add lead, like get leads without doing SEO, without doing pay per click, without doing content marketing, without doing social media marketing, without doing pay per lead services, internet marketing.
[00:29:50] You don't have to do internet marketing in order to grow your business and to grow faster than those that are. So, and that's it. Anything else? Nope. All right then until next time to our mutual growth, everybody make sure to join our free facebook group Doorgrowclub.Com. We put trainings in there. We give out information, and our goal in that group is to nurture you and warm you up so you can trust us and become one of our clients. We then can change your life and that's what we want to do is to transform this industry. Until next time to our mutual growth, bye everyone.
[00:30:26] 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!
[00:30:53] 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.
Do you know the difference between cold and warm leads? If not, it could be costing you thousands or tens of thousands of dollars…
Join property management growth experts Jason and Sarah Hull as they reveal the ugly truth of using internet marketing and pay-per-lead services. Learn the difference between warm and cold leads and how to attract more warm leads in your property management business.
[02:46] What’s the Difference Between Warm and Cold Leads?
[06:28] What are the Problems with Cold Leads?
[14:14] How to Get Warmer Leads
“The difference between a cold and warm lead is that they know you, trust you, and like you.”
“Cold leads are only good when they come in for maybe about the first 10-15 minutes.”
“Sales and deals happen at the speed of trust.”
“Not all leads are equal.”
[00:00:00] Jason: One of our clients came to us, and we said, "what have you been doing for the last year to try to grow your business?" because they have not been very successful, they were doing a pay per lead service. They bought 322 leads in the last year. And I said, " how many doors did you get out of those 322 leads?" And they said that they got like 18.
[00:00:26] 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.
[00:00:42] 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.
[00:01:00] 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, along with Sarah Hull, co owner and COO of DoorGrow. Now let's get into the show.
[00:01:26] All right. I always trip up a little bit trying to like introduce you. Like it's really hard, co owner, COO, like they both start with the same first letters and my brain's like COO's, owner, COO... I don't know. All right. So we were talking about today's topic and what we wanted to talk about. And what we were planning on talking about today is property management leads, specifically the difference between cold and warm leads. And a lot of you probably already know what that is, especially if you've been listening to the podcast a while, but I still get asked this question. I'm explaining, like these marketing channels will only give you cold leads and the close rate is only like 10 percent on those or worse, and these channels will give you warm leads, and people are like, "what's a warm lead? What's a cold lead?" I still get asked this question. So we're , to answer that today and we will give some examples of those And and help you figure out maybe a little bit towards the end, how to get some more leads because everybody wants more property management leads. How do I get more leads? And one of the challenges we can get into is related leads is sometimes you think you need more leads, but what you just need maybe is less leaks or maybe some better channels. So we'll chat about that. Okay, so Sarah, what's the difference between a cold and warm lead?
[00:02:51] Sarah: Oh, that's such a good question.
[00:02:53] Really there's a lot of differences, but I would say the main difference is like, where does it come and what is your close rate? Those are, I'm going to say, your two big ones. Where does it come from and what is your close rate?
[00:03:05] Jason: So Here, like, let's make this really simple for those of you listening. Now, a lead may start out as cold. It will, if you are effective, it will warm up, and then it will become hot, and then you will close the deal, right? So, what is the difference during this transition? The difference is trust level. That's the difference. The difference between a cold and warm lead is that they know you, trust you, and like you. That's the big difference between a cold and warm lead. They know you trust you and like you, then they're warm. Now, how do we create more trust? How do we make sure that they feel like they know us authentically and truly, and how do we get them to like us, right? And that's what makes a warm lead. So cold lead examples. Let's let, what are some typical cold lead examples?
[00:03:58] Sarah: Online really like, "Oh, I did a Google search."
[00:04:03] Jason: Okay. Yeah. Online. So we've got like SEO related to search engine marketing. We've got like Google ads, like pay per click. And I'm not saying "paper click" some people like think I'm saying I think it was paper click Like you're clicking papers.
[00:04:19] Sarah: Sometimes people say it so fast. It's like yeah paper click, you know.
[00:04:22] Jason: So those non nerds out there it is pay per click. Right, so per every click you're paying some money right is the idea of PPC. All right, so we've got SEO pay per click not paper click and then we've got...
[00:04:40] Sarah: I can't wait to see the transcription. I know it's going to be great. He's saying the same thing.
[00:04:45] Jason: Super confused... content marketing and then we've got social media marketing and then we have... you mentioned also pay per lead. Not paper leads not like made of paper leads. Okay, pay per lead. So pay per click example would be like google ads, facebook ads, things like this. You're paying for clicks or you're paying for views, right? And then pay per lead, that would be something like you know, lead services, like that. Yeah. Lead services that you pay to get leads. The end.
[00:05:20] Sarah: And this is like true in every industry, like every industry that sales is a part of it, they're like, "Hey, we will sell you leads," and then you essentially, you buy a lead, you pay money, you buy a lead.
[00:05:32] And then you think "Hey, here's this person. And I will call them because they are interested in the thing that I am selling."
[00:05:39] Jason: So let me give you an extreme example of cold lead marketing. One of our clients came to us, they had 1300 doors. Their BDM came on to one of our calls and we said, "what have you been doing for the last year to try to grow your business?" because they have not been very successful, and they said that they were doing a pay per lead service. And it's a very common one. A lot of people do in the industry, which is APM allpropertymanagement. com. I said, "how many leads did you buy from them?" because you pay per lead. They bought 322 leads in the last year. And I said, "cool. How many doors did you get out of those 322 leads?" And they said that they got like 18.
[00:06:23] Sarah: Something like that. So like a 10 percent close rate would have been like 32.
[00:06:27] Jason: So they, yeah, it was really bad close rate. Right now to compound this, and for those of you that want to do some math on your own cold lead marketing, I have a calculator for this.
[00:06:39] You can go to DoorGrow.com/ cold. That's my cold lead calculator. Wow. Yeah, it's old. Can we update that video? Maybe. There's a really old video. I have a much skinnier, less muscular face with a very big beard and mustache on it. So you might see it. I almost don't want people to go there. Oh, stop. I don't care how cool I look. It's good stuff. So go to the cold lead calculator. Don't watch the video. Put in the math and see what your cold lead acquisition cost is because here's where they'd spent money and i'm guessing it's like I don't know what apm charges nowadays maybe it's 50 bucks 60 bucks 80 bucks something somewhere in there. I'm guessing So 322 of those and then, but they're paying to have a full time BDM that's working on this and they're paying to have a setter working on this as well. That's a lot of expense annually. We're talking tens and tens of thousands of dollars, right? And so they're spending all of this money and they got 18 doors.
[00:07:38] If we took all of that expense, the business owner took all of that expense. And divided it by 18, that acquisition cost would be ridiculous. It would be ridiculous. This is like giving maybe a year, years of free management away just to get a client. It's not a profitable way to do growth, right? Now there are some that do these different cold lead channels, but they have to build an entire mechanism.
[00:08:04] They might have multiple BDMs there. They have sales CRMs. They're following up immediately as a lead comes in because the race is on. Cold leads are only good when they come in for maybe about the first 10, 15 minutes and then conversion rates drop like 80%. Right. So you have to like have immediate follow up and you have to be first. You have to be the first one to call them because APM, for example, is going to give it out to multiple companies.
[00:08:28] Sarah: Yeah. That's the thing to kind of keep in mind too, is, and I used to deal with this when I was in the insurance world is when you buy leads... yeah ..Like even if they tell you like you're the exclusive one, you're never it's never an exclusive lead It's never just being sold to you never because they're in the market. Tell you like, "oh. We won't sell this to anybody else." Like yes, you will. Yes, you absolutely will. So they're sick. You're selling it to multiple people who are trying to buy the same thing and then you've got it like hit that really fast
[00:09:01] Jason: Yes, so if somebody is looking online, that means they're at the end of the sales cycle, that means they're now hunting and looking, they're not just going to do one thing. Usually they're going to keep going until they find what they're looking for. And so even if it's an exclusive lead from some sort of service, and there are other services that will give you exclusively, which means they're not going to give it to five companies, they'll just give it to you. The challenge is these people are still in the market. They're hunting and looking now.
[00:09:31] Sarah: Before we get into warm leads, I was just so burned on this, like in the insurance world that I was like, : I'm never freaking doing leads again." Even if you're like, "Hey, I only want to like deal with qualified leads, right? Like I don't want like these like shitty, crappy leads that you call them and they're they have no idea who you are." They have no idea why you're calling them You're like, oh because you know, you were interested in getting a quote on your insurance and like "no I wasn't. What are you talking about?"
[00:09:58] Fake leads? Like, "I don't know how they got my information." So, like, crap leads. Like, real crap leads. Or... There were services too that would try to tell you they were more qualified, like in the insurance world for anyone who kind of is familiar, there are different coverage levels, right? So like in property management, there might be different tier levels in your pricing plan. You might say, "Hey, I only want to get people who are going to be in my top pricing plan. Send me those leads." And typically this is like the portfolio of, you know, what I deal with. And. Based off of that, they should be able to, like, use their algorithm to find people who are similar to that and push those people to you in the form of leads. Sounds fantastic. It's not because it never works that way. Even if you go, "listen, like I only want the people, you know, that have like full tort and like, you know, stacked coverage and like, you know, at least a hundred, 300 liability, send me only those." And then you'll get these leads and you call them and sure enough, you pull it up and they have like, Limited tort, they've got like no UMUIM, they've got like state minimum coverage and you're like, "this is not the lead that it's paying for." so you're paying for like a premium lead what you think is going to be like a qualified top tier lead and come to find they are not qualified and they are not top tier. So like, that's just the other thing to kind of keep in mind is even like, even the services that are like, "Hey, we're going to screen them more for you and like, tell us a little bit about, you know, what your top tier looks like, and we'll push you more people that have that Like algorithm, right?"
[00:11:38] And it just, it doesn't work that way. It just doesn't. It sounds really great, but it doesn't end up working that way. So, more often than not, you're talking with people that sometimes they have no idea what you're even calling them for. They are they're completely in the dark feel like, "I don't even know how you got my information I don't know why you're calling me. I don't even know what property management is," like they have no idea they're not interested or they are interested but now like they're being bombarded Because that lead is being sold to like multiple companies. So even if it's just you and one other company, now you've got two people who are calling going like, "Hey, you're interested in property management."
[00:12:18] And now that kind of puts them in like, it almost gives them like the buyer's power, right? Because they're like, "Oh, these people are now chasing me" like, "Oh yeah, Fred called me over here and Jason called me over here, but they're obviously both interested in working with me." Right. So it it just changes the dynamic a little bit. So that's kind of something else to kind of keep in mind when you're dealing with any kind of like pay per lead
[00:12:42] Jason: service.
[00:12:43] Yeah. They'll start regretting their decision to fill out some sort of lead form when they start getting called by multiple companies. Okay.
[00:12:50] Sarah: And they will continue to sell it even though like, because they don't like this, the service doesn't know. So if I was interested, if I was a legitimate lead and I was interested in property management. They might sell my lead to multiple companies. But if I talk with, let's say Jason, who does property management, and Jason closes the deal.
[00:13:10] Well, the service that is selling my lead does not know that Jason closed the deal. So technically I'm like off the market. I'm not interested in looking for another property manager anymore because I already found one and I closed the deal. They don't know that. So they will continue selling that lead.
[00:13:25] Jason: Okay. All right. So yeah the challenge with cold lead marketing and property management, the feedback I typically hear, and we used to do like Google ads for for clients. And one of the biggest challenges is you're always going to get a lot of people filling out lead forms or clicking on stuff because they know property managers will start to call them that are vendors.
[00:13:47] This happens all the time. Like vendors are like, "Hey, I want to talk to some property managers, so I'm going to fill out these lead forms. I'm going to click on their ads, and I'm a plumber, and I'm not interested in property management. And so some of these services like APM, they will like, if you tell them this was a bad lead, they will refund your money. To their credit, the challenge is imagine how many leads come through that nobody goes and ask for a refund. This still becomes a profit center for them.
[00:14:14] So, all right, so let's get into warm leads. So the challenge with warm leads is that people don't know necessarily what they are, how to get them. So let's talk about what a warm lead is. A warm lead, or look, these are people that know you, trust you and like you. We've established that some examples of higher trust or warmer leads would be leads that come in from your online reviews. If you have really good reviews, that could be a warm lead channel. They're like, "Hey man, they're the best rated company on Yelp or they're the best rated company on Google, or they have the most reviews on Google and they're rated really well. You know, I already can trust them," and they might read some testimonials to say "these guys are great. They're awesome The business owner's fantastic. The team's cool," like all that and they'll be like, okay now they have trust. So there's things that are trust indicators that help create trust. The website. Your website also can help create trust And so a lot of what we do with our clients at doorgrow is we show all of the trust leaks that exist in throughout the sales pipeline You've got leads that come in, but then if your business has all these trust leaks after it, it's like turning on the hose, getting more leads. And then you have all of these leads. And so we want to shore up all of the leaks that kill trust because sales and deals happen at the speed of trust. You've probably heard me say before. And so we want to increase the trust level throughout the process because that warms them up and allows you to close deals.
[00:15:43] So online reviews might be a channel for warm leads, referrals. Word of mouth you know, and these could be referrals from agents. This could be word of mouth from like your existing clients. Things like this have a high level of trust. They're like, "Hey, use this company." Now, what's really important to understand is that most warm lead channels, warm leads usually come before cold leads in most situations. Which means the warm lead table, the referral word of mouth table, usually the scraps that fall off of that table, the shitty cold lead, terrible scraps that fall off the referral word of mouth, warmly table are what are going to be looking online. So any online channel, SEO, paperclip, content marketing, social media marketing, paper lead, these are able to find and attract people that are at the end of the sale cycle, which means they're more price sensitive. They view you more as a commodity. They're getting bombarded or talking to multiple companies. You're now just all property managers are the same and they're looking for the cheapest price. And so if you're able to capture them earlier in the sales cycle, like even before they're searching online, even before they could even see online reviews, and you can capture through word of mouth or referrals or warm lead channels. You're going to be able to close deals at a higher price point. There's less price sensitivity and your close rate is really high for most referrals, I'm guessing most of you will say, close to a hundred percent, you know, it's something super high.
[00:17:14] If it's not higher than 70%, you have bad breath and you don't know it, right? It's like 80, 90%. So it's the opposite. So we've got warm leads at like 90 percent cold leads at like 10 percent or worse. Now the other challenge with cold leads and warm leads is cold leads take way more time. It takes a lot more time to nurture them, talk to them, phone calls with them. And a lot of times you still won't even get the deal. So you're wasting a lot more time trying to get business with cold leads. Warm leads take way less time. So if you eliminate all of your cold lead marketing channels, which we help a lot of our clients do completely eliminate advertising expense altogether, and then we help them. They're able to grow faster. So that company we talked about before, if they didn't have the 322 cold leads to work, and they spent all of that time with their setter and their closer, their BDM focused. And that's business development manager is what that stands for. Everybody asks me that. If those are focused a hundred percent on warm lead strategies, they would have added a hundred or hundreds of doors.
[00:18:20] One of our clients did just that. In contrast, came to us with 600 units in less than a year. They had added over 400 units, and they had broken the thousand door barrier. But it's because they were not focused on cold leads and their BDM full time was focused on real strategies that work, that were able to help them capture business much faster.
[00:18:45] So here's the question I usually ask. Would you rather have 10 cold leads or five warm leads? If you do some math here, 10 percent close rate, you have 10 old leads you might get one deal. Five warm leads, you'll probably get four. You'll probably get four deals out of five warm leads right? And you're going to spend way less time, probably two to three times less amount of time in trying to nurture somebody, talking to them, visiting the property, etc. Less time wasting. So if you're a small business owner and you're trying to grow a business, one of the worst things you could do is to muck up your lead generation with cold lead marketing that takes a ton of time and gets you very little yield and is super expensive because warm lead marketing costs basically 0.
[00:19:38] And you're like, "yeah, but it takes time." It takes less time than cold lead advertising does. It takes less follow up time, less time. So less time, less money, more deals. And a lot of people don't get this. They're like, "well, I just, I don't want to do all that work. I just want to throw money at the problem."
[00:19:56] Cool. Keep wasting your money while my clients are kicking your ass. Like we'll help them do that all day long because our clients are crushing it when it comes to adding doors and they're not spending any money. So they have a lot more bandwidth to be able to afford to improve their business and improve operations because they're not spending two, three, sometimes four or five grand a month on internet marketing.
[00:20:19] So they're able to grow faster.
[00:20:20] Hopefully all of you understand the difference between cold leads and warm leads. Not all leads are equal. People come to us all the time. They're like, "I want more leads." Well, if that is the thing that you're going to marketers and saying, "I just want more leads" with the assumption, the false assumption that all these are equal, you are red meat for a wolf that's going to destroy you, right? Because they're going to take your money and they're going to give you leads, but you don't know the difference between cold and warm leads, you're going to be taken for a ride and you're going to spend a lot of money and you're going to be one of those clients that comes to us and says, "I just spent a ton of money on X company, or, you know, ABC company or whatever for marketing, and I don't have a lot to show for it, but I've spent a lot of money and I've wasted a lot of time and I haven't added hundreds of doors, you know, over the last few years."
[00:21:11] So we would love to help you grow and scale your business, do things that are more effective and focus on warmer lead strategies and move your business forward, help you get all these leaks shored up. We have an amazing program in our mastermind. Our clients are crushing it. We have more case studies and testimonials than any other coaching property management coaching out there on the planet. I think we collected on the last year. We made like over 40 case study videos, and these are just videos we're capturing during our interactions and our calls with clients.
[00:21:44] And we would love to see you grow and succeed and help this industry grow and succeed and stop wasting your time, energy, and money, because we know if you spend a lot of money on cold lead marketing, and you're not getting a return, then you're losing money. Good marketing should make you way more money, that's an ROI, just like investing in rental properties should make you way more money in the long run than you're spending.
[00:22:10] You should have an ROI. And if you don't, then your business is going to suffer. Your customer service is the first thing to go down the drain. And then you're the next shitty property management company. And there's way too many of those in the industry, and savvy marketers, clever marketers are the ones that I think are destroying and hurting this industry in aggregate.
[00:22:29] And we're on a mission to change that here at DoorGrow. So I think that's it for today. We talked about cold leads, warm leads. Hopefully all of you understand the difference and reach out if you'd like some support and to get more warm leads.
[00:22:41] And until next time to our mutual growth. Bye everyone.
[00:22:45] 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!
[00:23:12] 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.
Michael Sullivan is a property management entrepreneur who has grown his business to 275 doors.
Join property management growth experts Jason and Sarah Hull as they chat with former DoorGrow client Michael Sullivan to learn about his experience starting and growing a property management business.
[01:44] Getting started in the property management industry
[07:49] Growing a property management business
[24:01] Having support and feeling fulfilled in the business
[28:13] Growing and scaling to the next level
“To go faster, you need to invest the currency of cash if you want to get more of the other currencies and to get the business to the next level.”
“If you're not making mistakes, you're not learning.”
“A lot of us business owners, we have a bit of ego.”
“Being an entrepreneur can be one can be very lonely, and it is really important to have people in the same industry kind of in your village.”
[00:00:00] Jason: To go faster, you need to invest the currency of cash. If you want to get more of the other currencies and to get the business to the next level. 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. 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, along with Sarah Hull, the co owner and CEO of DoorGrow.
[00:01:09] Now let's get into the show and our guest today is Michael L Sullivan. Michael Sullivan is here hanging out with us. He is a client of ours and of Sullivan property management. Did I say that right? MLS ullivan property management. All right, your initials. Got it. And Michael, welcome to the show.
[00:01:33] Michael: Thank you. Thank you very much. Good to be here.
[00:01:36] Jason: We're glad to have you. So we've really enjoyed having you in our program and it's been really amazing seeing your progress. So maybe to kick things off, let's start with talking about how you got into this crazy industry of property management. Like you woke up when you were like maybe five years old and said "property management is the thing for me" maybe.
[00:01:57] Michael: Yeah, like every little boy and girl, dreams about being a real estate agent or a property manager.
[00:02:03] Jason: It's right there next to veterinarian and firefighter.
[00:02:06] Michael: I think that's right. That's right or professional baseball player so, I left the teaching profession in 1993 and became a real estate agent, a general brokerage real estate agent here in the Greater Research Triangle region of North Carolina, and I did very well. I, on average, sold anywhere between 5 and 15 million dollars worth of real estate when our average sale price was $150,000. Yeah, we were shifting a lot of shacks, and it was a good life. And for the 15 or so years between 1993 and the Great Recession of 2007, 2008, my biggest fear was, "what is going to happen when the market flips?" Because inevitably, real estate flips. It goes from a boom market to a bust market, a buyer's market to a seller market. And so during those years, I socked away cash. When the market crashed in 2008, I had an inventory of 40 general brokerage homes that were for sale. I had clients that were still moving to Massachusetts or Plano, Texas, or Austin, or Seattle, you know, to the other tech hubs in the United States and my clients were like, "All right, problem solver, what are you going to do because we still have to move?" And I was like, "we're going to rent them." And so with an Excel spreadsheet and time, because I had lots of time then I started managing property and in the first year, our goal was 30 homes and we had 50 and it was me and one part time assistant and an Excel spreadsheet. Well, after about 18 months, that didn't work anymore. So I went out and I found what I thought was a reasonable property management software. And then over the course of the next decade or so, we got up to 110 properties or so and things were good, you know, we were chugging along and profits were good, but I really didn't know what I didn't know, I kind of.
[00:04:22] Believe that once you had an Appfolio or a Buildium on board that you had won the day and that your business was set and you know, it should be easy. And I soon discovered when I got to 115 doors and just kind of got stuck there that the business wasn't growing the way it should be. And I couldn't figure out why. I was on Facebook one day. And there was this guy, Jason Hull, talking about this company called DoorGrow. And so I did the click, click, clickety click. And then I started listening to some of his podcasts and I started researching DoorGrow and I thought, " huh, this guy knows a whole lot about this industry and maybe this is someone I need to engage with." and so that's how I came to DoorGrow about two and a half years ago, I think.
[00:05:21] Jason: And now you're on one, you're on one of the podcasts.
[00:05:24] Michael: I know.
[00:05:25] Jason: So what challenges did you start to realize you were dealing with at the time? Because generally, you've made a ton of changes in your business since working with us, and you know, it's been impressive to watch. What do you feel like were your challenges at that time? Like, what did you not know that you did not know? So
[00:05:43] Michael: I knew that there were currencies in a business, but I didn't know that there were five of them. And I knew that I was working really hard. So the currency of effort was there. Yeah, my bank account showed me that the currency of cash was there. Yeah, the currency of focus was really lacking because I was still doing a lot of general brokerage and still trying to do property management. The focus of energy was lacking. Because it was draining me kind of going in these different directions. And then there was a lack of time. I didn't have time to take off. I didn't have time to turn it off because it was me and an assistant property manager at that time, I was still doing all of the day to day operations and the round pegs in the round holes work. And figuring out those currencies and how to better divide them and focus on them was one of the things that I didn't know and that once I could put a name to it and once I could focus on fixing where there was a deficiency, then I kind of won the battle. I felt, you know, before you launched all of your different systems to help property managers, I listened to you and I went out and got Lead Simple. I went out and got Property Meld and kind of brought them into the fold. And I recognize that those tools, which you paid dearly for using these outside vendors, really bring you a wealth of time that didn't exist before. So I was able to capture that currency and by extension, the currency of effort was able to kind of tamp down because I had systems now in place to deal with the endless maintenance requests that having a practice that. Goes up over a hundred percent in growth is going to require.
[00:07:48] Jason: So let's talk about that growth. You had mentioned you'd gotten up to maybe, where were you when you started with DoorGrow?
[00:07:56] 118.
[00:07:58] 118. Okay.
[00:07:59] And where are you at right now?
[00:08:01] Michael: 275.
[00:08:03] Jason: I mean, it sounds like you had pretty decent profit margin before. Well, what was that? If you don't mind sharing, what is it?
[00:08:09] Michael: So, on a gross per door basis, when I joined DoorGrow, we were right at about $122 a door per month. Yeah. And today we're up. $153 and 82 cents per door per month.
[00:08:26] Jason: That's very specific. So, you know, your numbers, which is good.
[00:08:30] Michael: Well I try. Yeah. And year over year revenue increases from last year is up 58.7%.
[00:08:36] Jason: Wow. That's awesome. So money's up. So the cash currency has improved the focus currency. Have you been able to do less in the business and narrow your focus?
[00:08:48] Michael: Yes. So Saturday is my benchmark. I call it my Zen day. And if Saturday can be a Zen day for me, where I don't feel like I have tasks that I have to accomplish, that I can do the things that I want to do, still working on the business, not in the business, then I feel like the week has been a win. If I feel like there are pressing tasks that I have to work on within the business on Saturday, then I feel like the week has not been a win. So if Saturday is Zen, if I come into it feeling very kind of centered and relaxed, then I feel like things are in balance the way they should be.
[00:09:34] Jason: So what percent profit margin are you operating at now?
[00:09:37] Michael: So coming into this year 2022, we were at 27 percent profit margin, but a lot of that was really underpinned by very robust general brokerage sales. I made a concerted effort this year to pour gasoline on the fire to really grow the business. The goal is to be over 300 doors by the end of the year. So we're 25 away. Nice. I'm pretty sure we're going to make that, you know, that goal. But our profit margin right now is at. 11 and a half, 11 and three quarters percent. So it's down substantially, but that was deliberate.
[00:10:14] Jason: Got it. And is deliberate because
[00:10:18] Michael: why?
[00:10:18] Because we're making an investment in people. We're making an investment in systems and we're making an investment in things like vehicles and computers and marketing.
[00:10:30] Jason: Yeah. So I think that's an important thing for business owners to recognize that. To go faster, you need to invest the currency of cash if you want to get more of the other currencies and to get the business to the next level. And you can grow faster if you have thinner margins, which can feel a little more dangerous. And you know, if you're investing into the growth of the business and into the future, but you know how to add doors, so this isn't a concern for you.
[00:10:57] Michael: It isn't. My bookkeeper and my accountant were a little apoplectic until I told them like, this is where we're going. And what I said to my bookkeeper was before the great depression of 1929, Ford motor company was the preeminent motor car company in the world. They had an amazing market share. Then the stock market crashed and the economy tanked and Ford circled the wagons, folded their tents and got very conservative. They scaled back. General Motors, by extension, said, "ah," and they saw it as an opportunity and they poured gasoline on the fire. And for the next 70 years, General Motors was the dominant car company in the world. And so I kind of am using that model.
[00:11:47] Jason: Yeah. So, now a lot of people listening to this might think, well, cool, I can get Property Meld, I can do something, you know, get something like Lead Simple, or we have a better tool now, which is DoorGrow Flow. " I can go and get tools and maybe I can do it on my own." Because I think this is the challenge. A lot of us business owners, we have a bit of ego. " I've made a lot of mistakes in the past and we think I can do it myself. Maybe if I watch enough YouTube videos, listen to enough podcast episodes, I can figure it all out on my own. I don't need DoorGrow or I don't need it." Like, so what would you say to people that listening to this or thinking that?
[00:12:22] Michael: So I would say to them, when I think back to me and one assistant and 115, 110 doors and good profit margins. You know, and a good life. I was in a really kind of felt very isolated and very alone I didn't have other friends or colleagues in the property management space that I could talk to. I felt like I was the only person in the world that was doing this, and once I joined DoorGrow and made very valuable, long lasting friends within the organization that I can call on off hours to discuss specific problems related to property management, that burden of feeling on my own and alone disappeared. Being an entrepreneur can be one can be very lonely, and it is really important to have people in the same industry kind of in your village. And that's why that's 1 of the benefits of joining DoorGrow is that I can call friends in Texas, Idaho, Pennsylvania, California and say, "hey, I've got this going on. What do you think?"
[00:13:40] Jason: Yeah, and I think you know, that's a testament to you is that you've been such a contributor that in the mastermind that it's allowed you to connect with all of these people, you know, there are some people that join the program and they still stay somewhat isolated. They're like, "I'm going to watch videos I'm going to learn stuff and do my own thing and they maybe don't get some of those advantages or benefits But I think that's key.
[00:14:02] So yeah Yes. I mean, Sarah, when she had her property management business, I imagine you experienced some of the same sort of things of thinking it's. You know, this is, you're the only one in the world doing this. You're on your own.
[00:14:17] Sarah: Yeah, very much. And especially in the area that I was in I was always different and I just kind of do things differently and I think differently and oftentimes people are like, she's nuts, like, why would you do that?
[00:14:29] Even my mom, sometimes she's like, are you sure you're going to do that? Like, are you sure? Like, I'm kind of nervous. But I've just always done things a little differently. And it's so, it is really lonely. And I think the mindset that I had back when I was in Pennsylvania versus, you know, the mindset I have now really has a lot to do with who you surround yourself with and that can.
[00:14:53] I think it can just give you hope and it can show you like, Hey, like, I'm not so crazy. Like I've got it. Like I've got it figured out and I'm like doing the right thing and I'm on the right path. And you know, it feels right, but sometimes it's just, you know, you're like, Oh, is this really right?
[00:15:07] Because it feels good to me, but man, everybody else is doing something so different.
[00:15:12] Michael: Yeah. And that's another benefit that DoorGrow has given me is. I now have the ability to say no. So I am the business development manager. I have someone in charge of maintenance. I have someone in charge of tenant experience.
[00:15:28] I have someone in charge of ops within the office. They color within their lines and we are good. My job is to go out and build the business to work on the business, not work in the business. And until I joined DoorGrow, it didn't matter what came my way. Property wise, I was going to take it last week. I turned away more properties than we took on because they weren't the right fit.
[00:15:53] And I have a very nice conversation with prospective clients about qualification and that they're qualifying us to make sure we're a good fit for them. But at the same time. I'm qualifying them, their mindset, their properties, their attitudes toward spending money, their attitudes toward maintaining their properties, and if those things don't align with what we believe here, that housing is a human right that people have the right to live in nice homes that are maintained and maintained properly, then We're not going to accept the business.
[00:16:30] We're also not going to accept people that are rude, mean and abusive. Because I've learned since kind of letting the stress of being a general brokerage real estate agent. Slip away that there is plenty of good business out there and that it's more important to have the Philosophical fits with the business than it is to take just any property no matter what the cost
[00:16:57] Jason: Yeah, your ability to say no in business Gives you a business that you feel you can easily say yes to each
[00:17:03] Michael: day.
[00:17:04] That's right.
[00:17:05] Jason: Yeah. Yeah. It's nice to not have to wake up and go, man, I really don't want to do this today. And that's because we're setting boundaries for ourselves and that boundary in those containers allow us to create a business that we really like to be inside.
[00:17:20] Michael: Right. That's correct. Yeah. Now,
[00:17:22] Jason: when you came.
[00:17:23] To us DoorGrow initially. I remember like you really had this mindset that you, and now you're doing business development, you had mentioned, you really believed you were the operator. It all was on your shoulders to operate the business, do operations, and you were good at it, but you believe that was your primary gift, I think, to the business and what your contribution needed to be.
[00:17:45] And and I know you had some conversations with Sarah and some shifts in that, so could you touch on that a bit?
[00:17:51] Michael: Yeah well, control freak and always have been a control freak. I know one of those. You know, own it. And to a certain degree, I still, I observe. I trust and verify, but I don't get involved.
[00:18:07] My number two said it best the other day. He said, yeah, with you. I only have to come to you if I know it's a problem that I can't solve. So I have kind of empowered the people who work with me to color in their lines. And when they are in trouble, come here and ask and we'll figure it out. I have also given them permission to make mistakes because if you're not making mistakes, you're not learning. You're static, and I let them see that I make mistakes and that I admit when I make a mistakes above all else. I expect complete honesty here. We make mistakes. We admit our mistakes. You know, if we have to eat it because it's a financial error that we've made well, then by golly, we're going to eat it because it was our mistake. And we come by it honestly the empowerment of becoming a business development manager is I don't have to worry that the books are balanced every week because I know that there is someone who I've paid good money to who has balanced the books and they can't hide because the system has been created where I can see that it's been uploaded into the accounting software and that the books are in balance.
[00:19:25] I can verify that the financial piece of the puzzle in the business is running properly because I get a report monthly from my accountant and my bookkeeper that says, "this is where we are. This is your cash flow. This is your profit. This is where you're spending a lot of money. Are you okay with that?" and I pay them good money to do those things. I have a maintenance coordinator who deals with maintenance and on the Property Meld dashboard, which I log into every morning. I can see the tasks picking off or I can see things progressing and I can see that we're handling our maintenance requests in 3 to 4 days on average and that's fine. I've also told him to maintain his sanity because he's a bit of a control freak. If it's after hours and it's a garbage disposal in a dishwasher and it's after 5 o'clock, you don't need to deal with that today. If it's a leak and we have a catastrophe, then you deal with that after five o'clock, but the small stuff can wait until tomorrow.
[00:20:26] It's still important. It's important to get it done and move it off our plates, but you don't have to deal with it when you need to be spending time with your children at soccer camp or baseball practice or whatever he does in the evening with his four kids. And then my other teammates, I can see that they are moving their tasks forward and that I don't have to worry about the job that they're doing. And that's empowered me to go out and find the right properties to bring into the practice for us to manage.
[00:20:56] Jason: You know, one of the gifts that I see in you, which I think really sets you apart, Michael, is coming into the program you're really intelligent. You know this. You're an intelligent guy. I think everybody can pick that up just by hearing you and listening to you. But even though you're intelligent, you have humility about, you know, and this openness to learning. And you've come into the program and you just started to do stuff. Like you tried it out. You experimented, and you allowed yourself the time to prove whether or not it would work or not. And some of the times we get clients that are intelligent, but they're not humble and they're usually the biggest stumbling block to themselves. So I just wanted to point that out. I'm curious what Sarah's experience has been of you as well, because she worked closely with you on like reviewing some of the systems, reviewing your team assessing you and some of this kind of stuff.
[00:21:54] Sarah: So, yeah, I think I definitely agree with what you just said about being open to learning and trying things just a bit differently. And I think a lot of entrepreneurs, we do things differently. We're okay with that. But sometimes if it's not our idea, then we're like "I don't know if I want to do it because I didn't think of it." right. So, I think Michael is, he's open to thinking differently. He's open to trying things out and implementing a system. He'll do the research. He doesn't just, you know, blindly jump and he's like, well, Jason said to do this, so I'm going to do it, but he'll do the research and he's very thorough. And I really appreciate that about Michael. He's all into the details and he knows exactly what's going on in his business. He's not like, "Hey, I'm just going to kind of sit back and like, let the team run everything, and then I just, I'm going to cross my fingers and hope and pray that everything is going well, right?" like we know that it's going well because you're not the one who's doing it, so you've been able to get out of the hot seat in a lot of different ways and get yourself more into the things that you actually enjoy. because I remember that conversation with you about the operations and you said, "well, I really just, I love to sell" like, okay, then let's let you sell. Like if you're doing things in the business and you're just holding on to them going, "well, I have to be the one to do this." I think it's really common for us to think that like, " well, I own the business, so I have to do this piece or I own this. And it has to be me. It doesn't always have to be you." do you have to know what's going on? Absolutely. Do you have to have the right people on your team? Absolutely. And do you have to set it up so that things can run smoothly? Absolutely. But do you have to be the one who's actually like doing the work? Right. And I think that's one of the biggest shifts that I've seen in you is that you're able to say, okay I don't have to do this part and I don't want to do this part.
[00:23:54] This is where I want to be. So I'm going to move closer to this and I'm going to figure out how to get these pieces kind of offloaded.
[00:24:01] Michael: Yeah. Yeah. When you taught me how to write R docs and after I had a disastrous hire two years ago, disaster, and I had to fire someone, something I'd never had to do, but it was my fault. There was nothing wrong with the person I hired. She was just the wrong fit for the job. And then we sat down, we wrote R docs. With detailed job descriptions and parameters and that made bringing on the next person who is now in that role a dream because she fit the culture. We knew what her profile was before she even interviewed with us. We knew who the person was and then she walked through the door and poof, there she was. And that's one thing I didn't know. I just thought you could teach someone into a position. Well, you can teach skills, but you can't teach the human touch. And that's what I had missed with the disaster, the mistake that I made.
[00:25:02] Jason: Yeah. You'd learn some concepts from us, like the three fits , mapping out R docs. One of you explain what R docs are for those of us. This is DoorGrow speak here.
[00:25:11] Sarah: I know it is. So an R doc, it's just basically a fancy word for job description. We call it R doc because every section on it starts with 'R.'
[00:25:20] Jason: There you go. So the ultimate job descriptions. Awesome. So, yeah, so all of these little pieces and systems and mindsets that you've installed in your business have really, I think, primed your business for a lot of growth. Like, where do you see the business going in the future?
[00:25:37] Michael: Oh, so that's another thing I learned. And it was at, I think, Austin at the Austin meeting. And it was you said it in the first like two minutes and I got my nugget and I was like, okay, I can go home. I got it. You said, don't limit your growth. And I had constantly said 200 doors, 200 doors. That's where I'm going. That's where I'm going. And you already passed that now. Yeah, you said that. And I was like. " Why would I create like this false ceiling that I'm going to just bump into and stop at?" Yeah. So, ultimately, and I'd like to retire in the next 10 to 12, 15 years, maybe. We're realistically thinking in the neighborhood of 1,000-2,000 doors. Yeah, people have started to come a calling about, "Hey, do you want to sell your business?" And the time is not right. Some of the financial offers that have been made already are very intriguing. Yeah. But then I'm like, " what will I do with myself?" You know, "what's the next iteration?" And I think until I figure that out, we're going to just stay the course.
[00:26:47] Jason: Yeah, I think that's one of the key things that I think a lot of people realize in the program that if it was just about money, then maybe you'd cash out, but it's not just about money, right? There's other things we want out of our experience here on this planet. And that's something else you got a lot of clarity on is what really personally drives you, which allowed you to build the business and the team around you so that you really could move into those plus signs and out of those minus signs.
[00:27:13] Michael: Yeah, so the key is I went to the Netherlands in May to see art because it's my thing. Cool. And a little ostentatious to fly to Europe to see Vermeer, but I did it. And I was gone for a good long time and things here chugged right along and it was beautiful. And I knew then that we were doing things right, that I could leave and not be here for 10 days, and the business continued to operate. I continued to watch and check in. But they didn't need me.
[00:27:49] Jason: And how's that different from before you came to DoorGrow?
[00:27:53] Michael: Oh my God. Like the first meeting in Austin that I came to, I had I came really close to not coming because I was like "I can't leave. I just can't leave. I can't leave them." I was wrong. I was wrong and I went to Austin and I went to Vegas and you know, things were good. Yeah.
[00:28:12] Jason: Yeah. So awesome. Well, it's been really cool to see your progress. We really appreciate. Seeing your growth and yeah, there's no question in my mind. A lot of people hear you say, Oh, maybe a thousand, 2000 doors. And they probably think: this guy is ridiculously off his rocker that he could just believe that and the audacity to have that mindset. And I'm sure when you first came to DoorGrow, a thousand doors was like, probably magic, some magic, like pipe dream in the ethers that you would never even consider. I don't know, but.
[00:28:40] Michael: 300 seemed unimaginable.
[00:28:43] Jason: Yeah, but now it seems very doable. And you're aware of the DoorGrow code and like we've got clients breaking a thousand doors. We've got clients doing it. And there's no question in my mind. You could easily do this in the next two to three years. If you really wanted to easily.
[00:28:57] Michael: Yeah, I work my golden 100. That's another thing I learned at DoorGrow. To have people that are valuable people that I love and care about that. I have to touch every 30 days because they love and care about me and buy it. So they send business. They ask questions and we share information. Yeah. And for that, I'm indebted to you.
[00:29:19] Jason: Not at all. Well, great. Well, yeah we, it's been really awesome seeing your growth. So cool. Anything else we should ask Michael? We've got him hanging out here with us. What's next for you, Michael? What's next?
[00:29:31] Michael: Well, once we go over 300, then the double it again.
[00:29:34] Jason: Yeah. So what I see next for you is you've got some of the systems installed. And then I think what it will be next is to level up your three key systems of. People, process, and planning and maybe starting to build out even a little bit more of that executive team. I think you've got a good team going now and I think then what would be next would be maybe starting to acquire you'll be the one eating up some of these other companies. And I think, maybe working with us on acquisitions, and I think that'll be the quick pace to grow. And that also bring you really great people too, if you want. So
[00:30:07] Michael: we're working on two. They're on a slow simmer because companies that I'm looking at have some. Bookkeeping issues. We'll just put it at that.
[00:30:17] Jason: It's an opportunity. Yeah. Always do.
[00:30:20] Michael: So we may be able to fix the problem. Definitely.
[00:30:24] Jason: You'll be able to fix the problem. Yeah. Yeah. Very cool. Well, I'm excited to see what you do in the future. I know like, I've seen companies hit all these different stages. I know. We know the challenges that you're going to hit at these different stages in growth. We're here to support you. And for those listening here on the DoorGrowShow if you are struggling, you're hitting some of these sticking points, these milestones, you're stuck in your mindset, whatever. Be like Michael, be like Mike, not Mike, but all the reference, be like Michael and you know, talk to us and let us map things out with you and see if we could help you out. We'll be sure with you. So, well, Michael, appreciate you coming on the show. We appreciate having you as a client and grateful for you.
[00:31:09] Michael: Thank you. Thanks. I appreciate it. Have a good day.
[00:31:12] Jason: All right. Cool. So, if you're wanting to get into our free community of property management entrepreneurs on Facebook, go to DoorGrowClub.Com. We have some free gifts that we want to give to you. You'll provide your email as you join the group, we'll give you an, a drip, an email drip of some free gifts, including a fee Bible and some vendors that you can use and some different tools just to help you help yourself and help the industry level up.
[00:31:42] And we, and if you provide your info, we will also reach out to see if you'd like to have a conversation with us and see if we could help you grow your business, which the answer usually is. Yes, we can. So we would love to support you and help you out. And if you're wanting to test out your website, which you think might be amazing, go to doorgrowcom/quiz and test your website. A lot of times, this is a great gateway to realizing that you have some blind spots in your business. When you see that your website is leaking lots of money. Which is something we can help you out with. There's a lot of other leaks you can't see, and this might crack your mind open, get you to be open minded like Michael and allow us to be able to help you and support you and make a lot more money, have a lot more freedom and make a bigger difference out there in the marketplace.
[00:32:34] We appreciate you listening to our show. If you could do us a favor and leave us a good testimonial on, if you're hearing us on iTunes or like, or comment all of these things help us out and help us get the message out to enact our vision and our mission for this industry of helping it level up.
[00:32:50] And until next time to our mutual growth, everybody, bye everyone.
[00:32:54] 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!
[00:33:21] 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.
How do you decide to differentiate yourself and your business from your competitors? There’s only so much you can offer to owners and tenants before you completely burn yourself out. What if there was a way to benefit you, your client, and the tenants all at the same time while increasing your profit margin?
Join property management growth experts Jason and Sarah Hull as they chat with Andrew Smallwood from Second Nature. Learn how a resident benefits package can create a win-win-win scenario for you and your clients.
[04:56] Is it Possible to Double Profit Per Door?
[07:13] What is a Resident Benefits Package?
[21:37] Ways to Protect Your Investors/Owners
[25:19] The Pitfalls of DIYing Resident Benefits Packages
[32:07] Increasing Profitability with Resident Benefits Packages
[39:31] At What Stage Should You Implement a RBP
“Property managers don't just have one problem. They have a thousand.”
“If we can move the needle just slightly to increase revenue, but also just slightly to decrease operational cost, right, it's very easy to double profit margin in a business.”
“It doesn't matter how many doors you have if you're not taking anything home.”
“It's important for property managers to keep the main thing, otherwise it's so easy to get distracted as an entrepreneur.”
[00:00:00] [00:00:00] Jason: If we can move the needle just slightly to increase revenue, but also just slightly to decrease operational cost, right, it's very easy to double profit margin in a business.
[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 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.
[00:00:52] 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 along with Sarah Hull, co owner and COO of DoorGrow. Now let's get into the show.
[00:01:18] All right. So our guest today is Andrew Smallwood of Second Nature. Andrew, welcome to the show.
[00:01:25] Andrew: Hey, thanks for having me excited to be here.
[00:01:28] Jason: So we were talking beforehand and I was expressing how jealous I am of his amazing digital SLR camera. That's so zoomed in on his face. So you look really good today.
[00:01:37] Andrew: Well, we'll keep it on the face because I've still got some like summer workout to do the summer bods. We'll keep it the neck up here.
[00:01:44] Jason: Got it. All right. Yeah, I'm working out too. All right. Cool. So our topic today is doubling profit per door with a resident benefits package. You guys, your name has come up— Second Nature— over and over again related to this topic. So I'm excited to get into this before we get in though. Why don't you share a little bit about yourself? How did you get connected to property management? I doubt you woke up when you were a little kid and said, "property management" Second Nature... this is my dream future. This is what I want to be doing." So there's always a story of how people get into this industry, so.
[00:02:19] Andrew: You know, that's true, Jason, although if I think about every five to 10 year period of my life and where I may have predicted I would be five to 10 years from now, I don't think I've ever gotten that answer right, to date. So, I think I'll probably just stop trying, but really have enjoyed— you know, since 2017, actually is when I found the company at the time. It was called FilterEasy. A couple of years later, we rebranded to Second Nature as we saw our customers were looking at, you know, they had more than just one problem to solve. I think you guys know probably better than anybody property managers don't just have one problem.
[00:02:52] They have a thousand.
[00:02:53] You know, customer said, "Hey, we love the way you're working with us on this. Like, is there more that we could do there?" You know, rebranded to Second Nature, but I'll be quick with my personal story because I think probably other things would be more relevant to the audience wants to hear, but my background came up and coming up in sales was in sales and sales management for 10 plus years, also got into the nonprofit space involved with the Front Row Foundation, which is a cause I'm still passionate about. They put people battling life threatening illnesses in the front row of their dream live event. And so I'm the board chair for the Front Row Foundation today. I've been involved with them in various roles before finding my way to property management. And yeah the CEO and founder of Second Nature, Thad Tarkington, and I actually worked in the same company, although we didn't know each other super well. We were acquaintances in our previous company. And and I was looking to get into B2B from where I was. And that's what attracted me into the cool business. I saw it was a really great product. The customers really loved it. And that's what attracted me to the industry and I've loved it ever since.
[00:03:57] Jason: So what do you think the major difference you see between B2C and B2B? What like really was driving that decision?
[00:04:06] Andrew: Yeah, I think, you know, in B2C, it was very transactional, like, have one meeting. And it was, you know, this was like a luxury house where items just to put that in perspective. And so it was like, you know, an order might be a few hundred dollars or a few thousand dollars, and it was like, if you didn't have an order form in 20 minutes, then you didn't have an order, right? Yeah, there wasn't a decision at that point. And, you know, I got a lot of like professional foundational skills that I really appreciate from those experiences. But, you know, what I appreciated was developing relationships and continually, you know, working to drive success right over a longer period of time with customers. But that was more interesting and more fulfilling and also would involve developing new skills and learning new things. And so that, that's what attracted me to B2B.
[00:04:56] Jason: Awesome. All right. Cool. So let's get into the topic at hand. So doubling profit per door with the residence benefits package. So is it possible to double their profit per door?
[00:05:10] Andrew: Yeah, it better be, right? If that's the title of our episode. So, yeah, I mean, fortunately, Second Nature works with a little over 1500, just shy of 2000 management companies across the United States. And if you believe the, you know, studies that have been done out there and benchmarking a lot of property management companies can see their profit per door, you know, somewhere in the 10 to 15, you know, per unit range, obviously some less than that, right. And it's sort of some more than that, but a lot of companies we encounter, that's the range, you know, oftentimes when we encounter them, and the cool thing about a resident benefits package is in 30 days or less, they can be adding, you know, oftentimes $17 in profit per door, sometimes more, sometimes less. We can get into the details of why that can vary, but it can be a really dramatic move. And if it's a fully managed resident benefit package, it can actually be a very easy one to get going. So a powerful step to take.
[00:06:08] Jason: Yeah. I think a lot of property managers maybe don't see this. They don't realize this. We get so focused as business owners in the beginning of just trying to get revenue up, trying to get in revenue, and the challenge is: if we can move the needle just slightly to increase revenue, but also just slightly to decrease operational cost, right, it's very easy to double profit margin in a business. And Sarah had ridiculous profit margin in her business because she's ridiculously efficient. What was your profit margin?
[00:06:41] Sarah: On a bad month, it'd be like 60%.
[00:06:43] Jason: Yeah, so. Wow. And the big secret was she just wouldn't talk to people on the phone. Like that's a big part of it. And still had to talk to people. Yeah. So she's been able to do some amazing things with our clients in increasing profit and profit really per door is the thing that property managers should be taking a look at because it doesn't matter how many doors you have if you're not taking anything home. So let's talk about how they can increase this using a resident benefits packages. Let's define a resident's benefit package for those that have never heard of this idea. Let's start there.
[00:07:17] Andrew: Yeah. So the way we think about the resident benefits package, and I'd say, this is a generally accepted definition in the industry— is this is a suite of products and services that elevate and professionalize the resident experience, right? And so that's the 1st thing that it does, and it's creating an experience that residents will pay for, and that they'll stay for a recurring monthly charge, right? Alongside rent, there's the costs, right, of all these ancillary service. We can get it into examples of what those different products and services are in a minute. But that's what the property manager is doing. They're saying, "we're going to bring a different level of service. There's value in that service." and if there's a cost associated with that service as well, that's how they drive that as a profit center, but 1. That is bringing value to the resident, also protecting the investor from risk, and then the property manager benefiting as well. We call that a triple win. And that's what we focus on.
[00:08:13] Jason: Nice. Yeah. Value to the resident, protecting the investor and what was the third one?
[00:08:19] Andrew: Yeah. And the property manager should be reducing costs and adding a profit center as well.
[00:08:25] Jason: Love it. Okay, cool. So those are three awesome benefits. Now maybe we'll get into some specific examples, but let's go to this first one, the value to the resident. And does this work only in— because I know some property managers right now are listening and "this won't work in my market. My residents are cheap or my residents don't want extra value
[00:08:48] Sarah: or they don't care."
[00:08:49] Jason: Yeah, you just want the lowest price possible maybe. So let's tackle the value to the resident.
[00:08:55] Andrew: Yeah. Well, I mean, I think first i'd like to acknowledge some of the truth in that, which is that if I look at different asset classes, right, and you look at like multifamily, which has really done a lot of investment, like you think about class A multifamily major MSAs and like there's golf simulators and bark parks and like, you know, three water fountains and like all kinds of investment.
[00:09:19] Right. And then generally the way you see them monetized is both as a part of the rent— they've figured out how to, you know, classify their property to place where they can actually monetize that in the rent itself. It's amenitized and then also their services like valet, trash and other things like that, right, that are going to be charged as a separate ledger line item there. And so when we think about single family and smaller boutique, multifamily and scattered site properties and third party managers, you know, and I think about the resident profile of who's running the class A, you know, golf simulators place we were just talking about is probably that's probably different value for that person than, like, you know, your typical couple in their 40s with a couple of kids and a dog right in the suburbs, like they're not looking for the same things, right? And what would be valuable and important to them?
[00:10:09] So, I think it's okay to acknowledge that different resident profiles may value different things, right? Where we started. Where we started with this was, okay, we see a future where there's actually a really and truly incredible resident experience. I mean, dozens of dozens and dozens of products and services and bucketing them into what's already required in the lease. Right and so we started with that before going to "hey, what's like standard, but could be opt out or what might be really cool for some residents?" like, you imagine lawn care as an example. That's probably not something that every resident would pay for. And some would choose to do it themselves and. You know, but there's probably a small percentage of residents that really would appreciate having that kind of service done and coordinated for them. And there could be a great revenue opportunity there. So we're working towards that, but starting with the mandatory stuff, that's things like renter's insurance is generally a requirement of the lease, right? That they have it. When you think about paying rent on time, like that's an essential responsibility.
[00:11:10] So how can we make things easier by creating a reward system by every time someone pays their rent on time, it actually boosts their credit score, right? Automatically this is happening. It's almost crazy to think that somebody's largest monthly expense is the only one that they aren't getting rewards points for and that they aren't getting credit, you know, benefits of their credit score for. We obviously started with filter delivery service.
[00:11:32] Like, they got to change the filters on time, but how do we make that so easy to do? It's going to happen the vast majority of times versus all the friction that gets in the way but otherwise, and on down the list. So, hey, we've kind of tackled these things that are core least responsibilities first, and what we've seen is: yeah, occasionally a resident might say 'Hey, I'm not sure about the value of this," and they need some additional explanation. But when it's properly priced, when it's properly positioned and you've got the right product mix, right, with those things all done together... extremely effective, right, for property managers that hasn't gotten in the way of being able to perform, you know, and drive their core leasing KPIs and things that would create a trade off or a compromise for investors or the managers. So that it keeps that triple win intact.
[00:12:19] Jason: Got it. So what are some of the things that might be included in a residence benefits package?
[00:12:28] Andrew: Yeah. So we just alluded to rent reporting. Every time someone pays their rent on time, what we do is we actually help take that information. Get it to the credit bureaus so that it's building the resident's score and to give an idea of the impact of that, you know, it's common to see 20 30 40 point bumps. There's some incredible you know individual kind of outlier cases where we've seen 70, 80 point increases, right, in individual profiles. People who did not have a credit score before actually establishing the credit score, right? Which is a big deal and when you think about You know, especially today where interest rates and everything has gone like— the cost of credit has just. Like, if you look at the interest rates on auto loans, they've doubled in just the last few years. Obviously, everyone knows what's happening, probably, you know, with mortgages, right? And what's happening the rate on the home loan and credit card, right? Credit cards. Those are really the big three. And you look at the savings. Over somebody's lifetime of having a 40 point higher credit score, they were at some point to purchase a home, purchase one or two cars, right? And, you know, carrying the average credit card debt that American family has. It's 6 figures, right? It's 6 figures in savings of their lifetime. So it's a really big deal. So that's exciting. The rewards points that we mentioned every time someone's paying on time, they're getting cash value, which they can go then redeem in a marketplace where there's hundreds of brands, right? That they can go redeem that everything from practical stuff of Starbucks, gift cards do like, I actually redeemed for some like bamboo pajamas. I don't know if you guys have seen this or any listeners have seen it, but this bamboo— I'm a sucker for like soft material, like tactile stuff. So anyway, I got the bamboo pajamas. That was my thing, but there's wine, there's dog food, like all kinds of stuff from really practical every day to kind of fun and luxury spend, right, that people can leverage that for, and they can use it right away or they can save it up and bank it. They don't lose it over time. You know, the other things we were talking about was on time filter delivery. So as opposed to "Hey," putting it in the lease and saying, "this is your responsibility." but then residents don't know what their size is. They don't know what quality to buy. They don't really know how often to do it, or they're not going back to page 18 at least to remember that. There's all these things that get in the way. And typically it's your residents who have been homeowners previously. That would be like probably the best at doing this. They felt the pain, you know, themselves, or they've replaced or paid for HVAC, you know, bills or oil cleanings or what might you you know, those are generally your best change, but that's, it's a small percentage. Most property managers report 5, 10, 15, maybe 20 percent of residents are changing exactly on time with the exact right filter, exactly the way the property manager would want them to.
[00:15:06] So what we did, it's not perfect. You know, Jason and Sarah, it's not like, okay, a hundred percent of the time it works every time. But we actually did a study with the national rental home council across 8, 000 single family rentals, 18 months. And we looked at four operators. And it was A B test, right? So some it's hey, you're relying on the resident to do it in some cases, even leaving some in the closet for them to change. Right? Most of the time they're right at move out right where you left them versus a delivery program where they're being delivered every 2 to 3 months. Exactly when they need to change, and what we saw was a 38 percent reduction in HVAC work order volume, right? Between those getting delivered and those not. And the reason that happens is because you go from, you know, 10 or 15 percent changing them to all, but 10 or 15%, right, change them. That's what drives different resident benefits because they're saving on their energy bill and they're breathing clean air and it's as easy as opening their front door now to take care of that lease responsibility.
[00:16:07] So, that's a great one. I'll pause here for a second, but we could talk about renters insurance, which is a big one, ID protection, on demand pest controls, actually the newest feature that we've rolled out most recently, so that's a newer one. A fresher one. Yeah. Happy to dive in more if you guys feel that's appropriate.
[00:16:23] Jason: Yeah. Yeah. I think, you know, people understand the list of all the things their brain starts to go, Oh, I could see how this would be beneficial. This would add value to the resident for sure.
[00:16:33] Sarah: So if you if you had a property management company that does not have a resident benefit package currently, and they're looking to implement one, but they're like, "I just don't know, like what I should put in there. Should I put everything? Should I put like just one thing?" Like what is some advice that you have on like what to include and why?
[00:16:52] Andrew: Excellent question. So we can provide a link, I think to you guys the other show, but rbp.secondnature.com, right, is a place that people can go. And we've actually built a contact form there where people put in the state that they're in, sarah. It'll actually pull up the calendar of the person on our team who works with property managers in that area. And so what we generally do in a call is talk about what are their company goals, like what are they trying to optimize for, right? That's the first thing we'll consider. But then really define what you want your resident benefits package to do for you and your residents, investors. Map out that triple win. Once that's clear, the next thing we will do is kind of share, like, Hey, in your market, like your resident profile, your property type, right, your area, here's the product mix, right. And pricing and presentation, right, that we are saying that's a. Compliant, right. Compliant with your local laws and regulations. And then B. You know, is getting the best business results, you know, for that. And so we provide that kind of consultative approach and it can vary.
[00:17:55] I mean, the fact of the matter is filter delivery in Orlando, Florida, right, is a different problem than in San Diego, California. Right. So we're not going to recommend the same thing in two different places. We take a kind of like value based approach. Once we help work with the operator to figure out, you know, what that's going to be and what the right fit for them is.
[00:18:17] Sarah: That's awesome. Super helpful. And I like that it's like, very customizable because I think this is something that people just, they hesitate on a little bit because there's so many options. And especially when we take clients through pricing. Like, what do I include in my high plan? What do I not include? Like, what are the things that I should— and these are always where we see people get stuck is like, what are the benefits that we should include? And if there's something that really helps them figure out, like, am I compliant? What am I actually looking to do and like what in my area seems to be working well already? I think that would be huge for people. So I'm really glad you brought that up. Thank you.
[00:18:54] Andrew: You know, I'll jump in with 1 thing, and then I think Jason was going to go maybe towards the investor side. If that's where we're going next, but something we saw included in benefits packages early. That we've started to see phase out. Like maybe that could be interesting for people if they've heard about the past, you know, keeping up with this is originally before we had a lot of what Second Nature and other point solutions have been able to do and really productizing and scaling some of these services is. You know, problem is we're figuring out, well, what can I do on my own? And I think some of that is still relevant of communicating anything that differentiates you from a for rent by owner, right, versus a professional management company that you have multiple payment options, right? Maybe you have 24/7, you know, maintenance coordination that somebody can file a maintenance request at any time versus I remember one of my first early renting experiences, you know, I rented from a dentist who had four rental properties and it was like two weeks to get ahold of him to let him know that it was freezing cold in DC. Yeah, I was a college kid that like wore flip flops when it was 10 degrees outside. I didn't complain too much, but you know, thinking about those kind of experiences being a professional, like probably the people listening to this, I would never have that experience, right, working with their company. And so, hey, we do think it's important to communicate those things. Even if you don't monetize them or necessarily charge them in your RBP, it's a good place in the RBP to communicate those differences between a professional property manager and the FERBO. But the one that I've seen phased out were these kind of like early on before there were things like filters and insurance and credit and stuff that felt like really tangible to bring in. We often saw things like, hey, here's a get out of jail free card on late rent, right, or an NSF fee. And the reason we saw that early on is because it was so easy for a property manager to say, hey, this is worth $50, right? Or worth 40. It's like this tangible value of what you're giving, right? As a part of that and communicating it. Because they felt like they didn't have a lot of substance up front. But as more substances come in, we've seen that phase out because people started to realize, well, if I'm incentivizing, you know, on time rent, is that really a triple win for like my team that has to deal with that? Is that a win for the investor? That's not getting their rent on time. And so it's really about how do we incentivize the right behaviors, right? That's good outcomes for everybody. And so that's, that is something that we've seen change over the last couple of years, some of that stuff kind of phase.
[00:21:26] Out and focusing on a more proactive and incentivizing what you want to have happen type of approach.
[00:21:32] Jason: Yeah. Incentives matter a lot, especially with tenants. Okay, cool. So let's get into then protecting the investor. So, I mean, I can see how some of these things, just if the tenants are behaving better, it's going to protect the property better, like getting filters changed, things like this.
[00:21:51] But maybe you can provide some more detail on that.
[00:21:54] Andrew: Yeah, I mean, I think you know, a huge one is if you think about in single family rental and that investor profile, you know, in particular, I think about how important it is to keep the property occupied. Right? And you know, if you can keep a resident happy and renewing, right, renewing their lease, then yeah, that's a big win for the investor versus all that. It's not just the vacancy cost, right? It's also all the maintenance and repairs and everything that has to happen during that time. And so we, I mean, we have a client. They've got a scaled single family rental organization, over 7,000 units that they manage in a few markets, right? And their average their average tenancy is just under seven years. Wow, which is like really incredible, right? And that's not just because they have a resident benefits package. It's more than that. But it's really interesting to see a lot of the property managers really pushing for "how can I drive a great resident experience?" That people will pay for and that they'll stay for right and extending you know, attracting great residents and then keeping them longer. How that drives investor value. And then while they're there in the property, they're taking better care of it. The filters are getting changed on time. There's less HVAC expense, right? 38 percent less HVAC bills eliminates 38 percent of those bills that it makes an investor question, you know, "I got into this for predictable and like risk adjusted returns and then boom, I have this 7,000 expense."
[00:23:23] Maybe I'm thinking about selling or do I really want to stick through this or I just ate up the rest of my year's returns, right? You can eliminate those kind of moments. That's really what we're after, right? How do we attack those kinds of moments that you know, create those emotional kind of negative experiences for investors that would make them say "you know, I want to, maybe I want to put my money somewhere else, or maybe I'm not up for continuing this." so we think about how do we create a resident experience so good. Residents don't want to leave. How do we create an investor experience so good, they don't want to sell? They want to buy more. How do we create a team experience so good, the talent wants to be in this industry and wants to grow in this industry forever. And that's that kind of flywheel of what a triple win experience creates.
[00:24:07] Jason: Yeah, I like it. They're increasing the lease renewals. They're lowering their operational costs by not having those happen as often and because they're taking better care of things, there's going to be less maintenance challenges, et cetera, better property care, lower HVAC expenses.
[00:24:23] I mean, this sounds like an investor benefits package.
[00:24:26] Andrew: Yeah. I mean, if you look at, if you were to Google resident benefits package, You'll see Second Nature's content, but you'll also see a lot of property managers. And of course, property managers, their website and their content is often generally pointed at property owners, right? And you'll see a lot of the results are like, "Hey, our resident benefits package, how it benefits investors". And you'll just hear it from their mouths, right? It's the things I mentioned and more, like if all of your residents have renters insurance. Guess what? You can get a lower cost on your property insurance as a property owner and investor, right? If that's the case because you're protected from liabilities, especially if there's a master policy in place that has special coverages that protect the investors. Like our insurance products and others that offer great insurance products in the industry. So, whether you're working with Second Nature or not, you know, bringing these kinds of programs and designing things to be a triple win is something we'd, we really encourage people to pursue.
[00:25:19] Jason: Now, if somebody were trying to design this on their own, then they're probably going to have to source several different tools and services, which I'm guessing you guys like have aggregated and some of this stuff is in house, like the filters and some of this you've partnered, I'm guessing, but you've already brought all of this together. So, one of the challenges or one of the concerns is in those situations is the business owners thinking, "well, I'm going to be cheap. I can do this for less if I go and source all these components myself. Is that accurate?"
[00:25:51] Andrew: Yeah. Yeah. Great question. You know, it's funny. I think I was telling you, we had our whole team in Nashville this past week. And we actually brought a couple of our customers in, three customers to have just like a customer panel. It was great for people not in sales and account management roles, like people in finance, people in technology, IT, to really hear directly what it's like to be a property manager and everything else. And Kevin Patterson was with us. He's a property manager, manages about a thousand units out of California. And Kevin was talking about it. He's like, yeah, "I saw what you guys were doing. I'm like, 'I can do this.'" And he is like, "so I bought pallets of filters, right? And had them shipped to my office. And then we realized, oh my God, like now we have to store all these filters and inventory. What a mess. Yeah. I still have some too, you know, two years later."
[00:26:33] So, I mean, here's the thing. I would say there's probably a percentage or two, like my observation is there's a couple percentage, you know, of companies out there who are wired in such a way and just so passionately logistically detailed that if they wanted to do, you know, a couple of these things really on their own, they probably could do it.
[00:26:53] But I think most property managers recognize. That, "Hey, if I can make $17 in profit per door, I don't have to add to my head count. I can have this whole thing up and running in 30 days and bring that impact to my business." Right. You know, fortunately Second Nature hasn't lost. I can probably count them on a hand or two, customers out of 2000, right? That we've signed over the years. And that's our job, right? It's to continually provide a competitive rate that's attractive, that would make people want to pick us, but I will say this: we've advised a couple of companies who just say, "I want to try it and go on my own." And sometimes with Kevin, like we give them some advice, they end up working with us later. A couple of them have been able to make it successful on their own. We're happy to help, you know, in either case you know, and provide some insight and help avoid some heartburn. I think some things are harder than others, like insurance. Like if you're going to build your own insurance products, you've got to get certain licenses.
[00:27:47] And I want to set up a whole different entity and everything else, you know, for that, but you know, some things are easier than others. Some things are harder than others. So it kind of can just depend what we decided to put together.
[00:27:59] Jason: Yeah. I think it's important for property managers to keep the main thing, otherwise it's so easy to get distracted as an entrepreneur. We're like, "let's add this and let's do this," and then suddenly the main thing starts to slip. So you're like, "cool. I'm going to beat that $17 that Andrew Smallwood's going to get me per door. I'm going to get it to $20 or to $30," or whatever. And then they're losing out on hundreds of dollars because they're not getting more clients. They're not focused on the main things in the business and retaining clients. And they're like, "Oh, now we have to do this," because you know, in order to do all of this, it's building another business. Building another business in the business. And one of the biggest problems I see with entrepreneurs, especially in early stages of their development is this idea that they need to just keep doing more stuff themselves and they start like expanding, doing other businesses. They have 20- 30 things. The most efficient model for an entrepreneur is one business. That's the most efficient. Generally, all these billionaires scaled one business, right? They cause they have so much focus. And I think focus is the most important of all five currencies of time, energy, focus, cash, and effort in relation to scaling or growing a business it's focus. That laser focus. And so keeping the main thing I've made that mistake, you know, doing my first conference, what I call my $2 million mistake, because we were growing at a healthy pace and then 300 percent a year, and then it was like, let's do this crazy, big, expensive conference and then sales marketing, like everything had to go towards this conference and it distracted the business because we were on the hook. You're on the hook with hotel. You're on the hook with the vendors, like everything that's going on. And that was really difficult. And that was a big lesson to me that the main thing has to stay the main thing.
[00:29:51] It's super important.
[00:29:52] Andrew: Yeah. I mean, you said it so well, like when I think of Second Nature's own outsourcing decisions, right? Like I look at it through three lenses: so one is scale, right? Do I have scale or does the partner of scale? Who's going to deliver value through scale? Right? Second is skill, right? You know, do I have a certain skill or competency? Do they have a skill or competency, right? Who's going to drive more value that way? And then the third is time, which we were just talking about of like your opportunity cost and your focus on what you do and you know, I suppose there's a probably a fourth dimension there of just control of like ultimately the customer experience that you're trying to create can't be created reliably by an outsourced partner. And they're not dedicated and committed to that, or you're not aligned on that. Yeah. That would be another reason to do it yourself. But but yeah, it's, man, I take your point, Jason, of just, it's so easy to be ambitious and want to take a lot on and not stay focused on here's my core competency that I can continually leverage, to drive a lot of value. And here's how I can bring in complimentary pieces around it to create something bigger than that.
[00:30:58] Jason: Yeah. I mean, a big part of what we do at DoorGrow is just getting entrepreneurs to focus and then they start to scale really rapidly. So, I mean, in this industry, it could be diluted focus on different types of properties they're managing because each different type is almost like a different business. They're like, "I'm going to do commercial, I'm going to do associations," and then they're like trying to run multiple businesses with team members that are trying to jump into multiple businesses. And then it's a mess. And they're just not going as fast. And so this I view as, this is like adding on another business, and if you can strap on these tools from vendors, other companies, and get these resources, you can go a lot faster and keep the main thing. So, yeah, love it. So the third thing we talked and we've touched on this in a few instances of how this can help, but the third thing was increasing profit. So, I mean, there's the obvious bump that you're charging a fee for this and you're get convincing the residents. And for the residents, I think a lot of this would sound like a no brainer. They're getting more value in their mind than what they're going to be charged, and then it becomes a no brainer for them to do this.
