Property management business owner, do you have an assistant? We’ve talked before about how important it is to build a team around you and get support as an entrepreneur.
In today’s episode of the #DoorGrowShow, property management growth experts, Jason and Sarah Hull discuss why property management entrepreneurs need to hire an assistant for themselves.
[01:14] The Most Important Hire in Your PM Business
[02:41] How to Get a Really Good Assistant
[04:57] Two Types of Team Members
[06:42] When Should I Get an Assistant?
[08:17] Benefits of Having an Assistant
“I think the very first person that somebody should hire. is an assistant.”
“If you continue to build the team around the business, you will end up more and more miserable instead of helping yourself more and more, which actually makes you a lot more money.”
“Nobody's good at being two or three different types of people.”
“I've seen business owners have team members that they've gotten assistants for and they don't have an assistant for themselves.”
[00:00:00] Jason: I've seen business owners have team members that they've gotten assistants for and they don't have an assistant for themselves.
[00:00:07] That always just drives me crazy because it's so obvious that there's a problem there.
[00:00:13] Jason: 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'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.
[00:00:40] 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. We're your hosts, property management growth experts, Jason and Sarah Hull. And let's get into the show. All right.
[00:01:13] So today we're going to be talking about assistants, right?
[00:01:16] Sarah: Yes. Why don't you have help yet? Okay.
[00:01:20] Jason: So one of the challenges that we've noticed with our clients and with other property managers is that a lot of times they don't have an assistant for themselves. And so they'll have some team members even, but they won't have an assistant that supports them.
[00:01:36] And I think this is a common trap entrepreneurs fall into. I think the very first person that somebody should hire. is an assistant. You start getting yourself some help instead of just helping the business. And if you continue to build the team around the business, you will end up more and more miserable instead of helping yourself more and more, which actually makes you a lot more money.
[00:01:58] That's like everything in a nutshell.
[00:02:00] Sarah: There you go. We're done. There we go. We can wrap up. Have a great day. So get an assistant.
[00:02:03] Jason: Goodbye. Alright.
[00:02:04] Sarah: Madi will edit this one and she'll be like, "oh wow, that was so fast."
[00:02:07] Jason: "Wow, that was the shortest one ever." Kidding! So let's talk about this. I have an assistant.
[00:02:12] Giselle's sort of your assistant. I think. Somewhat. Operationally? No, you don't think so? Okay. All right.
[00:02:18] Sarah: She's really good at really anything because she asks people on the team and she's like, "Hey, is there anything you need help with this week?" She always usually messages me at the beginning of the week and she says, "Hey, is there like anything I should be aware of or any special projects that you need me to work on this week?"
[00:02:34] And sometimes I can't think of anything until later. And then I go, "Oh, you can help me with this." And she's like, "great. I'm on it."
[00:02:41] Jason: So how do we get people really good assistants? Well, we have them do one of our DoorGrow time studies to figure out which things are energetically their plus signs and which things are their minus signs.
[00:02:51] And then we build out a job description, but it needs to be one personality type, not two or three different personalities that like that human being doesn't really exist.
[00:03:01] Sarah: And if they do, they're hard.
[00:03:03] Jason: There's people that can do everything.
[00:03:04] Sarah: They have like multiple personalities in one.
[00:03:07] Jason: Yeah.
[00:03:08] Sarah: Let's think about it if we want to hire them.
[00:03:09] Jason: No, we don't. We don't want that person. We want somebody that's good. At being one person, right? Like in, because nobody's good at being two or three different types of people. Right. You're not going to have somebody that's like, "man, I'm the salesiest person ever and super salesy. And Oh yeah, I'm a really brilliant detail oriented operator."
[00:03:27] Like it's just, for example, so we need to get you your ultimate assistant. We also then like to figure out your personality, figure out who you are. So when we get into our DoorGrow hiring, and if you need help with hiring, reach out to DoorGrow, we have a really great hiring system called DoorGrow hiring, and it's going to cost you a lot less money than working with a placement agency where they charge thousands of dollars and you'll probably get better results.
[00:03:48] Not probably. You'll get better results typically because their job is just to get somebody into your office and get paid. But we assess people, we make sure they're the right personality fit. We help you make sure you have the right culture fit and the right skill fit, which I've talked about many times, the three fits.
[00:04:06] So, I've had lots of assistants over the years. Lots. I've had some really amazing ones. I've had some okay ones. I haven't really had, well, I guess I've had a few like bad ones as well, right? So I've had lots and lots of assistants. And what I usually look for in hiring an assistant is I need somebody that I can trust their judgment and their intelligence to do things so that I don't have to do it. Right. And so my assistant Mar, she's better at several things than I would be. She has more patience. She's willing to like get frustrated at people if need be to like get things handled, whatever it takes.
[00:04:46] I think it's really important. A lot of people think, "well, I'll go get a VA and I'll go get some low dollar, low wage, cheap sort of worker in Mexico or the Philippines, and that'll be my first assistant."
[00:04:57] So there's two types of people you're going to hire in your business. Some are people as process. People as process are basically like people you hired that function like a robot. Just do what I tell you to do. Don't get cute. Don't be clever. Just follow the checklist.
[00:05:10] That's not a great assistant. It's not really a good assistant to have because you're going to have to do all the thinking for them and then give them tasks and you, then you're gonna have to show them exactly how to do every task and that's going to be really frustrating for you. That's not the ideal assistant.
[00:05:25] So then there are people that are thinkers or decision makers that you can trust to make decisions without you and to make judgments. And so that's the type of assistant that you want. You want somebody that is intelligent. Intelligence is the big differentiator here. And you can tell when you're talking with people, are they bright?
[00:05:46] Are they quick? Would you trust them to do things over you on the things that you're going to give them to do because they're better at those things? So you want to hire people that are intelligent, not people that just can follow tasks That's not going to be a really good assistant for you. Now later on if you do have some low level work or tasks in the business that you just want to offload, you can hire some people as process we have people on our team that are people as process.
[00:06:11] They follow things. They do the same sort of work each time. They're not really involved in making a lot of decisions in the business. They don't come to our weekly meetings. They don't come to our monthly meeting, planning meetings, stuff like this. They're just doing their work and they're valuable and we appreciate them.
[00:06:28] However, if you need somebody close to you, that's going to help you double your capacity and help you get accomplished a lot more, they need to be next level. They need to be higher level from that. So anything you would add to that?