[00:32:03] And it protects them and it helps them get better credit. But let's talk specifically about profitability, like increasing profit.
[00:32:11] Andrew: So, yeah. So I think, you know, at Second Nature, like we do care about the experience and providing convenience to people, but it's also really important to us that there's a strong economic case for all parties. And so the way we often design and the recommendations we make on pricing. I mean, listen, it's a property manager's business. So Sarah, we're going to let them choose, right? Here's it's their pricing that they're charging their customer. We're not going to get in the way of that. That's in their control. But when we make recommendations, which I'll say nine times out of 10, right? If not more. It's set up in such a way where a resident is saving over $100 per year compared to what they're already spending right on the same expenses if they were to go with the status quo, right? Versus being enrolled in the benefits package. And then we make that as easy as signing their lease. There's a clear economic benefit, right? For the resident for the investors with HVAC savings. Everything else we're talking about earlier. Well over a hundred dollars per year in annualized savings for the investor. And then for the property manager, as we were talking about, well over a hundred dollars per year. Right. And so that's when you create new value. The way we think about it is you have a bigger pie that can be shared right across all parties, as opposed to taking the same pie and saying, "how do I shave off a little more for me?" but then you're cutting into the very relationship that you kind of depend on to support the business. And so how can we find new ways to add on and expand the value and share in that value because that makes it really sustainable and that builds trust while also building your balance sheet and so that's the focus and approach. You know we recommend that property managers take when they approach pricing and the other thing I'd probably give advice on here is that some property managers will go about this and then recognize very quickly, "oh, this is the thinking. I can't—" it's so frustrating, right? When I see an owner do this, you know, like, cost based pricing or a cost based approach as opposed to a market based approach. And what I mean by that is, "hey, here's all my costs. I want to make $17 per door. So here's what I'm going to charge, right?"
[00:34:21] It's kind of like a investor saying, "well, here's my mortgage and all of my expenses, and I'd love to cashflow $800 a month. So I'm just going to charge this for rent." At which point Sarah tells them, regardless of what the market dictates, "yeah, your property is going to sit vacant for six months or it's only going to be vacant for two days and you way underpriced."
[00:34:39] Right? And so the point is, "Hey, here's actually a market based approach to pricing that drives fair value and a good value proposition to everybody." Is the main encouragement we take. And again, if somebody wants to talk to Second Nature, whether they work with us or not, we're happy to advise on what we observe and see is happening in that market as it relates to pricing.
[00:35:00] Jason: Yeah, ultimately the market's King. However, there are different segments of the market. So if people are targeting people at the end of the sales cycle that are searching on Google for property management, for example, the market is going to pay less there, because now you're a commodity. Whereas if you capture people in the blue ocean that are not searching on the internet, which there's a lot more of those, then you can charge more, have more fees, et cetera. And they're easier to close, right? And so the other factor lever that we've noticed with our clients at DoorGrow, increasing their profitability is increasing their ability to sell. So their ability to sell services and to sell the value and to create the pain gap between where people are and where they want to be, what value they want.
[00:35:46] That ability as well as another lever in which they're able to charge more than their competition and close deals more easily. And there's some other levers as well. And so there's the market's one of the factors, but there are some levers that can be leveraged as well. And depending on who you're targeting in your audience, then you also can charge more money.
[00:36:08] So that's something to keep in mind. So, yeah, this is super interesting. So everybody wants to increase profit if they're smart, those of you listening, if you're smart, you want to increase profit, you want to protect your investors, that's like your business, what you do, and you want to provide value to the residents.
[00:36:24] So why would people just not do this? Why? Like have they just not heard of a resident benefits package or why would they not be doing this?
[00:36:32] Andrew: Yeah, I mean, there are definitely people that fall into that camp, and I'm sure there's probably going to be at least a couple people listening to this who haven't heard of a residence package. I also think over the last few years, this has been a really hot topic that's been talked about a lot, and people are seeing it more and more. As more companies adopt it, they just see it. Like they see our flyers in the Zillow listings, you know, the second photo, you know, beyond the thumbnail, it's like, here's a list of all these benefits, right, that people are putting in the marketing language or listing language or on their competitor's websites. And so I do think awareness is rapidly growing here. I mean, 101% empathy is property managers are often so busy, right? like just to do the kind of like table stakes of property management. It can take a lot of investment into their systems, into their process. I know that's something that you guys offer to folks and help them with. It can really feel like it's hard to implement a change in my business, let alone, you know, I think this is where Second Nature saw a real problem to solve. Like, how am I going to go through seven different sales processes, right, which is really like 21 to 30, if I want to look at more than just one vendor for a service, right? Go through all those processes, line up all my agreements, get those executed, and get my onboarding and implementation set up at the same time.
[00:37:53] And align everybody the same, like consistent experience on going throughout it. That feels like going to Mars, you know, it's like a real big thing to tackle. So that's where we really just wanted to be like the easy button for that and drive, you know, "Hey, we've got a million plus residents on our platform, you know, thousands of property managers that we're working with. And, you know, can we drive some efficiency and pass that benefit alone to the customer," you know, is core to our value proposition. And so that's, I think what has brought, you know, a lot of people to us while we're growing very fast, have earned the reputation that we have, and at the same time we don't take it lightly. There's a lot more work to do. There's still still more change that needs to happen here, but I think the big thing is just the anticipation of all the effort and just the hard work of making any change in your business, right? Is a lot of times what people come up against.
[00:38:43] Jason: Yeah. I mean, there's a lot of property managers, people have heard me talk about the Cycle of Suck on the show before. There's a lot of overwhelm. There's a lot of stress, a lot of property managers struggling. They're in a race to the bottom in terms of pricing. They're focused on internet marketing, SEO, pay per click, content marketing, social media marketing, which is the bottom of the barrel owners that are the ones left over, the crappy scraps that fell off the word of mouth table. Like there's a lot of challenge there, by the way, we can help you with that. Reach out to us at DoorGrow. So that may be a big reason why they're just not doing these things that are in their mind, ancillary, auxiliary, and they're not adding this additional value and they're leaving money on the table because they're just too focused on trying to just get their business to eke out a little bit of dollars and, you know, they're stressed.
[00:39:31] Sarah: So I've got a question that Andrew if you have a recommendation on, at what stage would this be easiest for a property manager to implement? Is it easiest right off the bat when they're starting and they have no doors or a few doors? Is it easiest when they have maybe 100? Is it easiest when they get to the 500 plus mark? Or is there a stage at which it's like, maybe it's just in their mind, it feels too hard, and you're like, "Oh, actually, it's really easy, and here's why."
[00:39:59] Andrew: Yeah, great question, Sarah. I mean, here's the thing. Second Nature works with customers who have as little as their first one to two doors and are just getting started, right? A lot of our customers have hundreds or a couple thousand doors, and we work with a few clients that have 80,000 plus units in their portfolio. So we've worked with people at all sizes who have come and started all sizes. I will say this though. I think if somebody has under 20 to 30 doors, even as simple and easy as Second Nature makes it, you know, probably that person would be better served as they're getting their first couple of dozen doors on in focusing on their core operations, their core systems, their accounting platform getting set up. I would recommend probably holding on the— I'm sure my S and B reps are going to be listening to this and being like, "what are you saying, man?"—
[00:40:47] And jokes aside, like I have talked to a few people where I've like pushed them on it a little bit. Like, "Hey, they've got eight doors," and I'm like, "okay, so here, this handful of hours, right, that you could spend doing this. Let's add $17 per door times your eight doors. Like, here's the business impact to this, and then what are you going to do with that amount," so to speak, right? And "how are you going to reinvest that in your business? Like, how do you see that as the best use of your time versus spending that going and doing, you know, business development or, you know, generating realtor referrals or whatever your strategy is for growing?" Okay. Your business to kind of that you know, initial point of profitability to support yourself. Like, how are you seeing that? And in one case, he said, "this is my differentiator. This is what I get to talk about in my market that I do that others don't. So it's actually going to help me attract more owners. I really want to do this now." Cool. Like I wouldn't stop that person from working with us, but I'd say generally, probably somebody in their first couple dozen doors is better focused on growing that and getting their core processes in a really stable place.
[00:41:47] Jason: Sure. They can add like one door and make what they would make if I had $17 times eight, right? So if they're focusing on that, but yeah, I get that. So I would imagine then maybe right around that 50 door stage is a really good place. This is where a lot of people start to stack and add vendors and get sort like. Then it starts to make sense to get some leverage because this is a lot of times I call the first sand trap where they start to get stuck between 50 to a hundred, because they're doing everything themselves. And this is probably where they can start to get some additional leverage and add some additional services.
[00:42:18] Andrew: So if I can compliment you guys real quick, I saw like the DoorGrow code thing, and I think part of it may have been blurred out, but I think I got like the gist of it, I remember seeing, you know, how you guys had kind of stages. I'm like, wow, that is so cool. And if I was a new property manager, I would love having and seeing a resource like that of just, "man, here's like what I can focus on at this time that's right for me. It's going to get me to the next phase and then what to focus on here to get to the next one." Like what a helpful and useful tool.
[00:42:47] So I just wanted to say kudos to you guys for putting that out there.
[00:42:50] Jason: Yeah, thanks. If anybody wants that for free, like they can go to DoorGrow.Com. Click the big pink button on the homepage. 'I want to grow.' And on that page, there's three steps. The third one is a YouTube video, 95 minute training called the DoorGrow Code. It's all about it. So it'll show you how to scale. And we're confident we're doing this with clients that we could take any business from zero doors to a thousand doors in five years or less. If they just listen to us and do what we say at each stage. Yeah. Very cool. So thanks for plugging us. Appreciate it.
[00:43:25] Andrew: So I'm solicited. Yeah. Yeah. But it felt right in that moment.
[00:43:29] Jason: Yeah. There's very specific things that happen at different stages. And I think if you are at least at that 50 door stage or beyond, like you'll be crazy not to do this. And I love the idea of getting your resident benefits package as a unique differentiator just to stand out, which will give you more confidence in sales. And when people need confidence, the most is when they have the least doors. This is where confidence is a huge factor for them. Like when we take them through our process of cleaning up their brand, their website, all of this, we're really just helping them with their confidence level to go out and sell.
[00:44:04] And they can go out and sell without all that stuff. They don't even need a website. They just need clients. Right. But doing these things helps them. And this is something else I think they can boost their confidence a little bit. And that's worth it. That's worth it for sure. So, well, cool, Andrew, anything else we're missing about this? And if not, then how can people get in touch with you or with Second Nature?
[00:44:25] Andrew: The only other thing I'd say is anybody who's made it right to this point, 45- 50 minutes in, like, I feel like you deserve a medal or something like that with attention spans, considerations fans. So thanks for sticking with us. I hope you got some value today. Sarah and Jason, I really appreciate the opportunity to be here with you guys. I really enjoyed our conversation. I love you guys' energy and vibe you know, excited to get to know you guys better. And and I'd say this if people are looking for you know, more resources and things like that, we've got at rbp.secondnature.Com, there's a bunch of things, we've got articles, we've got the triple win podcasts that we record a bunch of episodes there that people can check out. If that's of interest to them, we've occasionally got events, digital events and things like that, that we're putting on, if they're just looking to learn more, we've got some of those kinds of resources, or if they're looking to talk to someone specifically about what we talked about here today they can find a contact form to do that as well.
[00:45:16] And just want to express appreciation to you guys. Again, really appreciate you inviting me on and having a chance to do this.
[00:45:21] Jason: Cool. Thanks for coming on the show.
[00:45:23] Sarah: Yeah. Thanks for being here. I think this is something that if you don't have it, just look into it. I feel like there's not a downside in this anywhere. So just look into it. If this was something that I had known about when I owned my business, man, would have done that in a heartbeat, but, I really think it's something that can like benefit all parties. It can like help set you apart from other people that maybe don't know about this or just aren't doing it yet.
[00:45:50] And it sounds like they make it easy for you. I think that you're probably right, Andrew. Like you hit that right on the nose. Like they're busy and they're like, "Oh, this is hard." It sounds like they understand that and they'll work with you to make it easy.
[00:46:04] Jason: Yeah. Yeah I love that you guys are helping people through this process and making it easy. So We'll definitely be pushing our clients to take a look at this episode so that they can start getting the stuff implemented Thanks for coming on the show. Appreciate you. Awesome.
[00:46:17] Andrew: Thanks guys.
[00:46:18] Jason: Thanks. All right So if you are a property management entrepreneur that's wanting to add more doors grow your business reach out to us at DoorGrow We would love to help you out anything else we should say All right, then until next time to our mutual growth.
[00:46:31] Bye everyone.
[00:46:31] 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!
[00:46:58] 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.
Real estate agent referrals can be a great source for leads in a property management business, but this strategy is often challenging and confusing for property management entrepreneurs.
Join property management experts Jason Hull and Sarah Hull as they dive into the world of real estate agent referrals and why they often don't work for property management entrepreneurs. Learn how to shift the focus from seeking referrals to creating impactful introductions that connect you with the right clients.
[02:24] The Problems with Trying to Get Referrals from Realtors
[05:39] How to be Memorable to Your Clients
[10:31] How Going Deeper can Land You More Deals
[15:24] Challenges with Asking for Referrals
[17:44] Don’t Make Realtors Sell for You + Building Confidence
“We have maybe three or four different bodies or parts of ourselves. We have our intuitive, we have our mental, we have our emotional, and we have our physical.”
“What I found was they'll have a logical mental memory of something, but a logical mental memory of something alone doesn't really stay there unless there's emotion connected to it.”
“If they're not excited or feel something, why would they be motivated to give you referrals or even remember you or think about you?”
“Depth is where the magic happens.”
[00:00:00] Jason: They wake up every morning wanting something and it's not property management and it's not like helping their clients with property management that is not at the forefront of their mind, their heart and their desires. What do they want? They want money. They want more real estate deals.
[00:00:17] 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. At DoorGrow, we are on a mission to transform property management, business owners and their businesses.
[00:00:59] 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, along with Sarah Hull, the co owner and COO of DoorGrow. Now let's get into the show.
[00:01:20] My iPad dinged. I didn't turn on do not disturb when it started. I need my— I have to have a pre flight checklist like right there. Like I got to do it. So, it's on do not disturb now. By the way, I was talking with a client this week. And he said that he had some of my videos playing in the background and he forgot and he came back into the room and he heard this voice talking, and he's like, "why is Ed Norton talking in my office?" You know who Ed Norton is?
[00:01:55] Sarah: No.
[00:01:56] Jason: All right for those of you listening, you probably know he's an actor, very famous actor, but apparently I might sound like Ed Norton, so I don't know.
[00:02:05] Sarah: I'm one of those people, don't ask me like, "oh do you know like this?" Don't name drop with me, I don't know who they are.
[00:02:10] Jason: She doesn't care.
[00:02:12] Sarah: I don't, especially if it's like a celebrity, now I really don't know.
[00:02:16] Jason: Yeah, she's like, they're not paying me.
[00:02:19] Sarah: I have no idea who they are.
[00:02:20] Jason: Okay.
[00:02:20] Sarah: I don't know. Alright. I can maybe name like five celebrities.
[00:02:24] Jason: So our topic is, and we had a question asked about this in our Facebook group in the DoorGrow Club. So if you're interested in what I told him and the coaching that— I created a video and I put it into there, go check it out You can go to doorgrowclub.Com. But the topic was— He was basically frustrated about getting agent referrals. Like how do you make this work? So a lot of property managers think a great lead source would be getting referrals from real estate agents, but we found that it doesn't work very well if you're asking for referrals. And so I wanted to talk about why real estate agent referrals in property management don't work. And maybe if you can understand why it doesn't work, you might be interested in reaching out to DoorGrow and learning how we make this work really well. So what typically happens with people that go out and they think "I'm going to go get some real estate agents to give me referrals 'cause they might know some investors."
[00:03:23] Sarah: Yeah. And I did it too. So like, I'm guilty as charged, but it was like, "Hey, so if you ever know anybody who needs property management, then just like, let me know, like, here's my card, here's my information. Like, just give me a call."
[00:03:36] Jason: Yeah.
[00:03:36] Sarah: " Keep me in mind." It doesn't work.
[00:03:39] Jason: Or they'll go and like, "Hey, could I present to your office about property management?" and so they'll go do to the real estate office. They have their morning meeting, you know, in their office maybe once a week and they go present and they sit there and they pitch and talk about property management and how they're so good and all this stuff. And then at the end, they're sitting there insecure, wondering like, "Why was everybody just eating donuts and looking at their phone the whole time?" you know, and "nobody's coming up to me." And maybe one person says, "Hey, nice presentation," you know, and then you walk away with nothing, and they don't really care about you, right? So, why doesn't this work? Because a lot of people try this. Why aren't they getting tons of referrals from real estate agents?
[00:04:22] Sarah: Well, there's a lot of different reasons. I think one of the big ones is we're just relying on people to remember you like "oh, hey if you need, you know If you come across somebody who needs property management, then you have to just remember that I do it and then hopefully You know, pass it on over to me." and they're not going to remember you unless there's a really good reason to there, especially if they don't see like a benefit in it for them. So if you're like, Oh yeah, who paints houses? It's like, now I have to go find people that paint houses. But very rarely do we have like this Rolodex in our head of, you know, people who do certain things. We do have connections to people who do things that we refer out to a lot. So for example, in real estate, you might know somebody that paints houses. You might know somebody that cleans. You might do, you know, know someone who does some like handyman work. Because if you've got a client who's buying a house and they're like, yeah, but I hate the color. It's like, "oh, don't worry. I'll just send you to John and he'll paint the whole thing for you, right?" But property management is a little bit different unless you're working with a lot of investors, then you probably just don't need to have a property manager, like in your Rolodex. So that's one of the first reasons why it doesn't work.
[00:05:39] Jason: Okay. So, I like what you said about it not being memorable. So I'll talk about memory real quick. So we have, you could say that we have maybe three or four different bodies or parts of ourselves. We have our intuitive, we have our mental, we have our emotional, and we have our physical right? And I used to do, you know, some emotional processing work with people like I would help them work through emotional stuff. And what I found was they'll have a logical mental memory of something, but a logical mental memory of something alone doesn't, they don't retain it, or it doesn't really stay there unless there's emotion connected to it. And so. The example I like to share with people is I just asked him, what were you doing on the day of 9 11? And what was the weather like? And they can usually remember quite a bit in detail, even though it was quite long ago. And I say, what was the day like 2 days before? And they're like, "I have no idea," right? Because there's no emotion. Maybe if they were hypnotized, their logical brain could go, "yeah, I could, I remember this," but we don't really retain things well, if there is an emotion connected to it. So that's one of the reasons why they don't, they didn't feel anything in you talking to them. They don't, they're not excited. If they're not excited or feel something, why would they be motivated to give you referrals or even remember you or think about you? So the anchor that we've created with them is— And anchoring is a neurolinguistic programming tactic. You can do this very strategically and effectively. You can create anchors. You also can create emotional states in people by the way that you communicate and maybe even listen to this. You're like getting a little bit excited. You're feeling a little bit excited about getting agent referrals, but you still don't know how it works, right? So what I did is I just created a state in you just a little bit. All right. So, the reason I think agent referrals don't work is because real estate agents don't care about you and your business.
[00:07:39] Sarah: The other reason they don't care: why would they don't care about what somebody else is doing? They're not, you know walking around going. "Oh, how can I help you today? How can I help you today? And how can I help you?" They're like, "what am I doing? Like, what's on my plate today? What do I have to do?" And the sooner we realize, like, hey, people are just in their own little bubble. Like, they're worried about what is right in front of them. And like, what are the tasks that they have to focus on? And what's going on in their life? And what are they thinking? What are they feeling? They're not very often stepping outside of that to go like, "Oh what is he feeling today? And what is she feeling today? You know, what are you dealing with?" People are very concerned with, you know, what they've got going on and that's just, that's normal. So we need to kind of just understand that and then figure out, "well, okay, if that's the mindset and the headspace that people are in knowing that, what do we do differently?
[00:08:36] Jason: Yeah, I think we need to figure out like, what do they actually want?" They wake up every morning wanting something and it's not property management and it's not like helping their clients with property management that is not at the forefront of their mind, their heart and their desires. What do they want? They want money. They want more real estate deals. And so you have got to connect them getting more real estate deals to them connecting you to their investor clients. You've got to figure out how to make that connection. So we have this very well scripted out. We have our clients that are, let's talk about some results. Like some of our clients, one of our clients, one of our best success stories this year in less than a year has added 400 doors in less than a year without really focusing on paid advertising really at all, right? Contrast that. So they've broken the thousand door barrier. Another client came to us and they have I think 1300, 1700 doors and their BDM bought 322 leads from a lead service, like, I'll just say APM. They bought it from APM and they closed 18. They closed 18 in the last year of those. They got 18 doors in the last year. If you calculate what each of those probably costs and they have a full time BDM that they're paying to work this, they have a setter that they're paying.
[00:09:56] Like this is expensive with the per deal acquisition costs must be ridiculous. If they spent all of that time and all of that money and all. You know, follow up and everything else doing the strategies that we teach a DoorGrow, they probably could have, they might've been able to double their portfolio over the last several years. They're just churning and burning through all this energy, time, focus, cash and effort. Like, it's super wasteful. So, one of our clients added 310 doors just using this strategy in a year from only five or six agents. So a couple of things, the reasons that agent referrals don't work, we've established, they don't care about you, they care about getting more deals. You've got to connect that you aren't making them feel something. They want to feel excited. They feel excited about getting more deals. You're creating a weak anchor. Other ways in which this isn't working is that. You're not really getting to know them well enough. There's not enough depth in the relationship or a connection. They're not going to connect you to somebody unless they feel really safe with you and they like you. And so a lot of people are trying to do this so superficially, like "let's go pitch to a whole group and maybe I'll magically get a bunch of leads that come in from them." There's no depth there.
[00:11:14] There's a lot of width, right? You're hitting a lot of people, but depth is where the magic happens. This is probably the greatest secret I think that we teach in helping people grow and add doors rapidly is we just get them doing depth in a way that none of their competitors are doing it. Going deeper. That means more personal, more intimate, more one on one, like focusing on like in person or video, whatever's the deepest things that you can do, you're going to grow faster. So I think there's also a lack of depth is a challenge. I think also with why agent referrals don't work is because nobody comes up to them and says they need property management. This almost never happens. And if it does—
[00:12:01] Sarah: If they do, they're not the ones you want to take on.
[00:12:03] Jason: Right.
[00:12:03] Sarah: Like, "Hey, I desperately need a property manager. Please help me. Like, I don't want that.
[00:12:08] Jason: Yeah.
[00:12:09] Sarah: I want somebody who's we know without even asking any further questions, this is not going to be a great property to take on.
[00:12:15] Jason: Yeah. Their hair has to be on fire or that like to call their agent up and say, "Hey, this rental property, it's a nightmare for me. I have this huge problem. I've got an eviction. I need to get done. It's a meth house. Like they, they burned down the back porch. Like it's leaking. Like they, like, they won't let us in. They've got a pit bull, right? Whatever, right? It's a nightmare." And for you to take it on, you would, it would probably—
[00:12:42] Sarah: They're breeding dogs and the tenants were addicted to drugs. One's in rehab. One just died. Now we have I think there was like 12 dogs in the house. There were puppies. We had to do like a puppy rescue.
[00:12:54] Jason: Oh gosh.
[00:12:55] Sarah: We've seen it all. Super fun as a property manager.
[00:12:58] Jason: Yeah. The things you property managers have seen, right?
[00:13:00] Sarah: It's like, "oh, hey, you know what? Jason does property management. Let me call Jason." And Jason was like, "I don't want that." I'm like, "why? No. Like, thanks for thinking of me, I guess." And now, that almost, like, shoots you in the foot even worse, because now it's like, "hey, well, now I have something to give you, and I gave it to you, and you don't even want it?"
[00:13:19] Jason: Right.
[00:13:19] Sarah: So now we're like taking what could be a good relationship and kind of saying like, yeah, well, thanks for that lead, but it's garbage. Yeah. Thanks for giving me the shittiest thing you could possibly find.
[00:13:30] Jason: Yeah. The worst thing you could do is finally get them to give you a referral. You've been bugging them over and over again. They're like, "here, somebody came to me, here you go. And can you help my client out?" And you're like. " Do I have to? Like, I don't want to change somebody else's dirty diaper." Like you don't want to deal with this. You don't want to deal with this problem.
[00:13:48] Sarah: Right. And it's probably not gonna be profitable for you. It's probably not like if I think if a lot of property managers ran a profit and loss statement, or like a cost analysis on each individual door, which some of those low rent doors would not be profitable for you, right?
[00:14:05] Jason: You should know some of those owners.
[00:14:07] Sarah: These are part of, yeah, these are part of knowing your financials. We have a whole course in here about it, but there are certain data that you should just know in your business, you should know which doors, you know, are profitable, which doors maybe are not so profitable, which clients are and are not profitable. You should know all of that. But if you really start to dig into that, you're right. You're going to see very clearly like, Hey. This one doesn't quite measure up to, you know, what we're hoping for. But if you're just waiting for somebody to go, "Hey, I need a property manager. Like that's what we're getting. We're getting the, "Oh my God, I have this like awful situation and now I need somebody like that's what we're waiting to get."
[00:14:50] Jason: Yeah. I mean to expect that a bunch of people are just going to walk up to a real estate agent and say, "Hey, I need a property manager. Who do you got that almost never ever happens. It's super rare. Now, some of you have gotten some referrals from agents and it might've been some sort of scenario like that. Like they came up to him and said, "Hey, they need a property manager," but it's probably super rare. So you're probably not getting, you know, 10, 20, 30 doors a month from this engine. The other challenge why agent referrals don't work is a lot of real estate agents don't even work with investors. Most real estate, 50 percent of real estate agents in the last year, the stat I heard was they didn't even do a single deal.
[00:15:38] Sarah: Oh yeah. Yeah, I was talking with a client, I think yesterday with anyone with them and he's in the Miami market and like in his like city alone. I think there was something like 60, 000 agents, but out of those 60, 000 agents, like, you know, they're not all active and then out of the ones that are active, like, what are the ones that I've actually done a deal? What are the ones that actually do multiple deals? And then what are the ones that actually work with investors?
[00:16:04] Jason: The ones that actually work with investors must be a pretty small pool. Like maybe they'll do a deal occasionally, but how many agents are regularly working with investors? All the time, and they have a Rolodex and a pool of a bunch of investors that they have connections to not very many. So, our client that added 310 doors in a year, he did it from only 5 or 6 real estate agents he told me. That was it, but he said he tried calling a 1000 to find those 5 or 6. So that's a lot of deals from very few. He had to kiss a lot of frogs to find a few princesses. Right? Or princes, whatever. So, now, a lot of real estate agents are working with investors. So you need to find the ones that do. So this is another reason why referrals don't work. You go pitch to a office meeting. You might as well just like— well, I'm not going to give away all our strategy, but you might as well just ask, like how many of you work with investors? If no one's raising their hand, you might as well just end and say, "cool, if you find anybody, send them our way." And that's my time, right? You don't need to be wasting your time. Another reason referrals in general don't work is that you don't even go to the right audience. So if you're going to real estate agents that don't have investors, that's the wrong audience. Some go even worse than they go to a BNI group where there might be one real estate agent only, or they go to a chamber of commerce, or some sort of networking groups and they're like, "Hey, everybody, and nobody there really has rental properties. Maybe like, they're not even an investor or they don't have connections to investors. And so those kind of things can be a big time, suck or a waste of time when there's way more effective strategies. So now, another reason why referrals, agent referrals for property managers don't work is you are, if you're asking for referrals, which is the wrong thing to actually ask for, you're expecting them to sell for you. So, the idea of a referral, if we break this down, is somebody's going to come up to them. And say, "I have this problem. They're going to say, let me sell you on this idea of getting a property manager and then connect you to somebody." You're expecting them to sell for you. The way our clients are winning this game is we've set it up so that you get to sell. The client, our client gets to sell, not the real estate agent. So what we teach instead is to focus on getting introductions. So, so that is— and if you want to learn more about that, we recommend you get into our program because our clients are crushing it. We have scripts for this, all of this. All right. Any other things about this that are not why realtor referrals don't work for most people?
[00:18:48] Sarah: I think that about covers it.
[00:18:50] Jason: I think if I were to add one more thing, it would be a lack of confidence. So a lot of property managers don't go into these situations knowing clearly how to get Referrals to come from them. They don't know how to create these relationships effectively. They don't know the language, the scripting to use. Oh, this is a big one that we missed. Another big reason is they're not going to refer to you if your business is a real estate brand. This makes them feel very unsafe. So this is why we rebrand a large percentage of our clients. If your brand has 'real estate' or 'realty,' or they know that you're a real estate agent, it's like all over the tin. They don't want to send people to you because they don't want to lose their clients and they're afraid of their clients being stolen by you. And everybody says, "Oh, well, I'll just promise I'll refer them back," but their clients might put pressure on you or know that you do real estate. You need to create a scenario in which they're going to feel safe connecting clients to you so that you look like property management, not real estate. So those are some of the big ones. So, I think that's basically it. I think that's pretty comprehensive. So realtor referrals for most people are not working. And if you'd like this to work, what should they do?
[00:20:09] Sarah: Well, you can talk with us. You can book a call. You can check us out online at doorgrow.Com. We also have a free Facebook group and you can check out our Facebook group. There's a lot of information that we have out there available for you guys, but check us out. And if you're like, "I just don't know." That's okay. Do some research like where I think our results speak for themselves.
[00:20:33] Jason: Yeah. Nobody has as many case studies as us. We put out 40 testimonials or case study videos in the last year. And these are just captured during our coaching calls. Our clients are crushing it. And nobody is moving forward or innovating as quickly as DoorGrow when it comes to coaching. So join our group coaching mastermind. You can get all the details by going to doorgrow.Com. There's a big pink button on the page say "you want to grow." Click on that. It'll give you the three steps that you need to take in order to potentially work with us. We don't just like work with everybody. We want to work with people that are willing to put in the effort, but we're actually going to reduce the amount of friction and effort and time that it takes for you to get business on by doing more effective strategies. So reach out to us at DoorGrow. So I think that's it. So until next time to our mutual growth, bye everyone.
[00:21:27] 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!
[00:21:53] 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.
Ever wondered what a Declaration of Independence document would look like for property management entrepreneurs? Jason did, so he fed ChatGBT his mission statement and core values.
Join property management growth experts Jason and Sarah Hull as they go through The Property Management Declaration of Independence.
[02:44] Article I: Liberation from Limiting Beliefs
[09:40] Article II: Autonomy from Bad Clients
[11:54] Article III: Emancipation from Inefficient Processes
[13:12] Article IV: Freedom of Experimentation
[20:26] Article V: Independence Through Education and Collaboration
[29:01] Article VI: Allegiance to Our Core Values
[31:36] Article VII: Pursuit of Holistic Success
“There's few things that will steal more of your sense of autonomy and freedom than bad clients.”
“If you have limiting beliefs, one of the best ways to get liberated from it is to just be around somebody that doesn't hold those same limiting beliefs for you.”
“If you say, "Oh, it won't work because of this and this and this." You are right.”
“If you have a shitty mindset, just know it will hold you back and you will only accomplish what you believe you can accomplish.”
[00:00:00] Sarah: if you believe that you have the knowledge and the ability and the resources to be able to figure out how to make the shifts that you need to have the business that you want and run it the way that you want, then it's absolutely possible.
[00:00:16] 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. 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 along with Sarah, the COO of DoorGrow. I know, I need to rewrite this intro for when you're here, because sometimes you're here-- and now let's get into the show. All right.
[00:01:24] Sarah: You stumble on that every time. So funny. I know. I have to like wing it. He's like in the middle of reading it. Okay. " And her over there."
[00:01:33] Jason: Let's get into this. All right, so it is Independence Day. It is the 4th of July in which United States declared its independence and fought for freedom, right? So we'regoing to be talking about property management entrepreneurs declaring your independence. So, this is something that I think is important because you've heard me talk before about the four reasons: fulfillment, freedom, contribution, and support. Entrepreneurs, we want freedom. And so let's talk about a declaration of independence for property management entrepreneurs. So, I actually have been really having fun playing around with chat GPT and I gave it a bunch of info of how we kind of do things and our philosophy and I had it create a Declaration of Independence. So this should be interesting. So we can go through some of this and we can chat about some of these ideas. And does that sound good? All right.
[00:02:34] Sarah: Well, I guess so because that's what we're doing.
[00:02:36] Jason: Alright. This is what we're doing. She had no clue. She just walked in here. No, and I'm like, this is what we're talking about.
[00:02:42] Sarah: I just show up.
[00:02:44] Jason: She just shows up. Yeah. because she can do that. All right, cool. So, declaration of Independence for property management entrepreneurs. "In the spirit of entrepreneurial growth, the pursuit of freedom in the property management industry." We need to queue up like some patriotic music.
[00:03:02] Maybe. I'm just kidding, Madi, maybe you'll add that.
[00:03:05] "We, the United Community of Property Management entrepreneurs solemnly declare our independence from the constraints, inefficiencies, and setbacks that have bound us for too long. We assert our dedication to a brighter, more prosperous, and thriving future."
[00:03:20] "Article one, liberation from Limiting Beliefs." So one of the number one things before I read it. One of the number one things clients say that they get from us is mindset. It's just mindset shifts. because that changes everything of how they do things, how their business runs. All right, this is what it says.
[00:03:37] "We vow to liberate ourselves from self-limiting beliefs that hinder innovation and growth. We pledge to foster a growth mindset and no longer allow the words, 'I can't,' or 'it's not possible' to define our reality." So, what have you noticed about limiting beliefs with clients?
[00:03:55] Sarah: Well, I think whatever you think is possible is exactly what is possible. So if you think like, "oh, I can't do it that way," or "This won't work," or like, "oh, my team can't do this," or " I don't have the right tools," then you're absolutely right and it won't happen the way that you want it to or the way that it could. I think some of the biggest shifts I've seen in clients is when they open their mind to different possibilities and when they start to do things just a little differently.
[00:04:27] Jason: So most of our clients are pretty good at believing in us. I think we've gotten really good at convincing them through the sales process and once they get on board, we've got plenty, tons of case studies. But occasionally we get a client that comes in and they are skeptical about everything and maybe somehow they missed all the details during the onboarding and the sales process, and they don't believe. They have these limiting beliefs, "this stuff won't work." What do we notice in terms of results between those shitty clients and everyone else?
[00:05:00] Sarah: Well, first, I don't think it's fair to call them shitty clients.
[00:05:03] Jason: Okay. Maybe we don't. Shitty mindset clients.
[00:05:05] Yeah. I think it's fair to say
[00:05:06] Sarah: like, "Hey, your mindset is shitty." Yeah. And I get that like my mindset used to be completely different. Totally different. Like I grew up in a place , where. Anybody that was making a million dollars a year, like I just didn't know it. Like, I was like, "oh, like, Hollywood. That's like what happens there, like when you're famous and you're like, this is just what happens out there. Or like, maybe big cities but not here. And because they didn't have any kind of example or anything tangible to say like, "Hey, they did it so I can do it." I just didn't believe that it was possible. And when I got out of that area, and now I'm in an area where it's very entrepreneurial based and business friendly and people just have a different kind of thought process around here, and we spend a lot of time with people who they're elevated in their thinking. And now I'm like, "yeah, it's a hundred percent possible." Absolutely possible. So I think first is if you have a shitty mindset, just know it will hold you back and you will only accomplish what you believe you can accomplish. So if you think, "oh yeah, none of this stuff is going to work for me," and we've heard it all, like, "oh, my market is different," or like, "my team won't do that," or like, "oh yeah, my clients will never go for that," or like, "my tenants are different. My properties are different." And like all of the reasons, what they're doing is they're like giving us all of the reasons why it's not going to work for them. And they're correct on every single reason.
[00:06:39] If you say, "oh, it won't work because of this and this and this." You are right. What we need to do is like change your mindset to believe like, "Hey, this can work for me and it can work in my market and it can work with my team and it can work with my clients and it might mean that I need to make some shifts. It's not just going to be, "oh, I believe it and now it's true." we need to make a couple shifts and it can be true, but if you believe that you have the knowledge and the ability and the resources to be able to figure out how to make the shifts that you need to have the business that you want and run it the way that you want, then it's absolutely possible.
[00:07:18] Jason: Okay, so some clients come to us. We have quite a few actually, that they don't believe in themselves. And one of the things-- this is a confession on my part-- one of the things that I failed with clients in the past, because I couldn't see this-- is that sometimes clients come to us and they're lacking hope. They don't have belief in themselves, and my mindset at the time was, "well just do the stuff and you'll see that it works". And the clients that would do it, they would get results and it would work, and some clients just wouldn't put in effort. They'd say they did, but they would blame us and like stuff like this, and they don't realize it takes like three months to get something really well dialed in. So they'd try it for like a couple days. Right. So I think one of the things that I've realized since from some of my coaches and mentors is that, we as coaches get to believe and provide hope and faith into our clients that are lacking it.
[00:08:16] And so I think we're much better now at helping clients that lack that mindset and lack that belief and have limiting beliefs in themselves or even in like the strategies. If we give them enough belief, they still start to get results and that belief it rubs off on them. And so instead of blaming clients, I now take accountability more and say, "all right, I'm not giving them enough belief. I need to be more in their corner. I need to believe in them more." And I see them energetically change real time while on a Zoom call with them, like I just start feeding them belief like, "somebody else did this. You can do this too. They're not more special than you. They're not more charismatic. They're not better looking than you. They're not smarter than you. You know how to do property management. If they can do this stuff, you can do it too." I believe that I believe in them. And then they start to go, "wait, maybe he's right. Maybe I can do this." And then it starts to help their belief.
[00:09:16] And so I think if you have limiting beliefs, one of the best ways to get liberated from it is to just be around somebody that doesn't hold those same limiting beliefs for you. They believe in you. They believe in you. Do you believe in me?
[00:09:27] Sarah: Yeah. Of course. I believe in you.
[00:09:29] Jason: Sarah believes in me. I believe in her. Do you feel like I believe in you? Yeah. Yeah. So, and that creates momentum. That creates momentum. All right, let's go to the next one. Article two, autonomy from Bad Clients. "We assert our right to work with clients who respect and value our expertise. We shall not allow our business to be dominated by clients who undermine our values, ethics, or the standards of service we strive to provide."
[00:09:58] So this goes along with our concept I, this of the cycle of suck and not taking on bad clients, which--
[00:10:04] Sarah: we should give this to our clients. And just like--
[00:10:06] Jason: have them sign it? Yeah.
[00:10:07] Sarah: This is your new declaration. We're doing it.
[00:10:10] Jason: ChatGPT is really good if you give it good data, like garbage in, garbage out. Right? I know. So, yeah, I gave it our whole client avatar document. I gave it our DoorGrowShow manifesto. I gave it our client-centric mission statement, and then they give it all that and this is what it came up with. So it's pretty cool. Pretty good. So yeah, I think this is involved with, our previous episodes where we talked about the cycle of suck or not taking on bad clients, but yeah, you deserve, you have the right to choose who you work with that value, your expertise. Why would you tolerate anything less? This is your business. You can build it however you want. You can build it full of a bunch of clients that don't value you, or you can build it full of clients that share your values, your ethics, your standards, want you to be able to do your best job and are willing to pay you for it. Anything else we should say about that?
[00:11:03] Sarah: I think we covered this a lot in our program, but what's really nice is to see when clients start to make that shift for themselves. Like we've had a few clients say like, and it was very clear to me that this is not the client that I wanted to work with. So like, sometimes they turn it down, sometimes they just know like, Hey, if I get the deal then, I'll consider taking it on if it seems to be a decent enough fit. But like, this is not my ideal client, so I'm really just not going to put a lot of time and energy into this because I can see like, this is just not what I'm looking for.
[00:11:38] Jason: Autonomy from bad clients. I mean, really there's few things that will steal more of your sense of autonomy and freedom than bad clients. I mean, that's a real strong thief, so you deserve freedom from that. Declare your independence from bad clients.
[00:11:54] All right, article number three, emancipation from inefficient processes. "We declare to free ourselves from inefficient, archaic, and time consuming processes. We will actively seek, implement, and embrace technology and systems that streamline our operations, enhance productivity, and allow us to serve our clients better."
[00:12:16] Sarah: Like that. These are these shifts. We got to make some shifts. If you're expecting your business to just change overnight and without really changing anything in it, then it's like, the definition of insanity. Like we're doing the same thing over and over, but we're expecting different results.
[00:12:35] Jason: Yeah. We've got a lot of software tools and tech that we use with clients to facilitate them having a greater sense of freedom and emancipation from inefficient processes. So yeah, technology can help with that. Okay.
[00:12:52] Sarah: Well, so can a great team though. Yes. Not everything needs to be technology because I've seen property management companies that they're like," we just rely on technology," and like humans are very rarely involved and it just doesn't work the way that they want it to work.
[00:13:07] Jason: Systems, right? Systems. Yeah. Building systems. Okay.
[00:13:12] Article four, Roman numeral iv. Okay. Freedom of Experimentation. "We recognize our freedom to experiment with new approaches and marketing strategies. We will not be shackled by "this is how it's always been done," shall embrace the diverse, evolving landscape of our industry." So I think innovation is a big part of what we focus on at DoorGrow. We're always like adding new things and coming up with new ideas and pulling in the best ideas from our clients that are also working towards innovating and making a difference. And I think innovation comes from. Innovation. And so as our clients are doing these new ideas and these new things, they're seeing little ways to improve. because that's what entrepreneurs do. Like, Hey, we could do this, we could do that. And so, and us sitting on top with a bird's eye view of all these clients that are doing all of these things that we've helped to bring to the industry or to innovate, they're also helping us to make this better for everybody else as well.
[00:14:16] And so this innovation incubation system that we've created at DoorGrow is pretty powerful, I think. So, I mean, just some of the ideas that some of our clients have presented at some of our conferences have been pretty awesome, so, yeah. All right. Yeah. Anything else about that?
[00:14:32] Sarah: I think the only other thing I would add is like, the way that we implement things in our business. because we just move so fast. Yeah. Like Jason and I, we don't like to waste time. We don't, him and haw, we're not like, oh, is this the right decision? Like, what do we do? I don't know. Let's take like four months and figure it out. We see something, we make a change and we're like, let's just do it. And if it's the wrong thing, then we'll undo it because we'll see it very quickly. But we take action really quickly. We just went through our annual planning and from just one year. Our business is completely different. Like our model is different, our coaching is different, like what we offer is different.
[00:15:10] Totally. Like literally every piece of it is completely different. It was like we took our old business model and we just blew it up and we were like, Hey, how can we make this like 20 times better? Yeah. And we did it. And we did it all in less than one year. So it was so funny because when we were going through, we start off with wins, we're like, Hey, what wins do we have from the last year? And it was like, we had so many wins. Like, it's like hard to even think like, Hey, remember a year ago when our business was like this? So what's nice about that is we get to pull up like what the business looked like last year in the system. We were like, oh yeah, we totally forgot because it was so long ago to us. We're like, oh God, I like totally forgot it used to be like that. We used to do things like this, and these are all of the things that we changed or improved or added in order to make things that much better. And I think just being able to like add a new piece or do things a little bit differently is something that sometimes doesn't feel super comfortable for people because they're so worried about like, is this the right decision?
[00:16:14] And it might not be. It might not be the right decision, but the inaction will keep you like tethered to the ground for a really long time. So if we just worry all the time like, oh, I don't want to do it because I just don't know if it's the right thing, you are never going to know if it's the right thing. Unfortunately, like no one makes a crystal ball yet. We don't have like the answer to predict the future at this point in time. So sometimes you just have to make the leap and guess and know that if you make the leap and it's the wrong one, we can always change it because your business should be this like ever evolving, ever changing thing. It shouldn't be like this stagnant old like pond, with like murky water that never gets any movement.
[00:17:00] Jason: So, I think one of the things that has facilitated the speed and the innovation and the experimentation, which is the Article four that we're talking about, is DoorGrow OS, like having this really strong planning system, which you mentioned we just did annual, quarterly, monthly, and weekly planning. We did it all in a week. It was like planning week. So this planning system, really, and not all technology is software. Not all technology is software. This is a piece of technology, which there is a software aspect to it, but really the technology of this is this system that of planning that we're able to create this cadence of momentum in the business that gets everyone on the team moving it forward.
[00:17:51] It's probably the most important system we have in our business. It creates our culture, it creates our business, it creates our results. It creates an immense amount of speed. No one can keep up with the level of changes like Sarah's saying, if you worked with DoorGrow in the past, like three years ago, or even one year ago. Even one year ago.
[00:18:10] Sarah: If you were a client with us like one year ago, yeah, you have no, is not, you have no idea what DoorGrow is now because it's just so different.
[00:18:18] Jason: This is like a newer. Way more improved company and clients that worked with us maybe five years ago or maybe even 10 years ago. They have no clue what DoorGrow is even about or what we do anymore. It's even one year ago transformed so much one year in what we do. It's like, so it's so very different. Totally.
[00:18:36] Sarah: One year ago we had one program that was it. Like we had one program and we had like a baby scale program with like a little bit in it. But it's really flourished. So now we have like three different three different programs and like so many things that are available that we just didn't, we didn't have at all before.
[00:18:57] Jason: Now you said we don't have a crystal ball, but if there was something that was as close as you could get to a crystal ball, it would be having a planning system like DoorGrow OS because we are creating the future. We map it out and there's a super high likelihood we're going to achieve it because of how it's all broken down. And it creates predictable results. Like we consistently are able to scale our revenue, scale our programs, and get the things done that we want to do at a really high pace. And we're able to create predictable results we can, we create and see the future. A of entrepreneurs have a vision of the future and they try and throw that vision to their team, like a grenade with a pin pulled. And the team are like, what? What? Okay. Sure. And then they teach. A lot of entrepreneurs don't have a good system like this, and so they teach their team to lose.
[00:19:44] They're like, Hey, we're going to hit this great goal this month, and then they don't. And they're teaching their team to be comfortable with losing, and they get more and more comfortable with failure. Our team's pretty comfortable with winning, right? Yeah. Like if we don't hit an objective, something major happened. Like painful. Yeah. Something major happened. Yeah. And so our team are used to winning and we win early. We set goals and we hit them usually early. Is the goal. DoorGrowOS is one of the systems we in help clients install. This planning system better than EOS, better than traction, better than whatever else you've, like, experimented with. You'll get far bigger results from your team and you'll get a lot more momentum and money.
[00:20:26] All right, so let's go to article number five. Article five. Independence through Education and Collaboration. This is something we are a big part of that we believe in.
[00:20:37] "We commit to continual learning and collaboration, understanding that our strength lies in the collective wisdom of our community. We pledge to share insights, strategies, and experiences with our fellow property management entrepreneurs for the greater good of the industry."
[00:20:54] A lot of people are worried about the competition and they don't want to share their ideas. Yes. And how small is their thinking?
[00:21:01] Sarah: Oh yeah, I know. There was somebody just yesterday that said, "oh my God, like, this is such an amazing program. And like I, I've been part of multiple coaching programs on the real estate side and this blows all of those out of the water. Obviously we're focused on property management, but he's like, this blows all of this out of the water." And he is like, "I just hope that my competitors don't find out about this and start using you guys because that would be really bad for me." And like, I get it. I do, I understand it. Because--
[00:21:30] Jason: this is a new client.
[00:21:32] Sarah: Yes. Yeah, he's newer. They'll figure it out. Yeah. He's newer. So I get it because I used to think that too, like, oh God. Like it's like that we have to have like this abundance mindset, like a, there's always enough to go around. And b, we say it like a rising tide raises all ships. So if you are like, oh, I can't, like, I can't tell my secrets to my competitors.
[00:21:55] I must keep everything like you, I'm not telling you anything that you do. I, and I used to be, I used to be like that. So I, I do understand it because I used to be like, I'm not telling anybody what I do. Like you do what you do and I'm justgoing to do what I do, and you don't need to worry about what I'm doing over here. And I've gotten out of that just because. My mindset has changed. And I realize there's so much more than like our brains can even fathom. If you think, hey, like I can make, a hundred thousand dollars a year and this is what my business can look like, there's more to be had and there's always more like to go around. If you're like, Hey, I know I can do a hundred thousand. I feel like I'm in the mindset where I could do two 50 or 500 or a million dollars a year. I can have multiple locations. Like I can just keep acquiring businesses. I can grow and grow. with a client this week that has 1300 doors. Let's pause there for a second, because a lot of times, 1300 doors is really hard to even get to, and most property managers don't even reach that level. And he's at 1300 doors and he goes, I haven't even like made a dent. Like I haven't, I'm just a drop in the bucket. Of where I want to go and where I want to be. Why is that? Because his mindset is open. Like he's opened his mind to realize there is, there's more if we think of it like this, like, hey, You are just like this tiny little pinpoint on the map because when we expand out, it's like, here's me and my business.
[00:23:26] But if we expand out, you are in an entire like city. We expand out more. You're in an entire state. We expand out more. You're in an entire country. We expand out more like we're in an entire planet. If we just keep going and going, like, the universe is just so infinite. And if you're, sometimes it's just so hard to conceptualize because your brain is like this is what I'm doing and like, this is what I can see, touch, and feel around me.
[00:23:53] But if you, once you realize like, Hey, there is always, there's always more. You're not going to worry about what your competitors do. Not at all. You're not even going to be concerned. Like, I don't really care what Johnny's doing down the street. He could do all of the same things that I do, and I'm just not worried about it because I know that there's so much abundance to go around that I'm, I don't care what he is doing.
[00:24:17] Jason: So when your vision is small, you see the competition. When your vision's bigger, you see a lot more opportunity. And we really try and push the idea mindset wise and with our clients and here on the podcast, collaboration over competition, right? When we get our clients collaborating, like we just talked about before, innovation starts to happen, the whole industry can move forward.
[00:24:42] Two thirds are self-managing, there's like 70% or so that are self-managing. There's no scarcity in this industry. If you feel like there's scarcity. And it's because you're playing a game that is not very winnable. You're probably doing the wrong things to try and grow. If it feels scarce, get with us and we'll help you see bigger opportunities.
[00:25:02] So once we get clients in our system and they're focused on adding doors, and they start adding doors, and they start to do this in the blue ocean, instead of doing it in the red, ugly bloody water through SEO or pay per click or content marketing or social media marketing or pay per lead services. They realize there's plenty of business. It's not hard to grow, and they become completely like, like, it's like not even paying attention to, or not even caring about their competition. Yeah. They're like, they're so busy adding doors and making money and trying to get their own stuff together to be able to handle the growth.
[00:25:37] They're not even paying attention anymore to the competition.
[00:25:40] Sarah: Exactly. Like Mike with a 1300 doors seat, like no. Never ever at that, like at any point in our conversation did he say like, oh, but I'm like, I can't do this because this person. Never, like he, he's worried about what he's doing. He is like on this one track, and he is like, this is my mission and this is what I need to do and this is where I'm going. And I don't care about anything else. Like, I don't care about anything else around me when, like, they put blinders on the horse, right? We've got to put our blinders on and just run towards that goal as fast as we can. You don't care about what's going on over here or over here. You just get to the point where it's completely insignificant.
[00:26:21] Even our smallest clients, once they get into momentum of growth and they see how easy growth can be, I mean, it takes work, but once they see that it's super doable and it's repeatable and they're adding doors like crazy, that goes away. Like I think there's always a competitive nature in our clients, and I like to leverage that in the beginning. So I, in some of my content in trainings, I'm like, Hey, if you want to crush your competition, do this or do it this way, or do this. And that brings out that competitive entrepreneurial side of themselves. But once they start getting into it, our challenge sometimes might be with some clients they like lose the drive because they start to see this is not so hard.
[00:26:58] But hopefully they get inspired and excited to like, take things to the next level. Right. Okay.
[00:27:03] I don't think they so much lose drive. I think it's just that it's shifted. It's a like you versus me. Versus like, I'm just doing what I'm doing. It's me versus me now. And that, like, that's happened with me in my business a couple times where like I'm like, oh, it's me versus my competition.
[00:27:21] Like it's me versus that guy down the street. It's me versus like every other like management company and my area. And it's not, it's only me versus me. I have to outdo what I did yesterday or last year or last month. Like it's it just changes because you start playing a game with yourself instead of trying to worry about like, I'm, I've got to beat you.
[00:27:44] Jason: Well, your power and achievement. So this all makes a lot of sense, hearing how you think, but some of our clients are not, and like one of our clients like Mark and Brandon, they had gotten to a point, they'd been adding doors and then they got comfortable and they were like, and I think what happens is they had this big goal to like leave their day jobs and get a bunch of doors and they did that and then they were like, well, then they lost a little bit of steam. So I think what happens with a lot of entrepreneurs is we have this away motivator. Like we're trying to get away from something. We want to get away from a job we don't like, or we want to get away from scarcity or starving or whatever. Right? We have this, we're trying to run away from this saber tooth tiger that's chasing after us each month, and then we have to shift towards some sort of toward motivator.
[00:28:31] So with them in my coaching call, I had to like help them identify what is? We talked about their why, which is their personal why, which is something that we get into deeply with clients and each of their, what they want. And how do we connect their why to the business now? Like what do they want more of or what do they want to move towards? And so that kind of lit them up again. And so we have to find that toward motivator. And we've gotten off track the education and collaboration, but, all right, but that's the idea. All right, so let's go to Article six vi. All right. Allegiance to our core values. "We affirm our allegiance to the core values that guide our business. We will strive to uphold integrity, transparency, excellence, and client centricity in all our operations, and we shall not waver in times of adversity." I love the shalls. All right, so we're big on core values. We help our clients define their core values. We even took a look at our individual values and then figured out what should they be for the business and took a fresh look.
[00:29:41] And they were, we had a lot of alignment and we didn't really change much, I don't think we changed any, anything on the company core values.
[00:29:49] Sarah: No. We added like one, one sentence. Yeah. But I think mine, if I were to add one is just. Do whatever it takes. Right? Do whatever it takes. Like we have a do whatever it takes mindset and if that means you have to come out of your comfort zone, you come out of your comfort zone. That means you have to make phone calls? You make phone calls. Yeah. If that means you have to, do whatever. It's like ethically, of course. But if you have to do things that don't. Seem fun or like, these are not my normal job duties.
[00:30:20] Well, that's okay. Like, we're going to, we're going to do it because that's what we need in the business.
[00:30:26] Jason: So I think it's important for property managers to be really clear on their values. So, so you, as an entrepreneur, if you're listening to this, you need to be very clear on your values. Not like 10 values or 20 values or infinite values. You need to figure out what are your, like top three maybe four values that if everybody on your team believed these, they would be great team members. They would fit you. And that's something we help clients work on. But I think it's super important to have values in the business because it that's the how you go about doing everything in the business.
[00:31:02] And if you're worried about how your team members are going to do things, it's because they don't share your values. You can work all day on the whats. You can define every process and try to micromanage, but you cannot control how you need people that fit your culture. You cannot create that in them. You have to find the right people that have the right culture and the right values. Values come from mom and dad, God, religion, whatever, right? DNA, I don't know, genetics, but people have their values somewhat hardwired, and you're not going to really move the needle on their values. So you got to find people that fit them
[00:31:36] All right article, what are we up to? Six. Seven. Seven, okay. Article seven. All right. Pursuit of holistic success.
[00:31:47] "We vow to pursue not just financial success. But the overall wellbeing and fulfillment in our personal and professional lives. We will commit to creating balance that nurtures our personal growth relationships and contributions to society."
[00:32:03] All right. It's pretty good. So a holistic success. I mean, this really is I've never, I don't know, like. I used to like tag myself on Facebook when I would create a post, that'd say, holistic business coach or something like this. Because that's the idea. Holistic means it encompasses our personal life, our business, and that's why in our podcast intro it says " and our mission at DoorGrow is to transform property management, business owners and their businesses." So we have a strong holistic approach.
[00:32:34] Sarah: Yeah. For sure. I was it Ed Mylet that said it at Funnel Hacking Live last year? It might have been Ed Mylet. I'm going to have to look it up. Sorry Ed, if it was not you. So I think he said if the game for you is making money, if you're just in this to make money and that's all you care about, you are not going to make very much of it. You just won't because that's the only thing you're focused on and you don't care about anything else. But if instead, oh, it might have been Russell Brunson. Oh God, I owe one of them an apology.
[00:33:03] Jason: We heard it. We heard it at Funnel Hacking Live Conference. It was Funnel Hacking live at conference. So I can tell you that for sure. So, and it was either Ed Millet or Russell Brunson. I can tell you that too. They probably both said something similar.
[00:33:13] Sarah: So credit to both. But if you're only focused on making money, you're not going to make very much of it. You won't be very successful. However, if your focus is on helping people. Now you're going to be successful and you'll make a whole bunch of money. So if money is the thing that you're after, it's just going to feel like really hard.
[00:33:34] It's going to be really, really draining for you. But if we're focused on like, Hey, how can I, primarily, first and foremost, how can I help people? That's the thing that's going to unlock all of the money for you.
[00:33:47] Jason: This is where your business mission becomes client-centric. This is where it becomes outward focused and our personal why should be outward focused as well, right? This is where we start to have that impact, but everybody wants to have some sort of different impact. We're all unique, so I think it's important to discover that. We talk about the four reasons, like moving towards more greater fulfillment, freedom, contribution, and support is why we have a business as motivators, and if you're moving towards that and you're committed to creating a balance in your business and personal life and personal growth and relationships and contributions to society, right, then you're going to have a much more profitable business. You're going to enjoy it more. Your team are going to be more inspired to work for you and be part of this vision and this mission.
[00:34:39] So I like this article. It's a good one. That's the last one. So this ends this way. "Let this declaration serve as a compass that guides our actions, decisions, and collaborations with resolve and unity. Let us forge a path that transforms not just our own lives, but the entire property management industry for the betterment of the communities we serve. Signed your name and all fellow DoorGrow Hackers." All right. So I like that. Yeah, we're using that. That's pretty good. We're going to keep that. Maybe we'll post that somewhere. Yeah. All right. And that's basically it. Anything else we should add? I mean, we want, we all want more freedom and there's probably something that you feel like right now is holding you back.
[00:35:22] You don't feel free. You wake up in the morning and maybe you don't feel like you are excited to go to work or excited to take that next phone call or excited to do property management. You may not feel a sense of freedom right now. You may not even think it's possible in that industry, so I promise you it is absolutely possible. We've helped lots of clients do this, and it can happen a lot faster than you realize as well. So you can have freedom and you can have freedom from bad clients. You can have freedom from bad deals. You can have freedom from bad phone calls. You can have freedom from bad team members. You can have freedom from all the bad stuff that you want to have freedom from.
[00:36:02] So, all right, what should people do? Let's give them a call to action.
[00:36:07] Sarah: Well, I think the easiest thing to do is work with a great coach. Might be us, might be somebody else. I'm a bit biased.
[00:36:16] Jason: It should be us and you should reach out to DoorGrow. Go to DoorGrow.com and join our Facebook group, which you can get to at...
[00:36:25] Sarah: I don't know.
[00:36:25] Jason: DoorGrowClub.com. doorgrowclub.com. Join our Facebook group community, and this will start getting you connected and indoctrinated. We're going to convince you to believe in yourself and we're going to convince you to also believe in DoorGrow. And then we're going to help you win through DoorGrow and we're going to change your life. This is what we do at DoorGrow. So, If you want some help. Otherwise, join our Facebook group and eventually reach out once you realize that you want our help. And until next time to our mutual growth. Bye everyone.
[00:36:57] 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!
[00:37:24] 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.
Working with amazing, hard-working property management entrepreneurs is what makes being a coach worth it.
Join property management growth expert Jason Hull in today’s episode as he interviews DoorGrow client Jeff Garner. Jeff went from 150 to 420 doors in 4 months! Learn how he did it.
[02:35] Why would anyone get into property management?
[12:40] Fixing the foundation of a property management business
[15:14] Importance of culture in a business
[25:05] Why you need a coach
[27:34] Navigating operational issues
“No matter what market we're in, it's good. If we're going to the moon, management's great. If we're crashing, it's even better because people can't sell their properties and they go, ‘Oh shoot, we'll turn them into rentals.’”
"Go where they won't go and do what they won't do. That's where the money's at,"
“It all starts with your mindset.”
“Weekly commitments, and you'll start to see the momentum build big time when the team are all visible and can be seen and there's accountability and they get recognized because you have that system installed, performance sometimes goes up.”
[00:00:00] Jeff: I have 420 doors and I have more peace of mind, more direction and I know where I'm going to be and where I'm going and how to get there.
[00:00:12] 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
[00:00:38] 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 bss, 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] And today's guest is Jeff Garner. Jeff, welcome.
[00:01:14] Jeff: Thanks man. Glad to be here.
[00:01:17] Jason: So Jeff, what's the name of your property management business?
[00:01:19] Jeff: Homes Stretch Property Management
[00:01:21] Jason: Homes Stretch. All right, cool. And why'd you pick that name?
[00:01:26] Jeff: I feel like real estate investing it's a long-term play. It builds wealth over the long haul. And for our home stretch of our life, whether you decide your home stretch starts at 40 because you retire early, or whether it's 60 or 70, if you are buying real estate, really it, you know, It's about letting the tenants pay down, you know, principal balance, pay down, depreciation, tax, write-offs, appreciation. Sure cash flow's nice every month, but you can make millions over, you know, 20 year period, 25 year period. And so I see the real value in real estate is being that, so we want to get our owners to the home stretch and, you know, that's kind of how we look at it. So we want to improve and maintain your property so that someday you can either sell or refi and it's in great shape and it's an easy process. Or you just want to keep it in cashflow forever. So our job's to give you freedom and peace of mind knowing that your properties are being taken care of better than you can or anyone else so.
[00:02:29] Jason: Nice. Love the brand. So Jeff. Why don't you give people a little bit of background on you. How did you start getting into real estate and what made you decide to do the crazy thing of starting a property management company? How did this all happen?
[00:02:43] Jeff: Yeah, it was the crazy thing because-- so I'll tell you a little bit about me. Real estate's the only business I've ever been in. I got my real estate license when I was 22. I was going to be a real estate agent. Found a niche working with investors because when you're 22, you know, growing up doesn't come overnight. And so when you're got all your, "oh shoot, I'm showing property today," and you have to crunch the beer cans and put them under your seat. because you just turned 21 a year before, you know, it can be a little awkward putting the 40 year old mom and dad and their kids in the car to go show them property.
[00:03:18] Right. Which I did okay at. I did fine. But I found a niche in working with investors because you could sell them one house and most of the time they don't even want to get in your car. Half the time, once you get know what you're doing, you just give them a lockbox code and tell them to call you back and tell you what you think, and they give you a number and you write it and put it in. You could sell them 10 or 20 houses. So I developed a niche at that. I got really good at finding deals and I would send them to my guys. Shortly after that, I decided that I was on the wrong side of the table, you know, three or four years of that. I go to closing, I collect my $2,500 commission check, and he gets a check for $20,000 because he flipped it, right? And I just thought, wait a minute, I'm finding the deal. I'm calling him up, I'm telling him what number to put it in at and he's making all this money. What am I doing wrong? So I got into that side of the business, you know. So, 08 hit crashed. All of us really put me in a position to where I to make a decision on what I wanted to do because all my investors were gone. Right?
[00:04:17] They were trying to stay alive. Yeah. You know, in 08 for the people that didn't go through it, was like If you worked in Walmart and all of a sudden the next morning you woke up and no one will shop at Walmart again.
[00:04:31] Jason: Right?
[00:04:31] Jeff: Yeah. Never walks through the door.
[00:04:34] Jason: Yeah. So must have been scary.
[00:04:37] Jeff: Yeah. And so, I thought, "well, this investment thing's really what I want to do. So I'm going all in. It's time to restart. So that's what I'm going to go all in at." So I really looked at what happened and I realized that history, you know, tells the story and that everyone was riding this wave and had no idea it was a wave because no one does the research to, you know, see what the cycles are. I didn't know there was a cycle. I was young. Yeah. And so the common sense thought came, well, we were at a high. If I was a real investor and I was really good at what I did, I would've been taking vacations, waiting for this crash to happen, and then I'd go out and buy everything I could find and hold it. Yeah, so I did that. I bought 110 rentals over a three year period, all at, you know, probably 20% of what the market is today. And outsourced the management a couple times. Horrific. Cost me more money than you know, one, when I was at 110 properties, I had to take them back overnight because I realized that I had 16 vacants and they didn't even know about half of them.
[00:05:42] Really? Yeah. It was horrible. They just they got overwhelmed and so I built a management company overnight to manage my own properties and had zero desire. It was the last thing on the absolute planet I wanted to deal with was tenants and toilets. I did not get into rentals to deal with tenants or maintenance. It didn't, yeah. So I put together a makeshift management company and decided I'd never take on another property of anyone else's. I'd only do my own, because I was going to do this, it was going to be for myself. There certainly wasn't going to make a hundred dollars a month on a property and do all this for somebody else. Right. That's, that was my thought on being real. And a few years went by '16, '17, realized that I'd gotten tons of equity and I had properties sitting there with 50, 60,000 in equity and I'm making 200 or 300 a month. And I thought, this math doesn't make sense anymore, right? So I sold off over a two or three year period, about 50 of them. But everyone apparently, everyone knew management is a tough gig and there's not a lot of good management companies out there. Why? Right? There was no DoorGrow then that I'm aware of at least. Right? So everyone in the management business just thought, "this looks like we can make some money, let's do this."
[00:06:57] But they had no idea. The machine, it has to be to run well. Yeah. And so they said, "well, I'll buy that property. I'll even give you retail for it, but you have to keep the management." So to this day, I still manage all 110 of those properties, even though I only own 60 of them. Right. So to get the money I wanted, I had to keep the management. And then I just kind of started looking at it is in the last couple years when I realized that we could potentially be getting to another place. If you look at the charts and you look at history that we're you know, we're at a high now, will it last four years longer? Probably. So I had to kind of reevaluate what I wanted to do and I looked at all my businesses, flip business, wholesale, you know, my rental portfolios and my management company, I went, wait a minute, what am I doing? I'm focusing all this energy and chasing down deals and having all these, you know, taking all the risk on everything I buy and just grinding away constantly. For over 20 years now. And I got this management company, although it's not sexy, everyone tells me it's the worst thing in the world to do. Yeah. You know, I realize it was the one thing that was repeatable, scalable, and I could predict. And no matter what market we're in, it's good. If we're going to the moon, management's great. If we're crashing, it's even better because people can't sell their properties and they go, oh shoot, we'll turn them into rentals. I thought, "wait, what am I doing? I'm looking at this all wrong." I just started to look at it and so I started working on getting really good at it and filling all the holes on my own, right, with my own. And it's, you know, and I realized that with the right team in place and the right mindset, you know, which is we want to help landlords, right? I want to take 20 something years of resources and try to convert over this management company and give them to everyone else-- that it could be a great business. And then I realized, like I preach, because I did some coaching in the real estate space throughout the years "go where they won't go and do what they won't do. That's where the money's at," right? So if everyone's going after retail flips and a really nice b and b areas, then go look in the C areas because they're being neglected. If everyone's after all the C properties because the cash flows, so well then go up to your A or B areas and start doing flips because those are being neglected. Nice. Certain town everyone's afraid of? Good. Let them be all fighting in one place and you go there. And so I realized that was what was going on in the real estate market for the management business. So I decided that's what I wanted to focus my energies on. So I literally burned all the other boats, man. No marketing, no wholesaling, no flipping.
[00:09:40] Jason: Wow. You went all in on property management?
[00:09:42] Jeff: All in on property management, period. I got online, I did what I did 15 years before, after 08 happened, and I thought, "I'm going to redo myself. How do I do this?" And so I just got online and I started digging around and trying to teach myself things and I got coaches back then, and even though I knew 90% of what they were trying to teach me, because I got coaches in the flipping side, right? I knew you know, 80, 90% of what they were teaching me was that 10 or 20% where I knew would bring me all my money, right? So I did the same thing here and that's how I came to DoorGrow is I found you guys really were the only real system oriented, you know, nuts and bolts teach the how and not just the why. You know, a lot of people want to tell you why you do. Oh, well, you know why? They want to give you the why on, you know, but they don't want to give you the nuts and bolts of the how and tell you connect A to B to C to D and you'll get your results, right? And so, I found you guys, and I knew that's all I was missing to having success because the rest of the management companies all had bad raps. You couldn't talk to a landlord that really loved their management company. Yeah. So I knew I could fix, put those pieces together and really treat it like a business based off of giving people their freedom and peace of mind, knowing that their properties are being taken care of better than theirs.