[00:06:41] Sarah: I would say, let's talk about: when should I get an assistant?
[00:06:46] Jason: Okay. When do you think they should get an assistant.
[00:06:48] Sarah: Like now? Now. Usually somewhere and it's different depending on your capacity, typically, it's somewhere in between the 50 and 100 door mark. It may be a little bit sooner depending on your market and is this your full time thing? Are you trying to run eight different businesses at once?
[00:07:07] Like, what is your focus like? Really how much time are you spending in the business and willing to spend in the business? All of that will be factors in when this happens, but typically it's somewhere between the 50 and 100 doormark, which is why if you're in the DoorGrow mastermind, then the belt level requirements in order to reach the orange belt, which is your hundred doormark, you need to hire an assistant. It's one of the things on there and most people skip this step and they'll hire other positions in the business. They just don't hire an assistant. And I ran my business, that was the only person I had was an assistant and she was boots on the ground. And then that way, all of the stuff I didn't want to do, I didn't have to do because I had somebody else who could just take it off my plate and do it for me. So it was great. Without her, man, I don't know how I would have been able to do it. I would have had to work probably double or more. And I would have had multiple other positions in the company going at the same time. It just would have been really hard to do everything, especially the way that I did it without somebody there boots on the ground.
[00:08:17] Jason: Yeah. So for me having an assistant has like been hugely beneficial so that I can free up my time like it's completely gotten me out of email. I don't look at my email. Do you email me? I probably won't see it, but I'll be told about it.
[00:08:33] Sarah: We closed on a property and he didn't see any of the stuff. Yeah, we were at the closing table and he's like, "hey, I got questions on this."
[00:08:40] I'm like, yeah, that's all in your email. He's like, "oh, I don't look at my email."
[00:08:43] Jason: Yeah. So, yeah, I don't like dealing with email, right? It's not like my favorite thing in the world. So I was able to offload email. I don't have to like worry too much about my schedule. I just show up and live and do what my calendar tells me to do.
[00:08:57] So, having an assistant has just made things a lot easier so I can focus on higher level tasks and working on the stuff that I more enjoy doing and my assistant enjoys doing all those things. Those are things that drain me and my assistant loves it Like she messaged me last night saying how much she loves her job and how much she loves doing all this stuff for me And i'm like, "that's great because I would hate doing it." I just don't want to do a lot of those things that she does. So when to get an assistant? I think most property managers, yeah, certainly once you get up to 50, 60 doors, you're probably feeling a little bit overwhelmed as in that solopreneur sand trap, that's a great spot to get your first team member. They could be a part time assistant, but get somebody that can take some load off your plate.
[00:09:40] Maybe you can graduate them the full time as you add more doors, but it's going to double your capacity. Getting a really good assistant can double your capacity overnight, especially if they're taking off your minus signs because you'll have so much more energy, so much more mental capacity, so much less decision fatigue.
[00:09:57] You'll be able to get more juice out of the second half of your day if you can get those things offloaded. And so we've got some great resources for how to leverage an assistant that we can support you in at DoorGrow and how to know what an assistant should be doing, which is unique to you. And yeah, and how to make that relationship really effective.
[00:10:17] So, so reach out to us and check us out at DoorGrow.Com if you're curious about any of that, and if you don't yet have an assistant, what I think's really wild to me is I've seen business owners that have hundreds of doors, hundreds. And they have an entire team and they're stressed out and they're frustrated.
[00:10:34] And this happens a lot, especially in the two to 400 door range, they'll just be burnt out and they wonder why they can't get to the next level. They keep stopping their growth and adding doors and then focusing on trying to get their systems and processes dialed in and they don't have an assistant and they wonder why things are so stressful for them.
[00:10:51] And it's cause they're not taking care of themselves. They're not taking care of the most important person in the business. The one person that should have the most support, they're not allowing that person to get support, and it's you, the business owner, like make sure you have an assistant. I've seen business owners have team members that they've gotten assistants for and they don't have an assistant for themselves.
[00:11:12] That always just drives me crazy because it's so obvious that there's a problem there. And when I'm talking with them, they're like burnout, they're frustrated, they're hating their business, and, "oh yeah, my operator has an assistant or this person has an assistant or my property manager has an assistant property manager, but the business owner has no direct support."
[00:11:32] I'm like, "'well, everybody in my team supports me,' but you didn't build the team around you. You built the team around the business." And so they're just burning themselves out. So this is your invitation. If you're listening and you don't have an assistant right now, and you have any other team members, this is your invitation, or maybe you don't have any team members yet. This is your invitation to go get yourself an assistant. I'm giving you permission that you can go get yourself an assistant. Not that you need it, but you deserve it. Like go get yourself an assistant. You can definitely afford it because if you were able to take half of your time off your plate of the crappy stuff you don't want to be doing, you could easily make a lot more money.
[00:12:11] You can spend a lot more time doing revenue generating activities and growing the business. It's almost never an excuse that you financially can't afford an assistant. Because it just means you just have to spend the time doing the stuff that makes money, and you know how to make money and if you don't for some reason know how to add doors or know how to close more deals or know how to make money, we can help you do that dramatically and very quickly reach out to us at DoorGrow. So anything else we should say?
[00:12:37] Sarah: I don't think so
[00:12:38] Jason: Okay, so what's the core message?
[00:12:41] Sarah: Go get an assistant. Do it.
[00:12:43] Jason: All right. Do it now. That's it for today. So until next time to our mutual growth Bye everyone. Oh and get your tickets to DoorGrow live.
[00:12:51] This is gonna be an awesome event So go get those you can go to DoorGrowlive. Com. Be there. It's going to be be cool
[00:12:56] you just listened to the #DoorGrowShow. We are building a community of the savviest property management entrepreneurs on the planet in the DoorGrowClub. Join your fellow DoorGrow Hackers at doorgrowclub.com. Listen, everyone is doing the same stuff. SEO, PPC, pay-per-lead content, social direct mail, and they still struggle to grow!
[00:13:23] 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 a property manager? Do you hire property managers? Can you answer the question: what is a property manager, and what do they do?
In today’s episode, property management growth experts Jason and Sarah Hull discuss what a property manager is and what they should be doing in a property management business.
[01:14] Million-dollar question: What does a property manager do?
[06:25] Siloing information to protect your business
[10:26] Hiring specialists instead of people who can “do it all”
[12:20] What should a property manager's role be?
[16:31] Property managers as client success experts
“There's a lot of confusion as to the definition of a property manager in the property management industry.”
“When your company grows, what we're going to hopefully have you do is shift into specialists, so that you won't have a property manager that just does everything.”
“Effectively cloning yourself or duplicating yourself in the business usually means getting 10 people, not one.”
“It's not hard to be exceptional in property management.”
[00:00:00] Jason: Business owners, we need to stop trying to find people that can do everything. We need to find people that are really good specialists.
[00:00:08] 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.
[00:00:28] 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. At DoorGrow, we are on a mission to transform property management business owners and their businesses.
[00:00:56] We want to transform the industry, eliminate the B. S. build awareness, change perception, expand the market and help the best property management entrepreneurs win. We're your hosts, property management, growth experts, Jason and Sarah Hull, the owners of DoorGrow. Now let's get into the show.
[00:01:13] All right. So one of the things that's come up, we just did a DoorGrow boardroom event.
[00:01:18] And one of our clients that was there was like, "I need to hire a property manager." And we're like, "okay." And what we noticed in talking there and going deeper and digging in deeper is that there's a lot of confusion as to the definition of a property manager in the property management industry.
[00:01:37] Sarah: Yeah, it's like a catch all.
[00:01:39] Jason: So the challenge is it can mean just about anything.
[00:01:42] Sarah: Yeah. The definition of property manager is: "do anything and everything that the company needs."
[00:01:49] Jason: And so I've noticed this for a while. we've had a lot of clients and they'll say, "Oh, I need another property manager," or "I need to hire a property manager."
[00:01:56] "I need to get a property manager." And it always means something different. So like some people think a property manager does everything, and this is the portfolio style property manager. They're like, "they need to go get business." And so they're a BDM, they need to handle and do some of the bookkeeping accounting stuff.
[00:02:17] They need to do maintenance coordination. They need to do the leasing. So they're trying to find somebody that's basically an entrepreneur. They can do everything that's probably going to run away and steal half their business. Right. Which happens. It's happened quite a bit. I've seen it. And that's, I think the wrong way to build a property management business, it's the wrong way to hire and build your team.
[00:02:36] So let's figure out. What is a property manager? What is it?
[00:02:41] Sarah: Love it.
[00:02:41] Jason: What are your thoughts?
[00:02:42] Sarah: Well, so I think that there's an important distinction, especially when it comes to the size of your company. So in the beginning, When it's just you do everything. It's all you, you, and then you some more.
[00:02:58] And I think this is why then when they go to hire a property manager, they're like, "Oh, well I did everything and I want to replace myself. So I need a property manager to replace myself and then they're going to do everything because I did everything." So in the beginning. When you are in the day to day and it's just you and you haven't built a team yet and you're functioning as the property manager because you're in the day to day and the tactical work, yes, you are technically a property manager.
[00:03:26] And then when your company grows, what we're going to hopefully have you do is shift into specialists. so that you won't have a property manager that just does everything. You'll have people who are really good at the one thing that they do and will be able to then segment the business and split that out into multiple roles instead of just having a property manager that does everything.
[00:03:56] Everything. Yeah. So I created a Facebook post, cause
[00:04:00] There was some heat on that post. Well, I like this. I don't know if you read the comments.
[00:04:03] Jason: I like to stir the pot a little bit. For those that are watching this on video, this is what it looks like, right? So join our Facebook group, go to doorgrowclub. com, get in there. So I said, if the property manager role on your team is not your maintenance coordinator, operator, bookkeeper, leasing agent, then what is their role? And so people are like "define operator, like what's an operator?" So then I was defining what an operator was, but Michelle Miller, shout out to Michelle, she commented. She said, "in other words, if they aren't doing everything, what are they doing?" Right. Brian Nelson said "delegator." And I like that. That's I think
[00:04:39] Sarah: I don't like
[00:04:40] Jason: that.
[00:04:40] I like the idea that they are not the person that's doing all this stuff. Maybe they're orchestrating, maybe that's what they're doing.
[00:04:47] They're maintaining the relationship with the owner. Sean Foster, he says "PM's number 1 job is to be the middleman between the owner and the tenant advising and the correct path of the most profitable investment."
[00:04:56] And "but that one responsibility branches off into another 20, doesn't it?"
[00:05:00] And then, "depends on the systems." There's a little dialogue going back and forth there. So if you do property management, you manage the property. And to manage the property, you're doing leasing, maintenance, inspections, all this stuff. But that doesn't mean that the property manager in your business is doing all this stuff or should be.
[00:05:17] Usually you don't want somebody that's a jack of all trades and a master of none trying to do stuff. And if they're actually good at everything, they'll probably just go start their own business. And I think that's the other challenges that we often mistakenly fall into this clone myth. And this was what was going on with our client at the DoorGrow boardroom event.
[00:05:35] He thought, he's like, well, "I was a property manager at another company for a while. Now, I have my own business and I'm doing all everything and I need to go hire a property manager and I was doing everything at that company. I'm doing everything in my own company. Now, I need to go find somebody else to do everything."
[00:05:50] And when we finally identified this. I call it the clone myth. We think, "I just need to go find somebody just like me. I need to clone myself." Effectively cloning yourself or duplicating yourself in the business usually means getting 10 people, not one. Like 10 different hats, 10 different specialists in the business.
[00:06:07] And so just want to address the clone myth real quick. So I think we want to find a way, I think in the industry, it might make sense to eliminate the term property manager. If they're not actually the one doing all of the little pieces, unless you're portfolio style. So what are your thoughts on that?
[00:06:25] Sarah: Well, I think the other thing too, that I want to bring up about him at the boardroom event is he's like, "I need a property manager and they're going to do everything. And I do everything. And I also did everything at my other company when I worked for them as a property manager. So I need one. How do I make sure that they don't just steal my business and steal my clients and walk away though, because they're going to be doing everything?
[00:06:48] Jason: Yeah.
[00:06:48] Sarah: And that's a really good reason to not have them doing everything.
[00:06:52] Jason: Most business owners eventually figure out you need to silo information. So for example, when I ran a web design agency, I had an intranet where all the information was stored and I had how I sold, how I found clients, like all this was built out in the intranet.
[00:07:07] All the sales related stuff. And then I had all of how we build the websites, how we put them together, all this kind of stuff. And I would hire web designers to build the websites and to do work and they would get access to the intranet. They would read the sales stuff and then figure out how to get their own clients and then they would quit.