[00:11:10] If you can do that, anyone listening to this, if you can wrap your mind around being of service. No one else is doing that in the management business. Right? Yeah. You will dominate, it's like I used to say when I had lots of rehab crews going, if someone shows up and does what they say and has half of the talent that I need them to have, they could be rich. That's all they have to do. Just not be the best, but do what you say and show up so it's predictable and we can communicate well and get stuff done. So if you did that, and you can do that with a mindset of, "I want to be of service to the industry." Be the best. You'll dominate, end the story, but you have to wrap that around your mind, you know, and it'll come out in your calls. It'll come out in your conversations at the grocery store. It'll come out everywhere.
[00:12:00] Hell, I pulled 16 doors out of my gym in the first 30 days after joining DoorGrow because I just got the structure when we went through mindset and and some sales stuff of. Really taking what was in my mind and putting it in paper and going through the process of splitting the page into four spots and right. You know, going through everything. I got to dial it in and then boom, that was it. There's nothing else to talk about, but what I came up with there, you know, home stretch was the name of the business because it fits what I'm trying to do. I know what our mindset is, the culture for my company and you know, we started just plugging in systems and processes.
[00:12:40] Jason: So let's talk a little bit about it. because you said nuts and bolts, but to most property managers, they're like, "nuts and bolts means how do you like do maintenance and how do you plunger a toilet?" you know, like it's like the practical stuff where you know how to manage properties. Yeah. You know how to deal with tenants, you know how to like do all that. What challenge were you dealing with that brought you to DoorGrow and how did that help?
[00:13:04] Jeff: It's really hard to explain that. What I really had was is I had a business and it functioned and I did okay, but I did not feel at 150 properties, I did not feel I could bring on 10 more doors. I felt like it would all crumble and break because I had no idea what I was doing really. Right. I had nothing to model. I had just said I got maintenance, my maintenance was horrible. I had all these guys that that was one of the hardest parts to find. But I had all these just subcontractors and every once in a while we'd find someone to come on full time, but you'd have to trust them to be out there all day doing what they said they were doing. And I didn't know how to run that. I didn't know how to manage that. I didn't know how to systematize that where I knew what was going on at all times. And I didn't feel comfortable going any bigger because, I felt like I could see why other management companies had problems, and I don't think they want to suck, right? No, I don't think so. But they just don't want to say no to the money.
[00:14:06] "Hey, I got 20 doors." oh, we're going to do a great job for you. Let's bring it on. And they're already struggling with what they have. Yeah, right. Just think it's magically you're going to work, or, you know what? It'll give me more money in that way. More money will mean I can do more things. And no it doesn't. It creates more problems that cost more money. So I needed the systems, I needed the processes. Those are the nuts and bolts I'm talking about. Got it. Who to hire to do what and to, because that's it.
[00:14:34] Jason: I mean, so what's changed then? Like you had 150 doors, you came to DoorGrow and we started helping you change a lot of stuff, right? Yeah, absolutely. So, what things have you changed since joining DoorGrow? Yeah. What are some of the first things we start working on with you?
[00:14:51] Jeff: Okay, well, really it was just getting my mindset right was the biggest one because once my mindset was correct and I knew and I had our, what we were trying to do, where we could be of service, that opened my mind up to, " how do we do that then?" Right. So that's sort of answering questions for me, you know.
[00:15:14] Jason: So with mindset, what you're saying is I believe you're talking about all the culture stuff that we took you through stuff. Just the culture stuff and just kind of, I mean, that's the core foundation of the business. Like if we want to make this business built around you, we've got to figure that piece out, right? So we started with that and that probably had a significant ripple through everything.
[00:15:33] Jeff: Imagine like this, you have children, you all of a sudden you, "I'm going to be the best dad ever and I'm going to have kids." Next thing you know, you got two or three of them, they're under five. You have no, literally imagine your parents weren't good. I don't know. They didn't model worth a crap. Okay. Like, how do I do this? Like, I can feed them, I can put them to bed and I can keep them from killing themselves, but do I really know how to raise them to have commitment, how to be honest, how can I make a five year old a strong member of society at 28 years old, right? But if you have a culture and a mindset, you know, "I want my children to be like this. I want them to have this belief system," and how do we give them that belief system? Okay, "well, let me look into that. Okay. Well, if we go to this school, it'll give them these values and then I can back them up at home. And then with bedtime and, oh, I did a little research here. If I put them to bed at this time, get them up at this time. Oh wait, the sugars and dyes are bad. It makes them spastic and oh, well I'll take that out." And you start learning, right? But it all starts with your mindset. Right. And so my mindset changed and it started making me go down the rabbit holes that are all in DoorGrow of, "Okay. Leasing-- my leasing person that we're just winging it and working out of this software that we really were just doing all workarounds and spreadsheets because we really didn't know how to use it. Watch this. Watch these videos on leasing, watch these videos on placing tenants." And then I would watch them and then we would meet and put together a process and a system on how it's going to go instead of just winging every call we got.
[00:17:17] So I started building it out position by position. I went and I found a new property manager that had the capacity to be a really good property manager and grow from some of the-- I'm still new inDoorGrow. I'm only six months in. Right? And honestly over the last month I've had a two months, I've had a really hard time getting into DoorGrow because I.
[00:17:42] I'm up 420 in doors. Right.
[00:17:45] Jason: So, yeah. So, and let's get to that. That's interesting. But so the children, in your analogy here, this is your team you're talking about, and this is my team. Yeah. And you were in it for what, maybe a couple months and then you started replacing the entire team?
[00:18:00] Jeff: The entire team is gone except for two people. And one of the two was almost gone. Because of just be all of a sudden having this parent mindset, I kind of coached him, or you know, raised him in a way in this little short period of time to where he's changed. Nice. And he is just, and the reality of it is, what I found out is he was so unhappy because of how screwed up systems were that everything rolled down to him that once I realized that I got to take things away, put them create and find out what was broken on his role. And he was a main construction manager that we created a different systems and now he's probably one of my strongest pieces. So everyone knew the whole team is new.
[00:18:50] Jason: So new team, you installed a good culture, you're then able to work with us on the hiring piece and getting good team members in place. Absolutely. You've leveled up some team members because you have culture and you know, like what you deserve and want as a business owner and what have the type of team and we want to build around you. Absolutely. Most business owners build teams around the business, and that's probably what you did before.
[00:19:15] Jeff: Absolutely a pure necessity. And I, I didn't but hire people that fit the culture or what I was looking for. I just hired a warm body that seemed like they would work, and I thought, we'll just teach them what we need them to know. Yeah. And their mindset or what they did in their off time or their goals didn't mean they were their business.
[00:19:36] Jason: Right. Yeah it's amazing. Some simple frameworks like just understanding the three fits to hiring. Yeah. Like culture fit, skill fit, personality fit can shift hiring significantly. So then you started working pretty quickly with one of our coaches on acquisitions. You went out and found a deal. And in four months you were at 420 units.
[00:19:59] Jeff: Yeah. Yep. 420. And I've got probably we're I'm just, we might be at four 40 or four 50 because we have 20 or 30 vacants that Okay. That are under, that are kind of on make ready that we took over that we haven't been able to fill yet because we have this construction backlog, not on our end, but on his backend. The guy that I bought the management from, which was part of the deal, and one of the reasons he sold was because he had done exactly what everyone else did. He got too big and wasn't saying no, and got backlogged and yeah, he was starting to provide really horrible service, so I went in, bought it from him at a really good price for me, but I think it was still a good price for him because if you're at a point to where you're going to, it's stressing you out, you can't get it all done.
[00:20:46] It's affecting anything, all your other revenue streams and people are getting ready to start leaving you. Someone walks in "wait, you can take this off my hands and give me money? Okay. Where do I sign?" You know?
[00:20:59] Jason: So what are the things did you do with our team? Have we done a website for you?
[00:21:03] Jeff: You did a website.
[00:21:05] Jason: What about your branding? Did you change your brand at all?
[00:21:08] Jeff: Yeah. Hell, hell yeah. I was starting point property management. I changed my brand. We rebranded a week before this acquisition, which I was like, I'm going to put this rebranding thing off because that's another, and then we sat down and I was talking to the team and I don't think they loved it, but they agreed that doing it before we transition all these new owners and tenants over was going to be the way to go because then we would have to change it all up in a couple months anyway when we rebranded and had them in a new website and portal and such so.
[00:21:38] Jason: How about pricing? Did you change your pricing?
[00:21:41] Jeff: I'm on the hybrid pricing. Okay. The three plans. The three plans now, which is exactly from you guys. Which was another thing that really helped me because with changing the pricing and doing the hybrid plan and going through that training, and it was, once again, it was all the why's we're doing it. I got to design the plans that fit our culture and provide the service we wanted to provide. It gave me more confidence, honestly, in what we were doing, even though I was going to be charging more now. So yeah, we're on the three tier pricing, hybrid pricing.
[00:22:19] Jason: So you've changed your team, you changed your branding, you changed your website, you changed your pricing model. You've probably made some adjustments to your pitch. Do you do the Golden Bridge stuff?
[00:22:31] Jeff: I didn't have a pitch before. You didn't have a pitch? I didn't have a pitch. I'd just say, "Hey, we do management. Can we manage your properties?" And I just like, that's what I'm saying, when I didn't know, like I couldn't wrap my mind around, because I'd been flipping houses and wholesaling. I had that down to a science. I am a fricking ninja in that. Yeah. But the management side, it was just, "Hey, we manage properties." Yeah. This is what we charge if you want to come over. Cool. If not, I got to go. I got other calls with me, you know, and to have a pitch. So it was literally everything and the pitch made it. That's what I'm saying. I pulled 16 doors out of the gym. Yeah. Just "what are you doing now? Oh, I'm doing management and it's--" 'boop,' just going into my pitch casually, just real casual because we're at the gym. "Do you know anybody that manages any properties? Yeah, I do. I got this buddy. Cool. Could I talk to him? That was it.
[00:23:23] Jason: So I love clients like you, Jeff. because you implement, like you went through the rapid revamp and you did it rapid, like you got that stuff done. Yeah. Pretty quick. And then you start working on acquisition because you saw that opportunity with our acquisitions coach and you're like, "I'm going to do that." and you're just doing stuff and I think that's a testament to you. You know, this is part, I think when we work out more often at the gym, and I think our brains work better. I think that's science, like that's been proven. Like there's something released in our muscles. And you're a big dude. I got to get to your point. I'm trying to work out to catch up to you.
[00:23:59] Jeff: I'm going to be pitching you on coaching you in that area.
[00:24:02] Jason: But I think I appreciate that you've been implementing this stuff rapidly and I asked you at DoorGrow Live, I was like, "where do you see yourself, you know, do you think you could get to a thousand doors?" And you were like, "yeah, probably a year and a half." Like it's nothing. Like it's nothing. And you're like, "well, maybe two years." And I was like, "do you know how ridiculous that sounds to most people?" Yeah. So, but I believe it. I believe it for you. I believe it's possible for you. And I believe any of our clients could do it if they just. Take action and implement. And in order to do that, they've got to trust us. And I appreciate you putting your faith in us and trusting us and just putting your head down and doing the work.
[00:24:41] So what would you say to other property managers that are maybe like the company that you bought or maybe like the way you were before if they've just been watching DoorGrow on the sidelines and they think they know what we're about and they think we're just marketers or something that like have a decent sales pitch, but they don't know if they can trust us? You're behind the paywall. What would you say to them?
[00:25:04] Jeff: Well, I mean, besides being behind the paywall and doing it and having experience with it, I know coaching and I know that space, and so I recognized DoorGrow immediately from watching your marketing and just digging in a little that you guys taught the business. It wasn't a marketing ploy to get people to sign up to you. Actually, it wasn't like I was just going to get a bunch of motivation, "go out there and do it!" right, right. Because I motivated it was, like I said, it was the whys and the hows and and the all the processes and systems. And so man, it's all there for you to just do it. You would just do it. You would literally just go, "okay, I'll start at one and work to 10." I had a management company already. If I had to redo it all when I got real life processes and systems, and then I saw that there was people in it that had a hundred doors, 500 doors, a thousand doors, and I'm like, "that's what I need." I need to be surrounded by people that are at a higher level of success and have been where I am and now are where I want to go. And so if you are watching and you have management already and you are struggling, and it sucks. Whether it's for you or your customers, or both? I have 420 doors and I have more peace of mind, more direction and I know where I'm going to be and where I'm going and how to get there. And more time to myself if I wanted to take it. I don't take it because I still have big goals and so I'm working a lot. But then I did with 150 doors. That's awesome. I had more certainty with 3x almost than I did where I started. I got the team in place. I watched them problem solve all day long on the chat and working systems and the processes and everything happens the same over and over again.
[00:27:01] So it's really a business in a box, but you have to do it. You can't question yourself. You can't make excuses. You just have to do it. It'll be really easy if you just one foot in front of the other and take the steps. It's all there. And I had to stop because I can't wrap my mind around everything until I get to another place. Right. Yeah. Like I can only do so much and it's growing and working and so like, I've got to pause and then I'm going to dive back in and I don't know I'm still in DoorGrow obviously regularly.
[00:27:34] Jason: Well, let's do some co coaching live on air. Let's figure out what's your next step? Ready? Okay. Yeah. You open? Okay, cool. So you're at 420 units right now. Yeah. Yeah. You've finally got a good team, you've got good culture. Yeah. So the next level to get to, you know, to break past that next kind of major barrier, which maybe is 600 doors, you have to have a great team, but you got to get three major systems installed. Those three major systems are going to be, you have to really get a good process system installed. Not just process documentation, but a system to where they're running the processes each time. So we've got DoorGrow flow. You can use that, lead simple, process street, something, but you need a good process system. That's one piece. The other piece you need is you need a really good people system. So you've started to create the culture, you've started to install that system. Then we want to make sure-- and did you use DoorGrow hiring and do grow ATS and work with Sarah on some of that stuff?
[00:28:32] Jeff: I watched the coaching and implemented some of the things I learned just like I did with Clint. So yeah.
[00:28:38] Jason: So we want to make sure we have a solid system so that as you scale, you can get the right people and get those people quickly. So it sounds like you've done some work on that. And then we want to make sure you have a really good planning system. So once you have a team of people you trust to execute, your executive team, then we want to install a planning system. Now these three systems should not be run by you because as a visionary and an entrepreneur, it's not fun for you to do this. So the key person, the most important hire you will have on the team will be an operator. Somebody that runs the operations. Do you feel like you have that key person right now?
[00:29:15] Jeff: I do, but she is one of the people I brought on the most valuable hire I've made after I came to DoorGrow. And it was to have that operator, but she's a CFO. Okay. And she's grown another insurance company to probably where we're at now from scratch, which, you know, I think I'm blowing her mind a little on where we want to go, how fast we're going. But yeah, my goal is to make her the operator. She's the CFO. And so you know management's an accounting business, really at the end of the day, and so we are doing so many changes to our software and our accounting to make sure that all those processes and automations are in place that she is buried every day, but she helps with the team. She helped on the hiring. And she's going to be the operator to try to shorten that. We're working her into that role because as she figures pieces out, we hand them off. So it frees her time up and she's not doing the 15- $20 an hour work because they're paying her more than that. Handing it off and it's freeing up her time and she's. Then we're putting in place some of that more operation stuff, so in process.
[00:30:23] Jason: Nice. Yeah. Cool. Awesome. So when she's ready, one of the things we'll want to do is start to get her to show up on the Friday coaching call, which is operations, and to do that super system breakout and work with her and you to get DoorGrow OS installed. Once you get DoorGrow OS installed, the planning system is that next level system. This is going to allow you to have your team start to function like a visionary, like the entrepreneur, they're going to start to innovate and move goals forward without you having to, you know, push them. And she will run that system. She'll run the meetings, and then you'll be able to set goals and break them down from quarterly to monthly to weekly commitments, and you'll start to see the momentum build big time when the team are all visible and can be seen and there's accountability and they get recognized because you have that system installed, performance sometimes goes up. When I first install a system like that, we grew 300% in a year. And so that is kind of the next level I think for you guys is when she's ready for that, we start to get DoorGrow OS installed and get that planning system and cadence. Because cadence in a business is the communication, cadence is the culture, cadence creates all of this, and it gets everyone rowing the boat in the same direction. So instead of you saying, "Hey, let's do this to everybody, watch this video at DoorGrow," et cetera. They will start to innovate and move outcomes forward because they're given goals and deadlines and then support instead of tasks. And that's where you'll start to see your team really perform. This is where you get like three times the output from your team members. This is where your operational costs drop significantly in relation to the number of people you have per door. And so that's what I see next level for you guys. And once you have that system installed, 600 doors is going to be a piece of cake.
[00:32:17] Jeff: Yeah. The other thing too is that I know we need a sales funnel. The funnel right now is this mouth, that's it right now.
[00:32:27] Jason: We got to get you out of that. So what'll be next is either we get you, if you don't have this already, we get you an assistant, a setter, or a sales assistant. And that person will then help you double your capacity currently. because they'll be doing all of the follow up, getting you on calls to close and you can use tactics like the double barrel close and some of these things we talk about. That's maybe, that's like level one, baby step. Level two, we just get you out of doing that all together. We get you a full-time BDM. Just like James Wachob 's team installed Brad, he's been showing up to each of our Wednesday calls where we support the BDMs or the people working on growth and I think he's helped him add like 250, something like that. They've added 400 doors organically in less than a year.
[00:33:18] Jeff: Is that Brian Bouler guy?
[00:33:20] Jason: Yeah, Brian Bouler's their operator. And he's, he actually just, yeah, he's a stud. He just became the director of the property management. So he's running all property management and he just hired an operator to replace himself from a Fortune 50 company. Right? So this is like once you have your operator fully functioning as an operator, you get her out of CFO role and you get her into being an operator, then we can start to install DoorGrow OS, get that team to the next level. And part of that plan, I think for your 90 days would be to start to focus on that sales side. If you're ready to ramp up lead gen and growth, then we get you maybe a setter initially, and then we get you a full-time BDM or you can jump straight to getting a BDM and we help you find somebody that can just crush it at sales. We identify the right personality type, they're great at this, and they will go out and just make it rain and create business for you.
[00:34:13] Jeff: I got the hiccups all of a sudden, so I'm like, this is going to look great in the podcast.
[00:34:17] Jason: You're just so excited about the future. Excited. Yeah. And you know, and that BDM could also, and then I think what you would do, if you want to focus on the growth side, if that's still fun for you, you just go out and find more acquisition deals. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's fine. You can even get your BDM to start hunting for acquisition deals as well and feed them to you, and then you do double barrel close that way. They're feeding you to close it. Right? So, anyway, I think that's going to be the next level for you and, you know, maybe what I would maybe have your CFO do is do a time study and maybe you do a time study if you haven't done one for a while, so that you can see where can you support her even more and more quickly to get things off of her plate. What are you doing? Which things do you love the most? Which things don't you? And start to take some things off of her plate and give them to other team members as quick as possible. So, and then you'll know like, this is what she spent her time doing over the last two weeks. You're like, cool, we, these are minus signs. These are things that are lower level dollar an hour work. Let's define these processes and we make that a goal and all that. When you have a cadence and a planning system, you can plug all that into your goals. Like one of your quarterly goals would be transition CFO to operator, for example. Yeah. So we could start to build out those systems even right now with her, we just need to get you and her on board with that. And then you'll see things start to go even faster because you're already working a plan. When we put the plan in a way that everyone else can see it and everyone can contribute, the whole business starts to go faster. Otherwise, it's you pushing her and her pushing everybody else, and it's very top down. When you create a bottom up system, you'll start to feel a lot of momentum. Okay. It's a weird feeling when you start to feel the team pulling you forward instead of you pushing them forward.
[00:36:10] Jeff: So, when you say that, what does that, what do you call that then? Like when you're saying bottom up, you know? When you, everything you just said, like, what is that? Like, what do I call that?
[00:36:21] Jason: So I call that the planning system or DoorGrow OS, the operating system. The operating. So we want to get this operating system installed so that there's this planning cadence and communication. So I'd start with by doing a six core functions assessment with your team brainstorming session. That'll be quarterly planning and it'll take like an hour and a half or two hours. First time you do this as a team.
[00:36:44] Jeff: That's all in os. That whole process is an OS. The step-by-step on that. That was my direction. I need OS, and I need Flow, and I'm like, oh, another thing I got to plan.
[00:36:53] Jason: Yeah that's DoorGrow OS. The planning system. What's cool about it and, if you do the math on this, right? Let's say you do in your annual planning, you spend maybe an hour, a half. Your quarterly planning, you do four times a year. You spend maybe an hour, a half, two hours, right? Each of your monthly planning meetings, which you have 12, that adds up to 12 hours, maybe an hour each, right? Then you're doing your weekly commitments meetings every week. Maybe you'll do about 50 of those a year. Maybe those take an hour, sometimes even just 30 minutes, depending on the size of your team and the aggressiveness of your goals. And the goal on a weekly basis is to hit 80% of your weekly commitments. That's a lot of goals getting achieved. This is outside of the tactical work, outside of the day-to-day work. This is innovating and moving the business forward towards your core functions and what the business needs most and what you need most.
[00:37:49] If you stack and add all this up, maybe even add a culture meeting here or there, and you add your daily huddles with your teams that are like maybe 15, 20 minutes, all that combined adds up to, you can run the entire business on 300 hours a year, and it eliminates a massive amount of 'got a minute?'s, sneaker net communication, interruptions, and it makes the business far more efficient.
[00:38:14] Jeff: And that's all lined out in OS. Like I start OS, it's like everything step by step. I can do this. How?
[00:38:22] Jason: Yes. However, my disclaimer is, this is not stuff that you're going to want to do. This is stuff that your operator will probably enjoy doing. Okay, but not you. Okay. Like me, I hear a bunch of meetings. My initial gut reaction is like, "oh gosh, shoot me now." Right? Yeah. Like that sounds like a cumbersome and a waste of my time. It actually speeds you up and speeds up the business and gives you more time, but you don't want to run it. You need somebody else to run it because otherwise you end up as the emperor with no clothes because everybody's going to agree to you, say "whatever Jeff says," you need somebody else to run it. And you're last to speak in all these meetings. Yeah. Then you'll start to see the magic and the genius of your team. because some of them are more closely connected to some of the things that need to shift or move or be innovated or move forward than you are, right? Your maintenance coordinator can see what's going on in maintenance and they probably have ideas. And so this will allow them to start to, you know, bubble up some of these ideas and it'll allow them to innovate. When team members don't get deadlines and outcomes that they're given to achieve. And then they can see that there's need for improvement, instead of innovating, they go and try and spend more of your money. Yeah, exactly. And so the team gets more expensive. And then you, if you give them a blank check, they'll just spend like, "let's go buy this new thing and let's buy that. And that might do this," right? When you give your team a deadline and some constraints and an outcome, they will start to get creative and innovate, and you want your team members to start to think like that. That turns them into intrapreneurs. So getting this system installed, I think will be the big next level thing, and we can start getting that installed right away so Sarah can help you get that set up. And set up a call with you and your operator and you're already working on some goals. So let's just get those goals into a system where everyone can see and make sure you start to move the plan forward, create the plan, work the plan, and you'll start to see the team move forward way faster.
[00:40:16] So I'm excited for you man.
[00:40:19] Jeff: Can you believe I got the hiccups? I get hiccups like once every 10 years. I get in the middle of the podcast. Yeah, I'm very excited about that because here's the truth is you're right, like you get to this place at, you know, 150 doors on my own right, that's capacity really no capacity would've been much higher. But doing it well, capacity was 150 doors. Now I'm at 400 something and we're going, well, yeah. I think I could add another a hundred doors before anything breaks, but I know we're there. We're 50 to a hundred doors away from having to do new stuff again. Yeah. I can feel it. And so that's exciting, but dreadful to think, to have to implement myself.
[00:40:59] I think that's why I've kind of like, "let's just wait till we get everything we're doing dialed it perfectly before I get into that," but I need to just suck it up. I got to call with Sarah coming up the next couple days and I just need to tell her, okay, let's do OS, whatever. Tell me what to do next. Let's go.
[00:41:14] Jason: Yeah. And really we're just going to start working on creating a plan. Then we'll put in the software and you'll start to see when you start having these weekly meetings with your team, you're going to start to see stuff move forward. Like our goal, we sometimes have like 40 things in a single week that we're working on as a team outside of our daily work, like 40 tasks that are assigned to different team members.
[00:41:38] And my team members do not want to show up with a red 'no.' Yeah. And this increases their performance level, like you would not believe. They want green yeses when they show up on Monday for our weekly commitments meeting. And that means we are really likely to get all of our 30 day goals done, which means we're really likely to get all of our quarterly goals done because they're all connected.
[00:41:59] Yeah. You'll start to see your business move forward really quickly. This is a next level thing. So I'm excited for you to get that installed. because first, you got to have an operator. because I've tried to do it on my own without an operator and I really, I get lazy because I just don't like it. Like, I don't like running the meetings. I'm like, "all right, anyone's stuck on anything? Let's move forward faster." And I just skip steps and I tell people, do things, but when the team starts to run this, your operator will start to run the business. The business will start to run itself. Things will start to move forward without you, and then instead of you feeling like you're the entrepreneur pulling your entire team up the hill in a wagon, which is what it feels like until you get a system like this, you're going to start to see them moving forward ahead of you, and you're going to be the one that is in the wagon and they're pulling you up the hill. You're just going to be there like giving some feedback, coaching them, supporting them, but you'll start to see the business move forward. I'm the biggest constraint on my team. Sarah and the team are using DoorGrow OS, and they're moving the whole business forward constantly. And they're like, "Jason, keep up. We need more from you." And so they're keeping me accountable now. I don't need to keep them accountable because I've got A players and I've got a system that brings that out in them. So that's the next level. Cool, man. Awesome. Well, hey, thanks for coming on the podcast and being vulnerable and sharing some of your struggles and your wins.
[00:43:23] Really appreciate you as a client.
[00:43:25] Jeff: Yeah. Appreciate you too, man. It's been a huge life changer. So cool. Well, keep pushing me.
[00:43:32] Jason: Yeah, we'll keep going. We'll get you to that next level as well. So, thousand doors, here we come!
[00:43:37] Jeff: Here we come. All right.
[00:43:39] Jason: All right, thanks. See you. All right, so if you are a property management entrepreneur and you're wanting to get some coaching, you're tired of not having anyone in your corner, maybe nobody's believing in you, maybe not even your spouse is believing in you right now, and you need some hope, you want to have some results like Jeff, you're wanting to move your business forward. We would love to coach and help and support you. Join our mastermind. You can check us out at doorgrow.com. If you're looking like to get nurtured and warmed up a little bit more and you're not really sure about those DoorGrow people, then go to doorgrowclub.com. Join our free Facebook group. We give out better free stuff than most coaches in this industry give out that's paid, and you're going to get access to our master classes and some really cool stuff in there. Join that and you're going to see that we care and we want to see you succeed. And that will hopefully be a nice pathway into you becoming a client and working with DoorGrow and taking your business to that next level. And finally getting what you deserve, getting paid what you deserve, and having the business that you dream of having.
[00:44:47] Until next time everybody, to our mutual growth. Bye everyone.
[00:44:51] 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!
[00:45:18] 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.
With the real estate market shifting, more and more real estate agents are going to be starting property management companies. Is this you? If you are starting a property management business, this episode is for you.
Join property management growth experts Jason and Sarah Hull as they discuss the best way to build the foundation of your property management business in the current market.
[01:18] The Trends in the Market and What They Mean
[07:10] Why You Should Start a Property Management Business
[10:09] Building the Right Foundation
[15:03] The Product Research Strategy
[17:39] The Next Steps for Your Business
“The biggest challenge usually getting started is just taking action to actually get the business going.”
“When you're in that dreamer or that fantasy stage, a lot of times we are very good at looking at all the upside, and we're very good at ignoring the difficulties or the downside.”
“Property management, like I mentioned in the intro, is the ultimate gateway to real estate deals, relationships, and residual income.”
“A lot of the people that are the least qualified to be doing it, they're going to be the ones that get hurt the most because they're not paying attention much to the market.”
[00:00:00] Jason: the biggest challenge usually getting started is just taking action to actually get the business going, and they get caught up on wasting a lot of time on stuff that doesn't really matter when the only thing that really matters is getting your first client, right? That first door is the hardest.
[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 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, along with Sarah I'm the founder and CEO she is owner and COO of DoorGrow. Now let's get into the show.
[00:01:17] Alright. So today's topic, we've been noticing there's some trends and some changes in the real estate industry, which is going to probably create some shifts. So what are we noticing?
[00:01:29] Sarah: Well, so some of you may have realized real estate isn't quite what it was a couple months, even a year ago, certainly not what it was two years ago. Things have a shifted a little bit in the market. There was a point where you can list a property, you would get, you know, multiple offers in one to two days, and it would sell for a whole lot over asking and it was very easy. It was simple because the market was just on fire. Things have changed just a little bit. They've slowed down. And we wanted to talk about what happens when the real estate market slows down.
[00:02:14] Jason: So, historically what I've noticed is anytime real estate kind of takes a nose dive or slows down or there's some sort of recession or something like this, I see a lot of real estate agents quit. There's a lot of real estate agents that don't renew their license. They leave, they quit, they give up. And a lot of these are the newer ones or the ones that came in thinking it'd be really easy when things were great and we had years of feast and now that there maybe is coming famine, they're out. And so we see a lot of that. I also see a lot of real estate agents decide to become property managers because they're struggling to get real estate deals. They're like, "what else could I do? I'm going to start a property management business because all of the other ones around me aren't that great."
[00:03:00] And so historically DoorGrow, we get a lot of clients coming to us, looking for new websites and starting a business when the market takes a nosedive or there's a shift in real estate. So the other thing, I just saw a video that was pretty interesting data, and it was showing how there's been this huge spike in inventory in Airbnbs, but the revenue generated on average by Airbnbs has dipped in some markets to like 50% of the revenue generated per unit or per owner. And so the revenue's dipping significantly, but there's a lot of inventory of Airbnbs. What's going to happen is that bubble is going to burst, it's going to collapse because a lot of Airbnbs are going to sell. I talked to a property manager here locally in Austin, and he said he already saw the writing on the wall. And shout out to my buddy and friend, Brett Koster. He said that he already saw the writing on the wall. Oh, Koster, Koster. I said his name wrong. He did. All right. Koster Kingdom-- sorry-- on Instagram. I got you. All right. I think Koster sounds cool, but it's Koster, it's not "coaster." So yeah. Sorry Brett.
[00:04:07] All right. So Brett said he already saw the writing on the wall and he went to his short-term rental clients and he said, Hey, let's convert these into long-term rentals. because this is what I see coming. So I think there's an opportunity for property managers out there. There's an opportunity for real estate agents to get into property management that brings a lot of unqualified people and people that are going to not be very great and make a lot of mistakes perhaps unless they have their own investments, they've been dealing with property management a little bit. We can help you do this correctly and we'll talk a little bit about our DoorGrow Foundations in a little bit, but those of you that are established property managers, there's going to be an opportunity for you to capitalize maybe on this bubble, this Airbnb bubble, and convert some of the short-term rentals or convince some of the short-term rentals to convert the long term.
[00:04:57] Otherwise, they're probably going to sell an exit. For real estate agents, that's your opportunity is maybe to identify those Airbnbs that really need to just get sold so that they don't end up losing out. A lot of unqualified people came into the short-term rental situation as a result of the pandemic and everything else thinking, "Hey, there's a bunch of opportunity here now afterwards, and they are, you know, a lot of the people that are the least qualified to be doing it, they're going to be the ones that get hurt the most because they're not paying attention much to the market.
[00:05:30] Sarah: And there's a lot of like coaching things for like, "oh, here, I'll teach you how to like, run an Airbnb or like a short term rental business." and I think it's a really great idea. It is. I think what oftentimes happens is people significantly underestimate the amount of work that it takes. Significantly. Like Jason and I, we were just at Melanie's event last week and we were talking with someone who manages two short-term rental properties and she is already done. She's completely overwhelmed. She hates it. And that's only at two, two properties. And she's like, "everything is just urgent. They need it right now. You know, you can't wait, and sometimes people have very unreasonable expectations and thoughts as to what is an emergency and what needs to be done right now." so if you're in that short term Rental game. Our advice to her was, "you need a property manager," like, and one that does short-term rentals like on a consistent basis, not one that is just able to say, "Hey, I can do short-term." When you get into the short-term game, your short-term game and your long-term game are completely different.
[00:06:39] They function like two very separate businesses, and we have a few clients that do both short term and long term, and they realize very quickly that they are not at all the same thing. They have to operate very differently just because of that quick turnover.
[00:06:57] Jason: Yeah, so I'm doing a webinar later today with a friend of mine that basically does some coaching stuff to the real estate industry to real estate agents. So I'm going to be talking to real estate agents about how they can double their real estate commissions by leveraging property management and there's an opportunity here. Real estate agents can either start their own property management business so that they can keep their investor clients or they can partner with a property manager locally, which could be you listening, and that could help them as well.
[00:07:34] I've had several clients that if they make the property management arm of their business, when they also have brokerage, double their brokerage commissions simply by making sure property management is healthy, that they're acquiring new clients, that there's healthy flow, and that has fed them a lot more real estate deals. A lot of companies get their real estate deals from the tenants that are looking to get into buying a home from owners that are looking to buy or sell, they're getting real estate deals and commissions and property management, like I mentioned in the intro, is the ultimate gateway to real estate deals, relationships, and residual income. And so there's an opportunity there for those listening to either start your own property management business if you don't have that yet or to partner with a property manager, and there's ways they can help you generate revenue, get more deals if you have a good relationship. Especially those of my clients because they know how to help real estate agents get more real estate deals and make more money.
[00:08:37] We teach them how to do this. So why don't we talk about to those that are looking to maybe get into property management or have been thinking about starting it up. Okay. Okay.
[00:08:48] Sarah: Okay. So if you're thinking about starting a property management business, I think it would be a very good time to do that because we aren't quite sure where the real estate market is going. Are we heading into a recession? Are we already in the recession? Is it going to continue to tank? We don't know. So I think it's a really great time to start a property management business. I actually started one years ago just kind of by mistake, and I learned some hard lessons along the way. So what we've done is we've created a course called DoorGrow Foundations for people who are starting, or who have recently started a property management company. So by like startups, we mean that you might already have a few clients, but you are just really not, you know, a big large company at this point. What we've done is we've kind of, mapped out.
[00:09:45] Jason: Or you have zero doors? Or like purely nothing.
[00:09:48] Sarah: Yeah. Started, I started by saying that, okay.
[00:09:51] Jason: Just to clarify, a lot of the people that I talked to that have started their property management business, they started it because they were an investor.
[00:09:57] They already had 10, sometimes even a hundred units that were their own. And then they decided to start doing it, third party, and then they were actually starting a business. So before that, they just considered themselves an investor. So why don't we tell them a little bit about our Foundations program
[00:10:12] then?
[00:10:12] Sarah: Yeah. So what we've done in DoorGrow Foundations is we have created an entire course that you can go through that talks about all of the things that you're going to need to know when starting a property management business. We go into all of the mistakes that we see a lot of people make right around this point.
[00:10:32] And I've leveraged my own experience as well to help people avoid making some really common mistakes. So some of the things that we've talked about are, you know, what do your bank accounts need to look like and what should your financials look like? And, you know, how do we prioritize, like how do we get started? What should my day look like? Like all of these types of things are usually questions that people have when they're starting up. And unfortunately, sometimes if you don't kind of set that up the right way in the beginning, then it comes around to kind of bite you later. So we've put all of this into a course and we've made this available because a lot of times we get people contacting us who don't yet have a property management business.
[00:11:20] They're like, "Hey, I want to start this. I want to get into it." But they haven't actually done it yet and made that leap. So we thought, 'Hey, let's help people by leveraging what we know, what we've seen by talking hundreds of property managers and my own experience in starting a property management company, let's put all of that into a course that people can have access to, and that way it'll help you kind of get things off on the right foot.'
[00:11:47] Jason: So in our DoorGrow code, a lot of. At the very earliest stage, we call those dreamers. These are people that have this dream of starting a business and we call them fantasy belts. You know, we have this belt system, so they're not even a white belt yet. When you're in that dreamer or that fantasy stage, a lot of times we are very good at looking at all the upside, and we're very good at ignoring the difficulties or the downside. And so there are a lot of potential pitfalls and mistakes that they make when getting started. and the biggest challenge usually getting started is just taking action to actually get the business going, and they get caught up on wasting a lot of time on stuff that doesn't really matter when the only thing that really matters is getting your first client, right? That first door is the hardest. And so our program is focused on helping you get that first third party door as quick as possible, getting the right things in place, that you need systems in place. And then we even have some upsells or upgrades in the program, so you can get a website and some of these other add-ons that you might want in starting your business. Let's talk about what the program costs.
[00:12:54] Sarah: Yeah. Okay. Let's talk about it. So the monthly investment for foundations is only $297 a month. And we price it this way because some people, it might take only a couple months to get through and some people might kind of hang out here for quite a while. So sometimes we see people really go through things like we have clients in our program. They go through things super quickly. They're rapid implementers. They get the knowledge that they need and then they just implement, move forward. And if that's you, then you can get through this really quickly. You might only be in there for a few months and at that point you might qualify for our mastermind if you need a little bit more time because. You maybe have another job or you've got, you know, other things that are requiring your attention. So you want to be able to do this so that you don't miss out on the opportunity, but you can't fully dedicate yourself to it, then that's okay too. It might take you a little bit longer, so it's only $297 a month. And that way as long as it takes you or as quickly as you get through it you still get all of that information and you can kind of work at your own pace.
[00:14:06] Jason: Cool. Let's talk about what you get with this program. So first you get access to the Foundation's training in DoorGrow Academy, which is going to help you make a lot of the right moves in getting this started. You also get a ticket to DoorGrow Live, which is easily worth the value of, you know, probably several months of paying for this program. But you get a ticket to DoorGrow Live, you get to attend in person, connect with other property managers, maybe make some connections, a friend or two, maybe find a mentor. And we've got some really great mastermind members in that, that are always coming to those events. You get access to DoorGrow CRM. So this is a tool that's going to help you to be able to keep track of potential deals and leads and to be able to move those forward more easily. And it has phone calling and texting and a lot of cool features. So DoorGrow CRM.
[00:15:00] Sarah: Branding pages, automation, all that kind of good stuff.
[00:15:03] Jason: So you get access to that and then we have a growth strategy that we teach in this as well. That's perfect and ideal for startups that we call product research interviews so that you can go out and have a reason to talk to investors or people that can connect you to investors and how to leverage that and how to have the right conversation. We give you the scripts, everything so that you can use this tactic to get your first clients, which are the most difficult to get. And if you do these product research interviews and you do them correctly, you'll get some clients. And this is how we actually use this strategy to start our mastermind and several other programs that we've had at DoorGrow is this strategy of product research interviews, which gives you an excuse to talk to somebody. Sometimes I call this the Trojan horse to selling, but basically you're interviewing people and able to then convert them into clients.
[00:15:58] And that can be really effective for startups because it's also going to teach you, by doing these interviews, you're going to learn the language and the objections and the pain and the pleasure, all the stuff you need to understand in order to sell effectively to clients. So this is going to help you collapse time on selling to clients so that you will be able to sell as effectively, or maybe more so than some people that have been in the industry or at this game for a long time. There's some knowledge that we need to collapse time on, and this is one of the strategies that will help with that. We also have a upsell to where you can, if you want a logo and you want a website, you can pay a little extra to get access to our team to do those things for you. We're the world's leading property management, branding and design agency, we've rebranded more companies than anybody else. Period. Hundreds. And we can help you with making sure you don't make some significant mistakes on the brand, which can cost you a lot of money in the long run. And I think that's about it, right?
[00:16:59] Sarah: Oh, they do the masterclass too? They get access to the masterclass.
[00:17:02] Jason: Oh. We also have a masterclass that we do once a month where we do a cool training on something related to helping you grow and scale your property management business. Trainings in the past that we've done, you will have access to is we did a training on creating the ideal pitch deck, how to create a really good pitch deck to increase your close rate. We did a training on the three systems you need in order to make your business infinitely scalable so you can scale quickly. And any others? We've done some others. We just did your priorities. We did, yeah. We just did a training on increasing your profitability by changing the priorities in the business. Stuff like this.
[00:17:39] So, yeah. So the Foundation's program is a really great stepping stone to enable you to get the funds and get in gear so that you can join our Mastermind. Now, if you've already got the funds, maybe you've got a healthy brokerage, we would recommend you start with our lite version of the Mastermind, and that would be a much better program to be in because it includes the foundation stuff, but then you get coaching and we take things to the next level. You get our more advanced growth strategies, and we do a full rapid revamp on your business, which includes the branding, the website, all that stuff's included. Based on the price points for those things, those upsells being included, it makes it a no-brainer you should do the lite version of the Mastermind, because you'll probably save money that way. So you'll definitely save money that way. Yeah, we would recommend that.
[00:18:31] Program is a one year program or a 12 month commitment, and if you're 200 doors + maybe $20k revenue and plus, then you probably are at a point now where you know how to add doors. Your business probably has a team, you're probably ready for our super system level of the Mastermind and that would be the that next level that we would recommend for those of you that are 200 plus. At least a hundred doors, but maybe 20 K in revenue, plus maybe to be in that level. So depending on what you need and where you're at, we can help figure out what do you need most and how can we best help you? So, yeah. Cool. So if you're thinking about getting into property management, my usual joke is, If you're considering it is, do you want us to talk you into it or do you want us to talk you out of it? because we can do either one. So reach out to us and we can help you with that. Anything else that we should say?
[00:19:24] If you are interested in talking to us, you are struggling in your property management business. You are wanting to take things to the next level. You really haven't grown much or significantly over the last year. Let us inject a little bit of juice and rocket fuel into your business and get you to that next level. We're really good at that. Reach out to us at doorgrow.com and join our free Facebook community. We have some free gifts and we will help funnel you through to working with us as a client. If you need a little time to be nurtured, go to DoorGrowClub.com. We have a lot of great stuff, free content. You get access to some of our master classes and the goal is to convince you that we know what we're doing and to get you to the point where you're working with us as a client. And we'd love to see you in there. So, and that's it, right? And you'll get some free gifts for joining. Until next time, to our mutual growth. Bye everyone.
[00:20:12] 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!
[00:20:39] 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.
Even though a vacancy can be painful for an investor, leasing doesn’t have to be the biggest hat a property manager has to wear.
Join property management growth expert Jason Hull to talk about the topic of the property management Summer busy season with Tim and Larry from Tenant Turner.
[02:55] When is the right time to automate?
[07:52] Why being cheap leads to bad clients
[14:34] Staying competitive in the slow season
[18:04] The multifamily market oversupply
[22:13] Lockboxes and self-showings
“The most important currency related to growth is not cash, it's focus.”
“It's really stupid, in contrast, to hold onto the moldy peanuts in the monkey trap because you don't want to let go and not get your hand out because you just want to be cheap.”
“I find that cheap business owners attract cheap clients and they don't grow and scale their businesses.”
“Even if you only have, you know, one door, eight doors, 10 doors, any vacancy is painful.”
[00:00:00] Jason: I find that cheap business owners attract cheap clients and they don't grow and scale their businesses. And so if you're listening to this and you're like, "well, I'm being cheap and I'm being frugal, and that's smart." It's not smart when it comes to business, and it's not smart when it comes to growth.
[00:00:17] 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 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. 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, along with Sarah Hull, the COO of DoorGrow. Now let's get into the show, and our guests today are Tim Wallace and Larry Hancock of Tenant Turner. Welcome you two.
[00:01:27] Tim: Thanks for having us.
[00:01:28] Larry: Yeah, thanks for having us.
[00:01:29] Jason: So does everybody there have red hair now? Is this the thing?
[00:01:32] Tim: We're slowly taking over the world.
[00:01:34] Larry: Like it's just-- gingers unite-- job application requirement.
[00:01:37] Jason: That sounds like a really good t-shirt.
[00:01:40] Sarah: I like it. Yeah. "Are you willing to dye your hair?"
[00:01:43] Jason: That'd be the strangest thing. Yeah. "It's part of the, it's part of the uniform." All right. Awesome. Well, it's good to have you both and you know, we really appreciate you being a sponsor for our DoorGrow events and doing some cool stuff with us. And Tim, you actually sold Sarah Tenant Turner previously. Oh, Larry did. Larry sold Sarah Tenant Turner. Yeah. You can't have the credit, Tim. Sorry. It's Larry. Larry did this. He closed the deal in Sarah's property management business that she's since sold, but they're still using Tenant Turner.
[00:02:17] Sarah: They do use tenant turner.
[00:02:19] Jason: There you go. So awesome. So our topic today is scaling up your leasing process during the busy season, which is right now, right? It's summer, things heat up. And what's interesting, if you do go onto Google Trends, trends.google.com and look at the keyword "property management" and you backdate it for like a decade and you'll see these, it just spikes. It doesn't go up like it's not growing in search volume, but property management spikes every summer and goes down in the winter. And that's probably how leasing works as well in property management. So what, where should we start with scaling up your leasing process during the busy season?
[00:02:59] Larry: So what's interesting is it's almost like a catch 22 for our customers. So for folks that aren't using any kind of automation, they're like, "I really need your services, but I'm just too darn busy to even consider it." I'm like, "ah! Why didn't you talk to us just a few months earlier?" And then you got the opposite side where some customers are like, "I'm not busy enough to consider your services." so we're always trying to, you know, have these conversation with these people why automation's beneficial for them. Whether they're in a stage where they're just, you know, drinking from a fire hydrant and they're just trying to just figure things out while they're in the busy leasing season. Or maybe you are using automation and it's just a matter of creating efficiencies. So that way you can continually grow your business. So, typically that's how we'll start our conversation is kind of where are you at right now? Are you kind of just struggling to stay afloat and you need to add some automation into your life, or do you have the automation and it's just creating those efficiencies in your business?
[00:03:53] Jason: So how do you help people that say they're not busy enough justify leveraging and getting tenure turner?
[00:04:02] Larry: Yeah. So from there it's really. Trying to get them more in the head space of like, "I understand that for now. But let's figure out how we can create value here." So maybe I'm getting them in a place of, you know, let's build the building blocks. "We're not going to create your account just yet, but in a perfect world, when you are busy and need our services, let's kind of back out what the steps are to get there." Sometimes maybe their portfolio isn't large enough. So then that would be a time when I would recommend to someone like you, Jason, where it's like, "Hey, you need to be a part of a program where you can, you know, grow your portfolio because he's going to help you grow your portfolio and then you're going to need us because you're only one person." so I'll try to get them in that kind of head space. But it's really almost building their tech stack. So while we're an important piece to that whole thing there's other moving parts to the entire system. So that's usually how I start. It's really more playing a consolidative role.
[00:04:55] So I'm trying to consult them, figure out where they're at in the process. And if they're not a good fit for us that day, that's okay. Maybe they will be. And then I'm going to set a reminder to reach out before they're busy losing season basically.
[00:05:07] Jason: So where is that kind of cutoff point to where they've achieved, you know, Tenant Turner readiness status?
[00:05:17] Larry: So sometimes people will view it from like a portfolio size. I think it's really more about the entrepreneurial mindset. I met some people where they have just one door and they're like, "Hey Larry, I'm going to be a hundred units by the end of the year." I'm like, "that's awesome man. You know, it's great you're kind of trying to build this plane before you're trying to take off," where sometimes I talk to customers, they're like, "Hey, We're flying this plane. The wings are about to fall off. And I just don't know what to do." I'm like, "okay--"
[00:05:42] Jason: I'm going to build it in the air. I'm working on it.
[00:05:45] Larry: I know. It's like, "all right, well I appreciate you, you know, diving ahead first, but you're probably really stressed out right now." So, typically in our world, our pricing model, month to month, no contracts. So one to 50 units you're fine. We're going to talk to you. We're not going to be like, "oh you're too small for us, man. Like, I just can't talk to you." We have a great culture in that way. We try to be that partner with them. But typically our general rule of thumb is if you expect to have any vacancy, whether it's one throughout the entire year, you should at least consider us. Even if it's only one month out of the entire year we'll still talk to you.
[00:06:16] Jason: Yeah.
[00:06:17] Sarah: Yeah. And I think something that people don't always realize is even if you're like, I don't need it right now, I'm not ready, I don't have enough. It's going to make it so much easier if you have systems in place already, so that you can scale so that when you scale, you're not now in massive amounts of pain. And even if you only have, you know, one door, eight doors, 10 doors, any vacancy is painful. Yeah, any vacancy is painful and it's going to help you massively, not only just in your time and your effort, but it will make your clients happier. Like when I implemented Tenant Turner, my vacancy rate like took a nosedive. Now, not that I had a high vacancy rate. But like just trying to like market and figure out where to put these things and answering all the messages and doing a gazillion showings for people that might not even qualify. You know, it was taking sometimes like weeks to fill a vacancy. And when I implemented that, it went down dramatically. So clients are much, much happier and you and your staff are going to be much, much happier because now it's a lot less work for you.
[00:07:28] Larry: Yeah and kind of building on that, Sarah, we kind of find our solution is almost like a an aspirin approach. So people are kind of taking that aspirin when they have a headache in the form of vacancy. And there is a time and place to pop the aspirin, but usually what's a lot better is kind of plan ahead of, "oh, I know I could have headaches during this time of the year, so I'm going to be a little bit more you know, I'm going to prepare, I'm going to be more proactive." where I see people have the right mindset in regards to software is usually what they'll do is they'll annualize the cost and then figure out how to generate enough ROI. So if I'm able to save. Five hours per week, you know, and I annual analyze the software in such a way I don't need to worry about it because I've looked at the 12 month period and I know I'm going to get my value that way. It's a little bit harder when you're trying to convince people when they're kind of penny pitching and it's like you're wasting all this time on that part and that time worrying about it, you just wasted where you could be attracting new owners. So the mindset really is kind of analyzing the software, but trying to build the ROI into that.
[00:08:31] Sarah: I have to say like I was hesitant for a while because I was like, "well, this is easy and like I have this streamlined process" and really, I said this to you. I was like, "I just don't spend that much time." I had 200 and like some odd units, like 260 I think at my highest. And when I was talking with you, I was like, "you know, I just don't spend that much time doing it. So is there a benefit to it? Yes, but how much time am I really going to save? Because I feel like it's already something that is simple for me." And even though I had this streamlined and I had processes to find and I maybe was spending a couple hours a week doing, you know, messaging and email and confirmations and stuff like that.
[00:09:14] I was still spending time doing it. When I implemented Tenant Turner, then I was like, "oh, I don't have anything to do." Like every once in a while I have to just pop in and you have to like manually approve somebody. And then once, like I updated my showing schedule once a week. So once a week I had to go in and update the showing schedule for the upcoming week, which took all of maybe four minutes. And other than that, I was just popping in and kind of like manually approving people. And I was spending, I went from maybe a few hours a week, which I still didn't think was a lot to minutes per week. And I was like, "oh wow. Okay. I see it now. I see it." But sometimes they think you have to experience it to see it. Because I was like, "I just don't know!" And I was really glad that I did it because it really like, it took so much. And sometimes when you make a change like that, then you realize how much work you are actually doing. Because we rationalize, we're like, "it's not that hard. It doesn't take me that long. Like I just send a couple emails," and then when you realize, "oh, I don't have to do any of that anymore." it was like mind blowing to me. I was like, "oh, like this literally takes me like 10 minutes a week and that's it." So all my leasing was done in 10 minutes.
[00:10:33] Jason: I think that's one of my favorite ways to justify an expense is you have to look at the opportunity cost because if you're just looking, you're like, "okay, well it costs me this much money and if I do it myself, then it's free. But your time is the most valuable resource you have in a business-- not free-- and the most important currency related to growth is not cash. It's focus. And if your focus is diluted as a business owner away from what can generate more revenue, then the opportunity cost is huge in two to three hours you could be closing deals that are worth tens of thousands of dollars over that year. So it's really stupid in contrast to like hold onto the moldy peanuts in the monkey trap because you don't want to let go and not get your hand out because you just want to be cheap.
[00:11:22] And so I find that cheap business owners attract cheap clients and they don't grow and scale their businesses. And so if you're listening to this and you're like, "well, I'm being cheap and I'm being frugal, and that's smart." It's not smart when it comes to business, and it's not smart when it comes to growth. You need to let go of those moldy peanuts. There's bananas in reach and the farmer's going to come along and chop off your head. And this is why most businesses fail. Most businesses fail in the-- or they get stuck-- first year or the first five years. A lot fail and property management is tough. And I see, I see a lot.
[00:11:55] Sarah: They get, they just get stuck and they're trapped. "I don't have more time. I can't do anything else. Like, I don't know what else I can do in making these little changes." Like I'm going to be honest with you, I like, I bought into the product and I still wasn't like, "ah, I think that's going to be amazing." I was like, "it'll help me." And it helped way more than I thought it was going to help me. I would say this is like 1. Was implementing a property management software and 2. Was implementing tenant Turner. Those are the two things that like made a massive shift in my business for me.
[00:12:28] Jason: Nice.
[00:12:29] Sarah: And I almost wish I could have told myself like, "Hey, remember when you had 260 units and you were doing it all yourself? You should have been talking to Tenant Turner.
[00:12:37] Jason: There was some guy that had mentioned these things to you.
[00:12:40] Sarah: I know!
[00:12:40] Jason: He's pretty smart.
[00:12:41] Tim: I think even if you are in that cheap mindset, like at the end of the day, like vacancy is what's going to cost your owners the most money down the road too. Like one day on the market can cost them anywhere from what, 50 to $200 depending on what they're paying for their mortgage and everything. Like those costs add up and it's as property managers, it's your fiduciary duty to help them recoup that money. And if you're spending too much time on those types of things, even if you're focused on your business and spending time on that, you could still be losing that money by having those extra days on market without this type of system.
[00:13:11] Sarah: Absolutely, and I think the conversation that I have with people over and over again is you need to figure out what this particular task is worth in dollars. So if this is like a $10 an hour task, a $20 an hour task, Is it something that you, as a business owner need to be doing? Is your time worth more than 10 or $20 an hour? And if the answer to that question is yes, then you need to not be the one who's doing this.
[00:13:35] Jason: Yeah. If a business owner, and a lot of business owners are the BDM, they are the business development manager. They are the person that's doing sales and generating revenue and growing the business. And if you do not as a business owner, have a full-time BDM.
[00:13:49] You have somebody focused on this and it's on your shoulders, then you're a shitty part-time salesperson. You're maybe investing, I find one, maybe two hours a day. That's like 10 hours a week focusing on growing the business. And so everything else other than that should be offloaded that you can everything else. Give up the leasing stuff as much as you can, give up the maintenance stuff as much as you can, like you need to be focused on generating revenue until you can offload that piece and focus. Otherwise, you're not going to grow. And if any business owner is listening to this in property management, if you haven't grown significantly over the last year or two or three, it's because you are doing the wrong things as a business owner in the business. Plain and simple, there's no way around that. So we chatted about justifying it for those that are already, they have lots of doors and they're, you know, how do we deal with making things scalable during the busy season? And then things really for leasing tend to really cool down in the winter months. And so what are you typically seeing with clients that come to you that are maybe at a 200 plus doors or it's obvious that you can serve them.
[00:15:02] Tim: I mean, even if you do have 200 doors sure, summertime's going to be the busiest, where generally speaking, you could have anywhere from what, five to 12% vacancy rates and whatnot with turnovers and whatnot. During the wintertime, there still might be one or two that hit every month. And what we're noticing with customers that size is that throughout the year we kind of keep things with that month to month rate really low for everyone.
[00:15:24] It's based on portfolio size for us. And so most people are keeping that active because even one listing, like you're saying, if you're working on one listing, spending two or three hours on that one listing, even getting to go back and forth with the messages, the emails and everything like that could still be costing you more than what your monthly rate for subscription might be. So a lot of people do keep us going year round and have the lock boxes and things like that in service for vendors and stuff that might need to come and go for properties as well. So, there's lots of different little solutions that we provide there too that kind of help keep the business flowing smoothly, but generally speaking, we're there when they need us and any spot in the road where if it's crazy or if it's just a little bit, we try to keep the system smooth all year for them.
[00:16:10] Larry: I guess to add to that so typically when things are slow, usually people are saying, "I'm not getting enough leads." really what they mean is they're not getting enough leads from, you know, Zillow, Trulia, the big networks. And when they come to us and say, "Hey, what do I do? What can Tenant Turner provide?" That's usually when I tell them like, "you're really going to hunker down and how are you going to be different than your competition?" and that's also times when like, you know, "let's look at your website. You know, are you being an industry leader in your market?" So maybe they're not going to the Zillows, but when they search, or, you know, what is your web, your presence in your market? Automation's great and you definitely should automate, but then there's also times to be that personalized touch. So when things are slow, what aren't your competitors doing? If they're leaning really heavy where they can't talk to a person at all maybe you should go to what we call the 'take request model,' where we're automating things, we're pre-qualifying, and then we're setting, you know, a couple days and times. But before an appointment's approved, you get to talk to that lead. And really what you're doing, you're leveraging yourself. You introduce yourself, you say why you're great and you're market maybe some key differentiators. And then you schedule an appointment. And you do a couple things. What I like to say is you're doing what's called a vibes test just to make sure both of you are, you know, a good fit, rather to rent the property and that type of stuff. And also you're making sure they have a heartbeat. Making sure, you know, if you're using self-guided tours, it's another security layer to everything. Because at the end of the day, I'm a big fan of it's the, a book called Rework by the guys who created Basecamp. And the whole philosophy is that it's not that in a world where people saying, "I need more of this," whether it's "I need more leads" or "I need more tools," it's more utilizing the tools that you already have more efficiently. So when we look at things like lead flow, maybe it's not necessarily a top of the funnel problem, it's more of a bottom of the funnel conversion problem. And then when you use personalization to a lot of interesting ways, like I mentioned.
[00:18:04] Jason: So one of the things that I think is happening a bit throughout the US and I've had some podcast guests touch on this, is that in some markets-- and I've heard some some property managers anecdotally share this with me as well-- they're having a difficulty getting tenants because the inventory as a result of the pandemic just went up, skyrocketed. A lot of people are like, "Hey, let's build, let's create a bunch of investments." Now there's a surplus of inventory and that creates a scarcity of tenants, and so they're having to get a little bit more aggressive. What strategies Have you guys seen, or you know, because you're connected to a lot of people that are doing leasing, how are they becoming more attractive to tenants than their competition?
[00:18:48] Tim: You want to start or? So there's a lot of different things out there, like different solutions, whether it's providing something like a benefits package to your residents, things like that really making your listings stand out. If it's better photography, if it's better marketing in general for stuff. But generally speaking, we are kind of seeing that trend as well, where days on market are expanding a little bit. It's kind of a trend that's-- we were kind of in a goldlock zone for the last couple of years with rentals. Like it's been amazing and pre covid it wasn't ever really like that either. Like that we're kind of seeing the ebbs and flows of the market, and that's just natural in real estate. So, we're coming back to the time where people are like, kind of hunkering down and making sure that their properties are as good as they can be to really attract the best tenants for them. So while there might be a few extra days on market, there's a couple things you can do around there. Like Larry's saying, adding those personal touches in there. Setting up notifications so that as soon as someone gets to the property, you can still have that personal touch by making a phone call as soon as you can see they got into the property. Or if maybe some people are doing a few more in-person showings, if that's the case. Generally speaking, that's putting more time on the property as well, which, like we talked about, costs opportunity costs.
[00:20:00] If you got the team to do that, and that's kind of their role as a leasing agent or whatnot, great. They can have that personal touch and then go a little bit further with them. But if you're also focused on self showings having that additional personal touch, some additional marketing on the property or whatnot, I can kind of help draw that process out a little bit sooner. And really with our system, it. We really try to provide as much immediacy as possible. So when someone sees a listing on a site like Zillow, for instance they're clicking request information. We're sending them an email right away that they have the opportunity to come into Tenant Turner and click a link and schedule a tour right away. If they're calling into us, they're not going to a voicemail. They're going to be sitting there waiting three days for someone to respond to. I know that's a trend of the industry. A lot of people have massively filled inbox inboxes that they just can't handle. So tenant leads never hear back from anyone because they kind of pick and choose. We're responding to every single one of those leads as they come in and making sure that immediacy is really driving that engagement.
[00:20:59] So if we keep that engagement up for everyone the goal is that, generally speaking, that alone will really help drive. What's, I think there's a statistic out there? If you respond within five minutes, generally speaking, you're going to get 80% more acceptance in terms of a conversation. Yeah. There's that click or an actual phone call, things like that, like providing that immediacy is a massive, and it goes a long way for impressing tenant leads on the consumer side, but also in, in business. We all know B two B sales and even BDMs like calling their owners. As soon as you see a click on a website, you want to call them. So we want to keep that trend going on our side as well.
[00:21:33] Jason: Yeah, this is the TikTok generation man. They have attention spans of like two minutes, you know, it's like really short. So I love these ideas. So pushing owners to improve the property I think is a great strategy. Increasing your availability and your responsiveness and that immediacy, quick, beat, slow for sure in business. Increasing the ease Tenent Turner helps with. And then making sure that you are able to be super responsive within the first five minutes. So yeah. Love it. All right, cool. What else should we chat about related to scaling up your process during the busy season? Did we miss anything?
[00:22:12] Larry: We got it. I know typically the elephant in the room, so a lot of times, you know, self-guided tours is the golden child of, you know, why you should consider it and how it's helpful, whether it's busy or slow and this, that, and the other. But one of the things that we had is for people that aren't using it and it's like, "I would never consider that or I'm scared to use this or I can never get owner buy-in." And that's kind of always the elephant in the room. I know Tim, you have some very interesting data of, you know, while, you know, like anything in business there are inherent risks, but as business owners every day we are willing to kind of, you know, improve or, you know, try to tackle these risks. And there's usually a pot-- not all the time, but you know, a pot of gold can be waiting for you. So was there any data that you wanted to share, Tim?
[00:22:56] Jason: Before we get into that, let's kill that objection real quick. because I hear this all the time too. So I say, "Hey, maybe you should be using Tenant Turner or something like this," and they say, "well, I don't want to do lock boxes." And my response is, "you don't have to." like, there's a lot of benefits besides that piece. In fact, there's plenty of benefits besides that piece. And so maybe you can address that real quick and then we can talk about is that even really a valid concern or not? And are there markets that are better for lockbox versus others? Some are like, "I can never do that in my market. I'll have squatters all over the place." you know, they're concerned. So let's address that, that elephant in the room.
[00:23:34] Tim: Yeah. I mean, at the end of the day, you guys know your properties best. You're going to know which areas might have a high potential for negativity happening. Whether it's someone coming in and stealing wires, the horror stories of people stealing appliances and stuff like that. At the end of the day, if someone wants to do something bad, A lockbox or a keyless lock isn't necessarily going to stop someone in that scenario, right? We all know areas where people aren't afraid to break a window and get in, steal a refrigerator. Like the fact that a property isn't known to be vacant is a big enough red flag alone that most people that want to do something nefarious will go ahead and do it. But at the same time on our side of things, if we can block as many of those instances as possible with our abilities to kind of keep track of known scammers and squatters and things like that. We've got some stuff built into our system, but really at the end of the day, if someone wants to do something bad, it's going to happen. But generally speaking, most people that are doing showings, that type of scenario, if you're, you know, your area, if you're doing your own kind of awareness inspections periodically and you're on top of the property yourself, we barely hear of any instances of negativity happening with those scenarios. Like self showings, we can come up with the horror stories, but at the end of the day, in our experience, they are really few and far between and we're not having major issues, at least more than what you would on average. See, with any property that's being marketed, it's vacant. Like that's, it's going to happen.
[00:24:56] Jason: And there's some serious advantages because, I would imagine the best defense, period, against all of those type of problems is just getting it leased out as quick as possible. Yep. It's decreasing vacancy, and so if a lockbox can help them get into it right away, get a showing right away, whatever, decreasing the vacancy time is probably your best, you know, defense.
[00:25:18] Sarah: Yeah. The other thing I'll add to this too, is if there are people who are kind of scoping out the property and they notice, hey, like every Tuesday at six o'clock people come and then that's it. They're not going to come at Tuesday at six o'clock. They're going to come at other times. Yeah. So if we do have a lockbox on it, and now we don't really know, like when people are going to come because they're coming whenever is like convenient for them. So it might be earlier in the morning or in the afternoon or late at night. We don't know for sure. There's not so much predictability in the schedule. So I think that's something that would help as well is if there's someone who's " Hey, that house over there is vacant. Let's like check that out." But they consistently see people in and out of it, that is a little bit of a deterrent as well, because you never know, like, "Hey, if I go over there because I want to steal that refrigerator, am I walking into someone who's already there?
[00:26:14] Jason: Now you can not have a big old sign on the property out front that says, "Hey, this is vacant right now. Do you want to see this?" You know, but you can still market it online without like giving out the address until they're ready to do a showing probably.
[00:26:29] Larry: Yeah, so there's some kind of tips and tricks that we've found. So one thing is not advertising it as a self-guided tour. If you're going to use verbiage in the marketing description, use contactless showing. Because that could mean virtual tours, it could mean other things. But really for us, I like to describe ourselves as a closed loop system. because usually leads are only interacting with our platform if they find out through your website or through a syndication site. So it makes it much more harder to shop for homes because they really don't know, you know, but if they inquire, then that's when the automation will engage. Some interesting things, you know, kind of like Sarah said, one thing deterrent is they see activity, but you know, we find that a lead isn't going to put a government Id answer some questions and go through this process. Why would they do that when they could just go to the front door? You could go to YouTube and learn how to pick a lock and under five minutes, and then no one's going to know I'm on the radar. It's so much easier to do that. Especially in the age of TikTok. I'm sure there's a TikTok, within two minutes or less you'll learn how to pick a lock or pop open a lockbox or something like that too.
[00:27:34] Sarah: Or break a window.
[00:27:35] Larry: Or break a window.
[00:27:37] Jason: Yeah, it's a little bit quicker probably. All right, cool. So, how can people get in touch with Tenant Turner and reach out to you guys?
[00:27:48] Larry: Yeah, so obviously if they want to learn a little bit about our services, tenantturner.com. My name's Larry, larry@tenantturner.com. Feel free to email me directly. I kind of deem myself as a software nerd so you know, any questions about whether you use this or not, that's fine. You know, I'm always happy to share tips and tricks of how to automate your process, so that's kind of how you learn some more.
[00:28:12] Tim: So Larry's on the sales side of things for tenant Turner. I'm on the marketing side too, so if you ever need any additional materials or data and statistics around the self showings, if you want to help market to your owners and whatnot, if you've already signed up with Tenant Turner, happy to kind of jump on that side of things. You can email me at tim@tenantturner.com.
[00:28:26] Jason: Awesome. I'm sure that's a big part of it is really if they understand how to sell it to their clients, then that's probably the biggest hurdle. Is just being able to confidently say, here's why this is a good idea and how it's going to benefit you and to sell them on it. So, awesome. Well it's been great having you both here on the show. We appreciate Tenant Turner. We get great feedback on tenant Turner from our clients, so we've always felt very confident pushing our clients towards you as one part of their growth strategy and and I hope you guys have an awesome week.
[00:28:59] Larry: Thanks. You as well. We appreciate you guys and thanks for including us.
[00:29:02] Jason: All right. So if you are a property management entrepreneur that is wanting to grow your business, reach out to Tenant Turner and make sure you reach out to DoorGrow. We are really good at helping our clients scale if you feel like you need more doors to be able to afford Tenant Turner or to be able to justify tenant Turner. We're really good at helping people do that. Anything else we should add? I don't think so. Let's tell them to join our Facebook group. Join our Facebook group.
[00:29:28] There you go. DoorGrow club.com. Join our Facebook group community. We have some free stuff in there. Until next time, to our mutual growth. Bye everyone.
[00:29:37] 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!
[00:30:04] 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.
The property management industry has been moving more and more towards automating tasks and processes in the last decade. Property management tools and software have improved drastically and continue to improve every year.
In this episode, property management growth expert, Jason Hull sits down with Mo Hussein from Balanced Asset Solutions to talk about property management tools and systems.
You'll Learn...
[06:23] Why You DON’T Want Software that Does it All
[10:27] Implementing a New Tool or System
[20:40] The Cost of Hiring vs Implementing a New Software
[28:04] The Most Effective Accountability System for Your Team
“Try to evaluate software from a very objective type of lens. At the end of the day, it is just a tool.”
“You don't see an amazing handyman or you know, vendor or somebody that's going to do some work, show up with a, just a multi-tool. Like where's your toolbox?”
“There's no such thing as one product that's going to do everything extremely well.”
“The humbling experience every business owner needs to have is when they start to hire people that are better at the things they used to do that they've let go of.”
[00:00:00] Jason: Initially when I was playing around with stuff in my own business, I was like, I need to find that multi-tool, and I think this is a mistake a lot of people make. I need to find this multi-tool that can do everything. That sounds like that would be the best thing, but it does it really badly, right? You don't see an amazing handyman or somebody that's going to do some work, show up with a, just a multi-tool. Like where's your toolbox?
[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 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.
[00:01:24] So my guest today, I'm hanging out with Mo Hussein. Welcome Mo and what's the name of your business?