[00:07:25] I kept having them leave and they're like, "Oh, well, I've got so much business. I don't have time to do your projects now." And I was like, "what?" it happened over and over again. So I was like, "okay, something's going on here." So then I realized I needed to segment the information because the stuff that I figured out was pretty effective and pretty valuable.
[00:07:40] Sarah: And essentially you were paying them to train them to then run their own business and not work for you anymore.
[00:07:47] Jason: What a deal. So, okay. Yeah. So then I started siloing that information. And so I think I think I shared a TikTok or a reel or something with you where a guy was talking about siloing the information and he was talking about sales and manufacturing and a product business.
[00:08:02] And if they know where to source all the manufacturing stuff and they know how to acquire business, they don't need you anymore. So he had to segregate that information. I was like, that's the same thing. You need to segregate knowledge in your business. Your goal is to hire specialists on the team, not generalists that can wear multiple hats.
[00:08:22] You're the business owner. You have to wear every hat in the business that is not currently worn by somebody or is not being done properly. You have to step in. It all falls on you. That's the job of the CEO, right? You have to do it. If you have a good operator, then they step in and some of that stuff, too.
[00:08:40] You have to do stuff that's uncomfortable.
[00:08:43] Sarah: Well, let's just pause for a moment. Your operator is not going to do your day to day stuff in property management.
[00:08:47] Jason: They shouldn't do your day to day stuff. It sounded like. A lot of people get confused.
[00:08:50] Sarah: I know what you were trying to say, but people are going to hear that and go, "Oh yeah. And then my operator is going to do everything."
[00:08:55] Jason: I just wanted to include you. I didn't want to say you don't do the hard stuff too.
[00:08:59] Sarah: I do the hard stuff when I have to.
[00:09:01] Jason: Yeah.
[00:09:01] Sarah: Until we can hire somebody else to do it. Because I hate doing it. I hate certain parts though, then we hire somebody and they do it much better.
[00:09:11] Jason: Yeah. So I think it might make sense unless you're portfolio style, which I'm not a real big fan of. I think there's a lot of downsides to portfolio style management. I think it's really rare that people are good at everything. And so I think it's a lot more effective to get somebody that's a really great maintenance coordinator that can handle maintenance for probably thousands of units, right?
[00:09:32] If they really know their stuff and have the right systems and tools and you can take that off of your property manager's plates. You need probably accounting or bookkeeping or a team that helps with that kind of stuff. There's vendors that can help with some of those pieces, especially if you don't enjoy, or aren't good at that piece, there's a lot of available resources, but if you get specialists that are really good, they will surpass your ability in that particular category.
[00:10:00] Sarah is much better running the planning system that we have DoorGrow OS, running the operations of the business than me, I just like, when I was doing it between having operators I just stopped planning. I didn't want to do the meetings. It was, "anybody stuck? Let's move on. And now it's meticulous and it's detail and we're moving forward.
[00:10:19] And everything's focused and we're hitting all our goals and we're making progress. Right? Because I have a good operator. So I think the business owners, we need to stop trying to find people that can do everything. We need to find people that are really good at specialists. So, I met with this entrepreneur a while back named Joe Abraham.
[00:10:39] He gave this cool Ted talk that I liked and I checked out his book and I took his online quiz and he has a book called entrepreneurial DNA and he created this score similar to an assessment like this, but it's BOSI. B O S I. And it talks about the four different types of entrepreneurs, which are builders, opportunists, innovators, and specialists.
[00:11:01] And you need to figure out what you are, the book talks about, and then build the right team around you. So, historically, I was more of a specialist, which means I'm dedicated my craft for over a decade to coaching and supporting property managers, right? And like figuring out how to grow businesses and then I'm an innovator.
[00:11:17] I like to take in lots of ideas and formulate new ideas and create stuff and that sort of thing. So more of a specialist, innovator and specialist, and most of the coaches and mentors I've hired have been builders. Builder, innovators, stuff like that opportunists are always looking for the next way to make money or the next vehicle or this sort of thing.
[00:11:38] Think like Ray Kroc, who took the McDonald's brothers', intellectual property, because they were innovators and specialist, and he blew it up and he was a builder and an opportunist so, opportunists make great salespeople. For example, builders make good CEOs. And so I wanted to be a better CEO.
[00:11:56] And so I've worked with a lot of coaches to become more and more of a builder to develop that skill set. And I'm getting better. Better and better. So, so I think we need to as entrepreneurs figure out what are our strengths and then what are we lacking? If you need to get around maybe coaches that can help you with with some of the gaps that you have in your own personality or your own knowledge base, then that can help you get to the next level.
[00:12:20] All right, so I think if we could eliminate the property manager term from those that are not portfolio style, then what would a property manager that people typically think is a property manager do if they're not the maintenance coordinator, they're not all these things What do you think?
[00:12:34] Sarah: Yeah, I think you can still call them a property manager.
[00:12:37] I'm not against the term like you're like, "eliminate! Anti property manager term and industry!" I just don't think that's going to happen Okay. I do think though once your business grows and gets large enough you can have one person or team to do the maintenance coordination, and then that piece is handled by the maintenance team.
[00:12:58] Then you can offload the leasing part, right? They're going through, maybe doing showings if you still do those, or at least going through applications and moving people along doing the move ins. Dealing with move outs and starting that whole process, kicking that off. You might have a leasing person, or a leasing team, and then the accounting piece, like your property manager probably should not be doing accounting.
[00:13:20] You should have somebody who is really good at accounting to do the accounting. And if that means you need to have a service, do it for you. That's fine. Just make sure that they're a really good reputable service. And there's someone that can hopefully like triple tie out your books and make sure everything is correct.
[00:13:36] And then you, here's the big thing, you still have to monitor it. Don't just hand it off and say, here, please go do this thing. And then just sit back and never look at it and hope that it's right. Because I've seen that a lot where people go, Oh, like I haven't done the bookkeeping. I have somebody else do it.
[00:13:52] And then they start investigating because there's a one little issue and they start to pull the thread. And it's like, when you pull the thread of the sweater and it just all unravels. Okay, so don't do that. Don't do that. But then your property manager can be more like the person that deals with the relationships of between like clients and tenants.
[00:14:13] Right. So we're bridging a gap.
[00:14:15] Jason: So then technically they're more of a relationship manager, right. They're managing relationships. I think a big gap that we don't see a lot of in the property management industry, that's super common in every other industry is the category of client success. And the category of client success, their whole goal is to retain customers to keep customers, make sure that they're happy.
[00:14:38] And so I think that's the role that some people might say, "oh, that's the property manager" is they need somebody that's just focused on client success, loves on the clients, takes care of the clients, makes them feel valued. Maybe meets with them annually to make sure that everything's looking good financially.
[00:14:53] Sarah: Portfolio review calls.
[00:14:55] Jason: Portfolio reviews.
[00:14:56] Sarah: I love those. I will harp about that all day long. If you're not doing them, do them.
[00:15:00] Jason: Yeah. So, client success in a lot of industries. I've heard some of our coaches and mentors describe as your other sales team. Right. You've got those that sell people in, like your business development, your BDs, your business development managers, your BDMs that bring clients into the business, but then they are not responsible for retaining the clients.
[00:15:22] And you think you retain clients just by doing maintenance coordination and just by doing leasing, but these things don't really develop or solidify or build the relationship. If you screw those things up, then you're bound to probably lose clients. And so that's the bare minimum.
[00:15:36] Sarah: No one is going, "Oh my God. This leasing team is so amazing. I'm never going to leave."
[00:15:41] Jason: Right.
[00:15:41] Sarah: They just expect the leasing to be good because it's what they signed up for when they hired a property manager. Right? They're not going to go, "Oh my God, I can't believe they got this maintenance thing done so so fast. And it was done in two hours and it was amazing. I'm never going to leave."
[00:15:57] Jason: So Gallup organization wrote this book called first break all the rules. And then it has this customer satisfaction pyramid. And at the lowest level, there's the lowest two levels are availability and accuracy. So these are the two things that if you're always available and you're always accurate in what you say you're going to do and you do it, people just don't even notice. And so it's not hard to be exceptional in property management. If you do that, it's expected and demanded.
[00:16:24] Sarah: So this is like all the tactical stuff that we do.
[00:16:27] Jason: Yeah.
[00:16:27] Sarah: It falls into this.
[00:16:29] Jason: Yeah.
[00:16:29] Sarah: It's just expected.
[00:16:31] Jason: So the next level, if you really want to have great client, customer service and great client interactions is partnership and then advice.
[00:16:40] And this is where I think a property manager can really add value. This is where they are really a client success role where they're retaining clients. They're improving the relationship and the value that people see in the relationship and in the longevity of staying a client of your particular business, when there's plenty of others that could do it, they can manage their property.
[00:17:00] You have team members that are managing the relationship and focusing on client success. So maybe there should be some client success managers in property management and less property managers. As far as terms go.
[00:17:13] Sarah: He's really trying to get rid of that term.
[00:17:15] Jason: I don't know. It's just, it's so ambiguous.
[00:17:17] Sarah: That's why. So when we were creating R docs, like all of the job descriptions for different roles, he's like, "I want there to be an R doc for every role in property management business." And I said, "okay, I can create it." Here's the problem. The problem is that if I create one for an assistant, it's going to be different from company to company. If I create one for a property manager, there's going to be some similarities, but there's always going to be things that are different from company to company. So there are great templates, right? And it's they're, it's amazing. And then you just delete the things you don't need and add anything you do need from there. There's nothing that's uniform. There's so much that's different from business to business. We all do the same thing. We're all property management entrepreneurs, but the way the ins and outs, the inner workings of our business, there's a million different ways to do it.
[00:18:10] Jason: We did define those Rdocs though.
[00:18:12] We have Rdocs for each of the major roles. I think yeah, I think having recognizing that. You need a client success person to maintain the relationship. You need a maintenance coordinator. You need if all these things are segregated and you get really great specialists in each of these areas, then yeah, you're going to have a much stronger lifetime value of your client.
[00:18:33] You're going to make a lot more money. So I think that's important. Anything else we should talk about related to property manager?
[00:18:39] Sarah: I think that covers it.
[00:18:40] Jason: All right. So figure out and I'm curious, go ahead and find my post in the DoorGrow club group, or go post or comment in the DoorGrow club community.
[00:18:51] I'd be curious to hear your thoughts. What do you feel a property manager is if you don't do portfolio style? What are your property managers doing? How do you define that role? And are they really managing properties? Are they really managing people? Are they really customer success? Are they really supporting and taking care of owners?
[00:19:08] Or do you think they're taking care of tenants and like maintaining a relationship there? So, all right, I think that's our interesting conversation for the day for the DoorGrow show and do you want to give them a call to action? That's a good call to action for the end of the show here?
[00:19:23] Sarah: Oh, well, we have a few events coming up. So go and check out our events that we have coming up. Don't miss DoorGrow. It's going to be a big one.
[00:19:31] This is like our big conference. We do it once a year. It's here in Round Rock, Texas on it's a Friday and Saturday, May 17th and 18th. And our theme this year is creating opportunity from uncertainty. So we have a lot of great topics, a lot of great speakers lined up for you guys. And I've got something special in the works that I haven't really released yet, but It's gonna be really cool because we've never done anything quite like that before
[00:19:57] Jason: Yeah, all right.
[00:19:59] Cool. All right. Well on that note Until next time to our mutual growth. Bye everyone.
[00:20:03] you just listened to the #DoorGrowShow. We are building a community of the savviest property management entrepreneurs on the planet in the DoorGrowClub. Join your fellow DoorGrow Hackers at doorgrowclub.com. Listen, everyone is doing the same stuff. SEO, PPC, pay-per-lead content, social direct mail, and they still struggle to grow!
[00:20:30] At DoorGrow, we solve your biggest challenge: getting deals and growing your business. Find out more at doorgrow.com. Find any show notes or links from today's episode on our blog doorgrow.com, and to get notified of future events and news subscribe to our newsletter at doorgrow.com/subscribe. Until next time, take what you learn and start DoorGrow Hacking your business and your life.
If you are a property management entrepreneur, you have likely been your own salesperson or BDM at some point. Eventually, every property management business owner will need to hire a salesperson and develop different growth engines.
In this episode of the #DoorGrowShow, property management growth experts Jason and Sarah Hull talk about their BDM Bootcamp event
[01:52] What is a BDM?
[03:00] Get your BDM Ready for BDM Bootcamp
[08:42] You Need a Sales Pipeline!