[00:01:30] Mohammed: Hey Jason. Pleasure to be here. It's called Balanced Asset Solutions.
[00:01:34] Jason: Balanced Asset Solutions. Awesome. So the topic Mo and I are going to be chatting about today is the Power of Innovative Software Solutions. But before we get into that, Mo, why don't you give everybody a little bit of background on yourself and how you've sort of connected yourself to property management?
[00:01:50] Mohammed: Yeah, great, great question. So we are a CPA accounting and technology advisory firm that specifically just focuses on real estate. So we work with property managers, asset managers, fund managers. In implementing software leveraging software to be able to streamline their business and enabling them to be able to scale. Prior to starting this practice about six years ago I've actually worked for AppFolio and well before they were public as well as Yardi Systems. And what I saw in the market was you know, the software is a tool at the end of the day, and there's a lot of complexity that comes with these programs. The accounting nuances, how to properly implement it, get your accounting to work right, your numbers to show up correctly. And a lot of customers would call in asking for accounting and operational kind of advice. And being a software vendor, we're there to make sure that the product is technically working right, versus giving advice in the accounting and operations world. And so we started this practice about six years ago and we offer, you know, CPA and accounting services around the accounting that bookkeeping using these products and also kind of maximizing the ability to kind of streamline your business and wrapping your business processes around these programs.
[00:02:59] Jason: Cool. Awesome. So you worked for AppFolio, you worked for Yardi as well, correct? Correct. Okay. And in a tech capacity?
[00:03:09] Mohammed: In a tech capacity, yeah. In sales and account management? Correct.
[00:03:13] Jason: Okay. I come from a tech background as well, so. Great. I worked at HP and I worked at Verizon, and so we're both nerds. Talk nerdy to me, Mo! Let's go. So what are you noticing in the industry when it comes to software? And, you know, this is a challenge a lot of people are trying to figure out which one to pick when they're in the startup stage. And then what I also notice-- Some try to do it without it-- but what I also notice is that nobody ever seems totally happy with their software and they're always looking over the fence at their neighbor to try and figure out, what are you using? Is this better? And I get people switch more often than they probably should. And then they realize they're missing something else. So what do you work on with clients and what are you seeing?
[00:04:00] Mohammed: Yeah. You know, great question and you know about like what, 15, 20 years ago, when we think about property management software and the industry as a whole, there weren't that many players. You had Yardi, this is before AppFolio time, 15, 20 years ago. Yeah. You had some very legacy players that worked with larger commercial operators like an MRI or Skyline. A lot of these on-premise pieces of software have now been kind of gobbled up by larger players or have transformed to be, you know, software as a service or web-based programs. And now, you know, over time now the ability to be able to build new software, the barrier to entry is much lower. You know, modern technology frameworks like using like single page apps and stuff like that are very ubiquitous. And you're seeing a lot of new entrants and players that are coming into the market. You know, players like Red Vine. That you're hearing of now. And then also there's this whole you know, offshoot or like a entire vertical that's been created now called PropTech. And now you have technology that's specific for screening and, you know, maintenance management, facilities management, investment management, and you have all these little products that are coming out. And so, you know, one thing that we always you know, implore on our customers is, you know, try to evaluate software from a very objective type of lens. At the end of the day, it is just a tool. And the effectiveness of that tool is in how you use it. Right? If you're using a hammer, you know, not in a conducive way, then it's not going to be an effective tool, right? And so there's a lot of buzz in the market that you hear now, especially with AI and generative ai. There's a lot of different tools that are in the market, but you know, the fundamentals of what you're looking to make the software do or hopefully achieve with the software, being able to streamline your rent collections and tenant communication, your vendor communication, you know, we always tell our customers, Hey, put together a checklist of what exactly the objectives are that you're looking to accomplish with this piece of software. Try to tie that to some business outcome. And that's kind of the driver of why you're looking at or evaluating the software and then put together a grading rubric and then, you know, find the software that is effective for your business needs. Don't give too much credence and how it looks or the aesthetics or what you're hearing from other folks. Definitely what you're hearing in the market will help kind of guide the software programs they to take a look at, but you know, we tend to see this as well, a lot of clients are kind of jumping around between different products and are not happy with one product or another. And usually it's an issue associated with kind of the implementation and kind of the adoption and enablement that they're giving to their employees with the product.
[00:06:22] Jason: So, going back to your tool analogy, I think my philosophy with software. Initially when I was playing around with stuff in my own business, I was like, I need to find that multi-tool, and I think this is a mistake a lot of people make. I need to find this multi-tool that can do everything. It's got the hammer, the screwdriver, the pliers, tweezers, knife, like everything in it. That sounds like that would be the best thing. I'll just find something, does everything, but it does it really badly, right? You don't see an amazing handyman or you know, vendor or somebody that's going to do some work, show up with a, just a multi-tool. Like where's your toolbox? "Oh, I've got this guy. This can do everything." Right? So my philosophy on software over time is definitely shifted to, I want my team members to have the best tools, and if those best tools can do some things really well, then I will find other tools to strap onto that or add into my toolbox. That also do their job really well, and I find I get a better result having the best tools, even if I'm spending more money, than having that multi-tool that can do a whole bunch of things. So what's your take on this? Are we in alignment or...?
[00:07:34] Mohammed: Yeah. Yeah. Great question. And I completely agree. There's no such thing as one product that's going to do everything extremely well, right? There's going to be some pitfalls in one area that you have to sacrifice for another area. And so, you know, usually when clients are going through these evaluation kind of cycles of looking at software, what we suggest is, "Hey, you know, use this as an opportunity to also do some introspection. Understand what your standard operating procedures are, how you run your business, what is your accounting cycle look like? Who's involved? How does that process propagate throughout the organization? Same thing with you know, the leasing, the accounting operations when it comes to maintenance and document what that process kind of looks like, and then use that as kind of a guiding post of the functionality you're looking from the program," you know, versus going into the evaluation and looking at a bunch of different pieces of software. And usually when, you know, when clients realize like, "Hey, you know, we didn't realize that this program had a limitation in this aspect," they didn't approach it from a manner of understanding kind of what their processes are and then kind of demoing the software or looking at the programs from that lens, if that makes sense.
[00:08:40] Jason: Got it. So what size of companies and what companies typically are coming to you for help, and what do they need help with?
[00:08:49] Mohammed: Great question. So we have a pretty broad range of clients. We have small mom and pop and customers with, you know, 10 or 15 doors on the residential side. And then we have clients, large asset fund managers that are, you know, grappling with 80,000 plus doors across the world. And so, we don't only focus on residential, commercial, office, industrial, manufactured housing, self storage. The only vertical we don't touch is senior housing, mainly because of hipaa, kind of healthcare requirements there. Ok, cool. Some of the problems that they do have, one is change management.
[00:09:21] Most of the clients we work with have, you know, CPAs in house, you know, they have staff implementing and properly adopting software is a herculean effort, especially as the organization grows larger and larger. You have your day-to-day responsibilities, challenges, organization, and cleanliness, you know, understanding kind of accounting and software. At the same time, you know, change management and project management and the orchestration of that is probably the biggest challenge that a lot of our clients have. And in general, we're all creatures of habit, right? So there's a significant opportunity that cost that comes with kind of managing and implementing a new solution and ushering a change, versus kind of focusing on growth and your portfolio and servicing your owners and your tenants.
[00:10:04] Jason: Now a lot of business owners will get excited about some new tech or some new software, some new thing they're going to throw into the business, and they go and throw this at their team, and then they get friction and resistance and adoption. Anyone that's ever been around tech or software knows that trying to get a team to use tech adoption is the number one challenge.
[00:10:25] You've already mentioned it twice, right? Adoption's a big challenge. So, What is the secret to adoption? And I find for me, there's a couple of factors, but I want to hear what you found really helps with the adoption happening and getting team buy-in and getting team members to actually use this stuff.
[00:10:46] Mohammed: Yeah. Great question. I did a radio show a couple months ago and kind of the three things that we see that are needed in order to have kind of. Effective adoption and enablement with software and just in general, just changes. One is executive sponsorship and so we see a lot of owners of property management, asset management firms, you know, they understand that there is a need for some of your product or, you know, they're doing a lot of pen and paper using a lot of Excel spreadsheets. They want to use some piece of software. However, they'll relegate or delegate that to the team that would also be using it. And so, And this team not only has to go through and do their kind of day-to-day activities, but now they also have to go through the process of evaluating different pieces of software or different software products. And they're giving kind of an artificial budget and the executive or the sponsor is not as involved. Kind of the evaluation process and not giving much weight to, you know, how significant of a change this will be at the end of the day. You know, implementing a new piece of software is very business disruptive. And so, you know, your employees are the folks that are kind of doing this evaluation, feel like they're on, kind of on their own little island and kind of going through this entire change and evaluation on their own. That's one is the kind of executive sponsorship. And usually when that executive sponsorship exists and the, you know, the owner and the executives in the business are actually involved during the evaluation cycle this also gives confidence to, you know, the the employees and the folks in your organization that you are serious about this.
[00:12:14] want to make sure that it is successful. I want to see it through. And it incentivizes, you know, extreme ownership. You know, folks want to do less manual work. We want to do less administrivia work, right? And so, and these software programs have that promise. So executive owner sponsorship extreme ownership. And then lastly, and probably most importantly is change management. And this is something that most organizations just struggle with in general. They're too focused and kind of, siloed into what they're trying to accomplish, that they're not looking at kind of the bigger picture and the impact that this change is impacting across the organization. And so that's why organizations and consultants like us kind of exist. And so executive sponsorship, extreme ownership and change management.
[00:12:58] Jason: Yeah, entrepreneurs like to walk into a room, pull the pin on a grenade that they picked up at a conference. Throw it into the middle of their team and say, "here's our new thing we're doing! or "go do this thing!" and the team are like, what the hell? Like, we've got plenty of work already to be working on. We're not excited about this. This does not look fun to us. This is terrifying. You know, how am I going to manage my current work? And and they don't want to really own it. They, and they don't want to mess up because they know if they go out there, start researching software and they're usually not given the right criteria. Right. Like, they're like, how do we weight the criteria? because they probably are going to be conservative and think just in terms of budget. Whereas the business owner's probably like, I want the best. And, you know, there isn't really a good decision making guide related to this and which weighted factors and how they should consider it. Right. And so, You know, if anyone's ever seen a decision making matrix where you list out all the criteria, right? Like what's the speed of implementation, how disruptive will this be? How intuitive is the UI or the user interface for the software you know, can we pick it up pretty easily? So, How much training is going to be required? What's the cost, right? How long is it going to take to implement, right? And then you can weight all the software and figure out, all right, what's going to look like, what looks like the best one, but which of these criteria is the most important? Which one's the second most important? So there's a cool app I like to, I've used in the past called Best Decision on the iPhone.
[00:14:29] Okay. And you can put in all your criteria, you can put in your question, you can put in all your options, and it'll, you can put the weight on these and then it, you can go through and take it like a quiz and put in all your different options and each criteria. And then at the end it'll say, here's your best decision. So it's kind of cool. I don't know if it exists on Android, but I've used that in the past, but a lot of times people just don't have anything like that and nobody wants to manage the process of implementation. Right. Leaving that on the team shoulder generally doesn't work because they're going to just blame everyone else. There isn't extreme ownership. Right. Which is a great book by the way, right? And then the business owner. Is already delegated, so they're not really taking ownership. Yeah. I could see how that would be a huge mess. Yeah.
[00:15:14] Mohammed: Yeah. It's also you know, implementing a software is it has its own nuances and complexities that come with it, right? There's companies that just focus on that. And quite honestly, if you're a business owner, property manager, you know, implementing software is not a distinctive differentiator to you from your competition, and so you should be taking on responsibilities and delegating internally for the things that actually make material impact and differentiate your business versus, you know, the accounting or implementing some piece of software, which is something that you and your competition peers have to do anyway.
[00:15:43] Jason: Yeah, I find that we have the best success. So DoorGrow has a suite of software as well in that PropTech category, I guess, and we find that the operator is the person that should be moving this forward and learning it and getting the team doing it. Not the business owner typically. Because the business owner likes the concept. They like the idea of the software, they like the vision of where we could get to and the results, but they don't want to do the work to implement it. They don't want to usually learn it fully. And the operator is usually more the personality type that geeks out on that stuff anyway, and would be happy to dig into it, learn it, get it dialed in. Get all the detail in the minutiae en entered into it. Especially when it comes to like process software. It's like we have this Visio like, or Lucidchart like flowchart software for building out workflows for process that you can build in forms and other stuff. But it's very visual and that makes it really intuitive and easy for teams to map out their processes and to know where they're at currently in a workflow if they're running a process.
[00:16:51] We find that's a whole level beyond what we used to experience before we had DoorGrow flow in like Process Street. Or some people use Lead Simple, or they use some of these more checklist based tools. You know, and my operator actually is unique. She's my wife, but she's a little unique that she doesn't like technology, like she thinks it's trying to get her. She's fighting with her computer all the time. She's like, what is this? And she asked me to come in. I'm the nerd in the company. And I'm like, oh, it's like this. She's like, okay. But she's like, "see!" Like technology's out to get me, you know? And so, but she likes using DoorGrow flow. Because it's visual and she can map. I'm like, what are you doing? It was the weekend. This weekend. I'm like, what are you doing? She's like, oh, I'm mapping out a process. I'm like, really?
[00:17:36] Mohammed: Yeah, and this is a great example, Jason, that was already a process. You guys had documents, right? You're using the software to kind of map, you know, digitally the process that you've already kind of built. And so that's, and that's huge crux also with a lot of folks that are implementing these new products is that, you know, they don't have that process. They don't have SOPs, you know, they don't have controls within the organization and checks, especially when it comes to the accounting. And so they jump into this product and you know, They're, you know, they fail to have a process and that also tends to make the product just the enablement around it. Very finicky and, you know, there's a lack of adoption. And then, oh they find another shiny tool and product and that gets 'em excited.
[00:18:15] Jason: Right. I think one thing that also really affects adoption is the timeline in a lot of people's minds is a lot shorter than reality. And I think my general rule for implementing something new in a business, whether it's building out one of DoorGrow's, growth engines, and adding this into your business is it's going to take minimum 90 days. And usually it's the first 30 days to just start to install or build this engine or to like get the software just set up. Maybe it's going to take a second month to now start to do the major changes and tweaks in it, and then the third month, usually it's just the little tweaks that give you 90% of the results. Like it's that last 10% of getting something dialed in that gives you 90% of the results. And sometimes the mistake our clients will make, like if they're just implementing a growth strategy, for example, is they will do some of the work during the first 30 days. Not fully build that engine, and then they try and dump a little fuel into it and they're like, this thing is leaky as hell and it's not getting any results and it's not working, and they didn't do the work to get it dialed in. And this happens in your sales process. This happens in just about anything. It's that last 10% of dialing in the little tweaks and the little changes that finally gets you to getting 90% of the benefit and the results.
[00:19:40] Mohammed: Right. No, of course. And then there's also that notion of implementation fatigue, right? It's like the longer that kind of this implementation cycle kind of drags out kind of diminishing returns.
[00:19:51] Jason: Oh, totally true. They just burnt out on it. And the business owners getting fed up and it's just because they didn't probably have a decent plan, but they're like, they're giving up. And then you hear, like I hear a ton of clients say, Hey, we really like property meld like this cool tool that really has helped us dial in our maintenance and speed things up. And then I hear some say we tried it for like the first month and it was a nightmare and we quit. And I'm like, really? Because I hear amazing feedback most of the time. They're like, oh yeah, it was awful. I'm like, okay, so.
[00:20:25] Mohammed: Fail the plan or plan to fail. Right?
[00:20:27] Jason: Yeah. So interesting. So, well, what else would you like to chat about the power of innovative software solutions that we haven't covered yet?
[00:20:38] Mohammed: Yeah, so, you know, a lot of times when we're talking to clients or prospects that are implementing a new piece. One thing that I did want to kind of double click on is the the point that you mentioned about kind of the timeframe it takes to implement a new piece of software. It's also the toll and the investment, right? The time investment. You know, there's an opportunity cost between hiring experts to do something versus, you know, DIY or doing it yourself. And so I feel like there's also a chasm and kind of a gap between kind of ownership's understanding of just like, Hey, this new product is just data entry. I can use my VA or folks that I have in the Philippines, or you know, some of my other employees that just enter this data and then all of a sudden this product is going to be working well. Yeah. I'm curious when you're talking to clients and they're saying, Hey, you know, this piece of product didn't work well for us, do you usually kind of dig a little bit deeper? I'm usually try to ask a lot of follow up questions, quantify like where exactly things did not go right.
[00:21:34] And and I tend to get a lot of answers of, you know what, I don't know. That's a good question.
[00:21:37] Jason: So when things don't go well, it's usually excuses. They're like, well, we couldn't get vendors to use it, like if they're talking about Property Meld. But really like, did you tell them if they want to work with you, they have to use it? And did you sell them on the benefits of how it's going to collapse time for them? And they'll be able to just use their phone to do this and it'll make everything easier. Right. So I think one of the challenges is if you go into implementing a software, switching to a software, but you don't yet believe in it, then you're going to sabotage your results with it. And that means they're not fully sold on it. And I think when it comes to technology, First, the person that's the decision maker has to be sold on the technology. They have to believe in it if they're really going to move forward. Otherwise, they should not move forward with it. And then once they believe in it, they have to transfer that belief to their team. They have to convince the team to believe in it, because if they can't sell the team on doing it, but they're going to expect the team to implement it, it's going to be met with disastrous results. And I think that's our role as an entrepreneur. We have to continually be selling our team. On what we're doing, and then we can sell to potential clients on what our business is doing. But we have to always be selling our team. And the way that we do that internally, one of our software or one of our tech tools is a planning software called DoorGrow OS for Operations. One of the flaws or fundamental flaws I see in planning like with EOS or Traction or these sort of things is it's very top down. It's like I'm in charge and it over inflates the importance of the visionary in the accountability org chart. Like the visionary is like this amazing God who the only person who has all the ideas in the business. Which is really flawed thinking. If you have even a decent team, really flawed thinking, that means you're the emperor with no clothes. Everybody's like, yeah, you have the best ideas. Sure boss, you know, and you're missing out on a lot of good stuff. And then they, the below that person, they put the integrator and then below the integrator in the org chart, they put everyone else on the team, right? The rest of the executive team. This is so fundamentally flawed. I think it's ridiculous, but. It really inflates the importance of it inflates the ego of the visionary looking at this, well, yeah, I am pretty important. And then it over inflates the importance of the integrator, which really probably should be called an operator, but the integrator. And that's what the EOS company sells.
[00:24:09] They sell integrators. These are their coaches that help with the implementation of this flawed system. And it over inflates the importance of this integrator so they can sell integrators, right? I believe that's a very top-down system, and I think it's super important to have a bottom up planning system with your team to where the team you're getting their ideas first on each of the major areas of dysfunction or constraint in the business, and then the visionary is the last to speak.
[00:24:37] An operator is probably second to last to speak so that they don't mess everything up and temper it and become the emperor/empress with no clothes, where everybody's like, yeah what he said, I just want to keep my job and please this person. So what he or she said, right? So, so I think with I think it starts with having how you plan as a business and the planning and cadence is the communication system in the business. For effective communication and rolling out software or implementing new things, there needs to be a really solid plan, but the team need to be coming to these conclusions. The team needs to be saying, Hey, we could use a better software. And you can inject those ideas as a visionary, like, Hey, I did see this. There is a problem here. Let's brainstorm and the team come up with ideas.
[00:25:23] The visionary might say, Hey, you're missing another idea. There's this that could do this. And the team might be like, oh, okay. Right. We should get that Property Meld software or whatever, right? So you got to get the team's buy-in. And I think that happens through really good planning, right? And a lot of teams, that's one of the most fundamental systems I think a business should have, is a really good planning system where they have annual goals broken down into 90 day, you know, quarterly goals, broken down into their 30 day or monthly goals, broken down into weekly commitments. And this is strategic stuff to move the business forward. So they have a strategic plan, not just their daily tactical work. And the challenge, most businesses, everything's tactical, and then the boss comes and throws some strategic grenade into the middle of the room and says, Hey, start doing this thing. And the team didn't plan this together. They didn't buy in into this, they didn't see the problem together, and they didn't brainstorm together. And so there's no buy-in and it's very top-down. I think that's where the mistakes really start to happen, so.
[00:26:22] Mohammed: You hit the nail on the head there, Jason. It's it's funny you know, that even the way that software today is evaluated has changed also. Right? You know, traditionally, you know, a couple decades ago when you had a lot of on-premise type of software like Cap X, software investments versus, you know, SAAS subscriptions where you're actually paying a monthly maintenance fee, right?
[00:26:41] Jason: You had to have a server and then you had to have a tech guy maintaining the server and there was some nerd that understood it and they had, like, you were like, you had to pay them whatever you had to pay them because this was, your whole business was running off this.
[00:26:52] Mohammed: Yeah. Right. Now you can just get something off the shelf and get it implemented very quickly. But one key thing that I do want to highlight of what you said is that, you know, you need to elevate the voices of the folks that are closest to the problem. So it has to be kind of that bottom up type of grassroots type of investment and type of focus. Because those are the folks that have the most to gain from being able to solve for those problems. And they'll feel, you know, when there are a lot of initiatives or objectives that kind of come from top down. Similar to what you were saying kind of about the eos, is that folks see it as kind of a task that are being delegated to do this work versus, you know, being incentivized and taking ownership of like, Hey, you know what, this is my domain. This is going to make my life easier in x, y, and Z way. And you know, and then I think the goals are very important.
[00:27:37] I'm sure you've heard of kind of smart goals specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time based. And putting that into, you know, weekly, 30 days, 90 days, and kind of, and going through that type of approach and kind of any type of endeavor or change or kind of trying to turn things around. Most of the clients that we speak with are just folks that we see that fail with when it comes to implementations. It's usually, you know, a lack of ownership and a lot of kind of top-down initiatives that are kind of broad, the organization and then, you know, kind of a lack of a, you know, sponsorship.
[00:28:04] Jason: Also, you know, there's some entrepreneurs listening to this right now. I guarantee it. It might be you, whoever's listening that are thinking, this is total bs this can't work because the, you know, doing something that's bottom up. Because fundamentally, even before having a really good planning system for the team and communication system, if you could do this and have it be bottom up, they're like, it has to be top down because my team are idiots. Like, they don't believe in their team. And that's because there's a lot of bosses that have built the wrong team, and it's because they're showing up as the wrong person already in the business, which means they're wearing hats right now. If you're listening and you're wearing hats right now that you do not enjoy, several hats you don't enjoy, maybe you don't enjoy sales or maybe you don't enjoy accounting or whatever it is, or the team members that do are doing these things, you are all always talking with them about how to do it, which means your org chart really just has you in parentheses, next to every person in the org chart, right? So that means that you are the wrong person. You're showing up doing the wrong things in the business, and you've built a team around the wrong person. It's like having a fake puzzle piece. Instead of the right puzzle piece. It's you, and then you build puzzle pieces all around that. And so now you have the wrong team. And so you have the wrong team if you are constantly frustrated in your mind saying, why won't my team just think for themselves? The problem is you. It's because you as a business owner, Are holding onto too many things and not letting go.
[00:29:37] And it's because you have built a team of people that you don't trust or you built a team of people that the business needed, but you didn't build the team that you needed in order to have more peace and more certainty and more freedom and fulfillment in your business. And so you built this monstrous business around the business and it's taken over like this armchair tyrant, this highchair tyrant. This highchair tyrant that's thrown food and saying, I want more. And you just keep giving it to the business and you should be in charge of this business. And that means that you should be setting really good culture. And that means you should be attracting team members and only hiring team members that believe what you believe in, share your views so that you can actually trust them. And so a lot of the reason why top-down systems are so necessary, even though they're bad ideas because they don't have a team they trust. So even going back before, like before technology, before planning, they need a team they actually trust, which means they need to be super clear on what their values are, their culture, and only hire based on that so that they can actually trust their team members. And if you hire good team members that you like culture-wise and they're the right personality fits for those roles when you weren't? They will be better at those things than you.
[00:30:53] That's the humbling thing I want every entrepreneur to eventually experience, because it's pretty powerful because we think we're pretty hot stuff in the beginning. We start to build a team, they come to us with all their questions. We're like, man, I know everything. It's so good to be king. And then the humbling experience every business owner needs to have is when they start to hire people that are better at the things they used to do that they've let go of. And they know like they're exceeding your ability to perform in those areas. Like I used to design logos. My logo designers are better at designing logos than me. Right. As an example, and then you can really start to trust that team and you can trust them. Like my operator's a better operator than me.
[00:31:32] I was terrible at running the planning meetings. I just wanted to get them over with, I didn't want to do it right. And now she tells me," you're last to speak. Like don't talk." And I'm like, "okay." because she runs it, she's in charge and she makes it way better. And it's a lot faster than I would and more efficient than how I would do it.
[00:31:50] Mohammed: Yeah, think that creating that crux of dependency is definitely going to stifle growth and scalability, right? And so, it's interesting that you mentioned, a lot of listeners or folks that are probably listening to this, and we hear this as well, is that they don't trust their teams. There's some introspection and it needs to be done there. If you've hired the right people for the right roles. You know, there's there's this notion, you know, Google's considered one of the most like, you know, effective organizations in the world and when, and they do a lot of research on on team dynamics and they have this notion of of psychological safety, which is basically how folks under understand like the own you know, ramifications of being able to take risk within an organization. And so you need to enable your folks and have the right folks in the right roles and be okay with people that have failed, but you want them to be bold. This is what helps kind of move the organization forward and helps you evolve as a business and scale and grow and you know, creating that dependency crux or creating yourself and creating that friction where you are a bottleneck and how things move and change within the organization. It creates not only a challenging environment to be able to like actually grow and evolve, but then it also erodes morality within your staff as well. And eventually you'll push out the high performers.
[00:33:01] Jason: Yeah, I think you know, A players love to be recognized and they love to be seen and B players love to hide and to not be noticed. Their secret goal is to make as much money as possible and do as little as possible. And A players, they don't just give you their time, they give you their discretionary time. Like they're thinking about you in the shower, they're thinking about your business and how to improve in their role when they're like on their walk, you know, on the weekend, right? Because they're believers and they want to win. And so I think a lot of entrepreneurs out there listening to this, they might be thinking, I need more KPIs. I need more micromanaging. I need more metrics. I need more profits, so I need to squeeze more blood from these team members. They're not giving enough, and that probably just means you have the wrong team.
[00:33:51] It's surprising how little KPIs and metrics and accountability is needed when you have A players on your team and you just build in a simple accountability system like DoorGrow os, or some sort of planning system in which they are working towards objectives instead of just being given transactional leadership where it's a transaction. "Do this task and I'll pay you, right?" Transformational leadership is where you give them an outcome and a timeline, like a deadline and say, by the end of the month we want to achieve this goal towards our quarterly goal, which is in two months, you know, or whatever. You can have these things defined and what happens is these team members start to function like intrapreneurs.
[00:34:31] They start to innovate, think, move things forward, and then implementing things like technology and software is just going to help them get towards these goals that they're working towards. It's not something preventing them from their day-to-day work. Instead, because if you don't, if they don't have strategic goals, they're just going to focus on the tactical work they have. And strategic growth in the business should be at priority over the daily tactical tasks. And if team members can see that and they have strategic goals, they're responsible for by the end of the month, they will focus on that and get their tactical work done. And the business then innovates and moves forward. And it's a really amazing, like beautiful thing to see happen. Well, this is a fun conversation. It sounds like there's a lot of people out there, I'm sure you've worked with quite a few that really could use some help understanding how to get their technology stuff dialed in, knowing what tools exist out there that can solve this you know, what can you help them with and how do people get in touch with you?
[00:35:35] Mohammed: Yeah, good question. So we offer a pretty wide range of services, whether it's, you know, tax help, bookkeeping, accounting, implementing software, custom reporting, creating SOPs, and even just auditing business processes. And then if you ever do get audited by the boogeyman, they call Department of Real Estate. We also do Dre representations as well. You can reach us at www.balancedassetsolutions.com. You're welcome to also email me directly at mo@balancedassetsolutions.com.
[00:36:05] Jason: Balanced asset solutions-- plural-- solutions.com. Yes. Okay, got it. All right. Cool. Mo, thanks for coming on the show.
[00:36:14] Appreciate you being with us.
[00:36:15] Mohammed: Pleasure to be here. Thank you so much, Jason. Take care.
[00:36:18] Jason: All right, so check out Mo and his business if you need some support. Coming to this conversation, I didn't even know what he did, so this was really interesting for me. My team sets up these interviews and sounds like a really cool thing to get that support and technology implementation. If any of you've gone through it, you know, this is a painful process, so make sure you get some help. So, for those of you watching the show, if any of these things resonated that you're struggling with your team, you're struggling with getting, you know, more profitability in your business, make sure to reach out to DoorGrow. We can help you do those things in addition to helping you add doors, but more importantly we can help you make your business scalable. A lot of you aren't adding doors right now because you know how, but because. You know, if you add more doors, your life personally will get worse as a business owner.
[00:37:10] And if that's the case, you do not yet have a scalable business. So you need a really good process system. You need a really good people system, and you need a really good planning system. And if you have those three things, you can, you're infinitely scalable. You can scale quickly, you can add any number of doors, and that freedom and that safety and that ability to just add doors and know that your business can handle the growth means you can now go even eat other companies, start to acquire businesses in the property management space, you can start buying up your neighbors. We want to help you do all of this stuff and scale. There's no reason why you can't be probably in the next two to five years, a thousand door business, crushing it and we can help you get there. We've got the roadmap, we've got the tools, we have some tech.
[00:38:00] We can help you move forward on this. So reach out to DoorGrow. Check us out at doorgrow.com. And if you're wanting to get into an awesome free community, you waste a little bit of time on Facebook, you might as well be wasting that time in a way that's not wasting time. Like go to DoorGrowClub.com and you can get access to our free Facebook group. It's for property management, business owners, entrepreneurs. Get access to our free Facebook group by going to DoorGrowClub.com. We have some cool tools and free gifts that you get. As you join the group, make sure to answer the questions and if you plug in your email address in your phone, we will reach out to you and give you some free stuff that's going to help you grow and improve your business. And you will have a resource in which you can ask questions to other property management entrepreneurs get some really good ideas and it's an awesome community. And it's growing rapidly, right? It's growing rapidly. So make sure you get into the DoorGrow Club. Go to DoorGrowClub.com and that's it for today. Until next time, to our mutual growth. Bye everyone.
[00:39:01] 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!
[00:39:28] 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.
DoorGrow recently partnered with Rocket Station VAs, a company that goes above and beyond finding the right virtual assistant for your property management business.
Property management growth expert Jason Hull brings back Greg Brooks to talk about the new relationship between DoorGrow and Rocket Station and what’s next for hiring in the property management industry.
[01:45] Why an Operator is the Most Important Hire
[05:02] Rocket Station’s Unique Process Mapping and Training
[12:56] Why You Should Hire Virtual Assistants
[15:11] Vetting and Filtering Hiring Candidates
[21:25] The Kinds of Team Members PMs Need
“One of the big challenges that our clients have is they need operators. Like, this is the most important hire I think that any business will ever make.”
“Most businesses don't even have a decent operator.”
“A lot of the property managers out there, like if you wanted to map out your processes and systems and you were real operations-driven, you would've done it.”
“If you're listening to this and you are still doing a bunch of stuff and wearing a bunch of hats and you already have a team, you have probably built the wrong team.”
[00:00:00] Jason: The challenge with operators is in the us, they're expensive. These operators are usually probably minimum, like maybe 80 grand, and sometimes they want equity, you know, like they're not affordable to a lot of these property managers that hit that wall at maybe about 150, maybe 200 doors. And so we were like, how can we solve this challenge? And then it was like, well, maybe one of these companies could take VAs and we could find the cream of the crop and find those that could be operators.
[00:00:29] 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.
[00:01:06] 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.
[00:01:28] So returning to the show, I'm hanging out here with Greg Brooks of Rocket Station. Welcome back Greg.
[00:01:35] Greg: Yeah. Thanks so much for having us. I'll just look and say the last invite to this was almost two months ago to the day, so we're becoming like a monthly regular. I like it.
[00:01:43] Jason: Cool. We'll just keep it going. So, we've been chatting and one of the big challenges that our clients have is they need operators. Like, this is the most important hire I think that any business will ever make in their business is to get some sort of person that can help them really get the operations going because a visionary CEO does not like dealing with operations. They're bad at it, and they try to do it, and they're always telling themselves, I need more processes and I need to do more stuff, and, and they're just not doing it. And so what we wanted to do is we had this crazy idea, maybe there'd be a company that could do operators, but do it in an affordable way. And the challenge with operators is in the us, they're expensive. These are people that are beyond the level of what you would normally pay for just a va or even an executive assistant, even if you hired them in the US. These operators are usually probably minimum, like maybe 80 grand, and sometimes they want equity, you know, like they're not affordable to a lot of these property managers that hit that wall at maybe about 150, maybe 200 doors. Maybe they're in 300 to 400 doors, somewhere in there. But they need this operator and they don't have it, and they are in the least profitable stage of their business they will probably ever be in some instances. Because they've maxed out on staff, they've got all these team members, they built the team incorrectly, and so they have a lot of people that are costing a bunch of money. And so we were like, how can we solve this challenge? And then it was like, well, maybe one of these companies could take VAs and we could find the cream of the crop and find those that could be operators. So that's, that's kind of the conversation I think we started to have. Does that sound right?
[00:03:31] Yeah, sounds, sounds accurate.
[00:03:33] So what, what did we come up with? I don't want to do all the talking so.
[00:03:37] Greg: You're good. No. So I think the part where we kind of bonded, if you will, between our companies is that that whole process implementation. A. Having someone that can kind of run point on that for you and streamline those processes systems, like that's a huge gap as you're trying to hire that operator, right? You got to find someone, find someone who's affordable and they got to come in and help with the process and systems. So it kind of blended perfectly with how we deliver our services. Because we have a whole team of professionals from the operational standpoint who, you know, help our clients, help our our property management clients go through that thought process and create those documents and create those processes and point out, Hey, why do you do it like this? Did you know your software can automate that? So it blended nicely in terms of that level of expertise. And then when you talk about the cream of the crop, I mean, Obviously, I'm very biased here, but I feel like our, our virtual assistants are the best in the business from the training and the experience and, yeah, really the comprehensive onboarding that we put them through to where DoorGrow members can help leverage our eight years of experience in this space to help with the systems, the processes, the refinement, and then we can put a rockstar VA in there who can jump right into the seat and really be that operator that they need at a much more affordable rate. So it just seemed like how you guys delivered and what you were teaching and the hires and kind of the steps that you, you know, teach to your students, regardless of what level they're at, really aligned with kind of our philosophy in terms of how to hire VAs and find great talent. And so I think we're going to knock it out of the park.
[00:05:02] Jason: Yeah, there's a lot of synergy there. And you kind of breezed over it, but I want listeners, I want people listening to really recognize this, what's really unique that I found about Rocket Station-- and we actually just gave you a client as a Guinea pig. And he just commented in my group coaching call today, he was like, " they've been awesome already so far." Like he's really appreciating the process. I think what's really innovative or unique about what you do is your team will come in and actually start to map out processes in a flowchart, like you'll start to help them map out their processes. This is something that's so painful for them to do on their own. I hear it all the time. Like, "oh, well, I need to work on my processes." Cool, but why are you doing it? And they really, if they were the guy or gal to do it, they would've done it by now. Yeah, there's a reason why they have not done that. And so when you come in and start to do this with them, that's a game changer for them. And so I love that you do that. Not only that, but we have DoorGrow flow that we launched recently, which is a visual flow chart based software, so similar to like Lucidchart or Vizio or some of these tools. And so, on our last call that you did with our team where we were like sharing with our team what we were going to be doing, we're like, oh yeah, that's some other synergy, right?
[00:06:14] So, we are excited to start to get some of your VAs trained in to learn some of our systems, some of our software tools that we have for clients that I think are really new and innovative to the industry. There's, I don't know of any other visual flow chart software for processes in the industry like DoorGrow flow, and then your team members can help them to start to get these processes mapped out, documented, but even more so, we want to get this person supported in our program for those that are in our mastermind, in our super system and train this VA that is going to handle operations and be an operations assistant, help them figure out how to run the planning meetings, how to run the cadence for the team communication that meeting structure we call DoorGrow os how to handle some of the hiring pieces. And this allows a very affordable solution and it can all be done through Zoom calls, you know, as a team, which is how I run my company.
[00:07:12] And I think that it'll be a game changer for the industry because, One, there aren't operators out there that are really well trained. There aren't operators out there that already know some of these systems and different property management systems. Most businesses don't even have a decent operator. And so, one, to get these systems installed and two, to have somebody to do it, that it actually, the right personality fit, culture fit, and skill fit for that role, I think will be a game changer. So now you have your own vetting process. I think we talked about that a little bit on the previous call. Maybe you can share just a little bit for those that weren't on that or didn't listen to that podcast interview, like, what's kind of your process? How does that unique, and then I'd love to share how we're going to add to that with DoorGrow, another layer to that.
[00:08:00] Greg: Yeah, definitely. And I know from our side, our team, when we announced this partnership, they were like literally salivating, right? They love the process. They see it as like a triple win. It's like you guys have very structured systems and very, you know, structured teaching, which is great because then when you take that and turn it into processes and act as that resource for the client it makes that synergy where we're, you know, we're speaking DoorGrow, right? And we can really be there you know, in line with their journey, regardless of if they're at, like I said, 20 doors, a hundred doors, 500 doors, wherever they're at. But then also like the software, like you said, our, I know our team has already started to mess around with flow and, and like they love it. So just being able to speak the same language. Every part of the journey is huge. And then, yeah, our vetting process it's basically six weeks of comprehensive screening. I know something that I think we talked about in the last podcast, or maybe it was in the conversation with some of your team members, we're big on, on kind of the three checkpoints, right?
[00:08:52] You got to have the experience, you got to be tested and vetted and evaluated based on your knowledge, based on your tactical and practical skills within property management, and then you've also got to be the right culture fit, right? You got to have the right personality to, you know, want to be that operator. Because like you said, a lot of the property managers out there, like if you wanted to map out your processes and systems and you were real operations driven, you would've done it. Like most property managers are visionaries and they've got big plans, and the day-to-day operations just isn't what they enjoy, and it isn't what, you know, gets them up out of bed every morning. So what we've done prior to any operator or really any position, right? We staff kind of across the board-- is it's six weeks of comprehensive screening, evaluation and property management specific training. And part of what our team's really excited about, that we're literally building as we speak is more DoorGrow specialized training so that, you know, we've got eight years of experience in the property management industry working with operators that are 25 doors.
[00:09:52] Two of our largest clients are over 40,000 doors. So like all the scale and the bottlenecks and the little learning points, like we've seen it, we've done it, we've staffed to it. But what we're excited about is to now really dive in to the DoorGrow platform, whether it's on the software side, whether it's on the process side, and really customize that training even further. So from day one that that VA gets into the seat, they're right there in the thick of it with the property manager to be able to really help and be that operator that assistant, that the business actually needs so they can start taking advantage and scaling quicker than their competitors.
[00:10:25] Jason: So we didn't talk about this on the previous interview, but our team got to see this. One of the things that really resonated positively about Rocket Station is you guys really are contribution focused and you really have a positive impact with the talent that you have in the Philippines and you're impacting, you know, things there in the Philippines. Can you just touch on some of the stuff that you do with schools and some of that kind of stuff just real quick?
[00:10:49] Greg: Oh yeah, definitely. And cut me off. I get too long winded here. Usually we're talking business and talk and shop, and I don't get to brag on our people and what they do in country. It kind of comes down to how we even deliver the service to. There's a reason we go through the process mapping, right? Talent is everywhere. It's global. We now live in a global workforce. Most of the time, property managers aren't able to really leverage VAs the way we feel like they can. Mm-hmm. Simply cause like there's no process, there's no training, there's no onboarding, there's no ramp up, there's no screening process. So that same commitment to set a VA up for success in their business life. We do the same thing with kind of our-- we have a program called Rocket Station Cares, where we're very intentional about monthly doing events in local neighborhoods, in local communities, in the local islands. All of our people are in the Philippines, so a country of 7,000 islands where we give back.
[00:11:35] So I know you guys, what we kind of showed you a little video that that we had done where we had gone to a a school of 2200 students and we had donated not only our time, we did a whole day you know, volunteer effort where we played games with the kids and we we sang songs, but we also donated computers, printers. We donated over 500 tables and chairs to their classrooms because this school was a state funded school that was only supposed to ever house 800 kids. But the need there in that specific area, The population was almost 1500 that were at this school. So we're very intentional. We're like you guys. You know, we're a little bit bigger. We're about 2200 people all across the Philippines, but we're fully virtual as well. So like being intentional and realizing like, yeah, all of our people, they want great opportunity. They want a professional atmosphere, they want to work for a great client just like anybody does in their business journey, professional lives, but also being like, Hey, There's a huge sense of community, a huge sense of camaraderie, and we're very intentional with getting out into the community and volunteering our time and giving back to their local neighborhoods, their, you know, their local areas. And like I said, the team does it monthly. We go over there, the US side of the business goes over there about four times a year, and we really try to make it a big spectacle. You know, donating money, donating resources, but more importantly, donating our time and getting out there to really give back.
[00:12:56] Jason: So I imagine that's a bit of a challenge is that a lot of people go get VAs thinking, one, they're like, I don't know what the VA could do, but I think we need some help and I want some cheap labor. And then they sometimes treat those people as like second class members of their team and stuff like that. And so I'm sure you run into that, I'm sure. Like you get some clients and you're like, man, I don't know if they're really treating our people right. One of the things I'm really excited about, I hopefully, you know, rocket Station's excited about this too, is we coach and train all of our clients on creating good culture. Like it's wired into what we do because I think it's one of the greatest secrets to us being able to scale businesses. We can get three times the output in a business from staff if there's good culture. And so we get this stuff really well dialed in with them. And so I would imagine, like, I'm biased probably, but I would imagine that doorGrow will provide some of the best opportunities for, you know, for your VAs to work at through our clients because they're going to have good culture, they're going to have strong values and it will allow you to match people that share those similar values. So it'll be great culture fits. Culture is not something you can create in a person. It's hardwired, like it comes from their parents, their religion, their experiences, whatever. And so we need to figure out with our clients, we figure out what are their top three or four company core values? We map out a client-centric mission statement. We map out their personal why. We map out their business, why we want the business owner to have strong clarity so we can start to build the team around the business owner. Because we see a lot of businesses come to us and they've built a team around the business, and the business owner is doing all the wrong stuff, and you can't build the right team around the wrong person. And so these business owners that are holding onto and doing a lot of stuff, That they don't enjoy doing. They are the wrong person. And then they built a team around that wrong person. And so that's why they have the wrong team. If you're listening to this and you are still doing a bunch of stuff and wearing a bunch of hats and you already have a team, you have probably built the wrong team. And so, reach out to DoorGrow, we'll help you clean that up, and then we can get you connected to our collaborative situation here with Rocket Station.
[00:15:11] So you have this six week of you know, taking them through training, making sure you have a process to vet and find the right people. I'm sure figuring out people that their language level of ability in English and all these kind of things, what we want to bring to the table DoorGrow. We have DoorGrow hiring and we have a process for matching people culturally, personality, and skill wise to a particular role. And then we also have this AI assessments platform that we've partnered with so that we can vet candidates to see if they have the cognitive ability or the intelligence and the personality traits through this AI assessment to be a really great operator. And so there's less guessing, and so this will allow us to identify from the candidates that you send over, which ones will be the cream of the crop that will really do a great job as an operator. So we're super excited about this. And you have plenty of people that we could feed through, I would imagine, and find who's going to be this great fit for this particular business. And it'll be far more affordable than 80 grand a year.
[00:16:17] Greg: So yeah, and the DoorGrow students are almost getting double due diligence. Cause like I said, we're big on that three-point system in terms of how we evaluate, because most say most clients outside of DoorGrow, they don't really have, it's like, Hey, let's go grab a coffee and see if you're good and I'll read your resume. Awesome. Hired so they're getting the typical due diligence that we do already from a personality profiling experience from practical assessments. And then we're putting the candidates through the DoorGrow hiring platform as well to really niche it down. So, like I said, we definitely have tons of people ready to get going. But we're, we're excited to really see it. because I think when you compare what the AI does and the data you guys already collect through your vetting, mixing that with what Rocket Station has, it's going to be really special in terms of really getting the right, like I said, get the right butts in the right seats. I think we're really going to be able to do that at super high level. For your team for your, you know members that are really looking for that operator to help springboard the company to the next level.
[00:17:09] Jason: Yeah, and you know, transparently, Rocket Station was not the only VA company we re reached out to. We reached out to several in the industry and we've talked to some about this. And you know, there may be some additional ones that we do in the future, but nobody had something as comprehensive that we've seen so far as to how you onboard clients. And this makes us feel safe giving our clients over to you. And we've actually, like Sarah's, like I want to do a hire through Rocket Station, so she's our operator and so she's been going through it and she thinks it's a really cool process and she likes that you guys are mapping out processes and asking really good questions. And so there's a level of depth there rather than just, Hey, do you like this person? And do you like how they sound on this audio recording and like here, like you can pay right now and get them started to work for you. Yeah. As if they're just some tool that you can throw into your business.
[00:18:01] Greg: Exactly. Unfortunately, a lot of providers in the industry, they're just placements. It's just you need someone? I got someone. Here, figure it out, right? Mm-hmm. And I think that's where we bonded right when we did the podcast and we first kind of connected and started to have kind of exploratory conversations. It was just like, oh, it is more comprehensive from how you guys deliver your services to your clients. It kind of very well meshed with kind of how we just genuinely feel. It's about setting people up for success. Yeah. And there has to be more that goes into it than just here, here's someone, let us know how it goes. Call us if it doesn't work. You know, it's, it's someone's livelihood and we really take that serious and we know the team at DoorGrow does and with your culture so excited to really kind of build that, build that partnership and add to it.
[00:18:41] Jason: Yeah, we're really excited. So, so for those that are listening people can get VAs through this partnership with Rocket Station and DoorGrow, we will have some landing pages set up. We have our DoorGrow hiring process. If you want to hear more about DoorGrow hiring. Which can be used for, you know, VAs or can be used for getting team members locally and getting the right three fits for your business. Check us out. You can reach out to us at doorgrow.com. Those of our clients that are in the Mastermind, or if you're interested in joining our mastermind, if you're in our super system, you get access to this. It's part of just what we do. It's included and you get access to DoorGrow flow, our process software. You get access to DoorGrow crm, our sales CRM software that's next level. You get access to DoorGrow os the planning, cadence and operating system that your operator's going to help you run the business through. And what else? There's some other things, but with this, you're going to have an operator that has the tools and the training because we do a weekly call supporting operators and helping them get these systems installed, helping them get the business moving forward. And so as part of our mastermind, you'll have this ongoing support to move your business forward and get the operations really well dialed in. And if you have a really good people system, a really good process system, which is, you need something more than just process documentation. You need a system that they are able to use and leverage consistently, and that's better than just checklists. And then you have a planning system. These three systems will make your business infinitely scalable. You can add doors as fast as you want to. You can do acquisitions, you can you know, go crazy, you can get BDMs and like stack doors like crazy, and your business will not break and your life will actually get easier and better by adding more doors because you have more resources, more support, and you know how to get good people, and you have good processes, and you have good planning system to keep everybody rowing in the right direction and organized. Without those three systems, adding more doors for a lot of y'all will probably just make your life worse. And so we're really excited to have this partnership with Rocket Station to be able to take our mastermind clients to that next level. So, anything else we should say about this? Greg.
[00:21:00] Greg: Oh, I hope everyone's as excited as we are. I know we matched today for the announcement as well, so we're really coordinated. I mean, DoorGrow is on the same page right now, so no, we're, we're excited. Like I said, anyone, I know you'll have landing pages and I'm sure you'll have links to make sure all your people get routed correctly, kind of into, into the pipeline so that we can kind of get them going and get them set up with operators. But no, we're excited and if anybody has any questions, I mean, feel free to reach out to us as well.
[00:21:25] Jason: I think the last thing, just to be clear, This is not just for operators though. So, why don't you just touch on briefly, like what are some of the other roles that some of the property management businesses are getting VAs for? Yeah, definitely. And operators is typically not, historically, I've haven't seen anybody doing that, so this, that might be a little bit innovative and new, but I'm sure there's, you know, getting a personal executive assistant for the ceo. Which I usually recommend is like the first hire most people should be doing, and I've seen people that have no assistant, that have a bunch of team members. So there's that. And what else?
[00:21:58] Greg: I would say depending on your size and your scale, like an assistant property manager, right? Someone who can kind of field the maintenance, coordinate with vendors, coordinate with your own guys, the billing, the paperwork. Yeah. The one that we've seen a lot of our clientele, regardless of size jumping into is the leasing kind of administrative assistant where, I mean, maybe you still are the person that gets out there and is showing the property, but like all the paperwork, the follow up, even just prepping the listing, I mean, those are two really big ones. Yeah. In terms of property management is, has just been incredible the last three years, seeing the evolution kind of through covid and being more virtual. So yeah, if anyone's out there, obviously the operator position is something very specific to the DoorGrow community that we're really excited about and we're going to have a nice, a nice through line to get you the best people quickly. But if you're just needing staff, whether it's say on the maintenance, whether it is an executive assistant to give you some more time back in your day, whether it's on the leasing side, listing management, social media management, reach out because that's the bread and butter of what almost 2200 of our VAs are staffed out to our clients doing each and every day. And even if you don't have the process piece fully knocked out your maintenance process, your billing process, Don't worry, like we are there for you. You're running a business, you're running a successful business. What we find is for most people, the processes get stuck in the six inches between our ears. So our team is incredible at flushing that out. We'll build it all for you and then hire a rockstar to, to jump into the seed and, and take on whatever role, whatever role you need.
[00:23:26] Jason: Cool. Awesome. Well, I'm excited Greg. Thanks for coming on the podcast again, hanging out with me here and for matching my clothing. I appreciate that. Oh, same page. And we'll be talking soon. So until next time, everybody to our mutual growth, go to DoorGrow.com. Check us out and be sure to check out Rocket Station. Bye everyone.
[00:23:47] 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!
[00:24:13] 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.
DoorGrow has changed a lot in the last few years. We’ve added tons of new features and perks for our clients as well as new coaches… including Sarah Hull, COO and property management growth coach.
Join property management growth experts Jason and Sarah Hull to learn more about Sarah’s role at DoorGrow, operations, and how you can scale your property management company.
[02:47] Sarah’s Property Management Experience
[05:19] Improving Operations and Cutting your Staffing Costs in Half
[15:38] Why You Need an Operator in Your Business
[22:02] Personality Types and Their Roles in a Business
[27:24] The Clue that You Need a Better Team
“You can't build the right team around the wrong person.”
“Here's the clue that you don't have the right team: your day-to-day is something you don't enjoy doing every day.”
“Is the bruised ego worth a better, more profitable business that takes, a lot more off your plate and is less stressful?”
“The most important person you'll ever hire in your business will be the operator.”
[00:00:00] Jason: Here's the clue that you don't have the right team: your day to day is something you don't enjoy doing every day. If you're still wearing hats that you don't enjoy doing and you've built an entire team around you, and you're the wrong person in the roles that you're sitting in, then you've built the wrong team around you. You can't build the right team around the wrong person.
[00:00:18] 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.
[00:00:36] 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 gateway to high trust, real estate deals, relationships, and residual income At DoorGrow, we are on a mission to transform property management business owners and their business 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 along with Sarah here, property management growth experts, Jason Hull and Sarah Hull, the founder and CEO and the COO of DoorGrow. Now let's get into the show.
[00:01:22] All right, so I'm already messing up the intro as I'm reading it because I'm looking and seeing her here in the screen, and I find her highly distracting. So, we were talking before we talked last night, we're like, what are we going to talk about on the podcast? And and then this morning, I said, what are we going to talk about? She says, I don't know, we only talked for like five minutes about last night, and we didn't come to a conclusion. So, I said, let's talk about you. Can I intro you and brag about you first? Sure, go ahead. So I wanted, I thought we would talk about Sarah today because she's probably a lot more interesting certainly to look at than myself and maybe to listen to. So I thought we would talk about her. So, I'll tell you a little bit about Sarah. So what's really amazing about Sarah and what I really like about her is that her wrists are really tiny.
[00:02:10] Sarah: That's really, it is true. It's not not true.
[00:02:14] Jason: My hands are not enormous. Dude hands. I buy child bracelets for her. I'm just kidding. All right, so
[00:02:19] Sarah: I have a five inch wrist. So like I can take, I can actually wrap my my pinky and my thumbs and touch. That's about, and they overlap. So it's about this big.
[00:02:31] Jason: Oh yeah. I can do the pinky as well. That's, yeah. Very small.
[00:02:34] Sarah: I train a lot on the rest. Get them that way.
[00:02:37] Jason: I do actually like that. I think it's a cute trait. All right. But I'm joking. What, what I really want to say is, so what's interesting to the audience is that Sarah has managed her own property management business. She has exited that. She sold it. Great job, by the way. Mm-hmm. And she managed a decent amount. At that size, most property managers have a team, like a full team, like five to 10 people I've seen. And usually at the stage, these companies are very unprofitable. Like this is the worst profit margin stage they've been at in their business. And they get stuck. And I call this area the second sand trap. They can't afford to really like expand or do more marketing or, and they're just not able to take a lot out of the business and, and their profits are all getting eaten up by staffing costs. Now Sarah had one part-time person, boots on the ground part-time and managed her business remotely part-time. Part-time, yeah. She was bored. Very. And people are like, well, these must have been really nice properties. These were C class properties? Duplexes, small plexes.
[00:03:52] Sarah: Yes. We had a good mix of single family, duplex, triplex, and then I think we had maybe two that were like 10 units, which was kind of big for my area, but
[00:04:03] Jason: Okay. Yeah. And so, what was your profit margin?
[00:04:08] Sarah: Over 60%. Okay. 60% was a not great amount.
[00:04:12] Jason: Okay, so a lot of you dream of that, right? And you think, how's that even possible? It's possible because one, Sarah is very efficient. She's a very good operator. That's why she is now the COO of DoorGrow. And everything in the business is better as a result of having her in the business. Everything's improved. But I wanted to qualify Sarah as a badass. Like she's really good at what she does, and she wasn't really connected to the property management industry. She just did what made sense to her. And she didn't really want to be talking to tenants and she didn't really want to be dealing with talking to the owners very often, and she just set up her business in a way that was very efficient. And so we'll be talking about that in the priorities training. So, Sarah also has come into DoorGrow and she runs all of our operations. She runs I everything that I've taught her that I like I've developed DoorGrow os and how we plan our cadence. She just knows it to the point where she can teach it. And she learned it all very quickly. And now she's the one that coaches clients how we did our hiring. She like has improved on that and built it out even more and teaches clients how we do hiring and so we help clients get all these systems in place to become more profitable and more efficient. Sarah does all that. So as an example, why don't you share the story of maybe Jade and Andrew. I think that's a great story. Because they were at a similar size of a business as you had had.
[00:05:46] Sarah: Yeah, yeah. Well, they had about 188 units and they had 11 team members total, like 11. So really, really overstaffed. And some of them were in the office and some of them were VAs and we just really had to like dive in because they said, well, like, what are they doing? And they kind of gave me like a surface answer. Like, oh, well this person does this and they do this. And I said, yeah, but like, what are they really doing? Because with 188 leases, like, let's just pretend that. We had all hundred and 88 due in the same month with, which isn't going to be the case. We're going to, spread that over the course of multiple months. But if we had all hundred 88, due even in one month, I still can't figure out what, two or three leasing agents are doing with 40 hours a week every single week. So we are just really going through and trying to figure out like, who's doing what. And sometimes I find that either no one's doing something or two people are doing something. And if two people are doing it, just know that it's not getting done.
[00:06:56] Jason: That's a 17 to one ratio. I just did the math.
[00:06:58] So that's, that's for each, for every 17 doors, they have a team member.
[00:07:04] Sarah: It was really bad. So we just kind of went through with them and figured out like, what is everybody actually doing? What should everybody be doing? And then how many people is it really actually going to take? And they they had a lot of meetings and discussions with each other and then like we kind of met a couple times throughout this process and they came to the conclusion that they needed to let go of about half of their team. And they did. And then once they did that, all of a sudden they're like, Hey, we're like profitable and we're making money. But when we first started talking with them, they said like, actually, we're losing money every month. Like we can't pay ourselves. We can't take anything and we're losing money. Like this business is costing me money to run every single month. Yeah, little uncomfortable situation to be in, especially because property management isn't, it's not easy, it's not a cake walk. You're not, like doing nothing all day. So if you're in a business like this, And it is complicated and it is challenging. Then the least you should be able to do is like get yourself a decent profit margin so that you can make sure that you're paying yourself and that your business isn't struggling to keep up with.
[00:08:14] Jason: Drive this home. Sarah did one call with them and the result of that one call was, what? What are all the results?
[00:08:21] Sarah: Well, on the one call, they realized, I have no idea what most of the people are actually doing. Like, they gave me the answer and I'm like, yeah, but how do you spend 40 hours a week doing that thing?
[00:08:32] Yeah. And from there they realized like, we need to make major, major changes to our team. And most of these people are going to have to go. On the second call, that's when they actually decided to take action. Okay. And they got rid of, so.
[00:08:47] Jason: The second call, which is she did this one call after that.
[00:08:51] Mm-hmm. They fired half their team, half their team then, and as a result, their profit margin, which was not very good, which was negative, losing money, was then what? What did they get to? I didn't get their profit margin. Okay. It was significantly improved. Oh, no. Significantly improved.
[00:09:09] Sarah: I know they weren't losing money anymore.
[00:09:10] Jason: Yeah. Yay. All right. We'll have to get some stats on that cause I want to brag during the priorities training about that. All right. So, Sarah has been able to dramatically improve our clients' businesses and lives. One of the things she's also helped a lot of clients with is completely restructuring their teams. Mm-hmm. They just did two of them last week. Okay. Why don't you explain Yeah. Kind of what you've done.
[00:09:37] Sarah: Mm-hmm. Well, all right, so one of them had about 360 doors and there were 1, 2, 3, 7 people on the team total. Which to some of you might sound like, yeah, that makes sense. And to me it's just, I'm like, there's too many people. And it was kind of like the same thing where everyone is saying like, oh, I'm so busy. I'm so busy, I'm so busy, and I'm looking at things going, I just don't understand what actually is is happening. Like, there's a lot of work that has to be done. It's like busy work. It's, it's like grunt work, but it's not, super helpful. It's just the things that are going to keep you afloat and that's like a bare minimum. So what we ended up doing is this client had one BDM, three property managers and then three assistants that were basically like assistant property managers. And we, he's like, I don't know if a lot of them are like good fits.
[00:10:37] And I just, I, I really don't know what they're saying they're doing because they all tell me like, I'm so busy. I'm so busy, but what's actually happening? So when we kind of like dove into things, we realized like, you are overstaffed and very similar situation. He wasn't able to really take a lot out of the business because there was not a lot left.
[00:10:57] Jason: Who is this? Kevin. Okay, so Kevin had three property managers. Mm-hmm. Each property manager and they were portfolio style. And each property manager had their own assistant. Yep. Because they were not, for some reason able to get done what they needed done.
[00:11:13] And Kevin himself was having to do lots of things, put out lots of fires, and be involved in micromanaging everybody. And when I first shadowed, and--
[00:11:22] Sarah: he wasn't micromanaging anybody, there was nobody leading the team.
[00:11:25] Jason: Okay. Kevin wasn't leading the team then? Nope. So what, Kevin? No one was leading the team.
[00:11:30] Sarah: Team was just kind of doing whatever they thought was the right thing to do.
[00:11:33] Jason: All right. Well, Kevin seemed pretty stressed out and what, yeah, and Kevin didn't have any personal support at all. Like nobody was helping Kevin with anything. He didn't even have his own assistant, but he got assistance for three people on the team that weren't very productive or efficient. So, what's the plan with Kevin?
[00:11:53] Sarah: Yeah. So, half of those people are going too. So we decided the BDM is excellent, so we're going to keep the, the bdm. He is taking one of the people who was a property manager and she actually tests okay as a property manager on our assessment. But she tests better as an operator. She is like, is a better fit for kind of this operator position. So we're going to shift her into the operator role. We're going to keep one of the property managers to do all of everything. And then one VA who's going to be like an assistant property manager.
[00:12:29] Jason: Where'd the BDM come from?
[00:12:30] Sarah: The BDM was already there. Oh, okay. He was one of the seven originals. Got it. So he had three property managers, three assistants, and one bdm. Those were the seven.
[00:12:39] Jason: Got it. Okay. Yeah. Cool. Yeah. Who's the other one you said there were two? Josh. Josh? Yeah. What's the deal with Josh?
[00:12:46] Sarah: Josh had about 300 doors and his whole team was kind of like a hodgepodge of people. Not that he was super overstaffed, but just people weren't in the right seats. And when you have the right people, but you're not putting them to the best like use, then you kind of still run into issues. And Josh, same thing, no operator. There was no operator on the team and largely he was kind of handling operations and he is like, I don't mind doing it. I like doing it, but I don't want to be the only one doing it, and I don't want it to always fall on me. Mm. So what we're doing with him is he had a VA that he had let go, like right in the middle of our talks. And he said, Hey, I'm hiring a new va. I said, great, let's like test the new VA to see if they're going to be a good fit. And then he decided, like we shifted his team around a couple of times and like through the assessments realized and he had talked with you. This was the one that we took who he thought was going to be the property manager and then put her in the BDM role instead. Mm-hmm. Because he is like, well, I don't know how to like, make everything work. So now he's he's going to have like a whole different team structure. Not that he had to let anybody go. He wasn't like crazy overstaffed. It's just he still wasn't super profitable because he didn't have the right people in the right spots. And he didn't have anyone doing the operations. Mm. You can get as big as you'd like, but if you don't have someone handling the operations, and this is that back end piece, this is not front end stuff, like everyone always, this is what we start with, is we start doing front end stuff. Because when you start your business, you are doing the front end stuff, you're doing the leasing, and you're doing the showings, and you're talking to tenants, and you're handling the maintenance.
[00:14:37] This is all the front end stuff. This is the stuff that absolutely must be done just to make sure that the business runs. When your business reaches a certain size, you now need to have someone doing the backend stuff. Mm-hmm. And if you're not having anyone doing like the backend stuff, which is like, hey, making sure that everyone on the team is following the same direction and everybody is contributing to the vision of the CEO and running things like your daily huddles and your strategic planning and doing hiring and firing and getting job descriptions, doing team reviews like. For those of you that are hearing all of this and you're going, blah, that sounds horrible, then it means you're probably not the operator. And at some point, if you're not an operator, it's okay. Jason's not an operator, like he doesn't like that. It's not his brain functions. So you need the counterpart whose brain does function like that, and that would be me.
[00:15:29] Jason: I like to build out the systems and I must have been mis mixing up Josh's team. I think you did team with Kevin, so I think you did. Yeah, I remember Josh. So the most important person you'll ever hire in your business will be the operator. That's very true. And because visionary entrepreneurs do not like the details. I like building out the systems. I like creating DoorGrow, hiring and DoorGrow os and these systems. But I don't want to run them in my own business. I want someone else to run them because running those things is not as fun and it actually, the results are not as good because especially with planning, if I run all the planning, it's not as good. Bad, and so bad.
[00:16:09] Sarah: There was one week where I couldn't run the planning meeting because I was on a flight and I said, can you just run the planning meeting? And he did it. And I came back and I was like, I don't know what happened in here, but this is bad.
[00:16:20] Jason: It was okay. I did just fine. It was bad. So the issue-- just fine. The issue is it's not fun for me to run the meetings, but also when it comes to like actual strategic planning, we as the visionary or as the main leader of the business, or even as the operator, we have to be the last to speak. Otherwise, we influence things. And if I run the meeting, it's really hard for me not to say certain things and not to steer things a certain way.
[00:16:48] And so I don't get as valid of feedback from the team. I don't get as valid of information. So what happens is as visionaries, a lot of times we think we have all the best ideas. And it's not generally true, right? Our team members are closer and more connected to what's actually happening on the ground, and they can see things we can't see, and they have ideas that we don't have, and they can share these things with us, and we can get their buy-in into the plan if they help create it.
[00:17:16] But when we are just top down pushing everything, because we think we're the visionary, and this is one reason I really don't like EOS. One of the big fundamental flaws in EOS is they intentionally overinflate the ego of the visionary. The visionary has all the best ideas and they're so important, and that feeds the ego and it helps them to sell integrators, which in their accountability chart, they place the visionary at the top, and then they have a line going down. And this is just a fancy name for a stupid org chart that doesn't make sense, but you have the visionary connected to the operator. Which they call an integrator. And the integrator then is connected to everyone else on the team. This is one of the most flawed structures I've ever seen, and nobody runs their business this way because integrators or operators are not the people that should be over sales and marketing generally. They're not the people that, because they have a very different personality type, they're opposite. And they want to conserve and they want to make sure money is handled well and they don't want to take risks and they don't want to, like, this is more stuff for maybe your head of sales and marketing or maybe your BDM or whoever you want to place in your executive team. They're really usually equals, but they have to report their stats. Everybody reports their stats to the operator. And so the challenge is we have to have a system in which the team can all give feedback and give information first, and it isn't top down. It's really bottom up. And this is how we designed DoorGrow Os and why people that come from the EOS system get a much bigger result and a bigger yield from their team and much more profitability than they were able to get under u s or traction or rocket fuel, right?
[00:19:00] These are some of the things that Sarah's able to do with some of our clients. And I have to say, it's amazing to be able to have somebody that I can trust to not just understand all this stuff. Because she, she's super sharp but also to be able to teach it to clients and to be able to help clients work through all of this and trust that it's just going to be handled and that's really what we want in a great member of our team or in a business partner.
[00:19:25] Or with anybody that we work with, we want people that we can trust to just handle stuff and to do it well. Sarah does it really well, so, what else should we say about you?
[00:19:36] Sarah: I think that's just how my brain works. Like every job that I've ever worked before I owned my own business, I would be there for a little bit and it was super clear to me like, Hey, if we make these changes or if we do these things differently, or if we just shift this a little bit, it's going to be better and here's how it's going to be better and why.
[00:19:55] And it's so frustrating for me when you know, like I was at multiple insurance companies. Before like I kind of got into property management and I on all of them, I was like, oh, we could just do it like this. Well, we don't do it like that. I'm like, I know you don't do it like that, but you should do it like that and here's why. And when it's frustrating for me where I'm like, oh, you could just make these changes and you could do things like this. And this is just how I think my, my brain is just wired to work. because I can like look at the overall picture of things and I'm like, well, why do we do things like this? You could do it like this instead and we should change this and this should be different. And that's really good. This is really great. Keep this, but change this little thing. And then these are the results that you'll have. And at all of the insurance companies I had worked with prior, I had like made some suggestions and they're like, oh no, we're not going to do that. We can't do that, we can't do that. So I think looking back, it's funny for me because I'm like, oh well yeah, I was kind of, almost like destined to like get in and, and run my own business because then if I think, Hey, we should do things like this because of this, then I can just do them. I don't have to go and ask like, oh, hey, can I really think this would help your business? Like, we can do it. And they're like, no.
[00:21:08] So now, like, just looking back, I'm just able to kind of pick it apart and see things that sometimes other people don't see because you're just, you're too close to it. Mm. And, and it's it's personal for people too. They're like, oh, this is my business and I'm really proud of it and this, I worked so hard and I know, like, I know what goes into running a business. Like I know it, blood, sweat, and tears doesn't even begin to cover it. I understand that. And that being said, I think that's one of the reasons why you should be looking to improve it. So if you can make a few small changes, like your, your ego might have a little bit of a bruise, right? But is it worth the trade off? Like, is the bruised ego worth a better, more profitable business that takes, a lot more off your plate and is less stressful? So for sometimes, sometimes people are like, no. I don't want that. I just want to know that I have all the answers and I'm right all the time, and that's okay.
[00:22:02] Jason: All right, so what's unique about Sarah, and some of you might identify with her a little bit. So in Myers-Brigg, she's probably an INTJ.
[00:22:13] Sarah: Well, not probably, I'm like the epitome of INTJ.