[14:26] Benefits of In-Person Events
“It's not the growth strategy that's the problem. It's that there's multiple stages in a pipeline for each growth engine, and you are not identifying the leaks that exist in this pipeline.”
“Your pipeline will literally never ever work if you don't even have one.”
“If you're not working the pipeline and you don't know the different stages of a pipeline, you’re just guessing, and you’re just hoping.”
“You need to get to the real pain and related that you need to get to the real pleasure, like what they really want. Nobody really wants property management”
[00:00:00] Jason: It's not the growth strategy that's the problem. It's that there's multiple stages in a pipeline for each growth engine and you are not identifying the leaks that exist in this pipeline or you're tolerating drop off at one of these stages.
[00:00:17] 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 a business and life. And you're open to doing things a bit differently, then you are a DoorGrow property manager.
[00:00:36] 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. 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. We're your hosts, Jason and Sarah Hull.
[00:01:15] Now let's get into the show. All right. So today we're going to be talking about BDMs.
[00:01:24] Sarah: Yeah.
[00:01:26] Jason: In honor of this event that we have coming up, which is. Going to be super cool. I don't know that there's been anything like this. That's been as cool as this that's existed in the property management space, maybe ever.
[00:01:39] There's a lot of people that talk about BDMs, but there's very few that are actually getting BDMs to get great results. And we're going to be hosting a BDM bootcamp. And so Before we go any further, every time I start talking about BDMs, as if everybody knows what it is. I just talked to a guy with, I think, 800 doors the other day.
[00:02:00] He's like, "what's a BDM?" I was like, man, okay, I need to make sure I explained this. BDMs are business development managers. Sometimes they're called BDs, business developers and they're salespeople for property management. That's what people will call them, right? Business development can happen in any industry.
[00:02:18] But the reason we use the phrase BDM in property management is because property management is closely connected to real estate. And whenever you mentioned sales, people get it confused with real estate brokerage sales type of stuff. And that's why. Now everybody knows what a BDM is, and we're going to be talking a little bit about that today.
[00:02:37] Sarah: Okay.
[00:02:38] Jason: So anyone listening to the show, you better know what a BDM is from now on. That's it.
[00:02:43] Sarah: There's a quiz at the end.
[00:02:44] Jason: What is a BDM? Did you get it right? If not, go back and start this episode over.
[00:02:49] Sarah: Try again.
[00:02:51] Jason: Okay. All right. What do we talk...? Do you want to like tell them about the event?
[00:02:56] What do we want to talk about?
[00:02:58] Sarah: Yes. Tell them about the event. So we are launching a BDM bootcamp. So there's a lot of companies that promote getting BDMs. And there's a lot of companies that promote getting BDMs and then spending a bunch of money to run ads and get leads and pay for leads and then have the BDM work the leads.
[00:03:21] And then if you just want the BDM to close more deals, it's simple. All you have to do is spend more money and buy more leads. Which is really expensive and wildly ineffective. So we have strategies that BDMs use...
[00:03:35] Jason: that actually work
[00:03:37] Sarah: ...that are free, or at least very inexpensive.
[00:03:40] You might have to pay for lunch. That's okay. You get something out of it too. And we've decided that we're going to launch a BDM, aka salesperson, boot camp. It's going to be a one day training. And we've never done anything like this before. For those of you that are current clients, there's some trainings on DoorGrow Academy.
[00:04:01] We run every wednesday, our growth accelerator calls, but it's hard to amass all of this information that Jason and I have learned about sales over the last, what, 20 something years and put it in a course. Or talk about it on a one hour call. It's darn near impossible, right? So what we wanted to do is we wanted to take some of this information and spend one day going over all of it.
[00:04:31] Now, this is very likely going to end up being a series because we can probably talk about sales and strategies and tactics and how to improve your scripts and what to say and like NLP language and filler words and all this good stuff, we can go over this for probably days on end. So what we're doing is this is very likely going to end up being a series, but we're going to launch the first one in April, so for those of you that are watching live, you all have a chance to get in on that for those of you that are watching this recording is will probably be released after the event, but don't fret because
[00:05:11] Jason: you may have missed it.
[00:05:12] Sarah: You might have missed it. Oh, man.
[00:05:15] Jason: Maybe you should get in our Facebook group and pay attention to the live streams.
[00:05:19] So you don't miss stuff.
[00:05:20] Sarah: Sometimes we do some cool things that you need to know about right now.
[00:05:23] Jason: The Facebook group, go to doorgrowclub.Com apply. We reject 70 percent of the applicants, which is why the group is good.
[00:05:31] Sarah: Okay.
[00:05:32] Jason: Okay.
[00:05:32] Sarah: Anyway. So that was our shameless plug. All right. No, right. Go ahead.
[00:05:36] If you've missed it. Yeah, we don't have a word from ourselves yet. That's a great idea. Who wants to sponsor this podcast? We'll plug you on every episode. Talk to me, baby. So anyway, if you've missed it. Sad for you, but don't fret because there's going to be more of these. This won't be a once and done thing.
[00:05:55] So for those of you that are listening now and or hear the information before the event, then this is going to be for you. So here's the information. It will be Thursday, April 11th. So this is also open to anyone on your team who handles sales, meaning it might be you, it might be somebody else. You may have multiple people on the team who handle sales. So if you would like Jason and myself to train your salespeople for a day. This is a really great opportunity for you because that's exactly what we're doing.
[00:06:33] So do you want to tell them a little bit about what we're talking about? Or do you want me to do that?
[00:06:38] Jason: I'll go ahead. So we've seen a lot of problems with businesses growing. And so if you, have a BDM or if you are the BDM, you're the business owner, you're the one that closes deals and you are not adding at least a hundred orders a year, hopefully through organic methods instead of wasting a bunch of money on advertising to get cold crappy leads, we're going to give you the strategies, we're going to focus on some different growth engines talking about those. We're going to get into specific pipeline stages because what I often identify is that it's not the growth strategy that's the problem. It's that there's multiple stages in a pipeline for each growth engine and you are not identifying the leaks that exist in this pipeline, or you're tolerating drop off at one of these stages. And not making progress and so we're going to help you identify where the leaks are if you've started building some of these growth engines, you may have started doing things like trying to do realtor referrals and it's not working very well.