[00:22:16] Jason: So INTJ. Is very intuitive. They are introverted. They're a thinker and they're judging. Now INTJs are because they're super intuitive. They're called the strategist because they're logical and they figure out solutions to things, but what's I think really in interesting, and I think there's women's intuition and she's very intuitive. She just knows things without knowing why it's true. Mm, yeah. Like she's like, there's a problem over here in the, in our business or there's a problem over here and I don't know why, but it, something's not right. So. And what's frustrating is I will say no. I don't see it. Like everything's fine. And she's always right. She loves when I say, you were right. She loves it a little too much by the way. But she's usually right. And so I've learned to trust her intuition tuition and sometimes I think our unconscious. Has a lot of information and can process a lot more than our conscious mind can and picks up on little details and things. Mm-hmm. And has worked some things out and just knows things and it bubbles up to the surface of our conscious mind and we're like, Hey, something's off here. And she gets these flashes of intuition that when there's like some sort of threat and things like this as well. So I've learned to trust your intuition because it's proven accurate multiple times. And I've always considered myself fairly intuitive in the business, but her intuition is kind of next level. And so I think being able to trust your gut and having a partner in the business or some, or an operator that you can trust, their gut can have a significant impact as well.
[00:23:52] So I'm a bit opposite of her. I'm an ENTP. So we both are the intuitive, which is the n and we're both thinkers. Thinkers. But. I am a bit more extroverted probably. Even though I really feel like an introvert a lot of times, but I like need to be around some people occasionally.
[00:24:12] Sarah: Well, I know, but you usually like will kind of, you'll you'll break in that arena before I do. You're like, we like I just want to get out of the house and be around people and I'm like, oh, I don't.
[00:24:22] Jason: Yeah. And then I'm definitely more, we think very differently. Like very differently. Mm-hmm. I'm perceiving and you're judging and perceiving means my desk is chaos right now. If you could see it. And it means I love pulling in ideas from lots of different places. I have a crazy variety of books on the bookshelf over here. I've like, I pull in things from a lot of places to formulate my thinking. Then I'm able to formulate some new ideas and I'm very creative that way. And that's part of, I think why we have such great IP at DoorGrow. I get a lot of coaching and a lot of input from different sources and we improve those ideas and we have, I think, the best ideas and innovate the quickest in the coaching space in this industry period, maybe out of a lot of coaching businesses. We consult and share ideas with other coaches and coaching businesses as well that we're in Masterminds with. I don't want to do all the implementation. I don't want to make sure everything gets done. And so I'll be like, Hey, here's this great idea, but Sarah also brings really great ideas to the table. She's like, Hey, I had this idea. And then she'll just rapidly implement, like she just gets it done. She's like, Hey, let's do this premium Mastermind event and have people, we'll rent out an Airbnb and we'll get people to go and we'll do this and it'll be awesome. And I'm like okay. And she just makes it happen. Sells all the tickets to it, gets everything organized. I just showed up and got to look cool and she made it all happen.
[00:25:50] He's like, what are we doing at this event?
[00:25:52] I showed up, I'm like, so what are we doing?
[00:25:54] He's like, what are we even doing? I'm like, just--
[00:25:56] I'm like, okay, Sarah's leading this. So that was our last DoorGrow Live too. Like Mar-- Yes, that's true-- my assistant who did a lot of planning and Sarah like, handled some of the details and ideas and I was just like, all right, I'm just here. I'm the tech guy.
[00:26:11] Sarah: Just when we call your name, get to the stage, just go up there.
[00:26:14] Jason: Yeah. When, when it's your turn, Jason, you go speak and talk about something and I did. So that's kind of how we work together. So, what else should we say about Sarah? She's still working on getting her last name changed because it was Hall and she's switching it to Hull.
[00:26:31] Sarah: Well, right now, I really don't know what it is. Yeah. Truly. I don't know because the Social Security office has me as Hull.
[00:26:39] Jason: So you got to change. Yeah. To my last name.
[00:26:41] Sarah: Yeah. But the DMV is like, so super booked out.
[00:26:46] Jason: So not, not in Texas yet. Your license doesn't say it yet.
[00:26:50] Sarah: No, no. Not my license doesn't say it yet, but my social security card does.
[00:26:56] Jason: So, and your social media, I think you've changed most of it. I changed it before. Long before this. Yeah. So, but Hall's her ex-husband's last name, so yeah. So I'm trying to like, he's trying to buy a vow. I'm trying to buy that vow. I think I paid for that vow. What's on your neck and on your finger. And I think I've, I think I've accomplished that. I don't know. I don't know. So, cool. And I don't know what else, what else should we say?
[00:27:24] So Sarah's one of the key coaches in our business here at DoorGrow. Our mission is to transform property management, business owners and their businesses, and she does that like, she helps to do that. She runs a lot of the group coaching calls when I'm focused on other things in the business, which is awesome that I have somebody I can trust to do that at a really high level and to do it really well and clients really appreciate her test.
[00:27:49] Sarah: When you're busy, I run the whole scale call. Yes, every single week.
[00:27:54] Jason: Well, you do. You go beyond that. You also run some, some of the other calls that I-- Yeah, for sure. I used to run every call. You can run every call. So, yeah, which is awesome. All right, well I think, for those of you that you want to experience some of the magic of Sarah and improve your operations, you're struggling with things, your profit margin is not what you wish it would be, and you think you need more kPIs and micromanaging and to like squeeze more juice out of your team. That's probably, there might be a little bit of truth to that, but generally you'd probably need a better team or you need to optimize your team and that's one of the most profitable changes you should make first before you start messing with micromanagement, KPIs, more pressure, stuff like that. You need to make sure first you have the right team, and here's the clue that you don't have the right team: your day to day is something you don't enjoy doing every day. If you're still wearing hats that you don't enjoy doing and you've built an entire team around you, and you're the wrong person in the roles that you're sitting in, then you've built the wrong team around you.
[00:29:05] It's pretty obvious if you look at it from that perspective. You can't build the right team around the wrong person. Can't build the right team around the wrong person. So, we can help you make sure first, who are you, we can help you figure that out, and what do you really enjoy? And we have processes for that. And then we can start to build the right team around you so that you are supported and you get to move closer and closer to having more fulfillment in your day-to-day. More freedom, more contribution, and more support. And then your team members will be able to have those four things and you'll get probably three times the output from those team members. And that's the biggest expense and that will give you the biggest profit in your business if you can get these systems in place that we can help install. With DoorGrow OS and DoorGrow hiring and DoorGrow Flow and DoorGrow, CRM and DoorGrow. What am I missing? Flow hiring, crm, you said all of software. Those are our software. Okay, cool. Which we call our super system. So we're going to be doing this event on the 22nd, talking about priorities and how to increase your profit margin and how to decrease operational costs. We hope to see you there and or watch the replay if you see this later. Make sure to reach out to DoorGrow if you would like to experience some Sarah Magic. And until next time to our mutual growth, everyone.
[00:30:26] 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!
[00:30:53] 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.
Have you heard about the multifamily market oversupply that’s been increasing since the undersupply during the COVID-19 pandemic?
In this episode, Jason chats with John Carlson, President of Mark-Taylor Residential about Insight on the multifamily market oversupply. Mark-Taylor Residential has currently an inventory of 22,000 units and over 34,000 residents, being a multifamily leader in Arizona.
[06:33] What is the Multifamily Market Oversupply?
[14:44] The Fundamentals of Real Estate and Property Management
[20:05] Why Property Managers Need Their Own Portfolio
[25:11] What will Happen to the Market Next?
“If you're that light, people are going to be reaching out to the light when it gets dark.”
“Property managers, they have no concern about being the bad guy. They're totally cool with making sure that things work and running it like a business.”
“You have to make sense of the market.”
“I think it's a smart move that every property manager should be also building up their own investments.”
[00:00:00] Jason: Property managers have a duty to be involved a little bit politically to prevent this firestorm from happening. And this is an opportunity to go and be the canary in the coal mine or be the Paul Revere shouting, from the horse, letting everybody know, Hey, there's a problem coming.
[00:00:18] 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] My guest today, I'm hanging out here with John Carlson. From Mark Taylor residential, and I mean, it sounds like you guys are doing some big things. They're in Arizona, they have 22,000 units, 34,000 residents. This is not a small operation, so John, welcome to the show.
[00:01:37] John: Jason, good morning everybody. Thanks for having me. Excited to be here.
[00:01:41] Jason: Cool. So we're going to be chatting a bit about multifamily market over supply, which I'm guessing is pretty much what it sounds like. So, but John, maybe give us a little bit of background on you first and how you got into this and your relationship with Mark Taylor and all of this kind of stuff. Give us some backstory.
[00:02:00] John: Sure, brevity matters. So, grew up in the Midwest Southern Minnesota. Farmer by trait with stepfather from age 10 until 18. Realized that was not for me. I'm not the micro dirty jobs kind of guy. You can see. I like the dressed up look. Yeah. So at age 16, I really thought about what I wanted to do in life, and of course didn't know. I was good at math, so I decided to be an electrical engineer. So I went to school for that. Worked for a great small company called vtech for about five years. Was able to finish school while working there and travel the world and discovered Phoenix and realized Minnesota was not long for me and what I wanted to be and do long term. So, chose Phoenix with my girlfriend Megan at the time. Traveled to Phoenix to look at apartments. I think we toured 15 or so apartments in one day. We had the big apartment guide book, if you remember those. Yeah, listeners. So we were feeding through those and there's a big eight fold and it had Mark Taylor communities. So we toured three or four of those and landed on San Cervantes. I always joke with my team, we actually broke into the amenity space because the office was closed, it was past six o'clock. So I just remember seeing this beautiful, resort style pool, sand, beach area, ramada water features. And I'm like, Megan, we have to live here. So, We flew back that night landed. I called the manager, Michelle Sinclair the next day and secured a two bedroom apartment class, a brand new for $940 and a month free concession.
[00:03:28] So we moved a few weeks later and this was just prior to 9/11. Megan had a job. I was scheduled to fly back to Chicago to a final interview with a fuse company. They were opening a satellite office in Phoenix, and that was scheduled on 9/13 2001. Okay. So clearly there were no flights that day. The world was on edge, including me, and they put a hiring freeze on. So I was off to the races with my fax machine and sending out resumes if everyone knows what a fax machine is, right? So, that lasted a few months and lo and behold, Michelle, the manager, came to me and said, Hey, Would you consider part-time leasing while you wait for a position in engineering? And in my fixed mindset, I said, no. I'm an engineer pounding my chest. And a week later I realized I had to pay bills and electricity and all of those things, car payments, so I signed on and never looked back. I fell in love with the organization, real estate, and truly found my home as we like to say. And that's Mark Taylor.
[00:04:27] Jason: Cool. That's quite a story. So it's pretty interesting. And so now what do you do at Mark Taylor? So everybody's clear.
[00:04:34] John: So today I run Mark Taylor as president. As you mentioned, now 23,000 units Class A both Phoenix and Las Vegas. So in two states so, regional but have a pretty good grasp of the market across the country. So, And I think, a lot of us know us nationally from a brand recognition standpoint. We've been in business almost 40 years. So that's Mark Taylor in a nutshell.
[00:04:56] Jason: So, That's awesome. Yeah, it's quite a story to go from starting to help with leasing to being president of the company. I think you skipped a lot of steps in between, but I enjoyed the beginning. So, what was the time gap there just for the audience to understand?
[00:05:13] John: So I started leasing in 2002. My girlfriend Megan, moved back to Minnesota a year later. So I was here by myself. So I had a lot of time to figure out leasing real estate in the business. So I just moved my way through the organization. Like I said, I was good at math. I think I always had an appetite for real estate and I just really sunk my teeth into this business. And, as I always tell my new hires and the younger generation folks like lean in on mentors, find the best leaders. I found some great leadership mentors, people that were patient with me Yeah. And building up my skillset including Scott Taylor and Jeff Mark, our founders. And I just felt like that really helped my growth and my pathway and I worked my ass off. And I think, you can never look back and poo work ethic and sure. My mom and my father helped me with that years ago.
[00:06:02] Jason: Yeah. Growing up on a farm, you're going to learn some work ethic. Yeah. Whenever we were bored, my dad would say, we'd learn never to say we were bored because he would put us to work. We'd be working in the yard.
[00:06:13] John: I think I used that word for about 10 years.
[00:06:15] Jason: So I'm never bored. I am creative and I'm never bored, so it doesn't happen. All right, so cool. Well, John it's awesome to connect. So what year did you become president? How long? 2016. Okay. Okay, cool. Yeah, I mean, that's a cool story right there. That's a cool story. So let's get into this topic: multifamily market oversupply. I mean, there's a lot of multifamily stuff going up here in Austin. I'm seeing it pop up everywhere. There's building and building. So, what are you seeing there in Arizona? What are you seeing, maybe you think is happening here in the US and the market?
[00:06:51] John: Sure, let me start with, I'll start with, Phoenix Metro and all this broaden out. So, Phoenix, like most of the country was undersupplied from a multifamily perspective since really 2011. And I think if you just look back at the gfc the greater financial crisis in 2008 and nine and 10 that really I'll say put development in a paralysis type state. And Phoenix specifically was almost like the Black Plague. No one wanted to even think about investing here. And as most of the audience knows, I mean, it takes a long time to, to buy a piece of dirt, zone prep, design, get zoning approvals and get it through the city and actually build a unit that's two to three or four years depending on project type. So it took a long time to build up supply. So being undersupplied for a decade really resulted in a lot of things that we hadn't seen historically in Phoenix or across really the national landscape. So fast forward to the pandemic and we're starting to kind of get our, I'll say druthers in terms of supply. We're starting to get a better balance of that. An interesting data point we were delivering 18 to 22,000 units in the mid eighties in Phoenix, and had never delivered. 10,000 units in a year, past 1987 until last year. So if you think about the population adjustment, 19, just say 95 versus today, that's, almost 2 million people different. So, clearly there was an undersupply component. Fast forward to today and we're delivering and will deliver about 16 to 17,000 units in Phoenix Metro. Again, hadn't delivered past 10,000 units until last year when we delivered just over 13,000. So, yeah, I'll just say the equilibrium was in the landlord's favor, and unfortunately for renters that was costing them in terms of, monthly rent and you add to the field, the tailwind of Covid. Lots of folks came to Phoenix and I call it the Boomerang effect. Although the boomerang never came back, meaning. A lot of folks got to experience Phoenix for the first time, and I think this was a condition across the country. They found great spots where maybe there was a little bit less restriction in the Covid era, if you will.
[00:09:04] And there were people coming here from California nonstop saying, God, I really enjoy Phoenix. I'm going to rent a place for six months. My employer's allowing me to be flexible at this point, and I'm going to test this out. And I think a lot of people decided to stay. So, as always, jobs create future apartment demand, but in this instant, if you worked in San Francisco, but you were living here in a six or 12 month lease, we weren't absorbing your job, but we were definitely taking your monthly payment. So, it was unique in that aspect and a lot of things changed from Covid. Obviously we can touch on that later, but expand.
[00:09:34] Jason: Yeah. A lot more remote work. Everything flowed in the nation from places with less freedom to places with more freedom.
[00:09:42] John: That's just what one would expect. Yeah. And that's what happened. So I think people got a taste for Phoenix. They realized July and August aren't that bad. Yes, it's an oven for a couple of months, but we're okay. HVAC and other things. So, I think that accelerated what I think people were already starting to figure out that Phoenix was great and I think that happened across the country. So, not only Phoenix, but broadened that out. So across the country, I think there was a similar pattern in terms of lack of development, both in single family, which has to be mentioned because that's a component of our housing shortage and multifamily. So fast forward to today. You had a couple things happen, so you had some momentum in real estate.
[00:10:22] You had zero interest rates, essentially that environment for 10 to 15 years, and you started to have all of these developers starting to get their, I'll say, momentum and build units. And of course a lot of Class A units were delivered and are being delivered. And so, what's happening now is you're seeing a surge in that. And part of that has been fueled by delays in construction. So if you think about the covid related supply chain issues, some of that's kind of worked through itself over the last 12 to 18 months, which is good. So inventories are better. Pricing maybe has reprieved a bit, but if you say, supply chain issues, labor issues, which is the biggest component of that you have construction deliveries that are delayed, say three to 18 to 24 months.
[00:11:08] So a lot of these deals, the 16,000 units specifically in Phoenix are result of that. Otherwise this would've been delivered prior. So I, I think that's a big component of the oversupply. Which at the end of the day if you go into, I can go down to a bunch of soapbox areas, but if you think about the renter, which is most important to me there should be a nice equilibrium in the market that's the best for all of us, right?
[00:11:31] You get about a 3% rent growth, which has been the case since 1982, 3.2% rent growth average by year. That kind of fits with historical cpi. So when you're raising rents 20% or 10% that's not sustainable. I'll just say it that way. So this supply cresting is benefiting the renter for sure. Yeah. Q1 Phoenix was down 3% probably the lowest in the country. And, supply cures a lot of things. I'll say it that way.
[00:11:59] Jason: Yeah. So I mean, everything's, the pendulum's swinging, right? And it's going to move back towards middle or back towards equilibrium. But how do we stop the swings? Because probably, you'll have a bunch of developers, they've been building stuff out because everybody's trying to capture all the opportunity that seems to be happening in all these markets like here in Austin. It's crazy. I'm sure it's crazy in Florida, like all the areas, there's lots of people moving from states that were more, more liberal and more control, and they're moving more towards areas where there's a little bit more freedom financially. And it'll be interesting to see if some of these places, the people that are moving, if they bring their policies with them and if those areas start to shift and change. But some of these areas what you see going on in San Francisco, what you can see going on in California, what you see going on in Seattle. I mean, some of these places do not look like great places to live anymore. Like it's getting chaotic. Sure. Because of some of the policies. So we're going to see a lot of money, I think shift, continually shifting towards these areas of freedom, and as that's happening, are these builders overbuilding? do you think that's going to be happening? That there's going to be too much like, it's like a gold rush?
[00:13:14] John: Sure. Well, I think that ship has mostly sailed because of the interest rate environment. So yeah. I think most of us pick any sector have forgotten how to live in an interest rate environment. We were 0% essentially. So, if you look across the spectrum, I think you're going to see zombie companies, fade away. You're going to see the old adage from really 17 to 21. It's weird to say old, but you had startup companies that were negative cashflow that would not, be able to pay for a printer, but they would just get another round of funding, it's almost like a Ponzi scheme. So I think getting back to some fundamentals from a business more of an institutional business, historical methodology makes sense for the entire market. And I think this will force guys or groups or developers to be much more thoughtful as they go to market or try to build deals, right? It just it's not the wild west or, the top of the bubble. I think fundamentals matter. I think how you think about your business, how you look at, your construction, your development, your cost structures, what rent should be, all of those things are probably okay for guys that have done this the right way for a long time. I think it's the fringe guys that are greedy and are taking advantage of certain market conditions. And that's fine. Everyone has their angle. But I think this will shake out in a way where you get back to some real core guys or core groups that know what they're doing and fundamentally will help shape the future of multifamily the right way.
[00:14:44] Jason: So you mentioned the fundamentals. So what do you feel like are the fundamentals that business owners in the property management space should be focused on? That's going to prove to be effective in the long term. I mean, obviously the company that you are president of has been focused on the fundamentals and has been doing well consistently. We've got a lot of listeners that are probably much smaller than your business and what do you think they should take away from and maybe could learn from what you guys are doing at Mark Taylor?
[00:15:18] John: Yeah, I think you know Jeff Mark, Scott Taylor, our founders, taught me a lot of great things about real estate. And if you look at their track record they've never lost a deal or a unit or a dollar in real estate in 38 years of business, which is impressive considering all of the cycles and dynamics of what happens economically. So I think it comes down to when I look at Mark Taylor, we started as a developer, became a manager. Now we consult, we asset manage all of those things. And I think their fundamentals have always kept them in check, right? They've never gotten to a point where, oh, let's be greedy or let's stretch. If you have an investment model, here's your box. Never go outside of that, right? And so, I think back to, 2006, we sold everything we owned except for one deal.
[00:16:03] In June of 06 at the peak it was a different environment then. And then we went pencils down post 2007. We built our last deal, San Porte and Tempe, and then hit pause on the other five pieces of dirt. We had a lot of guys just kept going nope, this thing's never going to end. And the first out of the ground in 2011 because we are also a data company, we've been collecting enormous amounts of data since 1985. Yeah. And everything said, tailwind, green light. So, we bought as many pieces of dirt as we could and built the most units from 11 through 15. And it really transformed our business and got us really on the front end of the last cycle. So, I think all of those things happened within our box. And today, we're moving through really the last two deals of our construction pipeline, and we'll probably be on pause or pencils down until the market makes sense again. And I think as simple as that sounds, you have to make sense of the market. So when you're seeing real cap rates below 3%, sometimes, below two and a half in 1920 and 21, you kind of got to scratch your head and say, okay, is that long? That in terms of going through a next 2, 3, 4, 5 years or next cycle. Does that make sense? And the problem with that is if you're not putting in fixed debt or fixed rates and you have guys saying, oh, the music's never going to stop, I'll just put floating rates on these or a three-year arm, that's a problem.
[00:17:24] So you're seeing guys that made potentially bad decisions or got outside of their box. Seeing what happens when the market shifts and rates move like they did. No one can control the Fed. And seeing the acceleration of those rates has really created a dynamic where things will start to break. And I think we're seeing that now, or at least those things are percolating.
[00:17:45] Jason: So for the listeners, help them understand at Mark Taylor the how the portfolio works. Are you doing third party or are you owner operators? because you're talking about selling off properties and you're doing management.
[00:18:01] So, Give the listeners an idea. We talked about kind of the size of it, but what percentage is stuff that you developed that you've owned or that you own currently and then like that you're managing?
[00:18:15] John: Yeah, great question. So we today, we get really all facets of the business. So our development ownership. So today we have about 5,200 units that are owned and self-managed. So we're about 80% third party. And I think the third party management aspect and also managing your own assets gives us a really nice balance. Yeah. So we're able to, in terms of properties that we own, turn my life back on properties that we own. We get to test new things like centralization and new software, new systems, new methodology. And on the third party side, we get to learn from ownership groups all over the world. We have owners from Japan, Tokyo all over the country large institutions, MetLife, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, et cetera, to Mom and Pops. And I think the deal flow that was occurring in 17, 18, 19 and certainly at the peak in 2021 showcased us in a, in terms of how we supported. Transaction capital markets. So every deal that comes on the market, we underwrite and it helps us get a true feel for what's happening in the market from an operational perspective.
[00:19:20] A competitor's not going to send me their financial statement, but guess what? I get to get one when they go on the market. And then we see and track through great relationships, how those things happen. Meaning how many people are signing cas if there's 500 cas in one deal, there's obviously appetite for Phoenix. So, really understanding the transaction markets, the capital markets understanding, how guys are achieving debt, equity and all of those relationships has really kept us well-rounded. So, that's fed into Mark Taylor Consulting. So today we, we consult with a variety of developers groups with marketing programs and plans asset management nationally. So, it gives us a lens into a lot of different areas that really. Just allows us to take advantage of our expertise knowledge and data.
[00:20:05] Jason: Yeah, and that's interesting. So one of our coaches that we have he said that it's really surprising that a lot of property managers don't have their own portfolio. They don't have their own properties that they have ownership in. There's quite a few. And he says, that's kind of like going to the restaurant, asking the waiter what's good there. And they said they've never had anything. And so I think there's an advantage, like, if you believe in real estate investing, I think it's a smart move that every property manager should be also building up their own investments. That's where some of the funds should be going towards to build up their own portfolio and their own investments, because, That's, that is smart for the future. That being said, building up a business is probably one of the most profitable things if you do it effectively to get an ROI on that exists. So you mentioned you mentioned focusing on the data. And you have all this data that a lot of people just don't have or don't have the opportunity to see at the level that you are doing it at. What is the data telling you right now that you think property management business owners that are doing third party should be focused on right now?
[00:21:14] John: I think that, it's always predictable with each cycle, so I think back to. When we were coming out of the Great Recession, and I still have a, somewhere I have a sign. It was the old Clear Channel Billboard sign. It was just a little standup model. And we had three months free San Palacio, and there were other groups doing four months free. And these were prorated concessions. Wow. And when I think. To that timeframe. And most of my current generation of, leasing agents, service technicians, haven't been through a downturn. It's been a pretty good market since 2012. Yeah. And when I'm in company meetings, they'll say, raise your hand if you've worked in the gfc. And everyone's like this except for some execs. So. Trying to help them understand the cycles of this business is important. So, last year we did a lot of coaching and training on, okay, this is what owners are going to start to look for as the market shifts, right? When your rents are going up 10% NOIs here, you're above budget. There's not a lot of detailed conversations from most owners, meaning you're hitting all of those targets, things feel pretty good. But when it's doing this, And the market's softening, and now rents are going back and retracting. Now what do they do? They start to look at marketing costs.
[00:22:26] They dig in like, what's going on exactly? Is my phone number on my website go directly to, someone that will answer it? Are my phones being answered? What's this expense over here? They become expense conscious, marketing conscious and personnel conscious. That's predictable. So my marketing team said, wow, you were right. We're getting a lot of calls now from owners. Of course you are. Yeah, the dynamics shifted and it's not even bad. It's just softened. So wait till maybe you're not covering debt, right? So I'd say that most of our groups are well capitalized. That's not an issue, but that's going to be for certain third party management groups. That's going to be an issue, right? Because they're going to pay debt before they pay your payroll depending on your property management agreement. So how does that work out? You're going to have to start to scale back on expenses. They're going to say, Hey, We need to save $20,000 this month, how are you going to do it?
[00:23:13] So it just changes the dynamic of how you function as an operator. And I think back to your original point, us as ownership, that really helps us because we know in terms of our focus of maximizing the bottom line or financial potential of each asset. Man, it's a lot harder in this type of environment and it's going to get a bit harder for the next 12 to 24 months.
[00:23:34] Jason: Yeah, I'm a little bit of a conspiracy theorist, but I think leading into the next election, every election year, things get really crazy. So, and it seems like nothing makes sense right now, like everything is just getting worse and crazy and, It doesn't seem to make sense, but I think it's it'll be crazy leading into 2024. So it'll be interesting. And I think, yeah, there will likely, it sounds like, be a wave of owners reaching out, owners wanting more support, investors wanting more help with what they're dealing with and trying to figure stuff out. There's probably quite a few that just I think ever since the pandemic, it woke people up because lot of the investors that were DIY and doing it themselves, they realized that they don't like being the bad guy. And if things do get crazy and things financially get tight, maybe for renters or for owners, right? Then property managers, they have no concern about being the bad guy. They're totally cool with making sure that things work and running it like a business because they've heard it all. Sure. They've been they're numb to all the BS and the stories and the, drama. Whereas, a lot of the homeowners and the property owners like, that's hard. It's hard, it's uncomfortable to deal with those situations. But when things are good, They're like I don't know that I need a property manager. But I think the need will increase. So this is interesting. So, well, is there anything else you'd like anyone to know about this idea of multifamily market oversupply or maybe about Mark Taylor or how should we wrap this up?
[00:25:11] John: Well, I would start with just, from a. Current to long term perspective. So I think the over supply is happening. You're seeing it in Austin and Phoenix and other markets, and that will eventually fill up, right? So you have no choice but to stabilize. So your rents might not be what you performed, but are underwrote in your performer. But the reality is, at some point those will stabilize. And I think if you look past the next 24 months, 36 months and beyond, and really look at the last part of this decade, which is weird to say, but the late twenties. I think, we have to look at the country or this environment as there is going to be a housing supply shortage and I'm including single family for sale, single family for rent. And if you just go back to something we touched on earlier the attack on our industry and landlords and developers in general. Rent control is just. Commonly brought up by legislatures every year, including Arizona. And, the things that have, I'll say mostly ruined certain markets. I won't name St. Paul Portland and I could keep going. Uh, But those policies and how they've thought about creating housing. For their constituents and their population has clearly give them a great f And I think if you look across the spectrum of groups or cities or states that have done this well we have to fight for those policies.
[00:26:36] And if we don't fight the wrong policies will occur and this housing shortage will just get, I think, substantially worse quickly. So, we have to think about policies. We have to think about doing things the right way, making sure that we have an ability to develop and create supply so that we can house folks that want to move to Austin, Phoenix and everywhere else where people believe in liberty, freedom and all the things that we believe are, founded in the constitution and belief in the US makes sense. So here we are today, Phoenix and Austin being two of them.
[00:27:12] Jason: Yeah, it'll be interesting. If there's a shortage supply shortage coming in, housing, and then people think the solution is rent control it. That's like pouring gasoline on the fire. They're like, Hey, let's just make this worse. It's, I mean, it's wrong politicians that are doing the stupidest thing ever. It was the wrong thing and destroying things. And so, yeah. I think that's everybody listening, property managers have a duty to be involved a little bit politically to prevent this firestorm from happening. And this is an opportunity to go and be the canary in the coal mine or be the Paul Revere shouting, from the horse, letting everybody know, Hey, there's a problem coming. People are going to start trying to push this rent control idea and it's a bad idea if for no other reason than helping the industry. Use it as a vehicle or platform for some self-promotion for your business in your market, and get on some news channels. But I think that would be a great idea because then you're going to look like a profit when this stuff starts to come down and they're implementing rent control and there was a problem and you're like, Hey, I was the one that told you so people are going to start to listen to you.
[00:28:16] This was like Winston Churchill, right? Yeah. Hitler started taking over and he was like, Hey, I've been telling everybody, and they're like, okay, you help us out. And if you're that light, people are going to be reaching out to the light when it gets dark. And because they know you, you have been talking about this. So maybe it's time for property managers to get a little bit noisy about this rent control stuff that's coming and not just hope and pray that it doesn't happen. You don't have to deal with it so.
[00:28:43] John: No question. No question.
[00:28:45] Jason: Cool. Well, John, really great having you on the show. Any call to action you want to leave anybody with or? How can people check out your company or whatever you'd like.
[00:28:54] John: Yeah, check us out mark-taylor.com. That's mark hyphen taylor.com. Like I said, third party manager development consulting. If you're thinking about, developing a project in Arizona or you want to learn more about, data and terms of multifamily market conditions, Arizona, Nevada will soon be launching a subscription model, so you'll get access to a lot of our great reports.
[00:29:17] And data, which will be incredibly helpful for those that are just trying to understand the market and what's next. So, reach out to myself directly. You can find me on the website and I appreciate you having me, Jason. It's always good to talk to great guys.
[00:29:31] Jason: Like really great to have you. Thanks for coming on the show.
[00:29:34] John: Thank you. Talk soon. All right.
[00:29:37] Jason: So, really exciting to have John come on the show today. I think this brought up some ideas of what everybody needs to be paying attention to in the future, and property managers, your job for your investors is to see a little bit of the future and protect your investors and your clients, right? And hopefully we had mentioned also becoming an investor yourself if you're not already doing that. So for those of you that are struggling with your property management business right now, you're like, I don't have time right now to even think about getting a little bit politically active about rent control, or, I don't have time right now to even worry about the data or the future. I'm struggling to figure out how to like make money in my business, or I'm struggling with all the questions my team are throwing at me all the time. Why can't they just think for themselves? Reach out to DoorGrow, we can help you make your business scalable. We can help make it easier and we can help remove that secret pain that a lot of you have that are over 200 doors that deep down, if you add more doors, your life's not going to get better, personally, it's going to get harder. And so we psychologically get reversed towards growth and adding more doors. We can help solve that problem. We just need to make your business scalable and get you out of all the things that you really don't enjoy doing.
[00:30:54] And we're really good at helping people do that. So if you'd like to start stacking and adding a hundred, 200 plus stores a year in your property management business and grow it and scale it, we have clients that are doing that and we have proven it and our model works and we can help you do that as well.
[00:31:11] So reach out to DoorGrow. And if you're one of the startups or smaller companies and you're under a hundred doors, we can help you get very quickly, get those doors stacked up and start and get the growth going. So reach out to DoorGrow. Check us out to DoorGrow.com. Click the big pink button. We have a free training that's 95 minutes long of me just dropping value, and that's going to change your mindset about what it takes to grow your property management business and to make it scalable.
[00:31:38] Check that out and it's free. It's right there. There's a YouTube video on that page that we set up. So, and book a call with us. We'd love to talk with you and see if we can help you grow and scale your business. We're always looking for really awesome growth-minded property managers to be part of our Mastermind community. We have some amazing people in there that are getting awesome results.
[00:32:00] 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!
[00:32:26] 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.
Too many property management entrepreneurs tolerate bad clients. They subject their team to crappy owners and are often miserable.
In this episode, property management growth expert Jason Hull explains how property management entrepreneurs can deal with bad owners and prevent bringing them on in the first place.
[04:03] What is a Bad Client?
[09:50] Why Bad Clients Lead to Bad Team Members
[10:43] You Need to Punch Your Clients! (Figuratively)
[15:36] How to Prevent Bad Clients
[24:57] Creating Processes to Get Better Clients
“If you cannot figure out how to make them into a good client, then you need to let them go.”
“You get what you tolerate.”
“If you just ate ramen, or you just tighten the belt a little bit, you might be able to let go of that bad client or those bad doors right now.”
“If you are tolerating a bad client and you have team members, then you're not taking care of your team.”
[00:00:00] If you are tolerating a bad client and you have team members, then you're not taking care of your team.
[00:00:06] 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.
[00:00:47] 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 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] All right, so we just had here at DoorGrow, right here at DoorGrow Headquarters in the Austin, Texas area at the Kalahari Resort in Round Rock, Texas, we had DoorGrow Live, our DoorGrow Live event. It was super awesome, super cool, amazing to see everybody in person. It was really awesome, great experience. I highly recommend that if you want to get in momentum in your property management business, you want to get inspired, you want to be around people that are at operating at a different level than at typical property management conferences. Our clients are special. Our clients are special because they have upleveled their mindset. Just being around them will shift you as well. So come hang out with us. That's one of the things we do is we install a different mindset into our clients. So they start functioning and thinking at different higher level than what's typical. And then we start to teach them really good strategies and ideas for growth. One of our clients man-- I'm so excited for some of these testimonial videos-- one of our clients I think went from like 120 doors to like 400 and something doors. And like, I don't know, he like doubled his doors in like four months and he was working with our acquisitions coach. Went and got like, went through a whole acquisition. Like he wouldn't even have known how to look for a deal, let alone have handled the whole thing. He literally just did whatever he was told by his coach. Like, "say this. Send this email. Don't do this." He just did it and now he's going to be adding a bunch of doors. Asked him if he thought he could get to a thousand doors and he said, "oh yeah I'll do that in like maybe two or three years, no sweat." we've laid out that roadmap, we have the DoorGrow code of what a company needs to do in order to get to a thousand doors.
[00:03:01] And those of you listening that you're already a thousand doors, maybe your business could be optimized. Maybe it could be more fun for you. Maybe we can improve your team. Maybe you're losing more doors than you're getting on right now. Our clients are adding more doors than you're getting on, and you don't have to do it through acquisition necessarily. You can just add doors. And so if you're having any of these issues, reach out. Like we would love to help you.
[00:03:26] So my topic that I wanted to talk about today, we, Sarah, my wife and COO of DoorGrow brought two clients up on stage and said, " Jason doesn't really know exactly totally what we're going to be doing."
[00:03:39] And I was like, "okay. I like a little chaos and a little risk," so she brings them up and was like, "Hey, basically we're going to coach them in front of everybody." I was like, "okay, this could go really horribly wrong or really awesome," but I didn't think it'd go wrong. And it was great. So one of our clients got up and he was just talking about the biggest challenge in his business right now is just a really bad owner. And so we had this great discussion and coaching and conversation with the entire room about bad clients. And so the topic for this episode is how to deal with bad clients or firing. How property managers can deal with bad clients or fire bad clients, right? How do we deal with them?
[00:04:25] One thing that's important is that you should fire some. If you cannot figure out how to make them into a good client, then you need to let them go. It's important to let bad clients go and I think that's the hallmark of a seasoned property manager is that you fired some shitty clients that you don't want to have. Let's chat a little bit about this. So bad clients, what they look like. They're clients that do not respect you. They're clients that do not value you. They're clients that treat you poorly. And one of the things I want you to realize is that you get what you tolerate. And so if you have tolerated this kind of behavior, you may have created clients that don't value you or trust you if you aren't as effective in your sales pitch in creating trust, which is really what true sales is, it's getting people to trust you. Not manipulating, not tricking them. You legitimately have a solution to a real problem that you can solve, and they want that, and you're able to charge a fee for that, right? That is a real business. The big challenge though, is this was like 10% of his portfolio. This one owner. This would be painful to let go.
[00:05:49] So the usual way that I coach clients, if they have a, like sometimes when clients first come to us, especially if they're in that first sand trap of maybe 50, 60 units or less than a hundred units, their whole portfolio might be bad. They might have a large percentage of accidental investors, people that waste their time, people that are pushing back that don't respect their boundaries. And so it's important to set a rule. So my usual recommendation is set some sort of rule. We want to get you growing and adding good doors to offset those and then set a rule like a three to one rule or a five to one rule that every time you get three bad doors or five, I mean, yeah, every time you get three new doors, three good ones, or five good doors, you and your team have permission to let go of a bad door. Or maybe you do it by owners. You just set a rule. Maybe you already know, like you knew the client he wanted to get rid of. You just need to figure out how do we let go of that person. Now, that's one idea. That's if you want to replace that income. But if you're dealing with a shitty owner and the difficult situation, I want you to take a step behind that question because this is the question that a lot of people think superficially. They need answers. How do I replace this income? What I think is a better question is to take a look at, instead of trying to replace all that income before you let them go, is to figure out what amount of additional revenue would I have to be generating or additional clients or business would I have to be generating in order to be able to tolerate letting them go, which is different.
[00:07:29] So figure out what's the minimum amount that I could scrape by with and survive with to get rid of them as soon as possible. Because as soon as you get rid of them, it's going to free up a lot of attention, a lot of bandwidth. Your revenue will dip, but you just need to offset it. You might find that you could survive.
[00:07:49] If you just ate ramen, or you just tighten the belt a little bit, you might be able to let go of that bad client or those bad doors right now. And what that does is it frees up a lot of head space. It frees up a lot of time. It frees up bandwidth so that you can go replace those doors faster. This is similar to the advice that I gave to my clients that were there that now are full-time, like owning and running their business together. These business partners, when they first came to me though, they were starting a property management business and they wanted to quit their day job. They both had jobs and their dream was to start this business together and offset all their income. And I said, don't try to offset all your income. Figure out what's the bare minimum that you can each pay yourselves and survive on. Like tighten the belt, figure out what that is because if you can just get to that level and then quit your jobs and then go all in on this business, and we teach you all the growth strategies and you start to grow rapidly, this is exactly what they did, they then could grow a lot faster. So they let go of their jobs and they started growing a lot faster and they had to get some doors before they could do this, but once they hit that lower level that they decided they could survive on, then they were able to invest, go all into the business and grow a lot faster.
[00:09:11] Same thing with firing clients. Like don't wait until you offset all of the income. I once had a client come to once and he wanted to offset all of his income and he was a pharmaceutical rep making like six figures and he was like, "well, I'm going to start adding some doors and build up this new business, but I'm going to do it kind of part-time and I'll wait until I offset all my income." and I was like, that's not going to happen very easily, if at all. And I think he underestimated the amount of work it would take to start a business. He didn't really want to spend time to do it. It was kind of a dream, and he was pretty comfortable in that job, right? Had a lot of freedom and was pretty comfortable and they paid him really well, so it was hard to give it up. So, let's just keep that in mind.
[00:09:59] All right, so the other thing about firing, I think that's really firing clients that I think is important to recognize is you need to protect your team. If you are tolerating a bad client and you have team members, then you're not taking care of your team. You're going to lose A players. B players will tolerate shitty behavior and they will tolerate shitty bosses and they will tolerate a bad environment. A players won't. By keeping on bad clients, you are losing your best people. If you wonder why you have a lot of turnover, it might be because you're not protecting and insulating your team from people mistreating them or treating them poorly. You haven't set healthy boundaries with your clients and started to protect your team, so make sure you're protecting your team. So fire, protect your team.
[00:10:51] Next item, punch them in the face. Okay, this is metaphorically, I am not recommending violence in this situation. What I am saying is that metaphorically or figuratively, you need to punch them in the face, sometimes these bad owners. Sometimes bad owners are high D personality types on the disc profile, which means they are drivers. They're short, maybe quick. They want results. They want like information quickly. They want to see things moved fast. They do not care about stories or excuses. Let's go! And in order for them to respect you, and a lot of investors or wealthy people might be high D. They're driven. Just like a lot of entrepreneurs, and so if that is the case, you may need to punch them in the face. Like sometimes you'll see two guys and they're like, they have a beef with each other and they like, they're arguing or whatever, and they get into a fight and then they're best friends for forever, right? They respect each other after that. Sometimes you need to punch these crappy owners in the face in order for them to respect you. You need to set boundaries right at the beginning. Boom! And say, no, I'm not going to do that, Mr. Owner, and here's why. They're just waiting. A lot of these owners are just waiting for someone to set boundaries with them to show that they know what they're doing. They cannot, high D cannot respect you if you give in to their demands. They cannot respect you if you cave to their bad behavior. Like they will test you.
[00:12:27] A lot of guys that have dated women or been in the dating scene know, have heard about shit tests, right? Like maybe your spouse does this to you, like they will test you to see if you really are who you say you are, or try to showcase that you are on the tint. They will challenge you. Your clients are going to challenge you. They're going to test you to see if you really are going to stick to those fees. If you really are confident in your business, if you really are going to stick to your contractor agreements, right? They want to see if you have integrity. Integrity in a building is strength. How much integrity does the steel have? Do you have the integrity of steel? Are you strong? Can you maintain your boundaries? Do you know your limits? Can you punch them in the face? If you can punch them in the face in the beginning, a lot of times owners will say "finally, I've found a property manager that I can respect that I don't have to tell what to do, that I don't have to micromanage that owns their stuff." they're looking for that extreme ownership, which is a great book by the way. I love listening to the audiobook because these guys sounded like they gargled sand, like in the deserts of Ramadi, right? So they're like, Jocko Willick and Leaf. They're like, "you need to have extreme ownership. This is what we did in Ramadi, right?"
[00:13:53] I don't know if that's a pretty good impersonation, but I love listening to the audiobook. So I recommend the audiobook, but these guys know they take extreme ownership. They're accountable for things, but they also probably are willing to punch somebody in the face. It's like being shitty or mistreating or whatever, right? So make sure you punch them in the face and you do that early during the sales process, and you will be probably the most likely to get them as a client because they go to everybody else, they're not going to find what they're looking for, which what they want is peace of mind. They want safety and certainty, and you cannot feel safe with somebody that caves to the whims of everybody. That's not a safe person. You're not a safe property manager to manage their property. If they think you're going to fold on every vendor saying, " I'm going to charge way too much," or you're going to cave on every tenant that's going to say, "well I want to paint the house purple," or whatever they want to do. You're like, "well, okay." They're not going to trust you. They need to know that you have what it takes. You need to show them that. And then they're going to be like, oh my gosh. You're the property manager for me. You just need to say, "no, Mr. Owner, we're not going to do that. And here's why. We know this. We know what to do. This is how we do it. Our way works better than yours. By your own admission, you're coming to us for help because things aren't going well as you have told me, and we don't have that problem. Our clients don't have that problem. We are better at this than you. So either you trust us and respect us to do our job, and we will not be perfect, but we'll get it. We'll fix it, we'll make sure we get it right eventually, but we're going to do this better than you. We're good at this and you can trust us to take care of stuff." And they'll go, "that's all I wanted. That's all I needed. I just wanted that safety and certainty. Just wanted to know you had the strength to do what I would want to be done."
[00:15:44] Okay, the next step is you need to figure out after you've dealt with a bad client, maybe you forgot to punch somebody in the face. Maybe you forgot to protect your team. Maybe you didn't fire them soon enough. Now you need to make sure you learn and prevent this situation in the future. So how do we learn? And how do we prevent? Well, when you need to take inventory, what did we do to create this situation? What did we do to allow a client like this into our portfolio? Why did we allow this? What happened? Where was the breakdown? Do we need to or can we improve our agreements? Do we need to improve the conversation or during the sales process when we review the agreement and tell them so they can hear and see what it is we're going to do, so, Instead of just sending the agreement, can we go through the agreement with them to align them towards our way and make them a better client? Can we filter better? Can we qualify during the sales process and prevent bad clients from coming in or set better expectations during the sales process? All of these things, Allow you to qualify and get your clients potential clients to level up. You can turn them into better clients during the sales process. So learn and prevent. Can we create new processes and procedures that insulate and protect us from owner situations like this, right? You need to learn. So we want to make sure that our clients feel safe and they might need to be punched in the face, and they might need better boundaries, and they might need better guidelines, and they might need better training or education during the sales process on how to be a good client.
[00:17:30] We have this in our agreement with our clients, how to be a good client. And there's a list, right? And during our sales pitch, one of our slides in our pitch deck is the three commitments we require of people that come into our program of what's required. Like do you measure up? Do you qualify to be with us, right? You need to set boundaries and you need to use that, that sales tactic of qualifying and of prising yourself. You're the prize. You solve their problem, they have problems. They're paying you to solve those problems, which means you're the prize, not them. Mindset. That's a mindset shift.
[00:18:12] Okay, so the next thing, get clear on your boundaries, right? So after you learn and prevent, get clear what are our boundaries? And recognize people will test these boundaries. So how do you pass the test instead of fail the test? So if somebody's setting boundaries, you will either pass or you will fail a test. If somebody's trying to test your boundaries you'll either pass or fail. So make sure you set your boundaries. What are their boundaries, right? So make sure you're passing the tests. It is it's so helpful to recognize that everybody that matters, or your spouse, your kids, your clients, tenants, they're all going to test your boundaries, so you need to get clear on what those boundaries are, and when a boundary is crossed, you'll know it because your nervous system will not be happy. You will not feel good in your body. You'll feel guilt or shame or embarrassment, humiliation, lack of power. Whatever, gross, icky, right? These are when people order situations overstep or go over your boundaries, or you aren't respecting or take taking care of yourself. You need to take care of that little you on the inside. It needs your protection. You need to take care of you. You need to know that you will protect you no matter what. Just like your team needs to feel safe. Your heart needs to feel safe. Your mind needs to feel safe. Your body needs to feel safe. These are like three children that you control. You are not your mind. You are the person that thinks the thoughts. You are not the thoughts. You are not your mind. You are also not your emotions. You are the person that feels the feelings. This is another vehicle. Your mind is a vehicle. Your heart is a vehicle, and you are also not your body. You are the person that moves the body and uses the body and experiences the body. These are like three unruly children on the bus, and you should be driving the bus, and if you let any of these drive the bus, it can be a bit chaotic, right?
[00:20:21] If your brain's driving the bus, everything's scary because the brain's job it's to avoid pain and scare the shit out of you and protect you. So it's going to like look at every logical angle. How can I avoid feeling these uncomfortable feelings? And the heart and the emotions needs to feel everything. It's the only thing you can do with the feeling. You need to feel the uncomfortable feelings. You need to feel the sorrow of the sadness, the crap, the happiness, the joy. You need to feel it all. That's part of being human, that's life, that's feeling alive. The full breadth of human experience. We need to feel it all, but the brain doesn't want us to fill it all because the brain's like, well that didn't, I don't know if I liked that last time. That was uncomfortable. And it judges everything. And then we have our body, and our body wants like sex and it wants to taste stuff and it wants to get rest. And like our body has these needs. So we can't let our body be in control, right? Like our life can be really strong chaos. We're just letting our tongue and our genitals and our physical needs like take complete control of the bus, that would be a really bad life, bad situation, right? If our heart and emotions were in control of everything, we'd be kicking holes in the wall. Like we would just be emotional about things. We would be up and down, right? We would get way too excited about some stuff, right? And logic then steps in and like controls a little bit of that, right? And we have some reason, and some logic we're like, how much would it cost to kick a hole in the wall? How much would it cost to repair that? So we start to make logical choices. What would be the ramifications of this relationship or doing this thing or taking this risk, right? So, Then we have our intuition, right?
[00:22:00] Another vehicle that I didn't mention, but we have another vehicle, our intuition, some might call it gut, some might call it God, source, whatever. Our spiritual side that we need to tap into that is a higher faculty than our logical mind that gives us clues and lets us know things that need to be done that sometimes don't make logical sense, but they end up being right and deep down they're right. A lot of really logical people cannot listen to intuition, which is a higher faculty. That's why the intuitive people have a one up on some of the most logical people. They're too logical, they're too logical, and a lot of times they're too logical because they're really just trying to avoid feelings and it cuts off their intuition.
[00:22:41] So going back what I was why I'm going over this is we need to set really good boundaries and we need to take care of these four vehicles, our intuition, our mental, our emotional, our physical. We need to take care of these vehicles, these little children that we kind of manage. We need to be listening to all of them, and we need to figure out what our boundaries are. What are we willing to do? What are we not willing to do? And then we need to figure out how to avoid the temptations that cause us to fail at that. And sometimes one of the things that came up is one of our clients was very transparent during one of our awesome speakers and said that sometimes when there's conflict with vendors and some of the vendors are his friends, like doing stuff, he's kind of a pleaser and it's hard to set boundaries with them or to let them know, have uncomfortable conversations that they're not doing things right or something needs to be done faster or stuff like this. And so what within ourselves, the kind of question that she asked was like, what within ourselves thinks that we. Deserve to have those things happen to us, or why within ourselves are we so concerned with being liked, and a lot of times it's from when we were young. People overstepped our boundaries. People treat us poorly and we had to like fawn or please to get people to like us in order to feel safe. And so, there's a great book I read recently I really enjoyed, called The Courage to Be Disliked. All about Adler, Adlerian psychology and which is different than Freud and young. Really interesting. I think he was way ahead of his time. The world wasn't ready for him back then. He was a contemporary of both of those young and Freud. But Adlerian psychology has become very popular in Japan, and I believe the authors of the book are both from Japan, and it was translated to English, I think.
[00:24:41] So really awesome book. The Courage to Be Disliked. And the sequel is the Courage to Be Happy or something like that. Great books. We need to have courage, the courage, the willingness to feel those uncomfortable feelings and be disliked in order to respect our boundaries. And so that's something else that we could do a whole episode on this, right?
[00:25:05] So the next piece is to build process, right? So take a look at your process. This might be connected to learning and preventing. This might be connected to getting clear on boundaries and what you want, protecting the team, but coming together as a team. We had Errol Allen at this event. He's a process expert and he talks about getting the entire team together to work on a process. Like who feeds the process, who works on the process, and who is affected later, or what, the output affects of the process affects them, right? So we want to make sure that we get all the stakeholders involved and we develop a really good process. So that we can, as part of that learning and preventing and avoiding the temptation and passing the tests is creating a really good process. And so these are the main things that we discussed in relation to dealing with this challenge of letting go of clients that are not treating you well and setting really good boundaries. Now, If you don't, then you will get caught in the cycle of suck. Everybody's heard me talk about this before, which means you take on crappy owners, you then have crappy properties, you then have crappy residents because they're frustrated about the crappy property and the crappy owner, and then you're going to have crappy reviews. Then you're going to attract more crappy clients, right? And this sums up the property management industry in aggregate. This is the challenge in why most property managers suck. Most of your competitors you probably believe suck. It's because they're taking on any client. You need to set some rules, set some boundaries, and let go of some bad clients and that will get you out of the cycle of suck. Why do you want to be out of that? Some of you think, well, that's just property management. That is not very profitable property management. This is why the average property management business has like 4% or 6% profit margin and makes very little money.
[00:27:00] Our clients sometimes have 10 times those amounts, a profit margin. We've got clients doing 20, 30, 40, sometimes 50 or 60% profit margin, right? And so to have really good profit margin, you cannot have really bad owners and really bad systems and you can't be caught in the cycle of suck. You've got to let go and clean your portfolio up and you'll be a lot more profitable. because one bad property can take easily 10 times, just maybe even a hundred times the amount of work as a good door, as a good property. Okay. All right, so hopefully this gave you some ideas. You're probably thinking right now about a client. I know you. You're thinking about a client right now. You're like, I'd be so happy if I could just get rid of that. My team would love if we could just get rid of that person, if we could just get rid of that one property, that would be great. This is your business. It can be the business of your dreams, or it could be like your master and you could be a slave to it. Which one do you want? Any business at? Any size could be either one. You get to decide this is your business, so be the entrepreneur, not the property manager. Protect yourself and let go of some of those bad clients. And that's it for today.
[00:28:17] So, if you are a property management entrepreneur and you want to get your either add doors or you want to finally dial in the operational side, you're curious maybe about how does DoorGrow help with process and their, what's their DoorGrow flow software and how do they help with sales and what's their CRM software, DoorGrow CRM, and how do they help with operations and what is this DoorGrow os and why is it so much better than eos? And how are they helping property managers get their teams in a alignment so that they can go from pretty good growth to having like 300% growth in a year, like some rapid growth where the team are all moving the business forward, like and thinking like an entrepreneur. How do we finally get great team members? Our client that just doubled his doors I was telling you about, since joining DoorGrow, he fired most of his team and replaced most of his team because he realized by getting clarity in working with us and getting the hiring stuff going and vetting his team, he realized he did not have the right team. He didnt have the A players, he didn't have believers. So we need to help you get a really great team and then install DoorGrow os and then make sure you have processes and if you have those three system people, system, process, system. And planning system, you then have a scalable business. So now this client he has a business that can scale, right? We want you to have a scalable business, a business that if you lost team members, you could get back up to speed very quickly, right? Whereas most of you probably just did Russian roulette hiring until you eventually got enough team members and fired enough team members that you had a good team and you finally installed decent culture and then you were finally able to break 600 doors. You can't break 600 doors with a crappy team.
[00:30:04] You'll last see so many people in that two to 400 door range struggling. You get to 500 and it's painful. If you feel like right now, if you're honest with yourself, deep down that if you added more doors right now, if you added another a hundred doors this month, your life would get shittier and worse then your business is not set up to be scalable. The business owner's life should get better the bigger the business gets and the more money you have. And that means your business is not set up to be scalable. Let's get your business to be scalable. Reach out to DoorGrow. You can check us out at doorgrow.com. Go to our homepage, the big pink button. "I want to grow." click that and there's a free training. You can book a call with our team and you can watch our testimonials and case studies and we're going to blow your mind. And we're going to help you realize why marketing doesn't work very well generally, advertising generally doesn't work very well for growth, and why you've been struggling to get your team and business in alignment so that you enjoy your day to day. Let's get you there.
[00:31:02] Until next time, to our mutual growth, I'm Jason Hull. Bye everyone.
[00:31:06] 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!
[00:31:33] 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.
If you are a property management entrepreneur, you have probably experienced isolation. Being an entrepreneur is often a lonely profession, but it doesn’t have to be.
In this episode of the #DoorGrowShow, property management growth experts Jason and Sarah Hull discuss why every property manager needs a tribe to keep them accountable and celebrate their wins.
[01:45] Don’t Surround Yourself with Negative People
[06:30] The Isolation of Entrepreneurs
[12:45] The Benefits of In-Person Events
[17:11] Why DoorGrow Spends 6 Figures Annually on Coaching
[20:00] Don’t Try to do Everything Yourself! Get Support
[30:34] When Someone Else Knows What You Need Better Than You
“Sometimes what's constraining us in growth is something so simple and obvious that somebody else could see.”
“Your growth will be very limited if you are surrounded all the time with toxicity and negativity.”
“You need to be around people that don't believe your excuses and that can see your limiting beliefs.”
“It's very challenging. It's a tough industry. It is not for the faint of heart. But it can also be very rewarding.”
[00:00:00] Jason Hull: You need to be around people that don't believe your excuses and that can see your limiting beliefs. And they're like, "that's gross. Like you don't need that. That's bullshit, right? Like you don't need that belief. Like it's actually like this. This is how I see it." And that changes your beliefs if you hang out with those people.
[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'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 here with Sarah. Do you want to introduce yourself?
[00:01:20] You do it.
[00:01:21] Sarah the COO of DoorGrow and my wife. Now let's get into the show. " You do it." All right.
[00:01:31] You're on a roll. I'm on a roll. All right. Welcome everybody. So today I was like, Sarah, what should we talk about? And so the topic we decided to talk about is something that's been really beneficial to us. We want to talk about why as a property manager, you need a tribe. You need people as a property management entrepreneur, business owner, you need a tribe or you need some people to support you in your positive goals and your growth. And one of the things that I've seen in the industry a lot is there's a lot of people in the industry-- property management's tough, right? It can be tough, and it's very easy to create a tribe or have a tribe or be in groups in which everybody's negative about property management, right? Like where they're just sharing wine memes and like, "Hey, it's the end of the day... property management... tenants, argh!" right? That's not what we're talking about. We're talking about the opposite. A tribe that helps you focus on the positivity and moving your business forward, and that's been super beneficial for us in our business. So maybe Sarah can tell us a little bit about that so.
[00:02:40] Sarah Hull: All right. Well, I think in property management there's a lot of different challenges. We can all agree on that. So it is easy to kind of jump on that train of, "hey this is hard" and "my life sucks" and "I don't know why I do this" and "sometimes I don't get paid enough money to deal with this." So it's very challenging. It's a tough industry. It is not for the faint of heart. But it can also be very rewarding, and I think surrounding yourself with positive energy and positive people versus the naysayers and the people who want to, focus on oh, how bad their day was and how hard this is, and how challenging this is, and how tired they are, and that they're just constantly drained. If those are the people that are surrounding you, and that's what you're hearing, you will like, whether you realize it or not, you are programming your brain to think this way.
[00:03:46] So if we're surrounded by people that are constantly negative and they live for the weekend and they're like, "oh, I'm going on vacation. I can't wait and don't bother me, leave me alone. Like if you don't just truly enjoy what you do and you are being dragged down constantly. Your brain is absorbing all of this. It's like a sponge. So really what you're doing to yourself is, it's a form of self-sabotage, and it's really important to get yourself around people that are just vibrating at a higher energy. I know that sounds really woo woo, but that's something that over the last few years I've had to work really hard at. I've really become a professional at cutting people off and cutting people out if they're not a champion of me if they're not somehow, helping to promote me or helping me to think, more differently or really proud of what I've done. Because there are always people who are like, "oh yeah, I don't like that guy. I don't like that girl." Like, "oh, she, yeah they're great and all, they've got a bunch of success, but it came because they don't do things the right way, or they, they took an easy way out. So if you're surrounding yourself with people like that, you've got to minimize all of those thoughts and all of the time that you're really spending, so that you put yourself in a better position in order to be positive, in order to grow. Your growth will be very limited if you are surrounded all the time with toxicity and negativity.
[00:05:33] Jason Hull: Yeah. I think it's really important to be around people that don't believe your excuses, right? If you're around people that are like, "yeah, that's how it is. Yeah, it sucks sometimes, and that's just like the way it works" or, "yeah, it's difficult to grow or yeah, that's hard. Or, yeah, I'm dealing with that too." Right? Then you're in a support group for a problem, right? That's a support group for a problem, right? That's not helping you move past it. And so you need to be around people that don't believe your excuses and that can see your limiting beliefs. And they're like, "that's gross. Like you don't need that. That's bullshit, right? Like you don't need that belief. Like it's actually like this. This is how I see it." And that changes your beliefs if you hang out with those people. Because their beliefs is are more true and more accurate, they're not going to change theirs down to your crappy limiting beliefs. You're going to uplevel yours. And we all have those at any level. We all have them. And then we talk to somebody that's at a higher level and they're like, "well, I see it this way," and we're like, "oh my gosh, I couldn't see that before." So you need a tribe. So one of the challenges that is created, I believe naturally for entrepreneurs is entrepreneurial isolation, like we're isolated. Especially in early stages. You probably felt this when you first started your business. It's all me. I'm all alone.
[00:06:49] Sarah Hull: Yeah. Well, I think I've really-- I felt that until I came to Texas.
[00:06:56] So what was different about Texas?
[00:06:58] Well, I think everything was really different about Texas, but I think just the mindset of people here is so different. And it's a lot easier to be around people that just, they think there's more, they think it's easy. I think something that I kind of had a lot of when I grew up was: making money is hard, like, you've got to turn, you've got to work, you might need to work, 2, 3, 4, sometimes jobs. Yeah. In order to make the money that you want. And the mindset that I had for, a long period of my younger life was. Hey, if I want more money, I've got to, work more hours, or I've got to get a raise, or I've got to get an extra job. So, for years of my life, I had just worked multiple jobs, two or three at a time so that I can make the money I wanted, and I just thought like, this is what you do. This is normal. And it's hard, like if you can do great things, but it's hard and you just have to, buckle down and like, dig your heels in and just plow through. And only within, I'd say the last three years that I realize it's not hard. It's hard if you make it hard. It's hard. If you think it's hard and it's hard If you're surrounded by people that tell you it's hard then it's going to be hard. You best bet it will be hard. But it doesn't have to be hard. It really doesn't. And just your own mindset can really prep you for what you're going to receive. So if you think, "oh it's hard and I've just got to grind and there's no other way to do this. That's what you're going to get.
[00:08:40] Jason Hull: I think every entrepreneur goes through kind of this journey. From a young age, entrepreneurs are a little bit different. We don't value safety and certainty as the highest priority. We are a little bit more adrenaline junkies. We're a little bit more focused on, taking risks. We're willing to work longer hours and harder to like get something going. In order to have more freedom, we care more about freedom than just staying safe and having a safe, stable job. And we think the world can change. We see that things could be better. We want to improve everything around us. We're like, why are people doing it that way? We're not satisfied with the status quo. So what that creates is, that creates a situation in which we're weird. And we get a lot of friction and everybody around us is like, why are you being weird? Like, why don't you just go along with what everyone else is doing? Just do what everyone else is doing and be safe. Like, why don't you just go get a job? Any entrepreneurs ever heard that before? Right? They don't get us. And so we start to learn. As an entrepreneur, "I probably shouldn't say anything." I should probably like not put out there what I'm doing. I need to isolate more because I'm getting so much friction.
[00:09:53] Sarah Hull: People just, they don't understand it. They don't get it. But you have this higher vision that other people just don't, they don't have yet, and they can't see it. It's your job though, to help them see it. So you small yourself and you make yourself smaller and more little, and you just say, "Hey, I'm going to I'm just going to do my own thing. I won't worry about it. Then you are taking that opportunity away from not only yourself, but from other people. To see, hey, there's more. This isn't it. You're not done yet.
[00:10:31] Jason Hull: It's really difficult though, if somebody's wired that they're at their core. They're like, I want safety and certainty more than freedom and more than taking risks you're not really probably going to change them or convince them. And because we're a minority, we're like, we're rare as entrepreneurs. In order to escape that entrepreneurial isolation that we've all created around ourselves where we think we're on an island and it's all up to me and I've got to get my team to do stuff, and we feel weird and we're different... we have to start connecting with other entrepreneurs. Then we start to realize we're not weird. I went through this and when I first got my first coach, And he was like, described what entrepreneurs were like, and he was like this. And I hung out. I went to an in-person event and it was a group of entrepreneurs and they were all making way more money than me. I felt like the ant in the room, but they all were kind to me. They all loved my ideas. My coach at the time was like, you have a multimillion dollar business and you don't even know it. I started crying because he could see that I had the capacity to do something that I couldn't even see it the time. And that's why it's so important to get around people that can believe in you.
[00:11:35] And that's the thing, if you're around other entrepreneurs that are high functioning. Where you have good coaches, good mentors, good people that you're connected with, good friends, whatever, they will see you in your greatness. They'll see you in that you're playing small. They'll see that there's something better for you that you can't even maybe see for yourself. And that changed me. It changed me as a person. That event changed me because I was like, whoa, all these people have multimillion dollar companies and they all were listening to my nerdiness and what ideas I had and they thought I was helpful and valuable and if they can do it, I can probably do it too. And that was like, and I just thought it was, maybe that was impossible, like, but if they can do it... these people can do it. Maybe I can do it right.? So, and that's part of the why we invest a lot as a company and why we're in a lot of different masterminds and programs ourselves, and why we offer a mastermind to our clients, which has become the main, our main business. We have our mastermind groups for our clients. So do you want to talk maybe about some of the groups that we've been in or some of the benefits we've seen in being part of some of these groups that we're in?
[00:12:46] Sarah Hull: Yeah. I think even over the last couple months, we've gone and done several, like in-person mastermind styled events. And some of them last minute you were like, "oh, we shouldn't, I don't think we should go. Our business doesn't need anything." Yeah. Like, " we're good right now. We already know what we're doing. We just need to do it." Yeah. And I think sometimes that's exactly when you need to go. Yeah. So even that event that you said, "oh, I don't know if we should go and do it," we had planned to, and then about a week beforehand, Jason's like, "oh, I don't--"
[00:13:20] we had so much.
[00:13:21] "Like, we're good. Like we have so much on our plate. We already know what to do. We just need to buckle down and do it and get it done." And I said, "I think that's why we need to go."
[00:13:31] Jason Hull: And it was really good. Like I had some serious breakthroughs, like I broke down and had a breakthrough. And there was stuff that I just couldn't see and being around, I mean, these are high functioning people that we got to hang out with. You're talking about Puerto Rico, right? Puerto Rico, yeah. Yeah. Our Puerto Rico trip. We did another really cool one in Houston we did with a different group of entrepreneurs. Yeah. A lot of these are coaches, so we're connected heavily to the coaching industry. We went and did the Nashville. We went to another group there two times to Nashville. Yeah. Twice. That was a game changer for us as a company.
[00:14:03] Sarah Hull: Both times. And that's the thing is, you sometimes you might go to something and it's really good and then you go wonder the second time, like, "am I going to get as much out of it? Yeah. Is it going to be as good? What are they going to do this time?" And it was absolutely just as good as the first time. And I think the first time you walked away with like 77 little like ideas and I didn't see your list this time, but I, it was huge and big list this time too. It was huge. So there was a big, long list of things that sometimes it just takes a person on the outside looking in-- Yeah-- to say, "oh, well why don't you do it like this?" And you're like, "oh, I can't even believe I missed that."
[00:14:40] Jason Hull: We still need to sit down and go through the last event we just got back from Yeah. In Nashville and go through all that. Haven't even been back a week yet. Yeah. But we've got our conference this week, so we're getting our clients together so they can experience an in-person connection. So that's another piece. A lot of these masterminds, there's a virtual component. We have that as well, but the ones we're talking about where we get the greatest benefit, there's been virtual components to those, but the in-person really is dramatically different for us.
[00:15:08] Sarah Hull: It is different. It's just so different. When you get face-to-face with people, you really get to connect with them. I think sometimes. It's in the unplanned moments too. It's like, "Hey, we're in the taxi going to this place," or we're on the bus, driving around and-- totally-- like, there's no structure to those moments. It's like hey, we're going to go from here to here, and to do that, we're going to get on the bus. But it's the conversations that are happening on the bus. We're all sitting there, and you sit in different spots and you talk to different people and you're like, "Hey, I heard this is what you do and I'd love to pick your brain on this." and there's so many people, especially in that group in Nashville, there's so many people that they've just been there, done that. Like they've tried it, they've won, they've failed, and they're like, I'm completely willing and open to contribute to other people. And I think that's the other component of it is you can't go into a group like this. And say, "I'm going to take. I'm just taking, yeah. I'm not telling anybody what I do. I'm just going to hide. I'm not telling anybody because this is like my secret sauce." Yeah. Get the secret sauce all over everything. Tell everybody you know, "Hey, this is what I do." This is how it works. Because no matter how good you are, even if you're like, "Hey, things are freaking awesome for me," that's great. You can still get in a group like this. And if you come in and say, "Hey, like this is amazing. This is what we're doing. This is how we're doing it," you are still going to get some ideas because there's going to be something that someone says and you go, "oh I didn't even think about that." yeah. Didn't even think of it. And a lot of times it's like you're just too close to the fire.
[00:16:45] Jason Hull: Yeah, like one of the in between moments we had in Nashville was with our friend Sharon. And Sharon, he's the CEO of a company that just posted like, I think they publicly posted they had 4 billion in quarter one in
[00:16:59] Sarah Hull: revenue, not just total like 4 billion in.
[00:17:02] Jason Hull: So this guy knows a thing or two. And so, and he shared one idea that was so simple it could potentially double our client retention rates. And these are the type of things that we want to bring to the table for our clients. Like we're always innovating, always looking for what's the best, what's working really well, how can we optimize things? And a lot of our best ideas don't come from the property management industry. They come from like us playing our own game of business. In the coaching industry, which is what we are now. We do websites, but we started as a web design agency. But we're no longer really an agency. We're more of a coaching business and running a mastermind but we're always learning better and higher systems and ideas that we can then give to our clients. And our clients are also contributing really cool ideas like our last DoorGrow Live event. This one we have people presenting too, from within the group, like they're sharing. But we had some amazing ideas shared at the last event where everybody was like-- everybody was like, no matter how big, "I'm starting a maintenance company. Yeah. Or I'm going to start doing this." because they got this idea that was unique and different than I'd heard in the industry of how to make this work more effectively. Really cool ideas. We're just stacking cool ideas all the time. I don't think there's any other program out there that is able to stack cool ideas. Even, you know, NARPM's a really great organization. There's some really great organizations out there and people that do coaching. There's some other masterminds, but I don't think anybody moves as quickly or invests as much money as we do into our own coaching and into masterminds and working with high level people and creating connections, relationships, and so, I don't think there's anyone that moves as fast as us too. Like we move really fast as a team because of our amazing systems. It's the same system we teach clients to do for planning DoorGrow os and all this kind of stuff you've probably heard me talk about on the podcast before.