[00:07:39] You're not getting easily 10 doors a month from that. You might maybe you've heard of our neighbor strategy and you're not getting referrals from that. Maybe you've heard of some other of our strategies, it's not working. And if you haven't heard of these, then you might want to show up, but we're going to talk about the different stages.
[00:07:55] We're going to talk about what maybe is affecting things at different stages. This will be very tailored to those that are in attendance. We want to help you move your business forward significantly. And sometimes there's very simple tweaks that could be done at each of these stages that opens the floodgates.
[00:08:10] So you have a lot more flow through the pipeline, which means more deals and more money.
[00:08:15] Sarah: Yeah. So back up because you skipped to topic number two, which is cool. We can do two and then one and then three and then four, but that's fine.
[00:08:21] Jason: They're not numbered.
[00:08:22] Sarah: They're not, but they are in order on the document.
[00:08:24] Jason: Okay.
[00:08:25] Sarah: Yeah.
[00:08:25] Jason: So Sarah's an operator and everything has to be done a certain way. There is a right way for operators.
[00:08:32] Sarah: There's a right way to do literally every task on the planet.
[00:08:34] Jason: I'm talking to the business owners and they care most about what is interesting or different, but...
[00:08:42] Sarah: yes, and I understand, but your pipeline will literally never ever work if you don't even have one.
[00:08:50] Jason: That's true.
[00:08:51] Sarah: Or you don't know the stages of a pipeline because a lot of times, and I bet this happens to you too, but it happens to me when I ask people, okay, "what does your sales process look like?"
[00:09:00] " Oh, I talked to somebody." "Okay, great. And then what?" "Oh, and then I send them some information." "Great. And then what?"
[00:09:05] Jason: "I wait."
[00:09:06] Sarah: "Oh, then I wait." "Oh, okay. Like, do you call them again or do you check in or do you like set up another call?"
[00:09:13] Jason: "Or I follow up in a way that I look needy and creepy?"
[00:09:16] Sarah: Sometimes the answer is yes. And then sometimes the answer is no, but even if they do follow up or have another call or check in again, somehow, then my next question again is "okay, and then what?" And then they go, "oh, and then I just wait." So essentially what happens is you have no pipeline. Okay. And you don't know that you don't have a pipeline, but you don't have a pipeline.
[00:09:35] And that means if you're not working the pipeline and you don't know the different stages of a pipeline, we're just guessing, and we're just hoping. We're going, "I don't know. I keep talking to all these people, but nothing seems to be closing. And I don't understand why," because you don't have pipeline stages.
[00:09:49] Jason: Okay.
[00:09:49] Sarah: So you got to need a pipeline.
[00:09:51] Jason: So we'll teach you how to build out the pipeline. We'll talk about the different stages that need to exist. And then it'll be a lot more clear and we'll talk with you about how to build that out in your CRM of choice. So you'll understand the principles.
[00:10:04] You can go apply this to whatever CRM you use, whether it's DoorGrow CRM or lead simple or whatever else is out there. Okay, I'll go to number three now that we're back in order. Okay. All right. Number three,
[00:10:19] Uncovering your client's pain points. So superficially people think they know the pain of their target audience. So they want their property manager. They don't want to have to deal with managing the rental property. That is not the real pain that gets you to close deals that you have to go a lot deeper than that.
[00:10:36] And so we're going to talk about how to disarm people, how to not come across as super salesy, how to create authentic communication and an authentic relationship where they believe that you can help them and how to get them to open up about what the real pain is, the real stress of the real emotion that might be motivating them to have a conversation with you.
[00:11:00] And one of the biggest problems we see in sales is that a lot of people don't take time to identify what the real pain is. The pain often has not really anything to do with the rental property. It's something going on in their personal life. And so you need to figure out how to connect to that.
[00:11:16] And for some that's like, "Whoa," that's like, "I don't know how to do that. That'd be weird or awkward," but you need to get to the real pain and related that you need to get to the real pleasure, like what they really want. Nobody really wants property management, right? Just like if you're booking a trip to Hawaii.
[00:11:34] Property management is the flight to Hawaii. It's not the paradise. It's not the outcome that they're hoping for. It is property management. So we want to sell the trip. We want to sell Hawaii, not the flight there, right? Which is property management. So we'll talk about also getting towards the, not just the pain, but the pleasure.
[00:11:54] Those are the 2 ingredients you really need to know and uncover in order to close the deal. And so if you're not closing deals, it's probably because somebody else is better at that than you. You're one of your competitors, or they're just going to go with the cheapest company because you haven't really created a connection.
[00:12:11] And so they think you're a commodity. You do everything everyone else does. And so that we'll get into that. All right. So good?
[00:12:18] Sarah: That was good.
[00:12:19] Jason: Number four, reviewing and improving your call scripts to book more appointments and close more deals. So we want to like, take a look at what are you saying? And you may think, "I don't have scripts.
[00:12:30] I'm just awesome. I just wing it every time." I guarantee 90 percent of the time, you're saying similar things, dealing with objections in similar ways. And so you have a script. It just probably isn't a very clearly defined one, which means it's probably not a very good one because you haven't taken an objective look at it to optimize or improve it.
[00:12:50] And so we're going to take a look at some scripts that are effective and figure out ways to improve your scripts. And sometimes it's not even about what you're saying. It's about how you say it. And so we're going to focus on some of the magic that comes with how you communicate with people. I've got clients that are not salespeople, like no real training in sales, terrible at sales. And they're crushing it because they know how to be authentic. They are communicating in a way that's disarming and they're just being helpful. And so we're going to talk about some of that stuff. How to close more deals. Some of you that are so good at sales, you're super salesy, you like cut your teeth as a baby in real estate and like you're a shark, like we're going to help you figure out how to undo a lot of that mess so that you can create more trust and sales and deals happen at the speed of trust.
[00:13:44] And so we're going to help you close more business, which will make things a lot better. Okay.
[00:13:50] Sarah: That's what we've got. All right. That's our agenda. And if this sounds interesting to you, now, our hope is that once you come to this event, you'll obviously get a lot out of it and learn a lot about sales that we just typically can't cover on a one hour call.
[00:14:07] It's just, it's too much. I can talk about 1 of those things for more than an hour. Right? Once you come to this event, you'll learn a lot and you'll be able to immediately implement these things so that very quickly, you will start seeing some changes and some positive results and momentum.
[00:14:24] Jason: So why do this in person?