[00:18:54] I want to challenge something you said. You said moving to Texas was different and I think. I think what's really different is Austin moving to Austin area. Austin has a very entrepreneurial community. It does. That's kind of unique to the area, and like I lived in LA area and... all right. SoCal, everybody from Pennsylvania think SoCal, like if you've been to Pennsylvania, like up there. Sorry, but I don't think it's that great, but.
[00:19:24] Sarah Hull: I'm also sorry if you live in Pennsylvania,
[00:19:25] Jason Hull: SoCal is pretty great, except the politics is horrible, but, and there's like, yeah. And some of the areas are getting really bad, but that's why I left. Right? But SoCal in LA, you think there'd be a lot of entrepreneurs and whatever, like people are all about themselves. Like, it was really difficult to connect. I couldn't find groups or communities. I would go to some events and it just wasn't the same. And it's very different here. And a lot of people here are from California, which is, it's like all the best people escaped but it's an awesome community here that allows us to connect with entrepreneurs and destroy that entrepreneurial isolation, right? That I had mentioned. Now, a lot of people don't invest in these things because they think they can figure it out themselves. I mean, is every entrepreneur's default thing. I'm smart enough, I can watch some YouTube videos, I can read some books. I can figure it all out myself. I can do it. That's like stage one. You think you're the hero, you're a king. You can do it all on your own. Right?
[00:20:19] Sarah Hull: But you know, and it's not even that you're wrong. Because you can. Yeah, it's true. You can do it by yourself.
[00:20:24] Jason Hull: Just take a decade longer.
[00:20:26] Sarah Hull: It's just going to be infinitely harder. And I think one of the beautiful things about connecting with the people that are in your industry specifically they all have a different formula for what they do. They all have different knowledge, they all have different experiences and expertise. So, I mean, there are people in like in our mastermind group that they're like, "Hey, this is what I am going through right now and it's a mistake that we made, and I want to share it with the rest of the group so that everybody else in the rest of the group gets to learn without having made the mistake themselves.
[00:21:05] Jason Hull: I think also what's unique about our, because it's not just property managers getting together, there's lots of other places that could do that besides DoorGrow. I think what's really unique is that because of how much I've invested and how much we invest as a company and how much we've kind of consolidated and that we continue to do that aggressively and very quickly. I mean, we're in I think 2, 3, high level, high ticket masterminds right now. We spend easily six figures a year as a company on that. Like my business allows me to feed my coaching addiction and to get more stuff. Right? That's true. Right? So the business serves me because I love to learn. Right. And I love teaching and sharing. I think what's really different though, is that when people come into our group, Their mindset very quickly gets upgraded. I mean, we have a training called Mindset Secrets. Like we are changing these people the way they think and the way they operate. And now they aren't able to be part of a group of other people with that upgraded mindset and that upgraded level of thinking. And they're not doing stupid stuff. Like, they're not like, "I'm going to go just try and do internet marketing or content marketing" or whatever they're trying to do to grow, they're like, there's better ways. "So I'm going to do this stuff that DoorGrow taught me." So everybody comes in with a bunch of junk and a bunch of garbage and a bunch of false beliefs and a bunch of ideas of what could work. And that's not really working. And they're frustrated or stuck. They're stagnant in their operations, they're doing too much in their business. They're not really enjoying their team. Like we get all of them to see a better way of doing all this and change it. A lot of people think DoorGrow's all about growth. That's like such an easy thing we solve for clients is adding a bunch of doors. What we really do is we really help business owners become entrepreneurs and run really effective teams and get really great people and build really great systems and operations. That's really what DoorGrow does, but everybody thinks DoorGrow must just help people grow.
[00:23:00] Really, we love working with the 200 to 400 door plus companies that are struggling with people, systems, team, operations, because these are all the things the business owner thinks they should be doing, that they should not be doing. This is what their operator or these people should be doing on their team. Right? And so because they come in and we upgrade their mindset very quickly. That group as a group, this Hivemind, this Mastermind, are able to contribute so much more value than I was able to see in any other groups in the industry. Does that sound fair?
[00:23:33] Sarah Hull: Yeah. I think that's-- I'm obviously biased, but-- no, I think that's a good point and I think it gives you really a place to be recognized too. Because we don't get that. Yeah. Like there's no one, you know, when you're in school or when you're a kid and like you do something and you get like the gold star or something, you're like, oh yeah, I got a lollipop because I did my chores today. Like yeah. As adults, we don't get that. There's nobody who's like, "I'm so happy about what you did. Like you did such good job. Yay for you." Like, unless you have these connections, like you just, you miss out on that.
[00:24:12] Jason Hull: So you're kind of touching on the gamification or the gamification where we've gamified our mastermind, right? We've got like our belt levels. Like you're moving through martial arts for property managers where you're going from like zero, a fantasy belt to a white belt of getting your first door to being a black belt at a thousand doors. And we have like achievements that you've mapped out, that we have achievements that we've mapped out as a company for people to achieve certain things to showcase their expertise and our clients wear, like this is new, but they're going to be wearing at DoorGrow Live this week. They're going to be wearing lanyards that are their belt color that they've earned in our system. This is not just because they have doors. You don't get to be a black belt because you have a thousand doors. You have to start as a white belt. Get on the mat and like earn each of these belt levels by achieving certain milestones in DoorGrow to prove that you've upleveled your mindset, you've upleveled parts of your business and that you've got things financially in place and that you have a profitable company. Like there's all these requirements that we've installed and that gamification makes it a lot more fun and allows some of that, you know, recognition to be seen by other people. Right? Yeah. So that's been really helpful.
[00:25:27] Sarah Hull: And I think that's a really good point too, is the door count doesn't always matter. That's what we in the industry, that's where we're like, oh, they have, 5,000 doors. Like, oh my god, that's insane. But I've seen companies with like 8,500 doors that make $54 a door or what? I'm sorry. But I have--
[00:25:47] Jason Hull: and that's revenue. Some of them aren't very profitable.
[00:25:51] Sarah Hull: Well, right. So I have zero interest in running a company that has 8,500 doors in which I'm making next to nothing or worse, losing money and I'm not getting paid, or I'm not getting paid well because all of the money is going out to expenses. So what we've done is we've kind of engineered things so that, because I mean, given the choice, if you could have a company with 8,500 doors making bare bones minimum, or if you could have a company with a thousand doors, but you're extremely profitable... so that's what we really focus on with especially the belt system that we put in place. But what's really great about it is when you come to, like one of the live events, you can just pick them out of the crowd super easy by the lanyard. Just look at the color and if you know the DoorGrow Code and the belt system, you'll know very easily like, Hey, this is where I'm at and this is what I want. So let me find the people in the room that are ahead of me. That's who I'm going to talk to.
[00:26:55] Jason Hull: Yeah. Super easy. Yeah, so. Love it. Yeah, so that's helpful. Like everybody needs a hero to chase after. They need those mentors. And so we facilitate that in our program as well. So, yeah, so it's been a game changer for us to have tribes that we are part of that can help us level up. Sometimes they're pointing out things that are so obvious and so stupid that we're missing because we're too close to the fire that it's ridiculous. Like one of them was we do website design for a lot of our clients and we've done that for over a decade. But one of the people that ran a multimillion dollar business that we were in a group with said, "Hey, your website says you do this, and this doesn't sound like what you described." We had changed so much in the previous six months. And it was about six months since we had redone our website. It was all outdated. Our homepage was outdated. And so it was such like a blind spot and it was so obvious and it could affect our revenue so much. It was so stupid. Like I was embarrassed because I'm like, I run a web design agency, and we do this and I've done this forever and I'm missing something so simple and obvious that could make things so much easier. So we changed that and now we're getting a lot more leads and a lot more flow, and it was just like something that we were missing and we just needed somebody outside. And there's so many things like that. We just did a premium mastermind event. We went to Pigeon Forge.
[00:28:21] Well, Sarah set this all up technically. Yeah, so it was like in the Rocky Mountains area and like by Pigeon Forge. Smoky Mountains. Smoky Mountains. Smoky. Not in the Rocky Mountain. I don't know where it was. Sarah set it all up.
[00:28:31] Sarah Hull: I know you just showed up. He's like, what am I doing? I'm like, just show up. Right? So, yeah. Yeah. So I kind of set everything up, but what we did is we got a hand selected group of people together and we rented out like a luxury vacation rental. I wanted it to be nice, like very nice. Beautiful view of the Smoky Mountains.
[00:28:56] Jason Hull: It was like this beautiful cabin.
[00:28:57] Oh, it was awesome. Up on this hill. Yeah. Like a beautiful view.
[00:29:01] Sarah Hull: It wasn't a hill, it was at the top of the mountain.
[00:29:04] Jason Hull: I don't know. I call that a hill, but it yeah, it was beautiful. We had big mountains behind my house when I lived in SoCal. Yeah. So. But it was, yeah, it was really beautiful. We did some fun things with them.
[00:29:14] Sarah Hull: Yeah. Yeah. It was really great because we got everyone together. Yeah. And the first day, it's like everybody's just kind of hanging out at the property. We're having dinner, we're just kind of talking. We're just figuring it out. The next day we did a deep dive on everyone's business, and I think that was incredible because you get to just contribute to the group with what you can, you get to receive from the group with what you need. And then at the end of the day we went and we just had some fun. So we got out of business mode, which sometimes entrepreneurs are not really great at doing. So we got out of business mode. We went to dinner, we went to a museum, and then we got back to the property and some of us were like, okay. We were up until, I don't know, it was like one in the morning. Yeah. Just chatting. Because we all just couldn't stop. We were all like, okay. Some of them were like, I need to go to bed. I need to go to bed. I think there was probably a good like six of us up until like 1:00 AM. And everyone just got so much out of that and like we got so much out of that too. And it's like that style of event that we've been to and we just knew we needed to implement that in our program because if we come across something and we benefit that much from it. Like I said to Jason, I was like, we have to do this. Yeah. Like, we have to make this happen for our clients. I don't care what it takes.
[00:30:34] Jason Hull: Going back my point in bringing this up is that, a lot of these business owners, these property management business owners were at similar stage in their business. And they were able to share ideas. Everybody kind of opened up what their problems were. We looked at their financials. Like we went deep and they were very vulnerable and everybody could see some really obvious things that, that the business owner couldn't see. Like one of them was still getting a lot of phone calls and wasn't able to function in that BDM role that they wanted to as a business owner, while their spouse was functioning more as operator role and they weren't able to do that because they were getting so many calls and property management related stuff to work on. And it was so simple. It was just changing the phone system. That was it. It was just changing and setting up a phone system and changing, setting up some routing. And that's freed up so much more time since he went to that event. He like made those changes really quickly and now he is got way more bandwidth, right?
[00:31:30] Sarah Hull: So, and since then he's added, he's now over 200 doors. Did you know that? Yeah. What was he at before? I think at the event he was 150 something. Yeah. So he's now over 200 and that event was a little over a month ago.
[00:31:42] Jason Hull: Yeah. Yeah. So I mean, sometimes what's constraining us in growth is something so simple and obvious that somebody else could see, especially somebody that's worked with people at a much higher level. We can see that path. Right. So, anyway, I think-- anything else we should touch on of why property managers need a tribe? I don't think so. You need a tribe. Don't be isolated. Your business will be the sum of the five property management business owners you pay attention to or listen to or connected with the most. And get into a group where people have upleveled their mindset. Have a conversation with our team. You can just check us out doorgrow.com. Go join our free Facebook group where we've got some really cool people in there. They're all very helpful. You can go to DoorGrowClub.com to get access to that. Or just go to our homepage of DoorGrow, click the big pink button, and I have a free training, like 90 minutes going into how we can help you level up your operations, create more freedom and fulfillment for yourself, and that's really what's holding you back probably in adding doors. It's probably that you know how to add doors, but deep down, you know that if you add another a hundred doors, another 200 doors in the next year, which we can easily help you, you know that means your life's going to get worse. We need to change that so your business is scalable and get the right systems in place so that you know your business can handle that and your life gets better the more money and doors you have. And let's make you profitable. Like really profitable. Yeah. So if your profit margin isn't like, at least what?
[00:33:14] Sarah Hull: Minimum 20%. But maybe even 30 minimum, maybe even 40%. Oh, yeah. Like, let's get you. Some of our clients have 40, 50, 60% profit margins.
[00:33:25] Jason Hull: Which was not the case when they came to us. No. Right. So if you're not experiencing the margins that you would like to in your business, it's a lot of times you just can't see it. But we can rearrange the team, we can lower your costs, we can get your team to be more productive or effective. And they don't need to be micromanaged more. You just need some specific systems, like a good planning system, good hiring system. So anyway, we'll wrap up. I could talk about this stuff forever, but it's nice doing the episode with you, Sarah. So I'm trying to convince her to do more with me. So if you guys like her being on these episodes, comment in the comments. Oh boy. Here we go. I know she's better looking than me and she's way smarter than me in some things. Some things. And so yeah.
[00:34:09] Sarah Hull: You're going to butter me up like that, I might do more episodes.
[00:34:12] Jason Hull: There you go. Butter. Yeah. All right. So anyway, that's it for today. So until next time to our mutual growth. Bye everyone.
[00:34:21] 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!
[00:34:47] 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.
Many property management entrepreneurs struggle to document their processes, and this leads to an overall lack of efficiency in their businesses. Documenting processes helps business owners streamline the day-to-day and reduce interruptions from team members.
Join Jason as he chats with Greg Brooks from Rocket Station regarding process mapping and how it can be used to benefit your property management company.
[04:10] What Process Mapping is and Why You Need it
[10:35] How to Document Your Processes
[16:15] Why You Need to Focus on YOU not the Business
[22:40] What Rocket Station Does
“Every entrepreneur can double their capacity by getting a really good assistant.”
“It's very common that we focus so much on the business and we don't focus on what we need.”
“As the business grows, the biggest constraints in the business are where there should be the most attention.”
“The process is always needed where we feel the biggest bottleneck or where we're feeling the most struggle.”
[00:00:00] Jason Hull: for most business owners, getting a VA is probably the very first hire they should make. Every entrepreneur can double their capacity by getting a really good assistant.
[00:00:11] Welcome Doorgrow Hackers to the DoorGrow Show. 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.
[00:00:37] Jason Hull: 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.
[00:01:10] And I'm hanging out today here with Greg Brooks of Rocket Station. So Greg, welcome to the show.
[00:01:18] Greg Brooks: Yeah, Jason, thanks so much for having us on. Excited to kind of dive in today.
[00:01:21] Jason Hull: Cool. So to get started, why don't you give us a little bit of background of how you sort of got into entrepreneurism and developed Rocket Station, and then we can transition right into what Rocket Station is.
[00:01:34] Greg Brooks: Yeah no, definitely. I was like your classic statistic coming out of college, I was a division one athlete and I got done playing and worked in the fundraising world for a little bit, got my masters and very quickly kind of had that entrepreneurial itch. You know, growing up I had you know, goalkeeper academies that I would run, I reffed on the side, kind of had a bunch of little businesses that would help give me some money in my pocket for college. And kind of once I got done with my masters, you know, began on kind of my entrepreneurial journey. I was seven jobs or businesses owned in eight years trying to figure it out. Everything from supplement company all the way through to a restaurant. So really-- Wow. Was trying to kind of find, I feel like being that athlete, right? You have that kind of grind mentality and was trying to see how the heck I was got to get that to translate to making some money and not being a broke college kid anymore.
[00:02:22] And then about four years ago now met up with my partners at Rocket Station. I'd say kind of similar to you. Had, you know, had a couple investment properties myself, but was by no means a full blown property manager or a virtual staffing company with almost 2200 employees in the Philippines. I had never even met someone from the Philippines. Probably didn't even know where it was on a map. Yeah. But was fortunate enough .A couple of my partners were both operators as well as you know, kind of the visionary for where we wanted to go within the space and say they were looking for someone with, you know, kind of a pedigree in sales and marketing and I guess I fit the bill. So it's been a wild ride, kind of, you know, learning this industry. I mean, we work with. You know, operators from all sizes, 50 doors to 45,000. So seeing kind of the different struggles or bottlenecks and growth opportunity, especially over the last three years that this industry has kind of been dealing with, has been exciting and say excited to kind of sit here now positioned as kind of one of the top virtual staffing companies to the property management space and helping our clients solve a lot of kind of day-to-day operational issues when it comes to process as well as people.
[00:03:29] Jason Hull: Very cool. So where on a map can people find the Philippines?
[00:03:34] Greg Brooks: Yeah, you want to go say, a lot of people go across the Pacific. You can find Japan and then go a little bit further south. That's where you're looking right there, in that southeast Asian corridor. It's about-- now they can all find it. Yeah. 7,000 islands all spread out. If you push them together, it's about half the size of Florida. But I'm actually, I'm not sure when this episode will release, but we're actually headed there next week for our Q1 wrap up, which I'm excited about. Cool. Spend seven days over there.
[00:03:57] Jason Hull: Yeah. Very cool. So, our topic today is process mapping your property management business. And so let's talk a little bit about process mapping and then maybe we can get into how Rocket Station could help with that. So what is process mapping?
[00:04:13] Greg Brooks: Yeah. For us-- and candidly this came from kind of our own business lessons as young entrepreneurs, especially in property management. So often, we've got great teams. We've got people that have been with us for a while that are running our day-to-day operations. But what they're doing right our leasing processes, our maintenance processes, onboarding a new owner, offboarding an owner, a lot of that we rely on people to, you know, "get the job done right." and we have our weekly meetings and our huddles. But in terms of like a conceptualized process flow or kind of orders of responsibility or actual training documentation that could allow us if we took on a hundred new doors next month to hire 3, 4, 5 more property managers. We found that a lot of operators, regardless of size, really lack that in depth, detailed documentation around how their departments, how their businesses, how each of their individual team members operates. So for us, like we feel like that being a virtual staffing company, that's the key, right? Whether you're just trying to maintain and have a better work life balance as the owner, or if you're trying to scale from 500 to a thousand doors. A lot of people try to acquire and then just hire. And we feel like unless you have those processes and systems really mapped out, documented technology plugged in the right place, you're creating a lot of headache and a lot of extra work and just a lot of unenjoyment of the company that you're trying to scale. So we feel like process mapping is really the key and kind of the foundation to any property manager's business in order to get where they want to be.
[00:05:41] Jason Hull: So big challenge that I see in the industry is that a lot of these visionary entrepreneurs, they know that they need process. They know they need a process system, but they hate it, like they hate doing it. It's not fun for them. Now, some of them enjoy the act of creating a system or creating a process, but then they hate to make sure it's being used and they hate to run it. And that's where those operators kind of come in. Like it's kind of the yin of the yang. Most visionary entrepreneurs, they really need an operator. I would say that's probably the most important hire they'll ever have in their business, and a lot of them are lacking it, so, now once they have an operator, this would be like something they could easily give to them. They'll be like, "Hey, do this stuff. Like get these processes documented. Let me show you how to do it." And maybe they'll record that and they'll say, now you make a process for this. Because they don't want to do it. And those of you listening know, you know, you're that person because you've had it on your to-do list for at least a month, maybe even many months, maybe even years, to get certain things documented or defined processes, and it's still not done yet, which is a clue you're not the person that should be doing it yet. You're not the person. So Greg does Rocket Station provide people like that, operators, or are they the more going to be the people that can help to get these processes in place? Just curious.
[00:07:08] Greg Brooks: Yeah. Yep. Yeah, so we do a combination of both. And you're exactly right. Like most. I mean, you think of a typical property company owner, right? They're the visionary. They've got big goals, aspirations, like sitting at a desk, creating flow charts and documenting SOPs and creating what are the FAQs that most people ask when they make a leasing inquiry? Like they don't want to do that and shouldn't have to, and candidly, like who has the time, right? A lot of us, were operating businesses. If we're at the point where we know we need processes, it's either because, we've got messes we're trying to clean up in the office, which is taking our real time. Or we're acquiring and growing, which is also taking our real time. So it's like how do you balance that?
[00:07:46] So at Rocket Station, that's really our niche within the virtual staffing space, right? There's lots of providers out there that can staff you with people. We feel like without process and without a resource for the owner to be able to build those processes or to, you know, take a property manager or take your leasing team and have them work with somebody who can conceptualize and document those processes. You're really not doing your business justice. You're not doing your future virtual assistant justice in terms of getting them set up for success. So we do a combination of both. You asked, do we just hand over processes or do we kind of build them from scratch? We do both. So we're very fortunate. Like I said we work with over 550 clients just in the single family property management space itself. We also do commercial, we do short term, but we have developed with our clients. Depending on your scale, you know, the problems at a hundred doors are a little bit different than the problems and processes you need at a thousand doors, but kind of industry best practices based on, you know, the positions and the departments and the structure that companies utilize. We also have great partnerships within the industry with a lot of the softwares that you see out there. Even some names I've seen that have been on the podcast here, whether it's like maintenance coordination software, or leasing software or you know, the Appfolios the Propertywares the Buildiums of the world, where everyone's technology needs to be built into their processes, but not a lot of operators know the ins and outs of all the buttons to click and how to do this, and how to send off this, you know, th this report. So we also work directly with a lot of the software companies, templating out all the functionality that their software enables their clients to utilize, which then we pass along to the client to bake it in.
[00:09:22] So we try to template out as much as possible. I mean, it's no secret top operators, I mean, even mid-level operators, 80% of what they're doing, 85% of what they're doing every single day is pretty uniform across the industry. Where we get really dangerous and become a real big asset for our clients in dangerous, in a good way, is part of our onboarding you first spend two weeks minimum with our process development team and our team of process engineers taking our best practices and our guidebooks on software or specific positions and we tweak it and customize it to how your business operates and the structure, the points of contact, the department leaders that you utilize. So it's kind of best of both worlds, keeping it very efficient at the end of the day. Like we said, most operators are not doing process mapping is because they probably don't have time and we totally respect that. But we are really able to create a very robust, very deep, very thorough process through a combination of the customization as well as the templating and best practices that we leverage across our 500 plus customers.
[00:10:28] Jason Hull: Cool. So let's talk For those that are listening, they're like, yeah, you know, I know I need to map out some processes. I want to start working on the process mapping myself. What would you recommend as the process to map out a process?
[00:10:42] Greg Brooks: Definitely, I think the process is always needed where we feel the biggest bottleneck or where we're feeling the most struggle, and I kind of joke, the metaphor that we use is within your office, anytime you or your team have, oh, shoot moments. "Oh, shoot, I forgot to do this. Oh shoot, I don't want to do this. Oh shoot, I ran out of time to get to this." That's usually where you need to start developing process immediately. You know, that's typically kind of your foundational billing structure, right? Whether it's you know, whether it's like your leasing process or whether it's how you handle a maintenance call, how you troubleshoot an issue on, on, on site, at a property. I'm trying to think what else. Like your past due, you're invoicing, right? All of those kind of, you know, things that are very repetitive, that are very low level, but have to be done every day. We typically see that's the most impactful place that you can start implementing and documenting your processes. Like I said, we kind of coined the term, the oh shoot moments, you know, the, that's really where the operator, kind of like what you said, same thing for the business owner. Each of your teams, each of your property managers, your leasing agents, there's things that they're either forgetting to do or not doing. It's because it's probably a low priority item that you should be reinforcing process rather than just relying on them to get it done.
[00:11:47] And there's many different ways. I know you guys have a great software. I mean, there's tons of different mind mapping softwares out there, but you know, even just a whiteboarding exercise. You know, kind of just doing the, "okay guys, like where are we? Let's go through the simple 12 steps to go from advertising a property to getting a lease signed." Just simplify, and then start to back into the nuance. I think a lot of operators, they think their business, it's very unique. "We do this a certain way, we do that a certain way," and they start thinking too much about the granular and not enough about just the basic step one, step two, step three of the life cycle of a tenant or an owner. So being able to really start there, kind of the good old KISS method, right? 'Keep it simple, silly,' like start very basic and then you can start to build out first. But even just that very basic you know, 10,000 foot overview of how each department operates or how each department interacts with one another is typically where we want to start from a process mapping standpoint.
[00:12:41] Jason Hull: Cool. Yeah. Very cool. Yeah. I like the idea of looking at the bottlenecks because as the business grows, the biggest constraints in the business are where there should be the most attention. There's a good book by Eliyahu Goldratt. It's called The Goal and it perpetuates the theory of constraints, and it illustrates it nicely. It's kind of a dry read, but, so I recommend you listen to the audiobook because they have actors to play each part. Unless you like dry reading, so. But the ideas in this book, the guy is looking at everything through the lens of trying to fix this factory that he's in charge of, and he's looking at all these different stages in the factory, and they were making things less efficient by improving each step. Because if each step is maximum efficiency, that means they were just building up inventory and it was causing even more constraint and more delay. And so everything has to work as a cohesive whole. And so I like the idea of looking at the larger big picture because you can like optimize one part of your process super strongly and shove a lot of stuff through, and then it can all pile up somewhere else. And that's not the most efficient business model.
[00:13:50] It would actually be more efficient to slow things down on that previous step to the level that the next step can handle it fully instead of it building up sort of some sort of constraint or inventory or whatever that you have to like manage and inventory and property management would just be like things backing up, right? So in that situation. So what else can we share with people about process mapping? And then let's get into maybe... I really liked what you had said about how you kind of onboard your clients and bringing them into with your dev team to map out processes. So maybe we can go in a little more detail about that.
[00:14:28] Greg Brooks: Yeah, definitely. And then kind of just off of what you just said there, I think the biggest thing is at the end of the day, a lot, I'm sure a lot of people listening to this business they're operators, right? They are stuck. The good old stuck in the business versus working on the business. Yeah. I mean, I would say don't try to do it all yourself, right? Whether it's consultants and consulting services, like what DoorGrow has, or bringing in, hiring kind of your yin to your yang, right? Someone who has an operational mindset, and I think that's a huge part of it as well. Even with how we do it. Typically how an engagement works with one of our clients is like we allow the visionary type business owner to very efficiently get the processes or coordinate their team to get the structure out of them so that you can have that breath of fresh air to like really conceptualize and view your business and even just pinpoint like where those bottlenecks are. So often, I think especially if you're growing your property management company, onboarding new owners, onboarding new doors, it's like you're just waking up and you're a firefighter every day. So just having a resource, whether it's an internal hire, a consultant, a service like ours, to just like get how the system operates now.
[00:15:29] Forget even trying to make it more efficient. Forget refining, forget figuring out how many more people we need. Just having a resource where their skillset is being able to conceptualize and document and get that out is hugely valuable. Where what we find is with our clients, like very quickly, you know, their key investors their property managers themselves as the owner, they're very quickly able to say, "Well, why are we doing it like that? What does this look like?" Or our team can say, "well, did you know you can automate this whole business function with the technology that you're already paying a pretty penny for?" So just like getting it out, right? Don't feel like you got to kind of make it more efficient and document the same time. It's like, let's just figure out what we got here. That's just hugely valuable and should be like kind of the first stepping stone for anybody as they go down the, you know, building systems and processes pathway.
[00:16:13] Jason Hull: Yeah. I think one of the interesting things that I see a lot in having, you know, been kind of on the inside of probably thousands of property management businesses that's really interesting, is that it's very common, I think just in general for entrepreneurs is that we focus so much on the business and we don't focus on what we need as an entrepreneur in order to move towards what I've talked about on previous episodes, which I call the four reasons, like more fulfillment in our day-to-day, more freedom, more contribution, more support in our business. Those are the four reasons we start a business, and we all want that fifth reason of safety and certainty like our clients want, and in order to create those five things, a lot of times business owners make the mistake of just continually serving the business. What does the business need? Oh, the business needs an operator. The business needs to hire, the business needs this. Meanwhile, their needs continually get neglected. It's super common that you get to the point where you have two to 400 doors, I call it the second sand trap, and you're miserable. More miserable than you've ever been in your business or maybe in your life, and you now have an entire team around you that are doing stuff in the business, but they're asking you tons of questions.
[00:17:28] You are now the biggest bottleneck in the business. You're frustrated and banging your head against the wall thinking, "why can't they just think for themselves?" And it's because you've built a team around the wrong person. You didn't build the business in a way that you get to do the things you most enjoy. And so the way we combat that, I like the lens of looking at what does the business need? What systems do you have? How can you do this? I want to challenge everybody listening also to pay attention to what you need because this business exists to give you fulfillment, to give you freedom to take care of you, and you've spent so much of this trying to take care of the business and take care of your team. So what we do with clients is we have them do a time study. And we have them categorize based on the energetically, which things give them energy, like gives them fulfillment, freedom. Those are plus signs and which things are minus signs that are taking those things away. And then we take a look at those. And then we also categorize them based on you know, whether it's strategic time, like you're focusing on the business, or whether it's tactical, where you're in the business, you're making phone calls, you're doing sales, you're like doing the work, you're sending emails. And for most visionary entrepreneurs, the tactical stuff are the minus signs.
[00:18:39] And then the other hidden thing that we track in time studies are interruptions, because this is the biggest hidden thief in a business, is all the interruptions, your team interrupting you, tenants, owners interrupting you. All the interruptions are a thief, and one interruption according to Gary Keller's book, The One Thing, according to research cited in there, costs 18 minutes of productivity. And normally team members are interrupting each other at least once every 18 minutes, so you're losing over a half hour of labor every time. One team member interrupts another team member. And so that's why some businesses, I've seen some with entire teams and it feels like they're just spinning their wheels. They're not really making, innovating, moving progress forward and they're just barely getting all the to-dos done. And so I would challenge people, especially if they come on board with DoorGrow, we would have them do a time study to get clarity on what they need most to get to that next level.
[00:19:33] because there's a lot of people in the 200 to 400 door stage that they don't even really want to add doors. That's the secret. Usually at that stage, they deep down unconsciously, don't really want to add doors. They say they do, but when I talk with them, adding more doors, I can tell, means more pain in their mind. So they're psychologically against themselves. They're reversed. And in order to do that, they need to quit focusing on the business and they need to start focusing on themselves and what they need, and their team will be better off if they have those four reasons, their team members can start to have it because their team members will be doing the right things and they'll have the vision to be able to see that their team members are out of alignment or not on those four things for themselves. And I find we get our clients three times the productivity out of their existing team members if they are in alignment with the four reasons. Three times. So yeah, that's cost savings.
[00:20:29] Greg Brooks: A hundred percent. And it's just that leveling up, right? It's for the business owner then being able to level up into what they want to do, run the business that they want. That cascades down to your management. Obviously we come at it kind of from the bottom up, right? We talk through with a lot of our clients once we go through the process mapping piece is like a virtual assistant hired the right way, onboarded the right way can be so valuable. And it's, you know, for some clients it's a cost cutting measure like, at eight bucks, 10 bucks, 12 bucks an hour, it's typically got to save you a ton of overhead compared to hiring somebody locally. But we go to them and say, "Hey, look, now we have these processes. You've been able to diagnose what your negatives are, right? What's sucking the energy out of you. Well, look, we just took you out of doing c and d level work. You're now doing the a and b in the space that you thrive, which is only got to help the business get where you want it to go. And we have a super affordable resource that has the skillset and character suits to be able to do that work better than you would anyway." So it's that win-win- win all around the board. Yeah. And then it cascade down. Especially for that, we have a lot of clients in that kind of 200 to 500 range. Yes. It's just, you just kind of keep, you keep throwing them muck, right? You're in the minutiae of it, just trying to get through to the next day and the thought of going to 700 doors is just like, "no way I'm got to have a heart attack." But when you can start developing those processes, you know, mirror that up against your team's strengths, who you have, where do you want this property manager or this leasing, you know, agent to be really, and what do you want them doing?
[00:21:54] We like to simplify it down to, I mean, no one should have more than three to five core responsibilities, right? Really. And then property management. That's very hard. But if we can get people doing the three to five things that are in their sweet spot. What needs to fall off of their plate and then how can we offset that with process and incredible VAs to get them so that the whole business can take a level up and I mean, once again, coming back to just the personal thing, people can enjoy going to work again. There's a lot of times, whereas the owner where like, "I just don't want to go in." I'm sick of getting my teeth kicked in. So it's like your team feels that too. Well, how can we be enjoying this more. How can we increase the culture, make it a better experience? Your owners feel that, your tenants feel that, and it all kind of starts at this initial discovery and jumping in with the process piece.
[00:22:37] Jason Hull: Yeah, totally. So cool. Well, tell us a little bit more about Rocket Station. I mean, there's a lot of VA companies targeting the property management space. We've had some on the show. We've had like Anaquim, virtually Incredible, Hire Smart, and several others. What do you feel like makes Rocket Station stand out? How are you kind of unique in the space? And why should somebody reach out to you instead of somebody else?
[00:23:02] Greg Brooks: Yeah. No, definitely. So, I mean, big thing kind of comes back to what we just talked about. We feel like there are, there's a lot of, especially, and we've seen them in the last five years, there's a new VA company every single week, that specializes, "in real estate." I think at the end of the day, a part of the puzzle of hiring VAs is finding great VAs. So just from sheer like, kind of recruitment size, all of our team members are based in the Philippines. So like, like I mentioned earlier, we've got 2200 people, 250 internal employees that work in the Philippines, recruiting, training, and onboarding what we feel like is some of the best talent the country has to offer. And all we do is real estate. So we break our business into kind of four key pillars. So it's property management, investor, real estate agent and brokerage, and then we have a home service division as well. So a big part of what we do is providing, we want it to be a win, right? We want a rockstar virtual assistant that has spent five and a half weeks going through our training and evaluation to get placed with the perfect client so they can grow their career and grow professionally and make more money and all the things any employee wants.
[00:24:03] We also want a client who has an ease of experience where at the end of it, they get a high output individual with as minimal headaches as possible. Unfortunately we feel like in the VA space, a lot of VA companies out there are more placement agencies. Meaning they'll find you somebody, but then you're kind of on your own to get them trained and hold them accountable. I mean, every VA company out there touts "you'll get management support and all," but once you get into it, that management support really is just, "Hey, if the VA messes up, give us a call. We'll get you a new one," and that's just not like the end goal. We're big on this idea of an being an integrated staffing service, and what that means is our perfect experience is we only staff dedicated virtual assistance to our clients, either part-time or full-time.
[00:24:45] So the perfect experience for us is, yes, Rocket Station held your hand and helped you develop processes and job scopes. We do all the recruitment and placement of somebody who we've evaluated over the course of five weeks to be the right fit. But at the end of the day, we want them to look, act, and feel like a member of your team. So we feel like that transactional nature that a lot of VA companies unfortunately go with, just because they're trying to get butts in seats. It doesn't help anyone. It doesn't help the property manager. It certainly doesn't help the va. In terms of finding people that really grow and stick well, one of the numbers we're really proud of is our average client retention is 33 months.
[00:25:20] So on average, the VA that you hire with us is lasting with you almost three years. Which I mean, in the VA space is about four times industry average, but even for the types of positions that we're filling, maintenance coordinators, leasing administrators, like you're not hiring somebody locally that's got to last more than nine to 15 months. So we're really proud of that and we feel like it creates that experience where we help. I mean, our point of differentiation is we're not just helping a VA get a job, we're helping our property management clients set up their systems and process so they can be successful with hiring virtual assistants. Because I think anyone out there that either currently has VAs or has maybe tried hiring VAs you very quickly realize that the number one, the term VA kind of very much undersells the capacity of what these team members abroad can do. Virtual assistant, you think my calendar or make a follow up call for me. And it's not that right? We're hiring, you know, world class customer service, leasing agents, salespeople, right? People who can really come in and we've got lots of cool studies to show this, but can typically outperform a local hire about three to one compared to what, you know, what you would get outsourcing versus hiring. But we really try to handhold and help our clients create the infrastructure-- a lot of it through process mapping-- to ensure the success of that hire. Sometimes people don't match. Sometimes VAs, you know, they do get replaced in six months, nine months. But the fact that we take that deep investment from literally documenting the processes for our clients, really getting to know them and managing that relationship as if we are a part of their team, really allows it to be a win across the board rather than just the transactional nature that unfortunately so many VA companies kind of run with in, in the property management space specifically.
[00:27:03] Jason Hull: So, I mean, that's incredibly low churn. If you're able to, on average do 33 months. So what would you say really-- I mean, because that's unique-- what really is causing that?
[00:27:16] Greg Brooks: I think it's a, I mean, hate throwing around the word culture because everyone throws around culture, right? I got a great culture. We have a different culture, we have a unique culture, but for us, it really is the culture piece in terms of how we structure the experience for the virtual assistant in the Philippines, mixed with how we structure the experience for the client to where we kind of view our business kind of in like two different verticals that combine when the client hires. So through our recruitment process, through the training, through all the support that we give even down to like how we compensate the benefits that they receive. It all lends to being a more structured employment option for the virtual assistant themselves. And we see that in terms of, we're very fortunate. We spend minimal dollars advertising for recruits in the Philippines. And last month we had 5,500 people apply for a job at Rocket Station. And a lot of that we feel like speaks to the culture because we have an incredible internal network over there that champions the culture that we're trying to provide, where we're not just that transactional VA company that's got to get you a client and then you got to kind of figure it out, right? We're helping support their education right from the jump in terms of the industry and the types of clients they're got to land with. Once they do get selected and hired by a client, we have all this process mapping and training and documentation custom-built. That's setting them for up for success. And then we actively are managing it, looking for opportunities to grow the VA's experience and their knowledge once they're working with the client and performing in their role. So just creating those feedback loops that create really strong culture with our teams over there. And then also marrying that with. The preparation that we do with the clients here.
[00:28:58] And I know VAs have become a lot more common, especially during Covid, but I mean there's still a lot of operators all sizes of business where it's still-- for a bad metaphor here-- it's still very foreign to them, right? They're like, how the heck am I got to communicate with this person every day? How are they got to be on our meetings? How are they got to be able to be plugged into our technology? So being able to walk them through step by step with that, doing it a lot of that for them, but making sure the infrastructure is set up allows them to look at this VA that they're hiring more as a member of their team rather than just the person who is vetting all of their lease applications because their leasing agent is sick of doing it or not doing it. You know what I mean? It's that different in terms of like, Hey, we have the end goal of them being integrated, being a part of their team. I mean, we have incredible stories of, ever since the world has kind of opened back up, clients literally traveling to the Philippines to visit. Actually within the PMI franchise network, one of our kind of trophy clients they flew. Four of their VAs over for the Property Management Incorporated national Convention last year. So it's just great. It's that different experience where it's like, hey, people are people. As business owners, we need to set people up for success because personally, I've never hired somebody who wants to quit three months later. When the employer meets the employee, there typically is a value trade there where somebody wants to succeed and for anyone that's worked with VAs in the Philippines, when you talk about like work ethic and really just want to it's world class, like they want to come in and be a valuable member of the team.
[00:30:26] So the way that we're able to prep the client, the culture that we're able to cultivate within the VA space itself is what really lends itself to that really strong marriage and that super low churn that the client actually feels in their business, whether that's being able to add 200 more doors, whether that's becoming, you know, more profitable or cutting down their overhead, like whatever their end goal is with hiring VAs, they're able to realize that faster and they're able to get just a huge resource, a huge talent in terms of this dedicated virtual assistant.
[00:30:56] Jason Hull: Yeah, for most business owners, getting a VA is probably the very first hire they should make. They're probably not ready yet at a smaller level of maybe like 50 to a hundred doors, you know, they're not ready probably to afford to hire a good operator or somebody come in and do all operations. But getting a really good assistant. Every entrepreneur can double their capacity by getting a really good assistant. I never want to be without my own assistant. I have an amazing assistant. She's in Mexico and we've got at least two team members in the Philippines. We've got multiple team members in Canada. Like the cool thing about being able to do things virtually is that you can get the best, you can get the best wherever they're at. And
[00:31:44] Greg Brooks: at a price you can afford, typically.
[00:31:45] Jason Hull: Yeah, at a price you can afford. Now I definitely have a lot of US based team members. And I do believe, like, you know, there's a lot of times there's a difference. There's a lot of times there's been a difference, but for everybody on my team, they're the best I could find in any category. And it didn't matter where they were. So, It just is icing on the cake that, you know, having a logo designer, for example, in the Philippines would charge probably 10 times less than a logo designer in New York City. So there's definitely advantages and those get passed on to your clients in a lot of instances as well. And so it allows the property manager to remain competitive in their pricing and to keep their operations and to have more profit margin. So it really does create a win-win- win all the way around so everybody benefits. Well, cool. I think that's a pretty good place to wrap unless there's anything else you want to say about Rocket Station. You can tell us how we can get in touch with Rocket Station or those listening, how they can. Get a hold of you.
[00:32:43] Greg Brooks: Yeah, definitely. So anybody who wants to nerd out on process mapping or learn more about VAs, say, we'd love to hop on a quick call and talk to you. Our team's got some great resources. We've got some great kind of done for you SOPs where if this idea of process mapping is something you want to get into, but maybe using a service like ours you're not quite ready for. We've got some great how tos. So head over to rocketstation.com. Obviously check out our website. We've got some great lead magnets and resources there for anybody who wants them. Anyone interested in a call, go to discovery.rocketstation.com. For all the DoorGrow listeners, we do have a $500 off promo that we're running. So just make sure in the referral box put "DoorGrow." But like I said, the call itself is completely free. So even if you're trying to learn more about VAs, learn more about processes, our team of specialists, we'd love to kind of walk you through, you know, learn a little bit about your business, see if we can help, and if not, be able to fill you up with a ton of resources and knowledge and a bunch of takeaways to, to hopefully help you run a more efficient business where you leverage virtual assistance in some capacity.
[00:33:42] Jason Hull: Awesome. Thanks Greg for being on the DoorGrowShow.
[00:33:45] Greg Brooks: Thanks for having us.
[00:33:46] Jason Hull: Cool. So if you are a property management entrepreneur, you want to add doors, you want to grow your business, you're wanting to scale, check us out at DoorGrow.com. We've got an amazing mastermind. And if you're wanting to get to the next level in your business, You're not got to do that by doing it alone. It's time to start getting connected, reaching out, and not being that entrepreneur on an island. There's lots of people playing a similar game as you and you should be connected. So reach out to us at DoorGrow. We would love to help you grow your business. You can check us out at DoorGrow.com.
[00:34:18] 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!
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Do you feel confident about your current maintenance processes? Maintenance is an area where plenty of property managers struggle with client satisfaction.
In this interview, Jason speaks with Ray Hespen, CEO and co-founder of Property Meld about how tracking key metrics can be an incredible way to identify areas of improvement within your maintenance process. In turn, this can improve resident satisfaction, increase owner retention, and lower maintenance costs.
[03:40] How Metrics Can Help You Improve Client Experience
[09:35] Maintenance Analytics you Need to Pay Attention to
[14:50] The Maintenance Hierarchy of Needs
[21:47] A New Tool for Tracking Maintenance Stats
“Oftentimes it's really hard to see what you need to fix next until you progress to that next stage and stuff breaks.”
“In most areas of business, there's a lot of myths and ideas around what creates a good experience or what actually creates retention.”
“Just because they don't love you doesn't mean they're going to go shout from the rooftops nobody should work with you.”
“Anything that can be done too little can also be done in excess. It can be done too much.”
[00:00:00] Ray Hespen: We've got a really amazing product that's dropping in the middle this year. I think it'll be industry shifting, but it's actually providing the visibility to where you're at on the ladder and what you should be working on. Not just you, not just company X and be like, "how do I think I'm doing in my own little paradigm," but like, where am I at against my competitors?
[00:00:19] Jason Hull: Welcome Doorgrow Hackers to the DoorGrow Show. 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.
[00:01:03] 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 my guest today is Ray Hespen, CEO of Property Meld. Ray, welcome back.
[00:01:29] Ray Hespen: Hey, thanks so much Jason. Super excited to come back. This is always a lot of fun, so appreciate the invite.
[00:01:34] Jason Hull: So just before we were in green room and Ray was flirting with me and telling me how good I looked since we last met.
[00:01:41] Ray Hespen: Just a little bit. Don't tell everybody my secrets-- how do I butter up
[00:01:47] Jason Hull: He's trying to feed my ego before the show.
[00:01:49] Ray Hespen: Well, I think the thing is I've been in the industry for about seven years now, and so that means you start to, like, you start to realize, you know, it's like I'm growing up here and you get to see your peers that grow up in there. And so, you know, sometimes when you don't see them for a while you'll be like, dang, you haven't aged as much as I have so good on you, you know? So.
[00:02:07] Jason Hull: And I was saying, I was like, yeah, my my beard has gotten a lot whiter since you were less on the show. I'm getting it. So today's topic is going to be the importance of maintenance analytics in your property management business. And we're not going to run super long because, I told Ray, unfortunately, I have to pick up my daughter from school and that was just a timing thing, so we'll make this potent, but I have to say, Ray, I was sitting on a call with a client Jimmy K. I call him, and he was just saying how Property Meld has like, seriously improved his business. This is what he said, and we probably can share the video with you. I'm sure he'd be cool with that, but he was like, "yeah, I had two maintenance guys. We fired one of them and Property Meld and then we realized we didn't need a second person anymore."
[00:02:53] Ray Hespen: Oh my goodness. So that's basically the gist of it so. That's super cool. And I think the big thing about that, Jason, you and I are both in the business of trying to help other people deliver a better service. And sometimes, you know, what that translates to a lot of people is like, you made that job that much easier for somebody. It's like that hits, you know? Yeah. So thank you for sharing that. Yeah. That's awesome.
[00:03:15] Jason Hull: We hear it. I told you in the green room, we hear it all the time from clients, like they love Property Meld. Like we're like, go try Property Meld. They do it, and then they become these like religious advocates, like missionaries because every one of our coaching calls, somebody brings up maintenance. They're like, Property Meld! It's life!"
[00:03:33] Ray Hespen: Man. Gosh dang. See, like I told you, you looked really good and you aren't aging like you just returning the favor. That's really nice. Yeah. Thank you.
[00:03:43] Jason Hull: So yeah, so let's talk about maintenance analytics. So one of the things I see is a lot of people, especially the 200 to 400 door plus crowd, They start to like freak out because they don't have a lot of profitability a lot of times. They were more profitable, they had more, let's say this, they had a higher percentage of profit margin when they were a solopreneur. Now they've got this team, they've got all these software, they've got all this stuff, and they're trying to figure out how do I become more profit focused? And then instead of solving all of the most significant things that would impact profit, they go and sign up for some sort of profit coaching system, and then they try and squeeze their team with more KPIs and more metrics and force more blood from the stone. When what I see a lot of times is they don't have a good team. They don't have good processes. They don't have good systems. They don't have good documentation. They have no planning system. So their team have no idea how to help and function and think like more like the business owner and like get things done and innovate and create. And so these are all the things that we'll help them install. And early in that stage, before any of that happens, maintenance is usually the thing we need to push them towards because this is like baby steps. Like you need to get maintenance dialed in and you need to get leasing dialed in. Now we can focus on the team because those are things they need to get down in maybe even before they start to build a team, when they're doing it themselves, around 50 to 200 doors, depending on how crazy they get.
[00:05:14] Ray Hespen: Yeah. Well, and I think one of the challenging things is oftentimes you know, both of us are business owners and so oftentimes it's really hard to see what you need to fix next until you progress to that next stage and stuff breaks and you go, "oh!" Obviously being able to know some of those challenges ahead is a superpower. But I even think the scaling element depending on your market type of class of property you're doing for you as an entrepreneur, you know, a property manager might be like scaling up and you know, maybe because they're the most amazing salesperson in the world, they're crushing it. Their problem might be sales in the future cause they can't do it right, or that might be solved. They might have somebody else there and they don't have a rockstar coordinator that's doing it. So it's super hard in that. But I completely agree. I think making sure that you've got measurables to at least understand the health. What's red, yellow, and green? Not sitting there forcing and saying "it's red, make it green," but just knowing that it's red. And then what do you as a business owner are going to do people process training to like address
[00:06:14] Jason Hull: it.
[00:06:14] Yeah. I love that. I call it the stoplight strategy. We just keep it super simple. We'll ask our clients on coaching calls, we'll just say, "who's, you know, red if you're in crisis or having problems. Yellow, if you're a little fuzzy and confused on what your next steps are. And green, if you're in momentum." And people know right away they're like, "oh, I'm this color." And then we're like, "why? Like, tell us why, and then we can't help you out." So, yeah, I like that. All right. So Ray, what sort of maintenance analytics should they be paying attention to, and how are people trying to do this if they're trying to do it without Property Meld?
[00:06:46] Ray Hespen: Yeah, so, and I think I'll kind of just kind of talk about the high level just about it. And you talked about Miserables and KPIs. I think a lot of the times, like, you know, especially you talk about growth a lot of the times, understanding how many leads you're going to get, the quality of leads, your conversion rate, the onboarding success rate, like a lot of those times, those are metrics that you sit there and go, how healthy is my process? Whereas a lot of the times I think maintenance, the big challenge about maintenance is like that metric of how we measure ourselves is oftentimes like, how many angry phone calls do I get? How many negative reviews did I get? And those are really hard to manage cause they're so lagging. Yeah. And so one of the things that we're really trying to get the industry really bought in, and we've spent a lot of time trying to understand these, is like get more crystal about what are good lagging. Getting yelled ats, not a good lagging indicator. A business owner may be shielded from getting yelled at, and so how are they supposed to know how maintenance is going? Resident SAT is a big one and that's probably the easiest one. There's some profitability stuff too, depending on, you know, making money on vendors or whatever.
[00:07:51] But resident SAT's a great one. It's just a great one that everybody needs, because if you hang onto a renter, they renew the lease, the investor's happy, they stay with you longer, you keep making money. So it's a good one. But I think one of the things that can be difficult is like, how do I impact that? How do I make resident SAT better? So now if I'm measuring it, and let's say it's a 4.1 and I wanna move it to 4.4, and you say, team, I need you to move it to 4.4, they'd be like, great, are we nicer to them? What do we do? Do we send gift baskets? And so I think that's been the big black box of maintenance is how do you impact certain metrics? So I always give the analogy, you know, like, say one of us is sitting there going, you know, I'm really trying to tighten up my budget. You know, I'm getting my credit card debts too high, like, as a human being, right? Take this out of business. I'm relating it to another example. And we sit there and be like, I need to get my credit card debt down, my spending's out of control against my income. Like we have a lagging indicator, which is our bank account. That tells us that now if I were to sit there and do that, the tools that I'm available to as a consumer to understand what are the things that are breaking and what are the things that I'm spending all my money in and what things do I have to move to ultimately move my outcome, my racking up a credit card debt is actually really easy. You run your bank, you go to Mint. There's like tons of tools that will tell us, here's where you're spending all your money. And you can say, all right, I'm going to go fix that. So now if you take and get that to maintenance, I think that's the big challenge is doing that. So we've started to really put together some of those metrics.
[00:09:27] And so one thing that we're super heavy geared up in is leading indicators. And then as business owners, what behaviors are you expecting out of your team to drive those? So I'll give some leading indicators, just some really quick and easy ones that I think are really easy. Speed of repair, probably one of the best ones. Track your speed of repair religiously. Bonus points if you can track it by the stage, how long to a sign, how long to schedule, how long to complete, how long to get the invoice, all those things, right? Track that. Yeah, that's a great leading indicator. And then as you can monitor with the team, that's when you can start to think about as your organization, what sort of behaviors are your team members doing to impact that? We always respond to incoming maintenance requests during the daytime within 15 minutes. We're always assigning. We're always structured, you know what I mean? So it's really about connecting those dots to lagging, and that's where a lot of the data and information has been missing. And most people, one, won't even be able to tell your rent SAT, lag indicator, to much less. What are the contributing elements to that?
[00:10:32] Jason Hull: You know, that's interesting because in most areas of business there's a lot of myths and ideas around what creates a good experience or what actually creates retention or what creates things, and then the data says often it's not even true. So, for example, one of the, you know, when it comes to client retention or client success, or decreasing churn for SAAS or for coaching or for any business, the big mistake most people think is if they're happy, they'll stay a customer. And that's not true. Like we've all had happy customers leave. They're like, "oh yeah, I love it! You guys are the best and you know, and we're going to go do something else." it's not related to whether or not they're happy or sad in relation to you. For example, for client success, it's just related to whether or not they see a future involving you. That's really it. They could be miserable, but still see in the future that they want to be working with you or that they need you, or that they're working with you or whatever, and they will still stay a customer and some people are just always miserable, right? Yeah. So, you know, sometimes things like net NPS are not super valid, right? Net promoter scores, sometimes because you're like, okay, well if they're not a true promoter, they must by default be a true detractor, but that's not always true. Just because they don't love you doesn't mean they're going to go shout from the rooftops nobody should work with you.
[00:11:52] Ray Hespen: That is so true. And you know, one of the things that we've been really disciplined in studying, because we've got around 450,000 units on our platform, we process around 1.7 million service issues and we collect immense amount of data and information that we've been trying to like, study some of these behaviors. So I'll give a couple of them because I think this is really good. And Jason we actually studied on service issues, we started to map all sorts of behaviors because Property Meld's an amazing communication tool as well. How much communication happened, speed of communication, all these sort of things. Like we can't measure like how good your bedside manner is in communication. Not yet. But we would sit there and map that across. We'd map across kind of responsiveness we would map all that sort of stuff. We actually saw no correlation to resident sat and communication as odd as it is. Now, we know that it does, in ways, way more nuanced. It's not just, did you do the thing, it's how you do the thing clearly, because it's not as quantitative. But the thing we definitely did learn is ultimately that speed or repair was the number one largest correlation to resident satisfaction. Number one by far. Even in Property Meld, I think I was, I released some of these stats and data on our LinkedIn and stuff like that around, you got three days for an HVAC, you got four and a half days for plumbing, you got five days for an electrical before people start getting really cheesed off and you lose your chance of getting a five star.
[00:13:11] But we've also discovered the same thing in investors you mentioned. Are they happy? Like what's my. CSAT score, it's customer satisfaction score. And what we ended up realizing, because we have around when we did this study, we had around 190,000 investor owners on the platform. Most of our customer service, the, you know, accidental landlord segment, some institutional as well. But the number one correlation we could find there, Jason out of everything. There's some interesting stuff there. We could dive into it more. But the number one is how much in maintenance costs are they spending annually against rent roll? Keep it under 12%. That's the magic. And you know, so that means like you're trying to keep turnovers down. That means you're trying to be competitive with money. And that means if you've got technicians are doing enough jobs per day that you're not getting, you know, roached on it. But the biggest correlation is keeping their cost down. Exponentially increase to the chance of risk if you get above 12%. And these are people that are not crunching a calculator and do an NOI calcs every month. There's a gut feel where once 12% happens and they say, Hey, I like you property management X. You're really great, but this doesn't seem like I'm getting a lot of money back. I'm going to go look for other options, so.
[00:14:25] Jason Hull: Yeah, that's interesting because there's kind of this trend of nickel and dime fee, like fee max, fee maximization, fee, fee, fee. And there's a point in which anything that can be done too little can also be done in excess. It can be done too much. And so it's interesting that, you know, related to data, it suggests that you can go too far and then it's going to start hurting you.
[00:14:50] Ray Hespen: Yeah. And I'll even tell you one of the things and I don't know if your viewers are super interested, we started actually kicking out this thing, like, are you familiar with like Maslow's Ladder of hierarchy?
[00:14:59] Jason Hull: Hierarchy of needs? Yeah.
[00:15:00] Ray Hespen: Yeah. So somebody joked one time. And I took it to heart cause I thought it was actually quite brilliant. They said, is there one of those for maintenance? Kind of seems like there is. You know, if you think about Maslow's Ladder, it's right. You got food and water and there's a measurable there if you want to keep that.
[00:15:16] Jason Hull: So for yours, it'd be speed first. Like, just get the problem off my freaking plate. Like, get it done.
[00:15:23] Ray Hespen: Well, I'll break through it a little bit. If you want to check it out, you can download the image on our website. We're pretty proud of it. And it's not Property Meld applicable. It's anywhere applicable. Okay? But it's the concept like a Maslow's ladder, right? You got water and food, right? If you don't have water and food, you're going to die and you need to go to the next thing. And then what happens is then once you go to water and food, then you go up the next one, and that's shelter, security, all that. And once you go up that, it's like recognition. Then once you go back, it's purpose. And I'm probably butchering Maslow's Ladder, but the concept is as human beings, we have to get the previous need met before we move to the next need. And so we actually started building this for maintenance. We call it ladder maintenance excellence.
[00:16:02] And really it starts down at communication. Communication's critical. You can't do anything else without getting good communication. But once you get communication mastered, that's when you start to get to scheduling efficiency. And we have metrics and stuff of how to do it. Then once you get to scheduling efficiency, then you can get to staffing efficiency because you know how many vendors you need, how many technicians you need, how many coordinators you need. Then once you do that, you can start doing really cool stuff of really driving preventative repairs and it goes through all the way to the top, which is you know, basically creating predictable NOI for investors. And it connects how all that marries together. But the reason I say that is along the way, it's how do you know you're ready to move to the next? And that's really hard. Where are you at in the ladder? If you're thinking you're up here and you're down here, it's like, go down here and fix this, then build back. Yeah. So anyways.
[00:16:50] Jason Hull: There's a similar pyramid and I'm trying to remember the name of the books. I think. I'm doing a quick Google search here, but I think... so there's this pyramid and it's called the customer satisfaction pyramid. I think it's from a book. Yeah. Called First Break all the Rules from the Gallup organization that does the Gallup polls. And it was a bunch of research they'd done, you know, on businesses and when it comes to the customer satisfaction and the pyramid, they had these four levels and the lowest level was availability. It was like, just answer your freaking phone. Or I usually use the waiter analogy, like, if the waiter's at a restaurant and he is never available, you're going to be pretty upset. The second level is accuracy. Does the waiter bring you the right food? And if the waiter does those two things perfectly, if a business does availability and accuracy perfectly, you don't even notice they exist. Yeah. It's not like you're like, "oh my gosh! The waiter actually brought me my food and actually came right and asked me what I wanted and checked in and refilled my water." You don't notice them. You're enjoying your guests or whoever you're with or whatever, right? Yeah. Now, the next level is where people start to pay attention, and most businesses are failing at availability and accuracy. The availability is low. They don't have Property Meld. They're not answering their freaking phones. Nobody can reach them like you'd be surprised. A lot of property managers-- you wouldn't be surprised. But some might be surprised. A lot of property managers don't even answer their phones. They get a lead and they follow up with it like a day or two later, right? And then so after availability and accuracy, there's partnership. This is like, "Hey, I'm in this with you." Like, we actually have a desire to help and we're going to work with you to make this happen, this partnership and the next level beyond that, in customer satisfaction where you're, it's beyond partnership is a the advice category. Now you're an advisor.
[00:18:43] Now, they trust you as being somebody in a superior position of knowledge or information where they're going to, you know, acquiesce their own will to you in some instances. And so for property managers, partnership's, good. But if they don't perceive you as being an expert or knowing more than them, then they're going to micromanage you at times, they're going to be a difficult client. And so that highest tier is advice where you can now give them advice and you're educating them and they know that you know more than them about some of this stuff. But if you do the first two, a hundred percent, you're a hundred percent available, a hundred percent accurate. Your clients won't even notice that you exist. They'll just not get angry.
[00:19:23] Ray Hespen: Do you know, I think what's so great that you said, and I think it marries up so well, we focus on those next steps without coming down and going, "I got to get some foundational pieces." And it just keeps toppling over and breaking. So that ladder, Molly posted where that ladder is. If you wanna take it, you got to just scroll down on the page a little bit. I see. But like the big thing is there's a lot of people who sit there and go, "we're going to get staffing efficiency, like nailed down. We're going to get it, here's how we're going to get it." but like, What's happening is you have can break down on communication the way that you can tell us. If you look on the left side of that ladder, happy residents tell you if you need to go down the ladder or up, right? They're kind of like your limiting force, right? And there's a point where they quit to matter. It starts to matter to the investor. And so kind of like your analogy is like a lot of people will start up a bit higher, probably the one they should. And it's like you got to go to those first two because if not, If you're not available and you're not accurate, there's no way that you can be a partner.
[00:20:19] Jason Hull: Yeah. It doesn't matter. Yeah. I mean, let's imagine the waiter, right? You have this waiter and they come over and they're like super charming and they're charismatic, you feel like there's partnership. They're giving you great advice on what to eat, but they never show up to give you your fucking drink. And you don't have silverware yet, and they bring you the wrong food. This isn't right. It puts you in, you're in so much discomfort in having to relate now to another human being to express that they didn't do it right. You're frustrated. And so, yeah, it's absolutely true. Like most businesses, if they just did what was expected... I think most of the research indicates people don't really want their expectations exceeded. They don't want their mind blown. They just want them actually met. That's it.
[00:21:05] Ray Hespen: Yeah. I completely agree. And I'll even kind of marry back to the analytics and insights part that you were kind of walking through. Like you've got some measurables probably in the customer service thing that you can probably measure today and know. Yeah. And say, Hey, my response time. Like awareness, accuracy. There's ways that somehow that you probably do that partnership. You have a measurement or whatever that you can do there. Is that good? And like how much are you an advisor to people? Like are you consulting on how many houses they should buy or whatever. Like there's ways that you measure it, but I think that's the big gap for a lot of people, particularly in maintenance. If you look at that maintenance ladder, It's like, how do I know where am I even at? Which area should I be starting at and working on? And that's one of the big challenges about insights and we've got a really amazing product that's dropping in the middle this year. That's, I think it'll be industry shifting, but it's actually providing the visibility to where you're at on the ladder and what you should be working on.
[00:22:01] Not just you, not just company X and be like, "how do I think I'm doing in my own little paradigm," but like, where am I at against my competitors? Really important to know because at the end of the day, like that investor that's coming in and looking that resident is chances are, has the asset and your only competition is not your own picture of yourself or what do you think it should be, it's about the PM down the road. So it's about the institutional partner. Oh, go ahead. Go ahead.
[00:22:30] Jason Hull: So let me make sure I understand this. You have a tool coming out and this is going to help people understand how they compare basically to other companies or maybe best practices in relation to data when it comes to maintenance coordination. You got it. So this is then instant analogy I saw in my head. Do you remember in video games, do you ever play a race car video game as a kid? Yeah. You play this race car video game. You see your score score at the end and then like you do it the next time and you're racing against the ghost car. It's either yourself in a previous race and you're trying to beat that time, or it's that ghost person that was some other player that you need to try and beat. So this, that's the ghost car. Having that data, you can see that other thing and you can, you now have contrast. I'm behind. I'm ahead.
[00:23:18] Ray Hespen: A hundred percent. And I think one of the things that's so difficult, Jason, is like the fact that people don't know if they're working on the right thing or the wrong thing. They make an assumption because one customer gets mad at them and says, you're spending too much on HVAC costs. It's happening. HVAC invoices are up 43% year over year. Yeah. You know, and it's like, hey. And so the reality is everybody's natural instinct is, oh my goodness, that means my costs are high. When in the reality their costs could be actually below market and they're trying to beat the crap out of their vendor to get costs down. And if they don't know if that's actually broken or not, they could be working on the wrong thing. Oh, good. Yeah. And so I think that's one of the biggest challenges a lot of people have. The idea is it's not like, oh, how's it against me and my competitor? It's what parts of my business are we excelling at and what parts are we not? We need to know that so we can actually go point at it.
[00:24:13] Jason Hull: This is brilliant because if the owner is pushing back on something and the property manager doesn't know, they don't have definitive data to know that this could be an issue or is not supposed to be an issue and is not, they then won't have the confidence to go to that owner and say, this is not an issue. It's completely in range. We have access to hundreds of companies data. We know where we're at, and we're actually a little ahead of the curve, so this is good. That gives them the confidence to go back to the owner and instill more confidence so the owner doesn't like quit or feel like they're being taken advantage of and then go down the street to another company where they get like, You know, railroaded. Even worse.
[00:24:48] Ray Hespen: They're worse. Exactly. There's one example, and I'll just give this super quick here, is we had a customer that had an institutional client. They were getting beat up on price, and I asked the question, I said, where do you think they're getting their information from? I have no idea. And they're like, it's like this. And I'm like, we have more data than information about invoice costs of different kinds of things like. And that was actually part of the thing that spawned it was exactly that. Most property managers, some of them don't even own a home. How are they supposed to know how much a hot water heater costs? How are they supposed to know when an investor calls them and screams on what it should be? They don't know. So the only way that you can, just like you said, is enrich them with data to feel confident to go back and say, we're actually doing better. Or if it is bad, it gives an investor or you know, the owner of the business a good idea to say, Hey. We actually do need to work on this. Maybe we need to look at our our pricing structures or our network or whatever.
[00:25:43] Jason Hull: So this is powerful because also for a property manager to go out and just try and get that, anecdotally, that would be viewed as collusion. That would be a dangerous thing. So now they're talking to other property managers like, Hey, what are you charging and what's going on with this? And so, good point. That's dangerous ground. And so the reverse, this is after the fact, and this is data. This is based on reality. And so you're just reporting on here's reality. But you're making it visible. Yeah, exactly. Solution. But it's helpful. Absolutely. It's good stuff, man. Okay, well I got to wrap up, but this is really awesome.
[00:26:18] Hey, thanks man. Appreciate you having me on.
[00:26:20] But yeah, everybody check out Property Meld. We still have that old link up if you go to DoorGrow.com/maintenance. Do you guys still get these? We send people to that.
[00:26:32] I'll ask marketing. I'm sure we.
[00:26:34] If you go to doorgrow.com/maintenance, fill out that form. And it's like a quiz to see if you could benefit from maintenance automation, which the answer is yes. Spoiler alert. If you fill that out, it will send your information over to them and they'll get connected to you. And I believe it says there's some sort of discount, so.
[00:26:51] Ray Hespen: Awesome. Cool. Well thanks so much Jason, and I really appreciate it. Great way to go check it out. And if you wanna look at that ladder. It's posted in there, so you can see that. It's a lot of cool stuff there, so thanks for having me on. Always enjoy it. Thanks for inviting me, man.
[00:27:05] Jason Hull: All right. Thanks for being here. Cool. So if you are a property management entrepreneur that wants to add doors, like we talked about in the podcast intro or the more important problem, you now are adding doors. You've got plenty of doors, maybe you've got 200 to 400 or higher. But you know deep down that adding more doors is just going to create more friction in your life. It's going to create more pain for you as a CEO. You're not going to enjoy your business more, even though you're going to make more money. You know it's going to mean less fulfillment in your day-to-day of enjoyment, less freedom, less of a sense of contribution and making a difference in the world. It's just going to burn you out, and you're going to feel less supported because you're just going to more people needing things from you and wondering, why won't my team think for themselves? Then you need to get into and check out our DoorGrow Super system. This is where we help you get an operations person in place. We help you hire, build out your hiring system. We help you get really good process software in place. We help you get really good planning software in place. This is where you now are able to get more fulfillment, more freedom, more of a sense of contribution, making a difference in the world, and more support in your business. The bigger you get, that's the right way to build your business. It actually should be getting better and better the more doors and more money you add because you have more resources if you're doing it the right way. And we want to help you make sure you're doing it the right way because that's not the default. I've seen inside thousands of property management companies. It's not the norm and it's the norm for our clients and we want to help you get that. So reach out to us. Check us out doorgrow.com and make sure you join our free community. Our Facebook group will give you free stuff. It's really cool. Go to DoorGrowclub.com. Join our Facebook group and you can learn more about us there.
[00:28:52] Bye everyone.
[00:28:53] 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!
[00:29:20] 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.
On this week’s podcast episode, we brought back a guest we’ve had on the #DoorGrowShow before, Joe Edgar from Tenant Cloud.
Property management growth expert, Jason Hull sits down with Joe Edgar to talk about the many new features that have been added to Tenant Cloud to benefit property managers and what is next to come for the software.
[01:35] An Introduction to Tenant Cloud
[06:44] The Different Systems PMs Need
[14:11] Integrating Different Property Management Tools
[17:36] Tenant Management and Roommates
[27:43] Accessing and Transferring your Data
[31:55] Are Completely Remote Showings the Future?
“Listings are important because of course, as soon as you have a rental, what do you need? You need a tenant. Nothing worse than vacant property.”
“So there's a relationship in all of those that you really have to harbor and that's where making sure you're connected to your tenants and you're connected to managing service for them is important because then they will reach out to you to buy one where if it's a bad experience, they won't.”
“You're busy doing all this work, but then actually going back and making sure you're making money at what you're doing is often the last thing they look at.”
“You have two choices in life... You can be reactive or you can be proactive. ”
[00:00:00] Joe: Because that's one of the hard parts is you're busy doing all this work, but then actually going back and making sure you're making money at what you're doing is often the last thing they look at. They worry about because they're trying to provide to customers, their owners. Yeah. And the tenants, good quality customer support. And so that's where it's the hard challenge and making sure they're all connected in a nice, easy way.
[00:00:20] Jason: All right, we are live. Welcome DoorGrow Hackers to the DoorGrow show. 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 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. 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.
[00:01:25] All right, so my guest today is Joe Edgar. And Joe, it's been a while since we've had you on the show here, so.
[00:01:33] Joe: Yeah, definitely has. Glad to be here.
[00:01:35] Jason: So Joe started a company called Tenant Cloud. And today you're going to be talking about property management and real estate technology in 2023. So, Bring us up to date, man.
[00:01:47] Joe: Yeah, it has been a while since we first launched, I think back in 2016 was a real focus on the DIY landlord and trying to support that general group. And as it really has grown into-- our biggest following is now really property managers focused in the single family rental space. So, that distinction has come down to really the difference in logistics. And so, as many know in property management, if you're managing multi-family, then you usually have somebody on site, but if you're managing single family rentals, there's just too many properties. And so Yeah. Ends up being a logistical nightmare. And so that's really where we end up fine tuning our solution is all around the logistics, managing those single family rentals and helping you grow your business.
[00:02:30] Jason: Cool. So what have you been up to since then? I'm sure you've made some updates to Tenant Cloud.
[00:02:36] Joe: Yeah, there have been a lot of updates especially since then. I think some of the best things that really help a property management company really get going is the fact that you can sign up for Tenant Cloud and in just a couple of minutes for free. There are some paid solutions, but just on the basis of free, you can set up your own company website. From your company website, you can have its own listing portal. So all of your listings that you're going to manage, it can have applications and so tenants can find you. They can apply for a rental. You can manage that application, you can send it back for more information. You can charge a management fee or not. Lots of customization inside of there. You could have multiple bank accounts. If you have different owners, you can, send an agreement to an owner have them sign it. They have their own portal so they can own their own reports. And then of course, the more traditional stuff on top of that, which is, just managing the property itself. Everything from maintenance to just general communication with your tenants. And so all those things kind of fit in there. I think the most fun thing that we have that really brings a lot of value worth mentioning is if you follow the industry, we're starting to see these silos and vertical step up. I think the biggest mover now is co-star who is looking to buy move.com, which is realtor.com. And so they're really trying to have that niche. And then Zillow of course, exists. And then you have Redfin who's putting together a lot of other sites. And those are all around listings. And so listings are important because of course, as soon as you have a rental, what do you need? You need a tenant. Nothing worse than vacant property. So, we built this thing. We have so many tenants that come to us. Our affiliate sites, College Pads, and Rentler, are all really bringing us lots and lots of leads.
[00:04:25] So having all of these leads, we decided to go the extra mile. We said, what if we offered all of them the ability to basically say what it is they're looking for. And by telling us what they're looking for, we can then match them with all of the inventory of vacancies. And so we take users who are already, they came to us for the purpose of trying to find a home. And we have all these property managers who are trying to find tenants into their rentals. So we built this thing called premium leads, and really you could think of it as like Tinder for tenants. Okay. And so what happens is the tenant will put on what they're looking for. They're like, "I want Southwest Austin. I'm looking for, $2,500 a month, a two bedroom, one bath, a yard, a fence." Say the general things they're looking for. And the second you turn on premium leads as a landlord, it will take all of your properties, even if they're not listed, it'll have them already matched, but they won't see it. The tenant won't see it until you actually make it live by listing it. And immediately all of those show up for the property manager. So the second you turn on premium leads, you have potentially, like, I love turning it on because it's such a nice feeling to like list a property, immediately you have like 15 leads, you're like, "That's great," and you invite them to apply. So you just invite them to apply and that sends real invites to those tenants. So those tenants now got a personal invite from you and you can go through, the tenant goes through it. If they like the property, they can swipe left and ask more questions. They can fill out a rental application, maybe schedule a showing, anything like that. Or if they don't like it, they swipe left and they move on their way.
[00:06:03] Jason: So they'll swipe right if they like it. Yep. And left if they don't, and then it's swipe left if they don't. Got it.
[00:06:08] Joe: Yeah. So it's a very non-abrasive way to approach all of these different tenants looking for leads. And so it now is the largest lead generator inside of our solution. So we integrate with Zillow, we integrate with realtor.com, many of the Redfin solutions, but it now outperforms all of them. It produced about 60% of the leads on Tenant Cloud. Wow. So it's a really nice way to go and find and fill your tenants. So again, everything, it's really about bringing all of those things that you have to property management into one easy solution at a low cost, help you save time, grow your business.
[00:06:44] Jason: So if somebody already is like knee deep in another property management software, can they still use the premium leads?
[00:06:50] Joe: Oh yeah, for sure. It's easy. I mean, that's what's nice is it's segmented off. We have a lot of property managers who do multi-family and multi-family is a different beast. We have a lot who hack us and use us for like multi-family, but as I said, the single family rentals has a logistics problem and I can explain why we're so different in that space. Sure. But when you get into multi-family we know where the space and we know the industry. And so if you're in multi-family more traditionally after one of those larger property management solutions, and most of that is in part because multi-family is 95% owned by institutional investors. And institutional investors need data. These large rates. And so we're not designed for that big stuff. We're really out to help smaller property managers kind of, grow their business and not answer to large rates. So the way the data flows separates us pretty substantially. And so that's what would make a unique thing. So on the logistics problem you have, maybe you have one maintenance person, but a lot don't. And so the key feature is if you were a property manager, you already know, it's like how many property managers can manage how many units? You have the math and it's generally around a hundred units per person.
[00:08:04] And you can get some that are starting to get more efficient. They're getting into like duplexes and triplexes where they get down to, maybe the 85 to one. But normally about a hundred. And a hundred's a good number because if you're also a broker, then you also know I'm managing these properties because I know about 5% of them will bring me additional business annually. Either my clients are selling or my clients are buying, or my tenants are looking to buy. Right. So there's a relationship in all of those that you really have to harbor and that's where making sure you're connected to your tenants and you're connected to managing service for them is important because then they will reach out to you to buy one where if it's a bad experience, they won't.
[00:08:43] And so having a nice solution on their phone that they can easily sign a lease, they filled out their application, they can pay their rent, they can view everything that's in their power, is great. Then in addition, if anything happens, they can go to their phone. And there's four simple questions that breaks 1500 problems with a home down into four simple questions that are icon based. And so they select them and they can take a picture and a video and it goes direct to the property manager. And the property manager now has the choice because we can't say, not all tenants are accurate. Not all tenants know how to fix anything. And so, whatever they say the problem is, it could be something different. And so I've had this on my own experience where it's like, I find out the roof keeps leaking, but I'm like, you realize it hasn't rained in weeks. And you find out it's the air conditioner. It's like catching condensation. And so you know what they say the problem is and what it actually is is not always the case. And so it's nice. You get the maintenance request, you have a picture, you have a video, you have a small explanation if they wanted to add it to it. And if you have a service professional that you work with, you can send it to them or you can change the category. You can schedule it from there.
[00:09:50] And once you assign it to them, they can now communicate directly with the tenant, but you are privy to all the messages. And now they can schedule this outside of it. Or you can plan for them, but they can schedule outside of you having to do it constantly. Now, that's one method. It can also be if you're in a property management office there's one here in Austin I just talked to. They have 50 rentals, so they're growing theirs. They're managing on behalf of about 10 owners. And so that's not big enough on their level to have a maintenance person on staff. And so they contract everything. And so what's nice is inside of theirs, they can actually use it inside the maintenance request. They can get a quote and that quote goes out to all service professionals in the local area that can then send in bids on behalf of that. And you can run it in two different flows. You can say, "okay, well I'll make the decision," depending on what you have with the owner. Or you can send the different quotes to the owner to pick one of them.
[00:10:44] And so there's lots of different ways to manage that. But now once you connect them, you can then do the same thing. You're like, okay, I like your bid. You do it, I'll schedule you. You're in. And then you have privy. And then there's a way the tenant can say, well, it's not done exactly. And they say it is done. So you kind of do a lot before you actually have to go on site. I mean, when I was doing property management, the worst thing was most of the site visits are not what they said. And they're things like, "the lights are out," and it's because the light bulb is burned up. It's like, well, that's not, you just wasted a lot of time for me to drive across town. There's two hours of wasted time to do this. And so having those logistics are great. That's the heart of Tenant Cloud. But then on top of that, it's like, okay, well the logistic problem and getting on the phone and scheduling is tough. Then I got to account for all this.
[00:11:30] And accounting is the next piece. So when the tenant goes in and enters that, we have those categories of which they're selecting by icon based for maintenance requests. They're matched with both revenue and expenditure and capital expenditure categories inside the accounting automatically. And then in addition, you can keep track of any assets. And by that I mean if you have a refrigerator or an oven, you can store all those in. So if a maintenance request comes, you can actually look up any piece of equipment like a fridge and it can tell you, show you all the maintenance requests it's had. It'll find correlations like things. You're replacing this motor every year so you can make those decisions on like, we probably should just get a new fridge. But then inside of that, all of those are matched with the IRS 1040 Schedule E categories. And so what is great is you as a property manager who is going to be doing your 1099s at the end of the year. Your contractors, if you were to bid it inside the system, you can pay them and they can invoice you. So if it's someone you don't know, then of course they'll create an invoice for you after the work. But it's someone you do know and they just, you're figuring out what the bill is on the side. You can message them on the side or directly in the ticket, and then you can pay them directly. What's nice is when it comes to accounting time, your owners have a very clean, simple 1040 Schedule E already done for them that has all their costs laid out, that you didn't have to go back and do anything extra, has all the receipts matched to it. Each one goes all the way down. And each property manager, as a refer to, are these "additional opportunities." There's lots of ways, depending on how you have a relationship with your owner to set up those additional opportunities.
[00:13:06] For example, you could just charge like, I have a 10% fee on top of any cost for maintenance I do. And so that would be added into maintenance requests. So that's already being done. Or you could have it, we have a flat rate that we charge for tenants. I mean there's lots of ways to set it up for your property management company to make sure they're accounting for their revenue as well. Because that's one of the hard parts is you're busy doing all this work, but then actually going back and making sure you're making money at what you're doing is often the last thing they look at. They worry about because they're trying to provide to customers, their owners. Yeah. And the tenants, good quality customer support. And so that's where it's the hard challenge and making sure they're all connected in a nice, easy way. And everything kind of flows in a simple recurring way that is predictable and you know for sure how it's going to work is an important part of growing your business. And so then that passes through to the owners can fully see their reports. You have your reports for your 1099s and all of it happened behind the scenes without you really looking at it. So the heart of it is to be kind of a logistics and accountant, a back office person to help you, a small property management company kind of grow.
[00:14:10] Jason: Cool. Cool. So the maintenance coordination piece, solving that logistics challenge, can that be used by companies that are also using another property management software already?
[00:14:20] Joe: Yeah. Sorry, I kind of went on a-- I digress. That was your question before. You can kind of go on and use whatever piece you want. So we have lots of larger ones who are doing multi-family and they have found that they get all our leads at Tenant Cloud. So they still use their traditional property management software to answer to the beast above them for accounting. Yeah. But they get all their leads and manage all their rental applications through Tenant Cloud. And for their business, they get to keep the application fee. And so it's nice because they can set all that up and so they run everything there. So all the applications you can do a background check, you can do a full one, you can do a partial one. So there's lots of different variations you can do in there. And so it's nice for them because they manage everything on there. Once they actually do a lease, then they actually put them in their other property management software and do it on there. And then some are slowly kind of converting into Tenant Cloud as it does more for them. As they see, they're like, well, why don't we just move here? But in a lot of the wreaths they don't. But on slower ones, yeah, you can manage just leads.
[00:15:15] We have a really nice CRM tool built in. And so because we give you a free website and then we distribute your listing to so many different places, we set you up on a unique text number. You don't know what it is, it doesn't matter to you, but what's great is it does matter to someone looking at your rental. And so to find your listing on any site, and then, if I have a rental application, that's an easy one. I'll fill out the application that goes through the system and you get a nice, clean application. You can request more information, whatever you want to do. But when it's just a lead, which is how most of them come in. They'll send you a message and they can do it via text straight from the listing. They hit a number, they send you a text, and you can respond to them via text, right in your Tenant Cloud account. And so that's where you can take all the different messengers, have it in one place, nice and simple track notes, maybe it's, maybe the one they're looking for is not available now and you want to use it for later, so you just tag it.
[00:16:08] But yeah, there's different parts of Tenant Cloud that you can use for just different parts of your business, depending on what you're doing.
[00:16:13] Jason: So what you're saying is on the tenant side, there's basically CRM for tenant leads and that you can manage that communication and you can do it through text message because the listings have that number on it. Exactly. And then on the maintenance coordination thing, which also sounded really cool that piece can be used standalone as well, is what you're saying?
[00:16:31] Joe: Yep. Correct. Okay. Each one is really segmented Now if you use them altogether, of course, they just make life easier, but sure. But yeah, you really can use each little function separately. Now, if you wanted to come from another software, you can easily upload your data. So we have tools for that. And if you ever wanted to take Tenant Cloud data, this is one of the things, it has been our company's motto from the beginning, that we are not making business on holding your data randsom. And so you can easily take your data at any time you want and use it and flow it anywhere. And so some of those have been good. We have a QuickBooks integration, so that makes it seamless. But we have others who use some other unique accounting software, and so we've made that so you can just pull your data and put it in anything else that you want as well. So there's lots of reasons to have that, but that's an important thing before you use one, you're like, I want to know that I can get all my data out of it. because you're uploading images. Yeah, you're uploading tenant information. I mean, it ends up becoming your record retention for a lot of stuff that you're doing on a legal basis. And so it's important to have all that, but to also have access to where you can get rid of it on a digital form, but store it somewhere still.
[00:17:36] Jason: So if we were to look at the Tenant Cloud ecosystem or, system as a whole, we've got, the tenant lead sort of CRM in communication for taking care of the vacancy situation. We've got the maintenance coordination piece, we've got the accounting piece you've mentioned. What other major?
[00:17:53] Joe: So there's tenant management. Tenant management is just one where you want to have all your information about each tenant. It may flow from the application but then once you have it, you want to message them. And so you could have tenants all on one street and you need to message them and say, "Hey, street clean, street sweeping on this date. So you can message a part of them. Or you may have all your tenants at large, you have a policy change you're going to do, or you may have two cities and you say, okay, in this city this is changing. And so just helping manage all of those tenants and having a place to keep both private and information that you share with the tenant is really important.
[00:18:29] So there are things like, for instance, if you enter an accounting or you send us something, it's nice to know that it's live. And it's also nice to know that they have seen it. And so when you have a message, you can see for sure that you see, as we all know a hard part, but a reality of property management is that you will end up in a court, every so often with a tenant. And so making sure you have an easy place to account for all your timing and what you did with a maintenance request. And all of your messages in regards to just your relationship in general in one place is really important. And so to be able to pull it out and show dates and to be able to show what was seen and what wasn't seen is really important. A nice, easy process to kind of print it out and, bring it to court. As you will know, it's a huge part. And unfortunately that's part of the business, but it is one that you really, if you're going to grow your business, it's an important part to have, early. So there's tenant management.
[00:19:20] We have a whole calendar scheduling piece, and that's really important because it's the next piece that I'll talk about is as you grow your property management business, in the beginning it's usually just you. And that's fantastic because that is definitely where you're like, I need to grow this. And then you bring out, and sometimes it's a significant other. That's fantastic if you can pull that off. Right. And so there's two of you, right? And often they'll use the same logins, right? Because they're like, there's two of us. So we're talk, we see each other enough that we'll do stuff. But once you have that first real hire, it's a different business. Because now you really don't have the same, it's a professional relationship and you don't have that same thing where you're like, we do need to, like who's doing what. Yeah. And so even though I say it's this calendar function, we have a team feature. You can go in and add team members and you can change all the settings for each team member.
[00:20:10] And so it could be like it, you can assign them specific properties and so they're only able to see stuff on properties. You could limit them from accounting, you could limit them from certain settings. And so there's lots of ways, depending on what the team member is. For instance, you could have accountant, you could have a property manager just doing marketing, and you could have someone who, does maintenance. So just depending on what it is. But what's great about your team function is now you have a way to communicate with them. So very easily in a chat you can press a hash sign and find any of your properties in a message, and it will pull that up and then have a link to it. And then at sign you can find any one of your team members. And from a message, you can make that a task. And so all of a sudden tasks are running for everybody. And as the master account, you can see all the tasks going through on the calendar, and then you can message, each other about different tenants or any type of messaging that goes on there. And so you'll find, and then the system itself will self-generate tasks for you. For example, ones you should, they're obvious, that is like, all right, I have a lease. I want to know two months in advance before this lease expires.
[00:21:12] Tell me, cause I need to renew it. It could be, I talked to this tenant and they're going to schedule something, they send a message and from that message, they're going to pay rent two days late. But I get it. And so boom, you have a task, you're going to have those reminders come up. And so that's really that angle from trying to get the system knows a lot of the things that you automatically need to do. So they're already in there. For instance, every six months you need to check smoke detectors you need to do servicing before winter. There's cleanup. So all those things can be automatic inside of that calendar, but then really running inside the team function really brings it to work because now you mix that with your maintenance team or whether they're outside or not, but it's assigning them and it really becomes a magic. So we built this kanban board where you can manage a lot of those tasks, especially when you get more than a hundred properties and you're trying to grow your business. You'll know exactly what I'm talking about. You're just like, "ah, I forgot." So you have two choices in life. When it gets that big, you can be reactive. Or you can be proactive. So we have tried to build a system to help you be proactive. And that's, it's telling you before you think about it. So then you're like, "oh yeah, I totally forgot about it." I do need to schedule you that. You move it into the next kanban board, you assign it to this person, run it there. And so it's really a great way for a team to come together and trying to do property management. And so that's one of the features. There's quite a few features, but another one I'll mention that's worth noting, that makes us different than other solutions as well is when you go down to single family rentals, a lot don't know-- many in this area will know-- but universities are very unique in that universities have a higher density of smaller property managers managing around the university than non universities. And so if you get out away from the universities, you're into these big apartment developments and so they're slightly different. And you get into universities and there's quite a few property managers that just service around that area.
[00:23:01] And so one of the struggles for the property managers is always how do they deal with roommates? And you have so many different ways to deal with a roommate. You could take one rental and I could rent out every room individually, or I could rent out the whole house and just say, okay, well I'm going to, I'll rent out the house to all of you, but each one of you are going to pay a specific amount. Or I can rent out the whole house, and I'm going to say, all right, I don't know. I don't care. You're all on the lease. However you pay, just get me the money. And so those are all very different structurally in how you set something up and it all the way down from receiving an application, vetting them, moving them in to sign a lease, and moving them out, holding deposits and the ongoing relationship.
[00:23:42] They're all different. And so what's nice is we really have thought through a lot of those, and they're not just on roommates. So we're starting to see this happen now in older care centers. And so, assisted living of sorts, they are now doing a lot of roommate features. And so these are older care centers that are using us for property management software. However, they usually the tenants are self-sustaining, so they don't need a nurse. They're just living inside of a center. And so the same kind of features. And so a lot of this roommate functionality is taken off and then really during 2020, like, when Covid kind of happened, it wasn't as popular. It was a feature that we had built in and we we thought it was really aimed for the college universities as college pads, one of our partners. And so we had built that in, but really starting last year. And my own take is that real estate went so expensive that you're seeing a lot of roommates pop in. And so a lot of people are procrastinating moving into their own place. Rentals are taking off and people are moving in together. So now you see this over pouring. So the last report realtor.com did it. However it follows what Wall Street Journal did. That theirs was, there are 2 million households formed again last year, which means we are missing 6.5 million homes in the marketplace based on them. And if we are missing 6.5 million and things are so expensive, you are saying we have no choice that roommates are just over pouring into everyone's lives. So what they didn't think was is now a single family home, an apartment, everyone is now dealing with roommates and it's created software problems everywhere.
[00:25:24] One that we have already solved and thought through. That's a great feature because how you rent them matters. It's, it changes the entire relationship from being a customer support frustration. Like if they're each paying a separate amount and you're doing rooms, but you're treating it as a solution where they're all in the same one, you'll just mess up all, for everyone. And so being able to manage those on so many different levels is really nice because you can have separate leases. One lease that they all sign and they all share their invoice, where as soon as one pays all the rest of them see it and they can figure out how to pay. Or you can just say each one of you're paying and then somebody's else is out and they're done. Or you going to move one in and move mountains, move the deposit. So it becomes such a problem that it's one to be noted. But now in today's industry, were roommate renting is just a commonplace, so that's a feature worth talking about.
[00:26:11] Jason: Very cool. Yeah. Cool. All right, so we've got the maintenance coordination, the accounting, the CRM for tenant leads, tenant management and communication, you've got the calendar scheduling, which sounds like kind of team communication, and then you've got the Roommates functionality, so,
[00:26:29] Joe: so we have a whole document. So anything you can manage all your, so we have both PDF and from scratch. So if you want to build an agreement yourself, you can drop in, easy pop in auto fills on the template, or you can just add a PDF and build the template. We also have them available for every state and county if they're divided. So lots of stuff to do E-signature and create your own lease agreements and manage kind of all that in-house as well. And then notices, So you can build a template notice, send it to a tenant when you know, rent's due or something like that.
[00:26:58] Jason: Nice. Very cool. Yeah. Well, sounds like you guys have been busy so.
[00:27:03] Joe: Very busy. Yeah, it's been fun. Yeah.
[00:27:06] Jason: Very cool. Well, yeah, I can see how this would stand out from some of the property management software. Now you had mentioned that people can migrate from their existing software. So how difficult, because this is usually really painful for people, Yeah, to transition. I've seen people go from AppFolio to Buildium or AppFolio to Rent Manager or switching to Propertyware or Propertyware to AppFolio. Like, so how difficult or easy is it to switch from one of these to Tenant cloud and are there some that are easier than others?
[00:27:42] Joe: No. So we've tried to make it as easy as possible. So what we do is we give you a template. So if you go into upload, you can find the upload and then you download a template Excel file. And basically you'll take whatever data you can get. That's the hardest part really isn't so much setting it up in Tenant Cloud. It's more other companies aren't so willing to just give you data. And that's the hardest part is that if you can get the data from them, we give you a template that's really easy added in and once it's in, you're done. Your tenants are set up, all their information is set up. The lease is set up. If you have late fees that are in there, they'll be set up. All of it will be done. Your property will be set up and you'll be live and it'll be working. But it's all, it's really more a problem of like, which software relationship are you trying to get out of? That's a hard one because for us, and we have many that call and like, " well I just want all this!!" And we're like, fortunately Buildium won't give us that data. We can't call them on behalf of you. Yeah. So the only thing we can do is like they can give it to us. Yeah, exactly. So that's the hardest part in getting in, helping people migrate. Is just being able to pull all the information. They spent so much time, putting in another software but on our end, it's really easy to kind of set it up.
[00:28:52] And that's the heart of it is because everything is connected. It's helping you do each phase of your life. Because if you ask a property manager, like, what's the hardest part of your job? Well it really depends like one on the season, on the time of the month, and what stage of the property is in. Because if it's vacant, of course it's like, I need a rental, I need leads. I got to find this. But if it's, if they're all rented, well now you're like, oh, I got fridges breaking everywhere. So it just depends on the job. So the software's always set up to help you in all of those sanctions of your life. And so uploading it is really easy because it connects to all of them automatically and you're kind of done. But yeah, again, the hardest part is getting the information. So, yeah, I wish I could say that was really easy, but that's a part we don't usually get to touch. So. Cool.
[00:29:35] Jason: Well, Tenant Cloud sounds pretty cool. I have not heard of too many people using it yet, and so I'm really interested in getting some feedback. That'll be really interesting to see. So it sounds like you guys have really been innovating in the space, so.
[00:29:49] Joe: Yeah, we've been trying to keep it as affordable as possible and get it going. We now have over a hundred thousand active property managers and landlords. Using it and over a million tenants. So it's been fun, but you'll look at how big the market is and there's 15 million DIY landlords and something like 18,000 property managers. And, it's a small slice.
[00:30:11] There are many out there still using, Excel or, a back of the notebook to keep track of stuff. So it is more about getting the word out there and let them know that there is a nice, easy solution to use.
[00:30:21] Jason: Yeah. Very cool. So, now if they have a website, like say from us third party website or their own site or whatever are they able to get the rental listings?
[00:30:31] Oh, I love that you said that. Yes.
[00:30:32] An embed code to put into their site.
[00:30:34] Joe: Yep. So if they just give us, they can tell us now, I will give you a quick hack so there's a quick hack, but then we can also help them do it. And so the quick hack is we give you a free site and if you have a listing link, so if you just relink that listing of yours and use Tenant Cloud, it'll automatically go there because it's the relink. Right? However we can help you customize it. So the free one we give you is going to be an extension of Tenant Cloud, right? Yeah, it's our free version. But if you want us to host it, we do have to be given the credentials, but we can host it and then you'll have an active live site, and then there are parts of it you can turn off or turn on. So you could use, if you've already built one, you say, I want to host this, but I still want the listings on my native site. We can do that for you. We have quite a few that do that. So, and the listing functions nice. It gives you a map, it'll show all your rentals. So you have a sub thing that you can click and, see a preview and then you go to the full listing. And then on there is really where the CRM powers because it says, 'do you have a question?' Or it'll be like, 'schedule a tour' or 'fill out an application.' And so each one of those, so if they schedule a tour or have a question that goes right to your CRM. And so that's where you can respond to them how whatever format they want to respond. If they give you email, you can do email. If it's text, you can do text. Or if they create an account, they can talk actually through the Tenant Cloud app. But then of course they've got an application, it forces them to put that behind some closed information just so they're not
[00:31:55] Jason: I'm seeing some-- put it out-- Smart property managers switching from doing one-off showings for every vacancy constantly to doing open house dial. And is that possible using Tenant Cloud?
[00:32:08] Joe: You can schedule them as open house, but what we don't have and that what we want to do, and this really came about from Covid, is we've been working with a company, so it's coming out here in the future, but it's not there. And that is to be able to do remote showings. So the remote showings are slightly different than open house. What it is soon you'll be able to have where you set up, it's a door lock, it gives a specific code to a phone, and then there are two cameras set up in it, wifi, and then so you have control of all the doors and you have a camera view. And so someone can go in and quickly get a text number that's going to be live for 10 minutes and you can literally watch them. And give them a short tour before they go out and you can secure the place back up and know whether any new windows were left open or any doors. And so you like, do those. So that's been more of the answer we've done just because it is, if you do the open house it there, there's a lot of things that require onsite. So it's like, how can we help property managers again, with the logistics problem. Yeah. And logistics problem's the hard one because you go, you list the property. And half the problem is like only 50% of the people show up showings and you drove a long way to get there and you're like, Ugh. And so yes, to get as many people at a specific time is great. And so you can kind of set that up with your calendar. That's easy. But the real heart of it is like, how can I show this and actually just be right here on my computer? So I could do five showings at the exact same time from my laptop. And that's really the heart of what we're trying to get to, is that you should be able to do that during business hours, know that it's locked up and know who it is that went into the rental. And so that's part of it. They have to get verified in order to get a code. And so they're using their phone as part of that process. There's a picture and an id check as well. And so they're verifying themselves, which just helps keep honest people honest when they're setting up and doing a rental. So you're kind of doing a bit of vetting as you set some different things up. So, so that's more of where we're trying to go, is trying to get more remote.
[00:34:04] Jason: Cool. Cool stuff. So, well, I think everybody should go check it out. How can people get in touch with you or learn more about Tenant Cloud?
[00:34:13] Joe: Yeah, I'm always easiest on Twitter, so, @Joe_Edgar_ , always accessible there. Tenant Cloud's the sites, t e n a n t c l o u d TenantCloud.com. And you can find us on all the social media. But yeah, definitely hope to check it out. It's, like I said, we have a base version that's free and then, other features that come on top of that. You can set up your bank account. Receive applications, list your property, move in a tenant, and collect rent online, and that's all free.
[00:34:42] Jason: So, Cool. Very cool. Yeah, I think that was the first episode we did with you. You, we were talking about how I think software for property managers will be free someday. So.
[00:34:51] Joe: Yes. I honestly think it's going to go that more and more features are coming to where it's like, the more of your business isn't there. Like some of the stuff I hope we get to, and I'll mention this just because more of the viewers are property managers, but if you remember that I talked about the maintenance request function and getting a bid. Well, I'm no stranger to property management. I own a couple of property management companies. And built the software off of that. And I know in our, one of them is fairly large, and so we have a maintenance crew, we have a turning crew, we have a painting crew. We now even have a a cabinet crew. We go through so many cabinets. We're like, we just need to build these ourselves. And so we have all these different crews and they're just doing us. But one of the biggest costs is the downtime. And so for them it's like each one of them is a side business. And so it's like we've been trying to like think of ways there, like how can we grow this? And I know I'm not alone. And so what we're hoping to get to is that all the property managers who use us are. They'll soon have a little flip that comes up that they can turn on to now get leads. And so they will be part of the ones like saying, Hey, we have a service that does carpet cleaning. And so inside of my normal property management, now I can actually go and service people outside of the properties I manage if I want to look to expand some of the businesses that I've now created.
[00:36:10] And so, and it's unique because property management is different. Like if I go and if I say to a property manager, Hey I have a property I need to do a turn on. They know exactly what that means. And there's not just one contractor outside of property management that could do that. And so property managers are in a unique space where they're like, well, I know exactly what you need. I need to go do an inspection. I need to check the carpets, I need to check the walls. There's probably going to be some painting. I got to do a little plumbing. I may even have to do some hvac, I'm going to have to do a little landscaping. And all of that's tied into it and owning a property manager has built out some of the functions to be able to service that. It's not all the property management companies, but quite a few of them will do it as they grow, just because they're like, well, we're now in-house. We're doing enough of them. I've got one lawn mowing guy that's running or something. So, so it's a nice feature that we hope to really bring out to embrace our own customers, helping them now find and grow their business in other unique ways they never thought about. So.
[00:37:05] Jason: Awesome. Very cool. Well, Joe, thanks for being on the show. Appreciate you being here.
[00:37:10] Joe: Oh, my pleasure. Thanks.
[00:37:11] Jason: All right, so check out tenantcloud.com. Sounds like it's really cool software. I'm really curious to get your feedback on how it compares to whatever else you've been using or what you're using for those that are doing research lately. So, let us know in our Facebook group. So join our free community that's available to property management entrepreneurs on Facebook. It is DoorGrow Club. The DoorGrow Club. You can get to that by going to DoorGrowclub.com and it will redirect you to our Facebook group. Answer the questions and join the group and we will give you some free gifts as well and that can benefit your property management business. And, check us out at DoorGrow.com. We are the world's leading property management coaching mastermind. We are helping grow and scale property management companies rapidly. We would love to help you grow and scale your business, figure out operations, make your day-to-day easier, and take some vacations, people.
[00:38:05] 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!
[00:38:32] 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.
Are you aware of how much money you would need to protect and potentially replace all of the assets in the properties you manage?
Join Jason as he chats with Aaron Lombardo from North Star Reserves about what a reserve study is, and how having one completed can benefit your property management business.
[01:21] Who is Aaron from North Star Reserves?
[05:09] What is a Reserve Study?
[16:30] What is the Difference Between a Reserve Study and an Inspection?
[20:14] A New Concept: the “LIL Effect”
[33:50] How to Stop Your Clients from Micromanaging You
“Property's easy to manage. People are tough to manage.”
“Retaining a client, you're continually selling them on why they should be with you. It involves trust.”
“One thing that property managers incur too much is blame.”
“Each property is a business and it needs to be able to be maintained.”
[00:00:00] Aaron: what the reserve study really does is creates kind of an internal bank of their own funds and we help them manage a threshold so they can have a zero base threshold where they're just managing just enough in contributions to maintain those assets over long term or they can increase that threshold so that there's a nest egg if you will, a buffer or padding
[00:00:21] 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.
[00:01:21] Aaron: I went in and got my undergrad, my bachelor's in psychology. So I majored in family and marriage therapy and kind of the end of that I realized I didn't want to be in psych. I love it. I love people, but I migrated very quickly into the construction industry. And I worked for the third largest builder in the country and managed multimillion dollar budgets as far as from the building side and construction. Was recruited by the largest builder in the state of Utah and spent quite a bit of time with them working through kind of their ranks, managing, again, oversight on millions of dollars in purchasing materials, actually building the structures from the ground up. That experience led me into the general manager position with them on their custom home division quietly running this custom home division. They were really a track builder and they had all sorts of, different styles, designs and levels of building from commercial to residential, and they had this quiet custom home division that was really exciting. It allowed me to really apply my psych trade into sales, dealing really with high-end buyers and executors buying properties and interacting with those properties as investments and so forth.
[00:02:33] And ultimately that kind of landed quite a bit of interaction with building the actual communities themselves, HOAs, working with those HOAs. And then I had an opportunity to really jump ship and partner with a friend of mine in rental management. The short version is that he had a deal to buy a pump company fell out from underneath him after he'd literally moved across the country. And he kind of started by default just managing a rental property, a family's rental property. Anyway, long story short is he needed somebody to come along and help out with that, both on the HOA management and just generally the business. So, We ran this business, we expanded it over two states, Idaho and Utah. In the end, we separated. He took the rental management, I took HOA management. We both have grown those. I really enjoyed the HOA management side of it. It provided a lot of opportunities to interact with property managers as their competitors, but also with the boards. And so it was really by forced majeure that I had to take a deep dive into kind of the rental management, interacting again with real estate, which is where maybe my education wasn't, but my passion certainly was. And then I had an opportunity to buy this little mom and pop reserve study company out of Emmett, Idaho, and this was just a retiring couple that I had actually used their services several times in the rental and hoa management industry. And I just loved the idea of getting back into the budgets, but it afforded me the opportunity as well to get into the field doing site inspections for these properties while managing these budgets.
[00:04:08] And so I did, we sold the HOA management company. We bought this little mom and pop. We've grown it to eight states, and then we consult in several others. We're in multiple markets within, kind of these states and subsets of these states, destination stops and so forth. And I'll tell you what a reserve study is here in just a second, which is why I'm here with you, I suppose, Jason, but we do, reserve studies and site inspections for golf courses and country clubs high rises. We do commercial properties and strip malls. We do a lot of homeowners associations that have clubhouses and buildings that they have to maintain in streets. We've done some really cool townships where we've done entire, small cities or small towns, airports And and then water treatment facilities. So we, we feel like we've got a real, broad gamut of these things. These properties of different sorts. Some are owned, by a governing body like an hoa, and some are owned by real estate investors or owners that are looking to track their costs. And that's where the reserve study comes in itself.
[00:05:09] Jason: Got it. Cool. So tell us what is a reserve study?
[00:05:14] Aaron: Right. The magic question. So a reserve study is really just a 30 year outlay of all income and expenses and using that contribution is what we call it, a contribution of that revenue to reserves or savings to maintain and repair all their physical assets over the course of 30 years. So it takes in a lot of aspects of that, right? You have the revenue that comes in and we call that the contribution. And it's just a piece of maybe the property's total revenue and then that contribution will fund the future maturation of all of those assets from the replacement of the roof to the maintenance of the plaster in the pool ceiling on the streets, et cetera, et cetera. And so it really takes, the full gamut. It includes inflation and the cost of inflation that compounds over time. It includes the useful life is what we call it in the industry for each individual item, right? Not everything wears the same and not everything wears the same in different. Locations. Our California clients have properties, in Spokane and in Spokane. It's just a harsher climate. And so their properties weather different, and if they don't take that into account and really understand the nuances of that it catches them off guard because of the weathering that occurs in a different, in different places.
[00:06:29] Jason: Right. Just like cars in winter areas with the salted roads, the undercarriage gets rusted out. California no issue with that. So, That's right. At least not in SoCal. All right. So, cool. All right, I get that. So how do you go about doing these reserve studies and how does this relate to property management? I really haven't heard of any property managers doing this. I'm sure some do or should be. So tell us about that.
[00:06:58] Aaron: Well, so the truth of it is there's not a lot of well, let me rephrase that, a lot of property managers do that if they're, if they have oversight in an HOA or some sort of governing body. We break our service down into two pieces. There's the actual physical creation of the reserve study, and then there's the consulting on how to use the reserve study, our other kind of group of clients, aside from just HOA property managers. Are, owners and business owners. So, typically when we're working with a property manager on a rental property or a multi-unit property, it's usually the owner or, sometimes it's the CFO or CEO that's looking at this property from a strictly, revenue generation standpoint. And they're looking at their total expense load and we build that expense load. So it comes in two parts. The first part is really just the physical creation of the reserve study that involves a site inspection. So we perform a physical site inspection where we comb through every piece of this property. Let's use a high-rise as an example. A high-rise might have everything from a generator tucked into the parking garage to, common area, boiler units that are serving all of the rental units above, and the roof and the windows, and all of the pieces.
[00:08:07] In a typical high-rise, there might be 80 to a hundred components. That all have a varying degree of cost. Some of them need to be touched or maintained on an annual basis, and some of them you don't need to really worry about but every 30 or 40 years and those, long-term items usually have a significant cost that we're trying to help our owners avoid loans on.
[00:08:29] Right. They can essentially, Jason, what the reserve study really does is creates kind of an internal bank of their own funds and we help them manage a threshold so they can have a zero base threshold where they're just managing just enough in contributions to maintain those assets over long term or they can increase that threshold so that there's a nest egg, if you will, a buffer or padding that allows, far more flexibility on how to use those funds for the improvement of those physical assets.
[00:09:02] So the first part of that is just performing the site inspection, converting those physical assets into usable data, right? So we'll document every aspect of, the pool as an example, right down to the pool pumps. Pool pumps and pool plaster and the pool deck and the pool cover. I mean, there's a dozen components that maintain what we would, you and I would just call a pool, right? Yeah, there's a dozen components that would maintain that. We break those down, they all get a useful life. We convert that into data that has a useful life, a term for its expiration, and then a cost associated with that. In the process of that, we're contacting vendors, usually local vendors to that state or maybe that destination stop that town and city. So that we're finding out the local pricing and we plug that in commensurate to, their actual costs. And then we produce what we call a reserve study.
[00:09:55] And it's a lengthy report. It'd be a hundred page report. Half of that is usually a very detailed page over page breakdown of every component, what we discovered, what our actual site inspection uncovered. And oftentimes we uncover problems that they don't, and sometimes that their management or their maintenance men don't see. Their maintenance men have a tendency to look at certain high visual items where we're in the process of discovering from a construction standpoint. What are the forthcoming or future problems that they might incur? A great but terrible example, and this has brought the whole industry kind of forefront. Everybody at this point has heard about the Florida condo that literally fell, and it was a horrible tragedy. You've heard of that?
[00:10:38] Jason: I didn't hear that.
[00:10:39] Aaron: You didn't hear about that? All right.
[00:10:41] Jason: No. So when I was in Mexico and there was a hotel, or like a condo building next to one of the resorts we stayed at, and it won all these awards for design, but it like started sinking and collapsing.
[00:10:52] Aaron: Oh yeah that's a different one. So, so this Florida compound really a preventable tragedy and a terrible tragedy. So this had a pool on an upper deck. So it was like a parking garage and imagined large concrete with rebar columns underneath upholding that pool and the structure above it. And over the course of probably decades, there was corrosion from the pool. Now pool chemicals are just brutal on everything that they touch right, even the concrete. And over time they noticed some corroding that had leaked into cracks and fissures in the concrete and had corroded, the rebar, which is kind of the structural integrity of the columns themselves. Long story short is they didn't have the funds or reserves, right. They didn't have the savings, just interchangeable word with reserves. They didn't have the reserves to fund repairs. And after decades of that type of corrosion, the columns gave way and the whole pool inside of the structure gave. And once the structure started to give, it was a cascading effect. And multiple stories of this condo complex fell and killed people, and it was just a horrible, preventable--
[00:12:05] Jason: wow.
[00:12:06] Aaron: --Problem. Now that's about as dramatic as these circumstances get mind you. Right. Most of the time what we see is we see, gutters, for example, that are leaking off into the the wall and we know the cues and the primers that are kind of indicating that there's probably a leak behind the stucco itself. Right. Stucco's a permeable material. Yeah. But if it gets beyond the paper, behind the stucco, then you have wall issues and we see that. Pretty often where rain gutters are not skirting all of the snow, ice, and rain away from the building. So all of that's preventable If number one, there's funds to do it and if number two, there's eyes that can pick it up. So we help discover both of those. We help outline, highlight those potential problems and sometimes those problems in live. And then we help ensure that they have a plan of how and when those funds will occur in order to maintain and replace and repair all of those assets.
[00:13:07] Ultimately the purpose of any property is to maintain and increase the value of that property, right? No investor wants to get in...
[00:13:15] Jason: yeah.
[00:13:15] Aaron: ...and not come out on the back end, however many years that might be, and not earn a profit at some level or another, either from the sale of the property or for the ongoing rental of the property. And that can only occur if you're maintaining the property in a condition that it can do so, in my opinion, in optimal condition.
[00:13:33] Jason: So one of the things that comes to mind, so my wife and I like taking trips to Mexico and we've gone to some resorts in Mexico that have been around a long time, like decades. Yeah. And we didn't realize it because the rooms seemed new, the paint, but we saw maintenance people on this building. All day long, every day there were just people doing the grounds, doing painting, like everything. And it looked great. And then we just took a trip to Puerto Rico and we stayed at this modern kind of new sort of looking resort. I don't know how long it's been around, but it's already has rust coming down the white sides of the building from the top. They had some nets to capture, I don't know, maybe bird stuff or, I have no idea. Yeah. But they were torn and the room was mildewey and like, it just wasn't what it looked like in the pictures. It was just starting to show some wear and tear, and we were just kind of like, why don't they maintain it? Which was interesting.
[00:14:27] Aaron: Well, and this is the second piece of what we do, the consulting piece of this because we have conversations like this all the time. 'Well, I've got this property that behaves very differently than this property. Right? And how do we appropriate these funds commensurate to the type of building?' It really is dependent on the purpose. Like people, not any property is really identical. They're not used the same way. They're not used the same frequency. Yeah. They're not in the same climate zone, et cetera, et cetera. And I think of a similar building that you just described in Montana. So we did recently did a site inspection on this architecturally really fascinating building. And they kind of jammed it into the corner of two main intersections. Okay. And the whole building architecturally is steel. It's intentionally rusting, and it's intentionally that way to keep the maintenance low. That steel on the outside will outlive all of us. And so the maintenance won't be going into the exterior of this building. It was designed for a very low maintenance exterior. Now, the interior finishes are different. The interior, it's got this high end deck and you've got this neat garden area and, you get into the inside, it's got this, really nice elevator and all of these things require a high level of maintenance in order to keep functionality optimal for that particular property.
[00:15:42] We do some properties for investors that really intentionally just want to strip out and, for lack of a better term, it sounds bad the way I say it, but, we treat it a little bit differently. They want to strip out every dollar that they can because it's just not a high valued property to them, wherever it might be or however they might be using it. In which case we can put together a plan that. Creates basically what we call a baseline funding. It's a zero funding. It's just setting aside just enough to fund the needed maintenance to meet those financial goals. Again, being very intentional, right? I think most investors and executors fail when you have multiple properties and they start using funds from other properties to carry another or they're not intentional about the monies they're setting aside for maintenance.
[00:16:29] Jason: So let me ask a question. So I recently bought a house. I'm here in it right now. Right? And it's over a decade old and we had a home inspection and most people connected to real estate are very familiar with a home inspection. How does a reserve study differ from a home inspection, maybe on like a single family residential property?
[00:16:51] Aaron: Yeah, I'll be real candid with you, Jason. I think that the home inspection is very similar. Matter of fact, I have seen some really great home inspections where they will outline potential problems, right? That's the difference between maybe a typical inspector and a home inspector. An inspector might come in and they're going to say, 'okay, these are the things you need to do. These are the things that are really obvious.' A home inspector has a tendency like we do, to really get their hands dirty. They're looking for the little primers, the little cues that indicate that you have a leaking water heater, that the roof shingles are coming up on the ends and, stuff like that. And so I've been really impressed with some home inspections. The only real difference is taking that home inspection and converting it into datas, dollars, and timelines. So that's the difference. So when bought your home, you get a home inspection and it's left to you, buyer, to say, 'okay, well how do I feel about the fact that there's this, that and the other?' And you have to figure out a way to now negotiate that home inspection with your seller on what it means to you. What's the financial, consequence of that home inspection? We take it a pretty major step, but one step further where we say, 'okay, how long is that problem going to endure? When does it need to be replaced? And how much is it going to cost?' And then we build a report that actually puts numbers, dollars, and timelines to that. There's no more guesswork. The math now has a voice.
[00:18:17] Jason: Got it. Got it. Okay, cool. Now I can see how this would be useful for rental properties, which are not just a home to live in, but they are a long-term investment and they're basically, each property is a business and it needs to be able to be maintained. It needs to run well, especially if their goal is to have it accrue in value over time, or for it to be making them a certain amount of money each month. Et cetera. So, okay.
[00:18:47] Aaron: Now there's two pieces of that though, right? All right, so you've got, I mentioned in the beginning that you've got this kind of physical aspect the site inspection and then the data, and the vast majority, mind you, we don't shy away from data, but we also know how to read it. So when we produce a report, it's usually a lot to digest. And the second piece of that is, well, now what do we do with this data? How do I actually use this data and apply, and this kind of gets into the human element. So this is where it speaks to my psych degree, my salesmanship, if you will, which I just really love people. I think as much as we love properties and I do people, it's really what makes everything work. So now you've got to know, well, how do we take this data? And apply it to a property and in some cases apply it to manage the owner themselves. I'm not a hundred percent clear on your audience, for example. But if we just take a property manager that's managing to an investor, and I've been, in this circumstance, I've been that property manager managing to a CEO of a home builder that had multiple properties we were managing and they have certain expectations and sometimes those expectations are based on their feel, their gut feel.
[00:19:59] And it was always better to manage that executor, that owner, that CEO with actual math, with the actual numbers where I can push back without it being a gut feel on my end. So I have what I call the LIL effect, like coin that myself, LIL, like little, the little effect. So one thing that property managers incur too much is blame. When there's stressors, when there's misunderstanding, when maybe the profitability is not there. Yeah. Property managers inadvertently end up being the scapegoat for owners that have left the management to the property, but shouldn't be leaving maybe the profitability to the property manager. Right? So we have what we call the LIL effect. So, and the LIL effect simply is the first L is listen more to your clients. You'd be shocked Jason. How often as a vendor... so I'm usually brought in as kind of a vendor to augment what the property manager might be doing for the owner. And you'd be surprised how many times the vendor or the owner may call and want some specific details that the property manager, doesn't know or is fine deferring to us because we do some consulting.
[00:21:14] And then they open up about all sorts of problems and complaints and I'm constantly on the defence. I want to focus on the data and, not necessarily the complaints, but I'm a fly on the wall all the time. And one of the biggest complaints is that they're I think is that they're just not being heard enough. So property managers do a great job managing properties, but sometimes there's a pivot point that they miss with their owners, their clients, their executors. And so the first L is just listening more to the client. The 'I' that we have in the LIL effect is Intention, so being very intentional about building trust. I know a lot of property managers that are really good in the industry because they just, are honest and they just naturally build trust. But if they're not intentional, they leave so much of that trust on the table and they can build a lot of trust by being intentional. So the first L is for listening more to your clients. The 'I' is for intentionally building trust. In fact, an interesting story to go along with that. When I worked for a builder I was told at the very outset that there was an architect, very difficult to work with. We'll call him Brian. And Brian was impossible.
[00:22:26] Brian did things his way and he was just difficult to work with. He was the head architect, so everything had to run through him, and if you couldn't get it through him, you couldn't get it done. And I had to get stuff done through him as a fairly new employee with this builder. And I determined right in the beginning that I would figure out a way to earn his trust. And I decided early on that I would just believe everything Brian told me. I would just take it at face value, trust, the fact that he knew what he was doing. Now everybody knew that he was emotionally driven, right? And a fascinating thing came out of this, Jason, I learned over the course of, less than a year, took some time, but I learned over the course o of that year that number one, I earned Brian's trust by hearing him out, asking questions strategically, and being very intentional about building that trust. The other thing that actually was quite fascinating to me is that I learned to really respect Brian. I gained a relationship with him and I could get things done through Brian that nobody else could, simply because I'd been intentional and at the time it was kind of accidental intention. Yeah. And it was a phenomenal relationship that he and I had. He was pretty rough around the edges, had his way, but I had, I could bend his ear, unlike most people could because I'd spent a significant amount of time building that trust.
[00:23:48] Jason: That's interesting. I had a job working at HP and there were two of us on a team. We managed this software called Concentra, which was this workflow for all of their PDFs and documents for all their computers, printers, at everything to move through to make sure that there was some sort of quality. And it, it went through legal and it went through everything else. And so there were us two nerds and our boss was in, we were in Boise and our boss was in Texas. And I noticed he didn't trust us. He was always like trying to micromanage us and distrustful of us, and so I just started setting-- we used an instant message tool to communicate most of the time, so I just started changing my status. I'm like, how can I make him feel safer and trust me? So I had the intention. To build trust. And so, and the way I did that is I just communicated through my messenger status, showing what I was working on all the time, so he didn't have to ask me and say, 'Hey, did you guys doing stuff? Or what are you doing?' It just said, 'I'm working on this and I'm working on that'. And I would just update it throughout the day. He started to trust me and then he started to ask me about my coworker, what's he doing? Is he getting stuff done? I thought that was really funny. Yeah. Like acting like he'd-- this guy like didn't even know our names though. He like, eventually he just couldn't even remember our names, which is sad.
[00:25:02] Aaron: But that level of transparency, solves all so many problems before they occur.
[00:25:07] Jason: Yeah. So I like that. Yeah. Property managers need to listen more to their clients and they need to focus on the intention of building trust because really, I tell my clients sales and deals happen at the speed of trust. Yeah. In order to get clients, but keeping clients. Same thing, retaining a client, you're continually selling them on why they should be with you. It involves trust. Yeah. Trust goes, they go.
[00:25:33] Aaron: It does. And it really is about being intentional, right? Because again, I know property managers who are quite good at it, but they're, there's a difference with being intentional. Yeah. Being strategic.
[00:25:44] Jason: Yeah. because if their intention is just to do their job, that's not going to necessarily create trust. But if their intention is to create trust, then they're far more likely to do it. Yeah. This is interesting too becausewe have a tool we use with our clients so they can get more out of their day and we call it DoorGrow's Daily Planning. We have this daily planning exercise, and the goal is to map out, part of the daily planning exercise is to figure out what are all the appointments you have for the day, and then what intention do you have for each of those? Because we find just by having an intention and being clear on what your intention is with a particular outcome, you're far more likely to get the result ironically. So, if your intention is to go into a conversation and win, or create a win-win or to benefit them or whatever, you're far more likely if you're clear on that intention, then you just go into it and go, 'well, I have a meeting.' Right. Yeah. So, yeah.
[00:26:36] Aaron: Well, I couldn't agree with you more. It's so we've got listen more to the clients, right? So to finish the LIL effect, intentionally build trust. And the last one, Is really one of the most undervalued, and that's, listen to your trades. And I'm not talking about just hearing them out, I'm talking about like understanding, understanding their perspective. You'd be shocked how many, so I talk to trades a lot.
[00:27:00] Jason: Define trades. Are you talking about vendors that'll do work on property?
[00:27:03] Aaron: Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Your concrete guys, your maintenance guy. The, these are invaluable people that, sometimes I think property managers don't reach out to these trades. At the level they could because they see a guy that, you know, just for lack of a better term, just eats concrete for breakfast. He knows concrete. He loves concrete, he's really good at it, and they want him to solve a problem concrete related. But I can't tell you how many times I've talked to vendors, I'm usually gathering price and I can speak their language and I know all things construction from the ground up. So I can get into those conversations and as I do that, I've been shocked. At how many things they keep close to the chest because they've learned, and this goes back to kind of the psych days learned helplessness. They've learned that nobody really wants their opinion. They just want them to solve a problem. 'Solve this concrete problem, fix this tree,' whatever it might be. And so they have learned over the years to just keep those things close to the chest. But what they have close to the chest is often little golden nuggets of understanding of both property and profitability. They have ideas on how to turn a property more profitable in their little, bucket of trade, right? They're concrete or they're trees and, property managers are leaving some profits on the table, in my opinion, because they're not getting those vendors, not building the trust with those vendors to glean the little pieces and it goes back to, I forget the name of the book, 1% Better, where if you're gathering 1% better and you talk to 15 different, vendors and they all can provide you, you know even half a percent profitability better, suddenly you have a property that's 7% more profitable. That's incredible.
[00:28:46] Jason: Yeah. That's interesting. The last place I was in, we were renting and it wasn't managed by a property manager and the owner took two weeks to replace water heater because he was just being super anal and trying to figure out the best one. Basically a problem property managers can solve for people. And one of the plumbers came out and. He like was badmouthing the owner saying that he was being cheap and then he like, but the level of detail this guy was because I was just curious in asking questions because that's just my nature. He was telling me like, 'these type of water heaters, they last this long, this other one's going to go out soon. And if we put in one like this, I recommend it be this capacity because it's going to last this much longer or do this' like the level of detail he knew about water heaters. Brands of water heaters and how much, putting the right one in and what it could save you in the long term and doing the long term. I was like really impressed. Yeah, so this rings very true to me. Everybody that is really an expert in their craft. And this guy ran his company, so we were lucky that he was the one that came out, I guess. The level of expertise that some of these vendors or trades, or not sure they call them tradies, yeah. That they have is really yeah, it, I can see how it could be a huge asset.
[00:30:04] Aaron: Huge asset. So that's the LIL effect. They really are a huge asset. So you've got, listen more to your clients, the intentional of building trust, and listening to your trades and vendors and anyway, that LIL effect will produce positive consequences every day of the week. There's really no negative and it's kind of rare that you can apply a strategy and not have, some downside of it. But it's pretty easy to apply. Maybe a more listening and intentional ear. Yeah. Something that we're noticing, that kind of goes along with this, and I think everybody's probably feeling this at this point. I've been waiting for everybody to feel like the pinch of what's going on, right. So, one thing that we're trying to do here for our business is just constantly be on the pivot where, well, what are our clients feeling? Yeah. What are they experiencing? What are their hardships and challenges? What other problems can we solve? And we've been doing that since inception, but I've been waiting since kind of some of the overall damage from where it started with Covid. When is this downstream damage going to really start affecting just masses, right? And profitability and properties and so forth? And over the last four to six months we're seeing more of it. And on our end, we're ready for that pivot. And what that pivot looks like is when people are pinched financially and emotionally. And additionally, right now politically, when people feel pinched in corner like this, yeah they have a tendency to retreat into corners, right? It's the old adage, that we retreat into our shell. And as people do that, unfortunately trades and property managers, when they're feeling kind of this trifecta of pinch, they have a lack of control. This goes back to the psychology. They have a lack of control. So what do people do when they're losing control of one thing? They go and gain control of another, right?
[00:31:51] Jason: Yeah. They start micromanaging other stuff.
[00:31:54] Aaron: Yes. And asking all the wrong questions in that micromanagement, right? And so they start micromanaging, they start trying to regain control. And I see sometimes property managers pushing back because again, the client's asking the wrong group of questions, seeking for some semblance of balance of control. And as they push back, then they're usually again scapegoated into some failure, some misunderstanding, some reason that the client needs to retake or re grab control. Yeah. And when they're insecure and out of control, we often coach our clients to tell them, 'look, let them. Give them a moment. They don't want to drive the car. They don't really want to drive the car. Yeah. They want to know that they can drive the car.' Right. And so clients come, they feel uncomfortable, they want to regain control. And so we'll tell our property managers many times, ' let them sit in the driver's seat. It's like taking a teen, and you remember the old driving the cars, they had a brake pedal in the passenger seat where the instructor could sit and slam on the brakes and--
[00:33:04] Jason: Yeah.
[00:33:04] Aaron: --Scare the teen right out of his gourd. I mean, that's how I learned to drive from a instructor. But it's kind of--
[00:33:10] Jason: sounds like a mean instructor.
[00:33:12] It's sometimes though it's like that the property
[00:33:14] Aaron: manager would be wise to step aside for a moment and let them get in. Actually a lot like you did with, telegraphing. Almost over transparency. This is what I'm doing, this is what I'm doing. Let them see how you're driving. Let them see every turn you're making. And eventually they get to a point where they're like, yeah, he's driving fine. I don't, they don't want to drive. And property managers hold that close to the chest. I can't let them get in. I can't let them, do X, Y, and Z because that's my job. That's my responsibility. And they guard that tenaciously and that actually leads to more distrust in the moment than trust.
[00:33:48] Yeah, I actually
[00:33:49] Jason: teach. And I've had a podcast episode on this subject before, but I actually teach clients that the one thing that people want to buy from a property manager is not property management. What they want to buy is safety and certainty. Yeah. They want to buy peace of mind. That's really what you're selling as a property manager. And so if you're not using LIL and that framework, And you're not going to get those positive consequences. And if you're not making them feel safe, you're actually going to have a higher operational cost in your business because you're going to have a whole bunch of owners that are micromanaging you because yes, if they don't feel safe, they're going to create safety. Yes. In the form of leading and micromanaging you. And if the only positive way to push back on that is to let them know that you know what you're doing to showcase the expertise and let them know that you are better at this than them. Yes. Based on proven history and results. Yes.
[00:34:44] Aaron: I, that is such a great point, Jason. Matter of fact, that's really, really kind of the key, if they'll filter everything through what you just said, if they'll filter everything through this idea. Building that trust and managing that relationship that way and not the property. The property's easy to manage. People are tough to manage. True. And if you'll manage to those, like you said, those, those expectations with their end goal then you can manage the property kind of on, on the side. In fact, it's interesting. I would also say that anytime, That they see Anytime that, our clients see micromanagement from their clientele, that should be the first cue that they're on their way out. Yeah. You know that they're, they don't trust you, that they're not trusting and that eight, eight out of 10 times 80% of the time, I would say that when you have an owner or property manager or an executive body that's frustrated or micromanaging they don't know it yet sometimes, but they're already beginning the process of finding somebody who they feel that can do a better job and they never do.
[00:35:50] They only find somebody to solve a problem for a minute. But the problem is really, like you said, trust, expectation, those relationships, because the property is not the challenge.
[00:36:01] Jason: Yeah. I mean, there might be one counter to this. So one thing that's I think is really interesting is we'll have clients in our coaching program and sometimes they're just like grumpy and they complain about everything and they're frustrated, but they stay. And then sometimes they're really happy and they're getting great results and then they leave. And so what we've learned to pay attention to, In the realm of client success is that it's not even necessarily connected to whether or not they are happy or you're getting them great results or not. Which is really weird, but client retention is based on whether or not they still see a future with you or not. And that there's a future plan. And so as long as they have a future goal, a future roadmap, they might be miserable as they do all of it, but they'll still stick with you because they see a future that includes you, and so they'll stay with you, but it's very easy for them to start creating a new future the second they start not having a good experience with you, they start to imagine, man, it might be better with somebody else. Yeah.
[00:37:00] Aaron: And with that, you can't discount the 80 20 rule either, right? There's a, there's the law of averages and statistically speaking, it's been proven, a thousand times that. 20% of your clientele is going to be 80% of your time expenditure. Right.
[00:37:13] Jason: Which is why you should probably fire 20% of your clients.
[00:37:17] Aaron: I knew you were going to say that. I set you up, Jason. I knew you were going to say that. I the truth is I've actually watched property managers do that very thing and they just end up with the different 20%. Right? Right. Yeah. So better, the better way to do it is if you're going to fire, because I don't think. I don't think the idea is lost. I think you got to look at profitability and Yeah. Which ones are really not making you money, right? And those are the ones to let go because you're going to end up with the same 20% of kind of high maintenance clientele. And if they're profitable, then maintain it. And if they're not, then call it and get to the 20% of higher profitability clients. Right. That's again, coming back to intention.
[00:37:58] Jason: I would agree related, if you're focused just on the currency of cash, but if you're focused on the currency of like your peace of mind and time and other things, then it might not be worth it.
[00:38:10] Aaron: Some. That's a great point. That's so true.
[00:38:12] Jason: So it might not be worth it because it really, the goal of a business isn't just money. The goal of a business is to give us more freedom, more fulfillment as a business owner, more of a sense of contribution and more support. That's why we build a business, why we build a team. And so some owners are stealing that from people, and I think a lot of times it's easily solved by just setting really good boundaries, expectations. And like you were talking about communication. Yeah. And that most owners, when they're micromanaging like that, they just want to know you're actually holding the steering wheel. That's it. As soon as they recognize that, they're like, oh, okay, I'm fine. And so a lot of times it's just a matter of being stronger towards them. Like some of my clients, I teach them to say, 'No, Mr. Owner, we're not going to do that and here's why.' And then suddenly that owner disarms. But a lot of times if they say, okay, I'll do that for you, the owner then goes, 'oh, I now need to lead them through everything to get the results that I want.'
[00:39:08] Aaron: Yeah. Yeah. So that's great.
[00:39:12] Jason: Interesting stuff. All right, so, now a lot a lot of my clients are managing small multi-family units, single family residential, maybe some condos. There might be some association management. When does it make sense to reach out to North Star?
[00:39:28] Aaron: When they want to use and empower the actual math is what I call it, when they want to use and empower the actual revenue versus expense load for decision making processes. Okay. It's really, there's a balance between the revenue and the expense load, and in almost all cases, the expense load is higher. So when I call it a balance, it's not like it's an equal balance. The expense load over time is higher when you factor in the revenue with profitability, et cetera. So how do we empower the math to make decisions based on the actual dollars and cents and not just aesthetics?
[00:40:08] Jason: Okay, so let's take an example. Should they reach out to North Star if they have an owner that they can tell is not doing things mathematically effectively so that they can actually leverage your data in insight to say to this owner, you're being an idiot. You need to do it this way. Is that a good case example.
[00:40:28] Aaron: It's a great example. In fact, in downtown Boise there's a highrise, I won't mention it. And very nice, very, kind of high end highrise. And the property manager called us, this is actually just a couple years ago, but I still play this one out because it changed everything. And they were ready to spend $50,000 just on a furniture rehab. And long story short is the furniture was already nice. I mean, high end from the lobby to the rooftop. And in the end we ran through reserve study, helped them see that a $50,000 was not only not in the budget, but a gross overspend. They still spent 15 grand, but that other 35 went to a future roof project that they were not only not prepared for, but didn't have properly funded. So the answer is yes, to I would say anytime that a property manager wants to help mitigate or remove the emotion from the pushback that they might get with their owners or executive body and using the math to make those financial decisions, that's an appropriate time to call North Star. Another great aspect of having a reserve study and having the proper financial is creating continuity. So once you start that decision making process, owners and property managers get really good at creating continuity for that decision making process, and that reduces the time expenditure on a property that reduces the discussion, meeting time, expenditure with their owners. And so we call it continuity. In fact, we have a continuity program, which is really a consulting program that we use the existing study to take them through a year long process of decision making and preparation where we are basically on retainer by the course of the year to interact and help create that continuity. Directly, it's actually always designed for the property manager. So that's create continuity for the property manager to use the financials to manage those long-term decisions.
[00:42:20] Jason: So I imagine another use case would be they're about to take on a rough property and I get questions like this, should I take it on? Yeah. I mean, often the answer is no. But if the owner is amenable to like fixing it up, making the changes necessary, but a lot of times there's a lot of emotion in it for them. Yeah. And so if they can connect them to the math and to reality through something like working with North Star then, and they're willing to do this, then they could end up being a good client and it could be a good scenario.
[00:42:51] Aaron: That's correct. And we resist all things boiler plate, right? We like to tailor it to the real circumstance. We do use some boiler plate numbers to help owners get to a basic understanding of profitability and whether or not to buy a property. More often than not, Jason the questions usually: I want to make an improvement on an existing property, and should I? What's the downstream cost and the downstream cost of maintaining that improvement? Yeah. Right. We want to resurface the streets and, or we want to we want to add in a bar to this, to this, mini restaurant or a bar area. And so you, we've got to look at, where the cost expenditure is and the long-term maintenance of that improvement.
[00:43:33] Jason: I would imagine that property managers, if they've even done a few of these situations or scenarios with you, learn an immense amount of insight and knowledge just by through association with what you're doing.
[00:43:48] Aaron: Yes. In fact, that's, I didn't start this business doing the consulting side of this. I started with just, reserve studies, right? We just produce a reserve study, we produce the math, and it's my nature to kind of help people through that. And I don't push back on people with meeting and the time expense of meeting.
[00:44:05] I help them through it. But that has evolved over years into really a full consulting program because you're exactly right, property managers when they really know how to use it They need less of my expertise on the reserve study and more of my expertise on using the reserve study to manage again, people right, to manage expectations of people, to manage tough conversations with people. Property managers have more longevity in managing a property. I find when one, they have that trust, and two, they do have some profitability because you're right, it is about those people. But their investors want to see good financials. And when the property manager can focus on intentional trust while at the same time producing transparent and profitable financials, I mean, I don't know why anybody would want to leave a property manager that is performing at that level.
[00:45:00] Jason: Yeah. So I think the next question somebody would have is, this has to be really expensive. Would it make sense? Like say I get an investor and he's got like, a hundred unit building, or I get a different investor and he's got a hundred single family units and I'm going to bring in this portfolio. Is this something that. Is financially going to make sense? Is there a way for this property manager to convince the owner to do this, and for the property manager to be able to afford to do this in a way that it's going to make them money?
[00:45:32] Aaron: Yeah. In a very rare circumstance, has it not really and I'm just being very candid, in a very rare circumstance, has it not financially made sense. In fact, in 2019, and it just happened to be a good timing in late 2019, we created what we call a virtual site inspection for those properties were financially, they just don't maybe have the volume of assets to merit a 30 year full reserve study in the consulting. Yeah. And and so we do a virtual site inspection, which is a little bit more boiler plate, but we'll go on. As long as I have satellite images, I'll do a virtual site inspection from satellite imagery. I can usually get some really great street view images and I can build a reserve study without ever leaving the office. We have staff here and I've got one guy and that's all he does. He just looks at those virtual studies. He builds these virtual studies so we don't ever have to mobilize. We did that because that got the price, the mobilization costs down and therefore it got the price of the reserve study commensurate to producing well, just a profitable report, so it didn't make sense. Yeah, it's not cheap to to, again, to be candid with you, there's a lot that goes into it. Sure. On a high rise, we might have, 80 hours into a full study with the site inspection and all the data gathering. So it's generally not cheap. And so we do try to find balance in that.
[00:46:49] Jason: Got it. Well, this is interesting. I think we've gotten a lot of info from you. I appreciate you being here on the show.
[00:46:57] For those that are curious or interested in maybe doing their first, reserve study or in connecting with you, how can they get ahold of north Star Reserve?
[00:47:10] Aaron: Well, for your customers and clients, Jason, I'd give my personal information out. So they can contact me directly at aaron@northstarreserves.com.
[00:47:21] aaron@northstarreserves.com, all spelled out northstarreserves.com is our website. They can call our office at (208) 365-0977 and we'd be happy to help out, put a quote. I don't charge for any upfront consulting. We'll take anybody through their property, their needs just to make sense and vet out whether or not it even makes sense. And I I feel that's just ought to be industry standard, and help people make sure it makes sense in the first place. Right.
[00:47:52] Jason: Awesome. Well then hopefully everybody reaches out. Right? I appreciate you. All right, awesome. Well, we appreciate you being on the show, Aaron. This was really insightful and yeah, I'm really, I'm going to be curious to see how this could help benefit some of our clients as well. So thanks for coming on.
[00:48:09] Aaron: Yeah, thank you. Appreciate you, Jason. All right, so check out northstarreserves.com. Now, if you are a property management entrepreneur and you are wanting to grow your business, add doors, reach out to DoorGrow. We can help you do this if you're wanting to scale your operations, you just feel like you're banging your head against the wall. You're frustrated. You're trying to deal with all these different tools and software and trying to figure out what's the best way to scale my business. And to make a business that's infinitely scalable? You're going to need a lot of systems. And we've developed what we call the Super System. So you're going to need a people system for hiring and vetting candidates. You're going to need a system for operations in an operating system for planning that motivates your team instead of it's top down pushing your team all the time. We have DoorGrow OS. We have DoorGrow Hiring. You're going to need a system for documenting processes. We have DoorGrow Flow, which is a flow chart based software for mapping out processes and having your team run processes through. So if you're wanting to grow your property management and you're wanting to scale it, you're wanting to get a really good coaching for your operator or operations person. You're wanting to get really good coaching for your BDM or your salesperson to grow and scale and add doors. We are the best at this, so reach out to my team. We have a plethora of coaches and resources.
[00:49:32] We've been doing this for over a decade. We love growing and scaling property management companies, and we know that we can help you. If you're willing to just do what we tell you to do, so reach out to DoorGrow. We would love to help you out. And if you want to test just something, test your website, go to DoorGrow.com/quiz test your property management website and see how effective it is. Usually this is enough to get people to wake up and go, 'Hey, I've got some leaks in my business people.' So most of you have leaky websites that you've gotten from people that are not DoorGrow, and your website is leaking you leads, deals, and money every single week. You could potentially be getting twice as many leads in deals if you're scoring an A on this DoorGrow Quiz. But most are scoring a D, C, or sometimes an F, right? So take this quiz, check it out, DoorGrow.com/quiz and grade your website. And that's it for today. Until next time to our mutual growth. Bye everyone.
[00:50:30] 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!
[00:50:57] 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.
Has anyone ever told you that you need to implement more humor to grow and improve your property management business?
Well today, property management growth experts, Jason and Sarah Hull are going to share why humor is an important tool when getting prospects to trust you and choose you over other management companies.
You’ll Learn…
[01:26] Why we use humor to create trust
[05:44] Mistakes happen… even in business
[10:26] How humor and teasing can build rapport
[13:45] How humor can be a sign of intelligence
Tweetables
“A lot of times, we take ourselves too seriously, and so we act too serious in our business, and when we're too serious, people are less likely to trust us.”
“You have to be willing to not always look perfect.”
“Even the best, smartest, fastest learning companies and people, they still make mistakes.”
“It's okay to make mistakes because it happens to everyone, and it's okay also to ask people for grace.”
Resources
[00:00:00] Jason: Humor really is a sign of intelligence. The more intelligent somebody is, the more they can think on their feet and be witty and create jokes and add humor into the conversation. So I've always viewed humor as a sign of intelligence.
[00:00:16] 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 realize that they're the ones that are crazy because they're not, because you realize that property management is the ultimate high trusts, gateway to real estate deals, relationships, and residual income.
[00:00:56] At DoorGrow, we are on a mission to transform the property management industry. We want to change the industry. We want to transform property management business owners and their businesses. We want to eliminate the bs. We want to change the perception. We want to 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. All right, so I sort of adlibbed that a little bit. I kind of messed up my intro a little bit.
[00:01:26] All right, everybody. So I want to talk about humor. I want to talk about being funny, and a lot of times we take ourselves too serious, too seriously, and so we act too serious in our business and the when we're too serious, people are less likely to trust us. So you have to be willing to not always look perfect. Like I've made mistakes in business and some of the best ways I can close people and convince people to trust us is I get transparent and real and raw and share some of the challenges I've had in business. That allows people to open up and share as well, and it builds this bridge and this relationship of trust. And you've heard me say before, sales and deals happen at the speed of trust, right? And if they trust you and they know you, and they like you, they're going to work with you. So what I want to talk about is humor.
[00:02:22] And so you may have noticed, if you're following us on YouTube, we've put out some funny videos. So, one of them is called Profit Martian and makes fun of the idea of maybe a property manager not having enough profitability in their business and you'll see Sarah, my wife and I, just being really silly around that and it's pretty funny. And then you may laugh, so I recommend you go search for Profit Martian. You can add DoorGrow and you should find it and have a good laugh. The other video we made recently is Not move in ready and you'll see me at the beginning yelling, "not move in ready!" Right? "This is not move ready." So check that out. Sarah and I made a humorous video showing a couple that decides to kind of manage the property themselves and all the stupid mistakes that we make. She's suggested I get a property manager and I was like, "ah, I don't need that. I can do it myself." Right? So check that out. That's funny as well. We actually just recorded our third video, which is going to be about all the reasons why you might not meet a property manager.
[00:03:27] And it shows me doing some really uncomfortable things and challenging things and pretending that I like doing the property management stuff, acting as an owner that's doing it myself instead of using a property manager. And I think the working title is 13 Reasons Why You Might Not Need a Property Manager cause we had like 13 different instances. So you'll see me running from a dog when I'm supposed to be doing an inspection and, stuff like this. So, they get pretty ridiculous. What it does is we've already gotten feedback from some clients that signed up because they saw some of these videos because they say it shows our personality, which is true. And it shows that we are real humans, which is true. We're real humans. And it shows that we understand the industry. Like, you can't make funny memes and humor and stuff related to property management unless you kind of understand it, right? And so it showcases a level of expertise just in that we understand it well enough to make some jokes about it.
[00:04:27] And so I recommend that you be sure or remember to add a little humor into your sales process. Add a little bit of humor into your interactions. Be willing to laugh and joke about yourself. Shows a lot of vulnerability and confidence to showcase that you don't always have to look perfect. If you're always trying to maintain this look of perfection cause you think that's going to make people feel safe. It actually does the opposite. There's no real secrets or hiding. People know if you're trying to create this perception that everything's amazing in your business when it's not. And so you can say, "look we're not always perfect. We don't get it right all the time, but we care and we will make sure that we make it right." That's the kind of conversation you need to have because then they're going to go, "I can trust a business like that more than the businesses "Well, we maintain a high level quality service and we blah, blah" and use a lot of business speak and try and look perfect all the time. They're going to go, "Hmm, I don't know this doesn't seem real to me. I don't know if we can really trust these people." Because it's not always about what you say. They can read body language. Some people are really intuitive. I think especially women, they're very intuitive about body language. They can pick up on things that you're not being honest on.
[00:05:41] I don't know. Anything else you wanted to add to that?
[00:05:44] Sarah: Oh now that I've been completely put on the spot, so I guess my take on that is I think just showing that you are human is really powerful. I think especially for me and other perfectionists out there, we want to present like this tidy, clean, perfect package, right? We're like, "oh, I do everything perfect, and I'm so wonderful all the time. And like, I never make mistakes. Some of it may be posturing for people, some of it may also just be like, you're afraid to fail. You're afraid to make a mistake. And I think, I had lived in this space for a very long time where I was scared to make a mistake because of the consequences. Right.
[00:06:24] Here's a perfect example. If you misjudge a tenant, right? And now you put the wrong tenant in, because some people look really great on paper. Yeah. And everything seems wonderful and you've met with them and you can just kind of, judge to the best of your ability. Like, "Hey, I think they would be a great fit." And then you move them in and then it's like, It switches and you go, "oh, wow, I was way off on that and I clearly misjudged" and things like that.
[00:06:52] Sometimes it's unavoidable but I think just being able to say, "Hey, like I've done this, and then what did I learn from it?" Because you're going to make mistakes no matter what. Like, none of us are perfect. Some of us are really good at trying to be perfect all of the time, but even the best, smartest, fastest learning companies and people, they still make mistakes. And I think the thing about that is that you need to just realize, first of all, that it's okay to make mistakes because it happens to everyone. And it's okay also to ask people for grace. And I think that if you do ask, especially with clients or tenants or whatever it is, like, "hey, just understand, we're not perfect all of the time. We will try to make it right because occasionally we do mess up like we are human and we are humans that rely on technology. And technology is not perfect either." Right? So like when you automate things and you're like, "oh, this was supposed to happen and it didn't happen because something in the process broke somewhere." Yeah. Like it happens. But just asking for grace, realizing that you will make mistakes and that it's okay, and then the biggest thing you can do honestly, is just what did you learn from that? So things are going to break, things are going to go wrong. Somebody on your team or yourself, or a process or a software or something at some point... it's not going to work the way that you intended and things break down and mistakes will happen.
[00:08:25] And then when that happens, then all you can really do is like, you have to pivot. You have to be able to figure out what are you going to do to like, correct that as quickly and as neatly, I'd say as possible without a lot of blow back. But then what did you learn from the experience? Because if you don't learn anything from that and you don't say, "Hey, Maybe we can look at this in a different way. What can we do? Is there some sort of check and balance that we can put in place? Like how do we make sure that doesn't continue to happen, then it doesn't happen again? What did we learn from this experience? And if you don't do that, then the whole point I think is learning. And if you don't do that, then you're like you're missing out.
[00:09:05] Jason: Okay. So related to making mistakes and showcasing humor I didn't mention this, but what do we have at the end of each of our videos?
[00:09:15] Sarah: Oh, we have all the bloopers and I think the bloopers are so funny. I love them, but we, I mean, we all make mistakes, right? Yeah. Like, sometimes you forget, especially when you're like we've been recording these videos and. You forget your lines sometimes, or like, yeah, Jason in the last one, he's like, "oh, the camera has been rolling the whole time. I'm like, "UGH!" It's been just recording me, like moving things in the kitchen and like I'm standing there waiting for him to hit the record button. He's like, "oh, it's already recording." So I think if you can laugh at yourself, don't take yourself too seriously. And that for me has been huge because I am an INTJ. I am a perfectionist. I am the like, I need things to be the right way all the time and I don't have very much grace with myself and I don't have very much grace with other people. And that's something that I've been really working on I'd say over the last year or so is it can't always be perfect as much as I would love it to be, it's not realistic. It's not realistic to have a 100% success rate 100% of the time in 100% of the things that you do.
[00:10:24] Jason: Yeah. It's good stuff. It's been proven that when you tease other people or joke with other people, It assumes rapport. Is that right? You can't like tease somebody that you don't have a good relationship with because they'll just not like you, and it seems really harsh, but, we can tease each other a bit, which we do. But it's an intimate form of communication and that's a form of joking. So you can add some humor into your conversations. Lightly, maybe teasing or something that potential client, "oh what You must really be a glutton for punishment, you know that you are doing all this property management stuff," you could say to them, and I know because I do a lot of it, or something like that. But you can make jokes and that assumes rapport and actually creates rapport with people. It creates the perception of that being willing to joke and play around.
[00:11:13] Sarah: So, It's funny that you say that. I actually do that on my sales calls and I didn't even realize I did that until you just said it, so I'll do that, like when I'm talking with them and I'm, especially when they're self-managing or when they have somebody else managing, which is like 99% of the conversations we have, but yeah. Right. Like. I always ask like, "and how has that been going?" And it doesn't matter either if they already have a manager and they're looking for another one, it obviously isn't going well. If they're self-managing, it definitely isn't going well. Yeah, I don't really need a lot of information when they're self-managing. I already know they're in pain and I know they're probably not enjoying what they're doing. Very few people are like, I love all of this stuff. And that was the last video that we just did. But. I kind of will, as soon as they say something that really is like their pain point, right?
[00:12:02] They're like, "oh yeah, like the, the tenants call me all the time, or, like, this tenant is late every single month. And like it's been going on too long and now they're behind three months and now I feel like I need to either get them to pay or evict them. And that's like painful for me. I don't want to be the bad guy or I don't know how to handle this legally. Like if I have to evict them, like I'm at that stage now and I have to evict them, but I don't know what I'm doing," and they don't say it exactly like that. But that's the, that's like the read between the lines message that you're getting. I'll kind of joke with them at that point. And they'll say, "oh yeah, sometimes like, tenants suck." And I just laugh and I'm like, "yeah, sometimes you're right. Sometimes tenants suck." And I know that is painful because we too have seen that and we too have dealt with that. And that's exactly why we have systems and processes in place. And sometimes it's not even that the tenant sucks, sometimes it's the tenant is amazing and then something changes in their life and now they suck. So, and that happens, right? It's called life. Like people lose their jobs, they lose their spouses relationships end. Hardships... they're just part of life. And sometimes that carries over into how they behave as a tenant. But I will, I'll kind of laugh like on the call and they'll say, "oh the building is completely vacant now because we had all these tenants in it and they didn't pay, so we got them all out." and I'm like, okay. So it's like all, it's all vacant. Yeah. And I'm like, "and I bet that's fun for you, right?" Like, and they're like, "oh yeah. It's like, it's horrible." But I didn't notice that I really did that until just now.
[00:13:32] Jason: I think women do a lot of things intuitively. And I think there's a lot of things that people pick up when you do sales enough. Like you start to intuitively pick up things that work, especially once you're really comfortable doing it. So I think one of the things that I've noticed is that humor really is a sign of intelligence. The more intelligent somebody is, the more they can think on their feet and be witty and create jokes and add humor into the conversation. So I've always viewed humor as a sign of intelligence, and I've always viewed people having a sense of humor as a sign of, maybe intelligence or being more of a light in humanity. People that have no sense of humor, they're not willing to take jokes, they're not willing to joke. They're not super fun people to be around. And I think it shows us that when somebody knows the fine line of whether it's funny to somebody else or not, shows that you have that emotional quotient, you have that EQ intelligence and there's some emotional intelligence. And I think if you're able to be witty, it shows that iq, like you're able to piece ideas together and do something unexpected which is what humor's kind of based on. And people will see, okay, there's some intelligence behind this person. So, and I think that circles back to us making the videos, us being able to formulate an idea, know that we show that we know the industry. There's intelligence that goes into us putting together our scripts and what we're going to do in our videos and making it funny. And comedians I think are some of the most intelligent people out there. I love the observational humor. I love when they can see truth and things that don't make sense and it's ironic. So comedians really are able to showcase a high level of intelligence. They're able to piece things together and do things that people can't see coming.
[00:15:16] And that's why punchlines are so funny. They're unexpected. Our brains get excited about that because it's different. It's unique and it's something we hadn't expected or heard of. And that's where humor becomes so funny to us and exciting because we didn't expect it. And it takes intelligence to be able to catch people off guard like that. So add a little bit of humor into your day and your day's just going to be a little bit more fun if you're laughing at some stuff and laughing with some people and laughing with people creates connection as well. Like if they laugh and you're laughing and like you, you can make jokes together. There's some bonding, I think that happens and really that creates more trust with clients. So, Anything else we should add?
[00:15:56] Sarah: Yeah I don't know what you started out with, but I feel good about that.
[00:16:00] Jason: Okay, cool. I'm glad you came and joined me.
[00:16:03] Sarah: That was a mistake. Wasn't planning on being on the podcast.
[00:16:07] Jason: She just walks into my office. Making noise. She could see I'm on the video.
[00:16:10] Sarah: I couldn't see you were on the video. No. His desk is against the wall and I can hear him. And he does a lot of voice message, so I always just assume he's either on a call or some sort of voice message on telegram.
[00:16:21] Jason: All right. If any of you are struggling with growing your business, you're having trouble figuring out how to scale your operations, you're having difficulty with your team. We have rolled out what we call the DoorGrow Super System. It's the system of systems we put together the ultimate sort of package of operational stuff, planning stuff process stuff, hiring stuff, and we brought in expert coaches to facilitate all of this as well, because you know it's not the Jason show at DoorGrow anymore. We've got experts like Sarah and Clint Collins and Phil Mazer and Roya Mattis and Stacy Pittman, and like we've got the Avengers team of coaches, so if you really want to take your business to the next level and you want to grow faster and be less frustrated with your team, be able to have more jokes and have more fun and stop wearing all the hats you don't really enjoy wearing because you're the one screwing up your own business if you're wearing the hats you don't enjoy wearing and start just getting those all offloaded, we're really good at that.
[00:17:23] Like we can turn your business into something you love being in and you enjoy being in each day, and it will actually run better without you doing all that stuff. And so we can help you get to that next level, especially if you're 200 doors or higher. This is where all of this becomes really magical. And if you're below 200 doors and you're struggling to break even that a hundred door barrier, we can help you do that very easily. Adding doors is super easy. We can help you do it without spending any money on advertising. I know this sounds crazy, but we can actually help you grow faster without doing ads. And ads are expensive. And so if this is interesting to you and you're curious on our guerilla marketing strategies and how we can help you grow your business and get more leads, and get more doors and get better operations, reach out to DoorGrow and learn about our Mastermind. It's pretty awesome. And that's it. Check us out doorgrow.com and until next time, to our mutual growth. Bye everyone.
[00:18:21] 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!
[00:18:48] 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.
One of the most complicated parts to navigate when you own a property management company is the different types of insurance and risk management you have to know and have.
Property management growth expert, Jason Hull brought on Calvin Roberts of Falcon Insurance to discuss everything you should know about insurance and risk management as a property manager.
You’ll Learn…
[01:26] Introduction to Calvin and Falcon Insurance
[05:46] Risk Management and Property Management
[13:24] Holistic Risk Management Strategies
[17:57] The Types of Insurance Coverage
[25:25] Insurance Best Practices and Tips
[29:56] Tenant Legal Liability
Tweetables
“It's the true risk management angle that I find to be sort of like chess. That's why I think it's interesting because one move counters another.”
“It’s just making your rights known in the lease agreement that will hopefully alleviate the vast majority of instances like this before it could ever find its way to a courtroom.”
“If you don't feel like you're progressing or moving forward in your business, you just might not have a big enough goal. So set your stake a little bit bigger, a little bit higher.”
“I think cyber's a great idea for everyone. I carry cyber liability insurance on my own insurance policy for Falcon. It's fairly cheap, and it does add a lot of value.”
Resources
[00:00:00] [00:00:00] Calvin: If you haven't gone through all of the building limits with your insurance broker over the last three years, and really over the last year, maybe two years, it's probably significantly underinsured. I read the statistic recently that over 75% of buildings-- commercial investment real estate-- are underinsured by 40% or more
[00:00:25] Jason Hull: 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. 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.
[00:01:26] So my guest today who I'm hanging out with is Calvin Roberts of Falcon Insurance Agency.
[00:01:34] So Calvin, welcome to the show.
[00:01:37] Calvin: Awesome. Thank you once again for having me today. I appreciate the opportunity to speak with you and super excited.
[00:01:44] Jason Hull: Yeah, glad to have you. So, Calvin, give people a little bit of backstory on you. How did you get into insurance and how did you get into business in general and then we can chat more about insurance.
[00:02:01] Calvin: So I started off in retail property and casualty insurance. Very young. I was 19 years old. I knew I wanted to take immediate action to, you know, more or less accomplish the goals I had set out on achieving. And I had some family members who had a very successful career for themself with insurance. They weren't on the retail, sales insurance agency side of it. They were more working for the company directly, but I saw the effectiveness of insurance as a growth vehicle for, you know, achieving good, stable personal income and overall just view that as a very, a very fulfilling field if you're one of the few people that find risk management genuinely fascinating. So I began an Allstate office in Mid, Michigan in 2016. I was there for about two years and quickly realized I needed to go independent. I didn't like being locked down for just one company. So in 2018, after I, you know, got my feet wet and did a couple years there. I branched off and worked at indie agency and I was at that office for about two years further, and also quickly realized I needed to own my book of business, my contractual relationship with my clients. That's where, you know, the real scalability and effectiveness and retail insurance as being a personal financial driver came into play. So I split off right as Covid was kicking off April, 2020. I figured if there's any time to bite the bullet, restart from zero and you know, take it from the ground up once more, april, 2020 was not the worst time to go out for it, you know.
[00:03:53] So I, you know, split off then worked 1099. I had a friend that had started a insurance agency at their own couple months before and was like, "Hey, Cal, why don't you come work for me?" And I said, sure, but I am going to eventually leave to form my own agency. So I pre-negotiated contractual ownership of my clients. That was something that was very important to me and worked under him to more or less build the foundation for eventually splitting off and forming Falcon. You know, it's kind of a chicken-egg scenario with retail insurance where you want insurance companies on day one to work with you when you form an agency, but it's hard to get them to work with you unless you have some type of existing clients and premium volume that you can bring to the table on day one.
[00:04:47] Yeah. So during that period I worked to, you know, set my pieces up and build a impressive enough book of business to where I could attract insurance companies on my own. And then last January I left my friend's agency and formed Falcon. We're a national boutique commercial insurance brokerage. We are very forward thinking, licensed nationally, and we don't ever really lose on price, but where we really sell on is having a unique, holistic risk management, value add strategy for our multi-family operators. We bring $0 best practices, you know, tips and tricks to the table that many of our competitors just don't take the time to share with the operator. And that's really how we differentiate ourself is taking a bold, big picture approach to managing risk for a multi-family operation.
[00:05:46] Jason Hull: Okay. So what about you makes you interested in risk management? This is not something that most people wake up and go, "man, I want to learn about that today." Right?
[00:05:55] Calvin: So I know, you know, every little kid growing up wakes up in the morning and thinks, "I want to be a insurance broker when I grow up."
[00:06:03] Jason Hull: It's right up there with like firemen and working with animals like veterinarian.
[00:06:08] Calvin: I am one of those few insurance geeks that finds it legitimately fascinating. You know, it's not very hard to write an insurance policy. Most people can probably do it for their home and auto, online, and realistically even most small businesses. Most people can probably put that together for themselves. It's the true risk management angle that I find to be sort of like chess. That's why I think it's interesting because one move counters another, and it's all about just proactively working a flank, whoever might be seeking to cause financial harm to your organization. So I'll give an example. Most insurance policies exclude care, custody, and control liability. So that's liability arising from your guardianship of property. So where that would come into play on a multi-family operation would be the vehicles kept in the parking lot of one of your buildings or complexes.
[00:07:08] Let's say you have a resident, maybe they let their insurance policy lapse, you know, they forgot to pay it and it got canceled and maybe they had a brand new 2023 lease vehicle. You know, they pick up a new Ford truck. It gets stolen or maybe a tree branch falls on it. The bank is hounding them like, "Hey, why didn't you have insurance?" They're thinking to themselves, "I need to do something to get them made whole so I don't get sued" and you know, maybe, you know, "I have to get to work. How do I do that without a vehicle?" Type of thing. They're quite likely to attempt to sue the multi-family operator and or property management company due to this. So something that I recommend all of my clients implement into their tenant lease agreement is a stipulation that they are expressly not liable for care custody control of tenant vehicles parked on the premises. You know, it costs the operator nothing to add a one-paragraph section for their tenant lease agreement and the effectiveness of this, should it go to court, kind of varies on a state-by-state basis.
[00:08:23] You know, depending on how the courts have interpreted this and your jurisdiction. But simply by having something like this in your tenant lease agreement, it talks a big game and it's pretty likely to, you know, hopefully dissuade 95% of people from even attempting to litigate. So it's that element of, I don't want to say bluffing, but just making your rights known in the lease agreement that will hopefully alleviate the vast majority of instances like this before it could ever find its way to a courtroom. Because you know the first thing that would happen. Should a loss like that occur is the resident would talk to their personal attorney and they're going to immediately ask for a copy of that tenant lease agreement.
[00:09:14] Right. You know, they see a section like that and maybe they, you know, advise to maybe not attempt to litigate. They just aren't sure if that might play out in the courts favorably for them and say it's just not worth it.
[00:09:29] Jason Hull: Yeah. 'An Ounce of Prevention Is Worth a Pound of Cure'. Right, exactly. So, I mean, they could get a really great lawyer, you know, to try and protect themselves. But you know, having a really good lease agreement in making sure that you have some of those things in place to protect you from potential issues surrounding insurance. Yeah. Sounds wise. So, yeah. Very cool. So, and you geek out on. This is fun for you.
[00:09:56] Calvin: I think it's legitimately interesting to think about. I'm one of the few people that gets kicks out of it.
[00:10:03] Jason Hull: Which is cool. I mean, if you are going to be handling this stuff for your clients, hopefully you do enjoy it. Right. Thank you for sharing kind of your journey. What's fascinating to me is that every single step that you had mentioned most insurance agents or people that kind of progress through that would probably drop off that first level. Maybe the second level. They just get stuck. They're comfortable. So what is it about you that drove you to, in such a short time period, like get to the point where you are innovating, making changes to starting your own business?
[00:10:38] Calvin: Really a few things. I've always wanted to be in the agency principal. That's where it enables me to have the freedom to do the things I like to do. Yeah. You know, I don't just want to pick up access to five insurance companies and then try to write as much business as I'm able to that agrees with the appetite of those five insurance companies. I target segments, you know, industries that I find fun to work with, interesting to work on.
[00:11:08] Overall fulfilling to be involved with, and I want to be as effective as possible constantly when going after and targeting those segments. So when you're working for someone else, I mean, they can have great access to insurance companies or it could be not as great and fairly lacking. More often than not, it is fairly lacking. I found most of the agencies I had been with previously, they had done, like you said, they got comfortable and kind of stopped trying to push the needle, so to speak. And, you know, that's fine. They were making, you know, excellent income for themselves and their family and it was working very well for them. But it just comes down to, I don't like to lose when I'm going after something. Yeah. So I might. Be humbled the first 1, 2, 5, 10 times I go after a new segment, but eventually I will start winning and I want to have access to the insurance companies. I know we'll win. I want to be active in the states where I would like to chase business, target accounts. Yeah, so it's about having the freedom on my end to accomplish my goal.
[00:12:23] Jason Hull: So, I mean that plays into stuff I've talked about on the show previously. I mean, you're an entrepreneur at heart. Like now entrepreneurs, they want more freedom and they want more fulfillment and you know, than the average person when most people want safety and certainty, which is good for insurance agents, right? So you had an outcome that in your mind you were like, I want to be agency principal. Like you knew what you wanted. And so this is take note, everybody listen. Because most of you're business owners, if you don't feel like you're progressing or moving forward in your business, you just might not have a big enough goal. So set your stake a little bit bigger, a little bit higher. Like what do you really want? It probably isn't, probably not satisfied or comfortable with what you have, but maybe you're not clear the outcome that you want. So, so, now a lot of our listeners do residential and a lot of them, some have multi-family. Some have single-family properties they're managing. What did you want to come share with us today and chat about?
[00:13:25] Calvin: So, I would love to talk about holistic risk management strategies. You know, things like my contractual risk transfer agreements that I think are advisable for all investment real estate operators, multi-family, and one the four family residential. Okay. Yeah. It doesn't cost anything besides maybe a consultation with your attorney, and it adds a lot of value that is not a recurring cost. It's a one time, you know, check to your attorney. Time and effort. So give an example. Let's say you're hiring a contractor, maybe an arborist to come trim the branches off of the tree on one of your properties. You'll want them to provide you a certificate of insurance that names your organization as additional insured. And you want that because if, let's say maybe when they're cutting down a tree branch and it falls and takes out the roof of a neighboring property, I mean, that's terribly plausible to happen.
[00:14:28] You would rather that not be a claim on your insurance policy. You want that to fall on the arborist policy you know? We're in a what's called hard market, which basically means, for lack of a better word, it's a seller's market with an insurance currently. It's being driven by interest rate changes, inflation, and several other factors coming in to play. We don't want that claim to be tied to us that. You know, be passed off to the responsible party, the contractor that we hired. So by asking for that certificate, it makes it less of a challenge to get their insurance to respond should that type of loss occur. And on top of that, I like to see in the insurance requirement section of our, you know, contractor agreement for employing them on a 1099, that we have a primary non-contributory clause. We want a hold harmless agreement, and we would like a waiver of subrogation. We do that for a few reasons. We don't want to, you know, take the step of getting the contractor's insurance and having it name us as additional insured only for their insurance company to say, "oh, well, you know, we think that you are partially negligent somehow. You know, maybe you should have had the tree branch trimmed a year ago, or five years ago, and you let it grow too long." We don't want them to get into a more or less a battle with us and our insurance company on how much of the loss they're responsible for. We want them to take immediate responsibility and not attempt to, you know, wipe their hands of it, so to speak.
[00:16:14] We also don't want the other insurance company to pay the claim, you know, settle the lawsuit only to attempt to come back and subrogate that loss from us, you know, the property owner or property management company. So that's where that waiver of subrogation would come into play. That would be where they attempt to be made whole by, you know, attempting to recover from a third party, so sue us, for lack of a better word. You know, maybe they might say, oh, well, you know, you were negligent because you had the duty to trim this tree branch when it got over, you know, 14 feet long, or just whatever argument they choose to try to put together. And then we're back at square one. We're being sued.
[00:17:04] It's a claim. Our insurance policy we don't. So we ask for this as a requirement in our contractor employment agreement. It's fairly boiler plate. I mean, if you look at the insurance requirements on subcontractors coming from general contractors, you know, residential and commercial developers and builders, these requirements are usually found in what they're going to look for in their subcontractors, but I do commonly see it missing within property management companies. Despite property management companies being, you know, kind pseudo contracting type operations. It's kind of like that hybrid between like the clerical office job and the on the job site, you know, residential builder type role.
[00:17:53] Jason Hull: Yeah, a lot of them kind of function as a general contractor to a bunch of contractors. So what what are the types of insurance coverage? Let's go to the basis, what are the types of insurance coverage typically required for a residential property management company?
[00:18:08] Calvin: The residential property management company, you will want a general liability policy that would respond in the event that we cause bodily injury or property damage for which the company is liable. You want professional liability insurance. That's in case there is ever a professional boo boo, so to speak that comes up. I had a pretty nasty law scenario I won't get into too much detail on over the summer last year, which thankfully has not turned into a lawsuit. Let's kind of crossing my fingers and, you know, a little nervous for the insured on this one. I work with their third party property owners, but the property management company is not itself a client yet. But the story on this is that someone was, you know, injured, let's say in the apartment building via violent action from someone that may or may not have been a tenant. I'm not sure exactly on the circumstances. And the exterior facing door on this newer acquisition property had been purchased, you know, about four months before the loss event happened. That door had not been re-keyed by the property management company. So if a old tenant from five years ago still had their old key to get into the laundry room, they could, it was still the old locks.
[00:19:29] The property manager was unaware that there was a door entering into the basement area that was accessible from the outside. So they just never thought to rekey it, you know, happens. There was a bad event in the property and if that were to ever make its way to court, the property management company would almost certainly get tied up into that. And to be honest it's kind of unclear if that might fall onto a professional liability or a general liability form. It's kind of gray because it's technically a bodily injury that occurred. It was bodily injury due to more of a lack of professional action than, you know-- it's not like they would hit someone with their car kind of thing.
[00:20:13] So we would probably file claims on both policies and just kinda let the insurance companies fight it out on who's responsible to hear from there. So that would. A pretty good instance of where professional liability might come in into play. Okay. I also think that cyber liability insurance is a good idea. So cyber would come into play if, you know, let's say one of our accountants, you know, maybe we have two or three staff accountants on board. They download a file and maybe it has a virus and their computer gets hacked. And as a result, the personal banking information for 1500 residents that we have on file might have been stolen by a nefarious third party actor. We would become liable for what happens with that data, and that's where cyber would come into play.
[00:21:04] Jason Hull: Yeah, there was a one of the major property management software that our clients use, one of our clients were telling us was hacked, So, yeah, so now they're having to deal with that mess.
[00:21:14] Calvin: It happens a lot within the small business and the lower mid-market, you know, operation world. In recent years, I would say the biggest segment that really needs to put emphasis on protecting themselves is that middle market operation. Because if you're a nefarious third party actor, and maybe you're doing ransomware attacks where you hack into their system, lock down all of the data and say, send us $500,000 worth of Bitcoin to this address, or we're going to delete everything in three days. Yeah, I mean, it happens fairly often and they're not going to go after that real small operation. It'll be a operation. It's big enough to have financial resources where they can whip out a half mill if they need to keep their business alive more or less. But they're also not big enough to where, you know, they're that Fortune 1000 who has a, not only a risk management team, but they also have the, you know, cyber risk management team and the IT team, and they're able to much more effectively defend against that. So they target the businesses that are in between those two stages because they have the resources to pay out in a, you know, cyber extortion scenario. But they also do not yet have the resources to where they can adequately defend proactively against it. I think cyber's a great idea for everyone. I carry cyber liability insurance on my own insurance policy for Falcon. It's fairly cheap, and it does add a lot of value.
[00:22:54] Jason Hull: Yeah, I mean it's interesting. Most small businesses are one bad password on their team, away from affecting all of their clients in having to e crow in front of all of them. And you also have no idea how the companies you're using and most property managers are using a lot of different software tools including the one that has all the accounting stuff going on, you know, their property management software, back office and they have a whole team of people that one person can screw it up for everybody. So yeah. So we've got general liability, professional liability, cyber liability. What else?
[00:23:34] Calvin: You probably want worker's comp, you know, if it's just yourself, you can get away with not having it. But if you have any staff on board, even if they're a 1099 employment relationship, you will want the worker's compensation. And I say the 1099 rule, because that's a common question I get asked. You know, "I don't have any W2 employees. Do I need worker's comp?" The answer is yes, unless the third party, you know, 1099 employee that you're hiring provides you a certificate of workers' compensation insurance. If they do that and you do not have any other W2, then no, that is not a hard requirement. You can use your discretion on that. But if you are hiring, you know, even 1099, you need the worker's compensation insurance. It's fairly inexpensive, all things considered, and most states, because it does kind of vary by locality, it's a requirement and can create a whole host of hurt for not having it. It's one of those things where I am terrified, you know, maybe not doing something that the government loves, so to speak, and that's up there with things that ticks them off, you know?
[00:24:54] Jason Hull: Yeah. So another one that I hear about in the industry a lot is errors and omissions. Can you touch on that one or explain that one?
[00:25:02] Calvin: So the errors and emissions is that professional liability element.
[00:25:06] Jason Hull: Okay.
[00:25:07] Calvin: So they have kind of synonym names for that line of insurance.
[00:25:12] Jason Hull: Okay. Okay, cool. Yeah. So, perfect. Okay. because I hear like all the time they're saying, getting E and O you need E and O stuff like that. So that's kind of what they're calling professional liability. So how can property managers better protect their owners through these insurance products?
[00:25:32] Calvin: Occasionally, the building owning entity itself may be tied up in a loss due to, you know, perhaps alleged property management negligence. So I'll give an example. Let's say, the property management company is assigned to hiring out snow and lawn maintenance services, you know, someone to come out and, you know, remove snow from the parking lot on a small apartment complex or a three-family rental property. And maybe they select a contractor who, they're nice and they're cheap, but they aren't super consistent or dependable. So sometimes when it snows, they just don't come by and snow and ice accumulates in the parking lot and perhaps a resident slips and falls on the way to their vehicle one day and they're seriously injured. It's one of those things where if the tenant sues, which they probably will, they're going to sue the property management company and they're going to sue the building company.
[00:26:34] We would want, if we're going in the direction of, you know, looking out for our property owners and having that be kind of our unique selling proposition, we wouldn't want their insurance to respond because they hire us to take care of those things essentially. That was our boo boo one could say. That's where having our own general liability insurance would come into play, that coverage would trigger, and you know, it's kind of the inverse of how I usually see this play out, because it's generally the building owner's policy that would respond and then they would have the property management company as an additional insured. But I mean, if our branding and selling point is that we, you know, put a special emphasis on always doing right by the owner and just not allowing situations like that to occur, that's where we would want our insurance policy to respond primary.
[00:27:31] Jason Hull: So, I would imagine with covid happening and all the stuff that's gone on recently in the increase in government control that's constantly happening, if somebody hasn't taken a look at their insurance, maybe in the last five years, what are some recent changes or things they should be paying attention to or they should be talking to somebody like you about?
[00:27:54] Calvin: The first thing that I look for when reviewing a new policy for a new client, kind of getting eyes on the existing arrangement of coverage, just to make sure that everything is done correctly before I try to compete on price against that is to look at the building limit. If you haven't gone through all of the building limits with your insurance broker over the last three years, and really over the last year, maybe two years, it's probably significantly underinsured. I read the statistic recently that over 75% of buildings commercial investment real estate are underinsured by 40% or more, and the reason why that is not good isn't just that in a claim scenario that burns to the ground, we're only going to get a check for 60% of what it might cost to rebuild. because we're thinking, hey, the home's only worth 30% of what it might cost to rebuild. It's not a bad deal still. It's that the overwhelming majority of insurance policies, commercial property policies have what's called a co-insurance clause. And coinsurance is where the insurance company wants you to have sufficient skin in the game. So you can insure a property for 80% of what it might actually cost to rebuild.
[00:29:14] So that million dollar to rebuild building, you can have a policy on it for 800,000 and that would be fine if you will like to carry 400,000. You know, maybe the market value of the property, that would not be acceptable and they would divide the amount of insurance that we have, 400,000 for this example, by the minimum amount of coverage that we should have had, 800,000.
[00:29:39] That leaves us with a 0.5 gut insurance penalty multiplier. So on a $200,000 fire, they're going to subtract 50% and your deductible. So you get posed on that and are paying most of the loss out of pocket.
[00:29:55] Jason Hull: So are there any other unique or unusual coverage options that are related specifically to residential property management?
[00:30:06] Calvin: I've been putting a great deal of emphasis on the tenant legal liability product over the last two years. It started popping up pretty actively around three or four years ago. I mean, there are some operations that have been doing this for a decade. It became fairly popular around 2020- 21. And what the tenant legal liability insurance does is it provides a mechanism, one for monetizing the insurance vertical for the operator, and two, it enables the property owner to shield themselves from having small, you know, tenant negligence type losses pile up on their own insurance policy and therefore claims history. The most common cause of loss I see on residential investment real estate is you have a tenant come home one night. Maybe they just worked 11 hours and you know, tired after a long, busy day and they maybe get home, crack open a beer or two, start cooking something, throw a pizza in the oven. Going lay downs on the couch for 20 minutes. Well, that's cooking. Watch some tv, and then they fall asleep and it causes a $75,000 kitchen fire. It happens all the time. It's a high frequency, low to medium intensity type loss, or like we had in the upper Midwest over the holidays, maybe they are going out of town for the holiday. And they're thinking to themselves, I'm going to turn my heat off during that time. It'll save me $20 in electricity. Right? So they turn the heat off and they come back four or five days later and the walls have exploded. You know, the pipes have burst and $90,000 worth of damage has happened because about we don't want that type of loss to be associated with our property policy.
[00:32:07] We're probably going to get nonrenewed, and it's going to negatively impact our pricing and cost for several years. It just is a bad scenario to be in. That's what destroys the loss experience for investment residential real estate is that high frequency, low to medium severity type tenant negligence cause of loss. So what you do is you write into your lease, the tenant must provide a certificate of acceptable third party renter's insurance. You know, State Farm, Allstate, Farmers, kind of whoever. And if they fail to do so, or if they let coverage lapse, you know, they stop paying for it, we as management reserve the right to place that coverage or a comparable coverage at their cost and for both of our benefit, more or less. And the reason why you do that is we want there to be that coverage in place. You know, I had just over the holidays, like probably five loss occurrences that would've otherwise gone on the property policy that were able to be pushed off onto this tenant legal liability master policy. So it kept their property policy clean. You know, we didn't have to file a claim against any of my insureds because of it.
[00:33:27] Jason Hull: It's like having insurance to protect your insurance.
[00:33:30] Calvin: Correct. It's unbelievable that property insurance has become this level of convoluted, but it's the game that we're playing and what we have in front of us. This is one of the most effective tools and toolbox.
[00:33:44] Jason Hull: So it's about having layers of protection.
[00:33:47] Calvin: Exactly. Got it. It doesn't cost us anything. We pass the cost off onto the tenant. And then what we do is we add maybe $3-7 per door per month on top of what we might pay to the insurance provider. So maybe we pay nine, we charge the tenant 16 and pocket that $7 spread as an administrative fee.
[00:34:11] And that's a, but you might see this on P 12 s occasionally when you're underwriting a property on market or otherwise looking. Investment real estate is, you'll see insurance listed under the profit side of the equation. That's where this is coming into play.
[00:34:28] Jason Hull: Okay. So it can be a profit center.
[00:34:30] Calvin: Exactly.
[00:34:31] Jason Hull: Got it. Okay. So, how often should a property management business owner be assessing their insurance?
[00:34:41] Calvin: Once a year. I would think about it very actively as you come up to renewal and then, you know, depending on what best practice implementations we're hoping to, you know, add to what we're doing over that next year, it's good to think about the key points frequently, but we should put special emphasis on it once a year as you come up to renewal. You know, just kind of see. What, if any improvements might be recommendable and how the market has shifted over that last year, but you don't need to think about it every second of every day, but it is good to have it in the back of your head often because it kind of forces that extra level of diligence to being front and center.
[00:35:32] Jason Hull: They just need somebody like you to think about it every day.
[00:35:35] Calvin: Exactly.
[00:35:36] Jason Hull: So I think a question that every business owner has is, "how do I balance the getting the best deal on insurance versus doing too much, get enough coverage, not spend an arm and a leg..." like, you know, in finding this balance and then trusting an insurance agent to do what's in my interest instead of just their interests?
[00:35:58] Calvin: So I'm a big believer in transparency with my clients. So something that we always provide with every account, new and old, is a market report. So let's say I, you know, I go to 11 different insurance companies for a new property that you're looking at. I provide a breakdown of where each company is coming in at with their pricing, with comparable coverages between them. You know, we can't set the pricing on the retail side. We're just kind of at times the middlemen of bad news, so to speak.
[00:36:32] Jason Hull: The messenger.
[00:36:33] Calvin: Exactly.
[00:36:34] Jason Hull: But don't kill the messenger.
[00:36:35] Calvin: By having that market report, it demonstrates that we're bringing our due diligence to the table and not just going to one company and saying, here you go. Here's our price. This is what we can do. I think that's, just a low-effort, less ambitious approach. I mean, sure you can move a lot faster by hitting one company, but you can deliver the best results by going to every company that makes sense to approach. And letting them fight it out. Maybe company one is hotter than company two and a given zip code, but that competitiveness flip flops, depending on just the details of the case that you're working on.
[00:37:21] So by approaching every insurance company where it makes sense to approach them, it's within their appetite, you let them fight it out and you see where the cards land. You know, sometimes the price comes in a lot lower than we were expecting to see. Other times, it's not within the range that we were hoping it would be, but by hitting every company possible and then showing your cards as to where they land, you know, that's really all we can do. And it demonstrates that we put, you know, our due diligence into marketing the account.
[00:37:55] Jason Hull: Yeah. So you said that what a lot of insurance agents might do might be low effort or less ambitious. And so I think this is important to point out, this ties it back to the beginning, and this will be maybe good, you know, wrap up for us, but I think, you know, property management business owners listening to the show, my recommendation is you want to leverage and use vendors and use people as a support system in your business that are not low effort and less ambitious people that are running their businesses. There's a lot of accountants and insurance agents and people that really, they're basically like an employee with clients in their own mind. And then there's accountants like, you know, my Profit First Coach, an accountant and others that we leverage in our business. They think like entrepreneurs. They are always trained to improve themselves and improve their business, and they see things through a similar lens. So I can trust their advice and I can trust that they're wanting to that, that they know how an entrepreneur thinks and they're kind of eating their own dog food as an entrepreneur, and these are very different. Not all accountants are entrepreneurial, even though they have their own business. Not all insurance agents are entrepreneurial, even though they might have their own business. They're like just some State Farm agent that has their thing and they're set.
[00:39:20] Right. So, so I think that's important to point out. I recommend that you find vendors and people to work with that see things through the lens of entrepreneurism because it's a very different lens. There's a very strong different focus that they prioritize fulfillment and freedom instead of just the safety and certainty. They understand that aspect. And in your line of work, you need to pay attention to safety and certainty, but you're somebody that I'm sure can understand the goal that these entrepreneurs have of having more freedom and more fulfillment. And to you, I would imagine safety and certainty and providing insurance is a way of helping them create more of that.
[00:40:02] Calvin: Exactly.
[00:40:03] Jason Hull: And that's different than a lot of insurance people.
[00:40:07] Calvin: Yeah. I mean, I've definitely met some very ambitious colleagues within the field, but it's one of those things where it's not really that difficult in terms of chance of success or failure to make a very healthy living for yourself and for your family working in retail insurance, I mean, if you are in the gig for 10 years and you're writing even a modest amount of business, 2, 3, 4, $500,000 quite easily. So it, I see how that can more or less, I view it be as a trap because you become quite comfortable and stop trying to push the needle.
[00:40:50] Yeah.
[00:40:51] Jason Hull: Comfort kills sometimes. Yeah. Yeah. And you know, that's the case I think for all of us as business owners, we can get comfortable sometimes, and if we're not willing to get a little bit uncomfortable, if our goals don't sort of scare us a little bit, we don't have that ambition then we kind of lose life. I think feel like that's an important aspect for us to really find that fulfillment and enjoyment. Well, Calvin has been great having you here on the show. How can people get in touch with Falcon Insurance and get in touch with you?
[00:41:23] Calvin: My email or phone or Facebook or LinkedIn, whichever is most convenient for you. I am extremely available and glued to the grind. Close to 95 hours every week. So you can email. Give us a call, shoot me a message on Facebook or LinkedIn. We'll rise to the challenge every time.
[00:41:43] Cool.
[00:41:43] Jason Hull: Share some of those things right now so the listeners can hear that.
[00:41:47] Calvin: Awesome. My email is Calvin-- c-a-l-v-i-n @ falcon i n s agency.com and my direct line is 810-309-9475. You can find me on Facebook or LinkedIn under Calvin Roberts.
[00:42:07] Jason Hull: Perfect. All right, thanks, Calvin. Appreciate you being on the show.
[00:42:10] Calvin: No, thank you very much once again for having me. I appreciate that.
[00:42:13] Jason Hull: All right, so if you are wanting to improve your property management business, and struggling with figuring out how to scale your team, your operations, your systems, here at DoorGrow DoorGrow, we are rolling out a lot of really cool new tools that are game changers for the industry. We've got DoorGrow CRM, which is going to be a disruptor, we've got DoorGrow flow, which is a process software, which is going to be a disruptor, and we've got DoorGrow OS, which is far and way better than things like EOS or Traction. Really awesome way to manage and run your team and the real rocket field of getting your team to think as decision-makers and as if they're business owners in the business to innovate and move the business forward.
[00:43:03] And we have DoorGrow hiring. This is a game changer. This is one of the most costly mistakes business owners make in their business. Team members are the most expensive resource usually in a business. Hiring can be incredibly costly. It often takes you one, two, maybe three months to realize you made a bad choice, and then they may have cost you a lot of opportunity, cost, and money in the meantime. These are all systems that we're helping build. We call this the Super System, all of our different systems. It's like the Voltron of systems or THUNDERCATS of systems or Power Rangers when they combine. I don't know what age some of you are and when you grew up, but depending, this is like the ultimate combination of systems and it's all of these are free and included in our high-level mastermind in which you get to connect with game changers in the industry. People that are growth-minded and grow your business even faster. And we give you a lot of really good coaches and systems. We have some of the best in the industry we brought in as coaches that are supporting our clients. It really is a game-changer. Nobody else can touch us because we run on DoorGrow OS. We leverage our own systems and do these things, and we move rapidly as a company.
[00:44:18] So DoorGrow is not the same company it was even 30 days ago, even 90 days ago, especially not a year ago, we have an amazing team and we would love to support you and help you scale your business and get you to that thousand doors or higher, whatever your goal is, and make your day-to-day in life easier and easier the more doors you add, which is the reverse of what we see most clients doing before they come to us.
[00:44:45] If this is interesting, reach out to us at doorgrow.com. Until next time to our mutual growth. Bye, everyone.
[00:44:52] 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!
[00:45:19] 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.
If you manage short-term rentals, you’re probably well aware of how stressful the process of giving guests a key, code, etc. can be.
In this episode, property management growth expert, Jason Hull talks with Bobby from Jervis, a company that allows property managers to automate code-sharing with smart locks and smart garage door openers and manage smart utilities remotely.
You’ll Learn…
[01:45] Introduction to Bobby Varghese
[06:50] Smart Locks, Code Sharing, and More: Intro to Jervis
[13:55] The Financial Benefits of Automation
[19:25] Where to Get Smart Locks and Products
[22:10] Navigating Technological Issues
[24:20] Jervis for Long-Term Rentals Too!
Tweetables
“Trying to do it all means that you can never do everything correctly.”
“What is your time worth?”
“The biggest expense in the business really is almost all staff.”
“So we would love to help see you grow and we would love to help get the systems in people in place on your team so that you can handle that growth.”
Resources
[00:00:00] I tell them, tell everyone, "you can do this yourself. You can open up the Schlage app, the August app, whichever brand app, right. And you can add the locks yourself." So the thing is, "what is your time worth?" Is what I always ask property managers.
[00:00:14] All right. Welcome Doorgrow Hackers to the DoorGrow Show. 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.
[00:00:58] 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 this show. So today I am hanging out with Bobby Varghese. Bobby, welcome to the show.
[00:01:27] Hey Jason. Thanks for having me.
[00:01:28] Bobby has a company called Jervis Systems, which we're going to get into in just a minute, but Bobby, tell the audience and our listeners, how did you get into business entrepreneurism and eventually into Jervis systems?
[00:01:45] Yeah, that's a good question, Jason. I have a short term rental in Ashburn, Virginia. A couple years ago, actually, we started in 2017. And I was doing a lot of automation for my own sanity's sake, right? Just, I didn't want to be at the property to check a guest in. And also I know how when I want to travel, I don't want to be confined to certain times. I don't want to have to meet somebody to go grab keys, things like that. So I was trying to like, replicate the same concepts for my guests. And so I had some brilliant programmers that were working with me at the time for my rent. And we applied a lot of the automation that we use with Jervis today initially for my rental, you know, that's kind of how it all started. So we were letting guests in automatically letting cleaning companies in automatically, deleting the codes automatically after the reservations were complete. This is in 2017. So back then, Jason, Jervis didn't exist. Right? So Jervis wasn't even an idea yet. And then what happened was property managers in Ashburn, you know, the surrounding city communities heard about us doing automation, right? So maybe guests that stayed with me told other property managers and they're like, Hey, can you do this for us too? Can you manage my property? And so I had a couple of property managers message me through Airbnb, through inquiries, and they were like, Hey, could you manage my property and take on full property management? And, you know, at the time I had a full-time job. I was teaching in the evenings at a local university. I didn't have the time or the bandwidth to just take on more and more of these properties, but the concept of like building this like a software as a service platform and then being able to offer that to property managers just sounded incredibly intriguing.
[00:03:25] And it's something that we started the journey in 2019, and then it's just been learning and growing as we go. You know, lots of relationships over the years. Lots of vendors that we've connected with. You know, big brands like Schlake, August, Yale, Masterlock big companies like that, garage doors. And then over the last year we've gotten into like the thermostat world. So smart devices and not just access, getting to automate those. And then eventually we've got a roadmap this year and into next year of smart sensors and other places we want to get into as well.
[00:04:01] Very cool. So, And give the audience a little bit of background on you personally, so I know who you are.
[00:04:08] Sure, yeah. My name is Bobby Varghese, so I'm the founder of Jervis, as Jason said. I'm a US Air Force veteran. My background is as a security consultant. So, I did well, a little bit of everything. So networking, server administration and security, which really the military got me into. It was not something I ever thought I'd be interested in, and then it just kind of happened. And I found out I loved it, you know, and I got myself my graduate degree in it. I started, you know, getting certifications and eventually ended up teaching by chance at a local university here in security. And that's kind of my background. And I got into you know, just process improvement, just automation and things as we kept going on. And that's me as a person and how I got into all this. I live in the northern Virginia area right outside DC so, we've got a lot of customers locally in this area and the east coast and pretty much all over the states as well.
[00:05:00] Great. Well, thanks for your service. I think that's awesome. And I mean, it's really cool that you come from a technological background, but not just in technology. Viewing everything through the lens, likely of is this secure? Are we doing things the right way? The access matters, you know.
[00:05:17] It does. Yeah. Thanks appreciate you bringing that up, Jason, because that's actually a principle in everything we do in Jervis. We don't want to store your credentials, we don't want to know your credentials, right? So everything that we do with Jervis, when you as a property manager are connecting your devices with us. So we're going to take you to their login page, right? So that's where you're doing the authentication and the authorization to say, Hey, I want Jervis to be able to view my ABC you know, these devices, and then be able to manage them on my RPA half. And then that's when the grant access is granted. We're given like you know, a secure token basically that gives us access to it. And that's how we do all of the management. We make it a business. Philosophy on our team never to store credentials. So if, God forbid we ever get hacked, there's nothing to steal right with us. There's no credentials to be stolen, things like that. We do take security very seriously.
[00:06:15] That's great. Yeah. I mean, even with us at DoorGrow we use a vault system with our merchant provider cause we don't want to store people's credit card information directly.
[00:06:24] Yeah.
[00:06:24] The liability's too high.
[00:06:26] It is. It is.
[00:06:27] So if, you know, God forbid, but if somebody hacked us, they wouldn't have people's credit card information.
[00:06:32] Exactly. Yeah. That's smart.
[00:06:33] Yeah. So, yeah, very cool. I like that. So, when AI takes over the world and they hack everything, then they might be sort of safe still. All right. So, that brings up an interesting question. AI is a huge buzz thing right now, so I'd love to touch on that maybe a little bit later in the show. But tell us a little bit about what Jervis does. I'm starting to get an idea just based on what you've told me so far, but tell us like, what does Jervis really do and how can it help property managers and it sounds like it's very much geared towards the short term rental market.
[00:07:08] So we are geared towards property management, right? So, and that can be done in a couple of different spaces. So whether it's short-term rental management, long-term rental management we've got real estate agents using us, using like the master locks to instead of, you know, the old school like realtor access to be able to get into properties because those legacy systems are very expensive from what I've understood over the years. So, so we've got a lot of real estate agents that are trying to kind of modernize that world and using the master lock systems. So at a core Jervis, what we started with was access management. So smart locks and smart garage doors, right? So we've got, we support the MyQ based systems with LiftMaster and then we've got the Genie Aladdin and a couple brands like that. And then with the Smart Locks, we do the big players. And then there's a lot of other smart locks out there, like the Schlages, the August, the Yales, and then also a lot of other companies that are growing in popularity. And you know, there's. A lot of competitors in that space now as well, right? So what Jervis does is, or what our goal is to streamline your life from a property management perspective. And we'll use the short term rental world as an example, is as reservations come in, what a lot of property managers want is that the code gets to the guest, right?
[00:08:29] So it gets stored to a lock for the duration of the reservation. Another caveat is that's important is it's got to be a unique code. So you're not using the same code over and over for multiple guests.
[00:08:41] Yeah.
[00:08:41] And then the code expires when the reservation is completed. Right. So even after the time completes and the guest knows the code, they cannot use that same code to get back into the property. Right?
[00:08:53] Right.
[00:08:54] And what Jervis will do is automate all of those steps we just talked about, and then when the code is done, we actually wait one day after the reservation is completed with the code being in a disabled state, and then we'll remove it entirely. And the reason we keep it one extra day, Jason, is that we found so many instances where reservations last minute, they need to be extended a couple extra hours, an extra day or two. Right. So immediately deleting it when the reservation is complete. We just found that's just causing--
[00:09:28] they're immediately locked out and they're all, "my suitcase is still in there!"
[00:09:31] Exactly. Yeah. Or like, oh no, we need to extend for an extra day. And then you got to go through the entire process of adding the code all over again, which is not hugely inconvenient, right. But it's a lot easier and quicker to take an existing code and just modify like the time or the date, you know, versus like adding it entirely.
[00:09:53] Yeah. Cool. So you had mentioned a lot of other like smart devices and stuff. So is there, does Jervis go beyond just the front door lock?
[00:10:04] We do. Yeah. So besides access, so out outside of our original world of just smart locks and smart garages, we do smart thermostats right now with the Echobee, Nest, and the honeywell thermostat is coming really soon as well. And the problem that we're solving with that when it comes to property management is that you as a property manager, you can control the temperature as a guest is walking into the property. So we've got two modes with it. We call it guest mode and we call it a vacant mode. So guest mode is that as soon as the guest walks into the property, you can set your baseline that you as a property manager are comfortable with, right? So let's say you want it to be 70 degrees as a guest walks in, Jervis will take care of that set the temperature. The guests can adjust it during their stay, right? Bring it up, down, whatever they're comfortable with. When they're done, that's when vacant mode or when the guest is checking out, that's when vacant mode will kick in. And that means that, let's say in the wintertime, you don't want the heat blasting. Yeah, in the summertime you don't want the AC blasting, right?
[00:11:14] So you can set it to a temperature where your pipes aren't going to freeze, right? It's that right temperature without increasing your heating expenses or electric bills. And right as the guest comes back into the property or your next guest comes in, Jervis will set the temperature back to guest mode as you're comfortable with it or what you set it for. So thermostats is something we support now. Later this year, our roadmap is to get into smart sensors. So carbon monoxide sensing, water leakage sensing and those noise sensing things like that. That's what we will get into this year.
[00:11:51] Very cool. So there's water leaks or if there's, you know, some sort of issues going on at the property, they might get notified.
[00:12:02] Exactly. And the goal is, Jason with Jervis, we don't aim to support every device that's out there, right? So every lock that's out there, you can see that we pick and choose the ones that are the most, most stable. Another feature that we look for is that it's ideally, it's wifi directly accessible, right? So that's very important. Other locks will work, right? There's a lot of older model locks that are using hubs and wifi, adaptors. We support selective ones after extensive testing because we found that having an extra piece in the middle can often be it's yet another piece that could go wrong, right? Yeah. So if that hub stops working, that wifi adapter stops working, you can't connect to your lock, right? So, it's, we pick and choose which devices are best to support, and then we are careful what other devices we get into. It's important that it solves like a property management problem, right? Because I still have my rental property in Ashburn and we do testing of all the capabilities that we implement, we do it all the testing at my property as well.
[00:13:10] Yeah.
[00:13:10] So eating my own dog food type of thing. And I want to make sure that we're not trying to do it all because I think that is... trying to do it all means that you can never do everything correctly. You may just get to a point where you're doing everything probably 50% or 60%. But yeah, that's kind of our philosophy as well. Right? Yeah, it's probably like the 80- 20 rule. The 80% of the stuff's probably covered by 20% of the things that you could do, right?
[00:13:37] So, yep. Yep.
[00:13:39] Very cool. So, What problems is this solving for property managers? So if a property manager's listening to this and they think, well, you know, it's not too big of a deal to maybe give out a code, do the walk and do this, help them justify switching to using Jervis.
[00:13:55] Sure.
[00:13:56] Yeah. That's a good point. And if a property manager has one or two properties, I tell them, tell everyone, "you can do this yourself. You can open up the Schlage app, the August app, whichever brand app, right. And you can add the locks yourself." So the thing is, "what is your time worth?" Is what I always ask property managers. It's like we charge $5 a month per active device. Right? So, I don't know what Starbucks charges nowadays, but it's the price of a cup of coffee. For a month is what we're charging roughly. Is that worth it for you from an automation perspective to be able to focus on other things? And so, that's, I think, the true benefit that service will give to property managers. And so I'll give you an example that applies to multiple properties, but one customer comes to mind for me because we talk about this several times over last year. And they had over a hundred properties, right? And so they had a dedicated person that their entire job was to add codes, remove codes, troubleshoot customer issues of like codes not working, and just putting in backup or giving out backup codes, putting in codes, things like that.
[00:15:08] So it's one almost dedicated full-time employee or resource or consultant for x number of hours that you've assigned for this task, right? Once they set up Jervis, now to automate the process, they were able to move this person to do other tasks, right? They were doing more spot checking of codes or just issue handling, right? So automation is not perfect and again, I try to be transparent with our property managers when it comes to that. There's a lot of moving parts, right? The booking site has to send the property management system, the reservation or the updates. They got to send it to us. We got to talk to a lock vendor. So there's a lot of pieces that could go wrong or could be delayed, right. So issue handling, things like that it's always good to have a person that's available, especially as you scale to a hundred, couple hundred properties and things like that.
[00:15:57] Yeah.
[00:15:57] And so now that Jervis was doing the bulk of the work, they were able to. Reassign this person to be able to do other tasks that were, you know, more beneficial to the company, right? So doing marketing or customer service, answering emails, things like that. So Jervis was able to probably take on 80, 90% of the automation work or the code management work, and now this person's in more of in a backup spot checking role or a customer service role, and then they were able to take on additional tasks for the property manager. So they were very happy. Obviously it cut down their costs and they were able to maximize like their resources and kind of use their resources more wisely.
[00:16:39] Yeah, I mean, the biggest expense in the business really is almost all staff, right? It's people and you know, let's say that team member's $20 an hour. Well, if they can offset that by just getting these devices, you know, in place. Yeah. It could save them some serious monthly expense, especially if they're not having to drive around and do stuff.
[00:17:01] Exactly.
[00:17:01] It would be pretty significant. So now you mentioned $5 a month per device.
[00:17:06] How many devices typically does a property usually need? Before I answer that, Jason, let me just kind of back up a second there. With Jervis, we have no minimums, right? So there is no minimum number of doors that you have to come in with. We don't have a minimum threshold of the monthly amount. You could have technically one door. $5 a month and we'll still treat you at just same way as a customer that has a thousand doors. Right? So the goal with Jervis and all these automation is that you set it and forget it, right? And you shouldn't have to babysit it unless you run into problems, and then we'll work with you. But the, to answer your question, typically a home will have at least one door, right? It could be the front door that maybe the property manager puts the smart lock on. We've got property managers that go above and beyond that and maybe put it on the front door and also the garage door. Right. So that way, even though like, let's say the big garage doors, as you get past that, to actually get into the house, you have to get through smart lock as well, right? So then the way Jervis will work is that you can assign multiple locks to the same property. And if a reservation comes in for that property, Jervis will put the same code on both locks and schedule them exactly the same way. And we won't charge you separately or upcharge you for that capability. I've had a lot of property managers ask me, does that cost more? You know, or just give me, you know, they're surprised because they're expecting to be charged more for that kind of capabilities. But the average I've seen is if you just want smart lock access, one to two doors is kind of like the average. Some property managers are a lot more technology interested I guess. And they'll put the smart thermostat, smart sensors, you know, then you could start seeing three to four devices per property.
[00:19:02] Yeah. I would imagine in some areas where the temperatures are somewhat extreme smart thermostat would sort of pay for itself.
[00:19:10] Exactly. Yeah.
[00:19:11] Your utility bills for the property easily, so that would make sense. So, all right. Very cool. So what other questions do property managers typically have when they're trying to figure out why should I use this or should I use this service?
[00:19:26] Yeah, so one of the questions we typically will get is, do you have to purchase locks from us? I mean that's again a decision business philosophy we made years ago is we wanted to stay vendor agnostic, right? So we don't pitch one specific product. We decided not to make custom locks. A lot of vendors that are selling locks, they're reselling other brands, right? Or locks that are white label white labeling locks that are out there, right? We decided not to get into that world. We want to offer just a software as a service platform and be able to support as many devices as we sustainably can, reliably can. And that's a very important part of it. And so, yeah, so the question I get often is, do you have to purchase a lock from us? And the answer is no. We link on our website to where you can purchase the locks from, whether it's Amazon, who is one of our partners, but as far as like where we're linking, but you can get them at Home Depot, you can get them at Lowe's. Bill.com. They're very easily accessible locks and devices that are out there.
[00:20:34] So you provide a list of, here are the ones we recommend, here's the best ones?
[00:20:38] Exactly. And the ones we recommend are the ones that we carefully recommend because good products means less support issues, you know, for us, and that's one of the things that I have been very careful with from a team management perspective is we've got a good team and a lean team, and I want to make sure that we're not trying to support everything because that just means more headaches when the devices don't work as expected.
[00:21:03] Right. And I would imagine with the door sensors or the door locks, and the biggest issue is just the batteries and things down, right?
[00:21:11] It is. But sometimes some of the brands, you got to be careful, Jason, like, you know, there are a lot of vendors out there now. If you go to Amazon, just type in smart lock there's so many of them out there, right? So a lot of them are just companies that popped up overnight and. I always recommend to our property managers, even if you're paying slightly more. Stick with a brand that's been around for 20, 30 years. Right. So you know that they're going to be around if you need support, right? Or if the device fails on you, at least you can go, you know, claim your warranty and get a replacement, whatnot, right? So Schlage, August, Yale, Masterlock, these companies have been around decades, right? So those are always our top picks. There's a lot of other brands that are out there that we do support. Some of them are, you know, have been around like Igloo Homes has been around for a while. But we're just kind of careful of like trying not to support it all because it can cause other problems.
[00:22:08] Got it. Cool. Anything else that property managers might be curious to know?
[00:22:13] Yeah, there's a couple of other questions. I'm trying to think. Let's see what happens. If there's a power outage you kind of hit on this a little bit earlier. The locks are supported by batteries, right? So that means that if there is a power outage, your guests can still get in and out of the home. Right? It's not going to affect access to the property. When we get the reservations, we actually process them two weeks in advance, you know, type of thing. So that way it's not adding the code last minute on the day of the reservation. That's one of the things we do not do unless, you know, caveat being though, that if the reservation came in that day, obviously we're trying to put it on the lock that day, but normally if the reservation came in a week ago, two weeks ago. Well, we processed two weeks in advance typically.
[00:22:59] Yeah. Very cool. So the codes are already in there. They're not active yet. Until its time it'll be activated. And so even if the power goes out or there's an issue or the wifi or internet has a problem, that code's already in there and they can get in and out during the time of their stay.
[00:23:15] Exactly. Yep. So that's probably the number two question I get. And then third one I get often is our pricing and. We're transparent. As you can see from our website, we don't hide it from you, you don't have to talk to us first to see the pricing. We just keep it all published out there, $5 a month. We actually made a plan just for the property management system users, and it's $5 a month. I think, you know, your users will see that it's very competitive to the other players in the space. And again, I always tell our customers try the different players out, right? We all offer trials, right? So Jervis offers a one month free trial. Everyone offers a trial of some sort. So try everyone out, right? And see there's Remote Lock, there's Aperto, there's Links. Try everyone out. Try Jervis out and see what is the right fit for you, your organization for your needs. And then let us know if you've run into any issues or have any question. But those are the three questions I typically see, Jason.
[00:24:18] Perfect. Yeah. Very cool. Well, I appreciate you coming on the show and sharing this with us. So maybe you could touch on, just before we wrap on, how would this apply or be beneficial for long-term management companies and getting vendors in and out? You know, this sort of thing?
[00:24:38] Yeah, the great question again. Yeah, so we do have a lot of property management companies, let's say with hundred, 200 properties or more, and that's where our mobile app especially comes in very handy, right? Let's say they have garage doors plus smart locks, and they're different brands, right? So they may be like MyQ garage doors, and then you got smart locks from varying different brands. And so what Jervis's mobile app will do for you is that you can, you know, let's say you have 10 different teammates, you can assign them access to the mobile app, and then they'll be able to switch between the properties just in a dropdown, select the property switch very easily. Then they'll see the devices that you assign to them. So then all they have to do is click a button, and the garage door opens, click a button, smart lock, the door opens, right? Or the lock opens. And then if you drive down the street to your next property, same thing. Just go to the dropdown, select the property, see the devices, click on what you need to open. And so that's where it really benefits the long-term rental users or the teams. We do have property management companies assigning or giving access to the app to their long-term tenant clients as well. So that way they don't have to give them access directly to Schlage. Right. Directly to MyQ. This keeps it like one level removed and then kind of transparent to them who the vendor is. It doesn't matter, right? Like the guest just sees the app, press the button and then they can just get into the property in and out.
[00:26:15] Got it. So the tenant would use the Jervis App. Jervis systems, apps in order to get into, in and out of the property, they can use that.
[00:26:23] Exactly. Yep.
[00:26:24] They would just set up access for them. What about you've got this, you know, system for the short term for people to get in and out. What about for long term and short term? What about getting vendors in and out that are not your vendors? Like you need to send out a plumber. How are you creating access codes and do you have plans to integrate with some of this tech systems out there, like Property Meld or some of these sort of things where they're dispatching their vendors?
[00:26:50] Yeah, so that's a good point. So down the road we will integrate with those companies, but by contractors I imagine You mean like handyman companies?
[00:26:59] Yeah.
[00:26:59] Or cleaning companies, things like that. So the access right now can be granted through our server systems dashboard. So you can assign temporary access, right? So just like you do with the cleaning company, instead of a reservation, when you're adding the user, you're going to be selecting a start date until a firm end date, right? Or it could be the same date, different hours, starting hour, ending hour. And so that's the way property managers can do it right now. But similar to how we integrate with all the property management companies that are out there, our goal is like, to connect with these companies like Property Meld, like things like that you said. And then be able to import in the support request, you know, for a specific property. And then assign a temporary code as we go. Just like that, just like we do with reservations for properties as well.
[00:27:53] Yeah. Very cool. All right. Yeah, that sounds really cool. Well, Bobby, thanks for coming on the DoorGrowShow. Sounds like a really cool system. I think the price sounds really easy and fair, and so I'll be really curious to see what sort of response he yet from being on the show. And I hope people check you out. How can they find out more about Jervis?
[00:28:14] Sure. Yeah. They can reach us on all the social medias. Were under Jervis.systems. And then the best way, honestly, is to contact us is go to our website and just use the Contact Us form. It'll go to directly to me and our support. So we'll get back to you on our questions or anything like that or answers to any questions. And then like we tell everybody is sign up for a trial. You got nothing to lose. We'll give you one free month to try it out. And if it doesn't work for you, we understand no hard feelings and but if you run into issues, let us know.
[00:28:47] We'll be glad to work with you to fix it.
[00:28:49] Very cool. All right, Bobby, thanks for being on the #DoorGrowShow.
[00:28:54] Yeah. Thank you Jason. I appreciate your time. Thank you for having me. All right, so if you are a property management business owner and you are looking to grow your business, you are tired of being stuck in the role, in the things that you're doing that you really don't want to be doing. You're wearing certain hats you don't want to be wearing. Reach out to DoorGrow. We would love to help you optimize your business. We would love to help you come up with strategies to grow and scale your business so you can easily be adding a hundred, 200, maybe even 300 doors a year without spending any money on paid advertising. So we would love to help see you grow and we would love to help get the systems in people in place on your team so that you can handle that growth. So if that is something you're interested in, you can reach out to us at DoorGrow.com and make sure to join our free community DoorGrowclub.com. It's our Facebook group. We have some free gifts for you with the fee Bible and some other cool things. We would love to give you some free stuff and have you join our community. If you are a property management business owner, we hope to see you.
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