[00:14:26] So let me talk about that. One of the things we've noticed in DoorGrow's, I'm starting to call it the real bubble. And so there's this mentality, I think, unconsciously in our brain. So when we're doing stuff on zoom calls and zoom meetings, which we do a lot of cool stuff that way DoorGrow, but we've noticed that when we get people in person for the first time they meet Sarah and I and realize we're real human beings.
[00:14:48] We're not just something on video and that we're real and they can like hug us. And like we touch right? Like then something shifts in their brain that everything else they're saying is real. When they start to meet clients that they've seen on some of the Zoom calls, sharing their wins and talking about crushing it and adding doors.
[00:15:07] They're like, "Oh, these are real people." And then the brain shifts and they start to connect that, "Hey, if they're real, and this is real and they're getting real results and they're like me, I'm a human, like I can do this too." And all of this stuff is actually true, impossible. And so we've noticed a shift in clients once they come to DoorGrow live, which is coming up in May, or they come to one of our in person events.
[00:15:32] And so we want to do this in person because there's something magical about in person that content and information is absorbed. A lot more easily. There's also that sort of kinesthetic aspect that we're there physically but the learning is a bit more experiential. We'll be able to maybe even role play, go over some scripts, talk, like, say things.
[00:15:52] It's just a bit more real than just seeing something on video or watching a video replay or something like that. And so come pierce the real veil with DoorGrow and realize the real magic that exists.
[00:16:03] Sarah: All right. Yes. And at this point you guys might be wondering all right, so this sounds pretty good.
[00:16:09] I think I might be interested. What do I do? Contact me. Don't contact anybody else on the team. They're not even going to know what you're talking about. Just contact me so you can get in touch with me. It's Sarah S-A-R-A-H. If you go to our website and you end up talking with somebody else on the team, they will point you in my direction and you can get registered that way.
[00:16:29] Now, tickets for this will be 1k per person. You can have as many people on your team attend as you would like. So if you have 3 BDMs and you want to send all 3. If there's just one or two, maybe that you want to send or you want to come check it out yourself, go ahead. But you'll need to let me know now spots are going to be limited. I don't even have 20 spots. I actually need to go back and confirm how many I have left because I know we had some people interested. But the price for this will be 1k per person. And I know that the price will not stay. At that rate.
[00:17:03] So we're launching it and we're doing something special with the price. So for now, take us our one case. So get in while the cost is low.
[00:17:12] Jason: There you go. All right. You will easily offset the cost of doing this. For most of you, that's like getting one more deal, right? So lifetime value for most of your clients, probably a lot higher, like maybe 10 times.
[00:17:27] Maybe 20 times higher if you can keep them a while, right? So this is a no brainer. This is very easy and we can get your BDM adding a lot more doors. So just like some client results, we've got clients that are easily some BDM are adding 200- 300 doors a year organically without paying for any SEO or pay per click or content marketing or social media marketing or pay per lead services like APM and they're able to grow and scale their business quickly through organic methods.
[00:17:56] Sarah: And we have some clients that turn business away every single month because they just cannot.
[00:18:02] Jason: Get pickier and pickier.
[00:18:03] Sarah: Yeah, they're backlogged. And then they ask us on the calls what do I do? Like, "I don't want to say no, but then I can't take on this many." And we're like, "now you have a waiting list and you can take on X money per month."
[00:18:14] And if they can't come on this month or they missed that deadline, then roll them over to the next month. If they qualify.
[00:18:20] Jason: Okay. All right. So that is BDM bootcamp. So check out BDM bootcamp, reach out to sarah@doorgrow.Com. Sarah with an H.
[00:18:28] Sarah: Yeah, if you spell my name wrong, I'm not talking to you cause I won't get it.
[00:18:32] Jason: Okay. That's your punishment.
[00:18:34] Wow. Okay.
[00:18:35] Sarah: So don't forget my H because everyone does.
[00:18:38] Jason: Just email me. I'm nicer.
[00:18:40] Sarah: He never checks his email. Don't email him. That's true.
[00:18:42] Jason: My assistant does. Don't do it. All right.
[00:18:44] Sarah: You'll never hear back the black hole.
[00:18:46] Jason: No, my assistant's good. She'll take care of it. I just won't see it.
[00:18:51] She'll tell me about it if it's important. All right. For those of you that are wanting to join a community, be part of something awesome, reach out to us. And so you can learn more about DoorGrow Mastermind. You get access to some of the coolest stuff and to be part of the coolest community of the most growth minded property management business owners in the industry.
[00:19:11] And we can help you get your business to the next level. So whether it's scaling operations, whether it's figuring out how to grow, whether it's cleaning up the front end of your business, getting your website and your pricing, right, all this kind of stuff. So we can help you. All right. Check us out at doorgrow. com until next time to our mutual growth, everybody. Bye for now.
[00:19:33] you just listened to the #DoorGrowShow. We are building a community of the savviest property management entrepreneurs on the planet in the DoorGrowClub. Join your fellow DoorGrow Hackers at doorgrowclub.com. Listen, everyone is doing the same stuff. SEO, PPC, pay-per-lead content, social direct mail, and they still struggle to grow!
[00:19:59] 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 who is always looking to grow and scale your business, you are open to new ways to automate processes in your business.
In this episode of the #DoorGrowShow, property management growth expert Jason Hull sits down with Tom and Diego from Calvary to talk about new maintenance coordination and manager trainings to scale property management maintenance.
[01:28] Property management maintenance bootcamp and trainings
[06:07] How to manage a maintenance team
[08:12] Trainings for a maintenance coordinator
[12:04] Making sure things don’t fall behind
[15:51] Maintenance teams at no cost
“The more involved you can make the material with all those different elements, the better the results are going to be for everybody.”
“It's about preserving the property, but it's also about tenant satisfaction, of course, owner satisfaction, and then building a strong relationship with vendors.”
“What you say and how you say it matters.”
“When you get overwhelmed, especially during high season, it's very easy to let things fall through the cracks.”
[00:00:00] Tom: Why is maintenance important? Everybody thinks they really know, but it's about preserving the property, but it's also about tenant satisfaction, of course, owner satisfaction, and then building a strong relationship with vendors.
[00:00:16] Jason: 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. 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. At DoorGrow, are are on a mission a 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.
[00:01:10] I'm your host, property management growth expert, Jason Hull, the founder and CEO of DoorGrow. Now let's get into the show.
[00:01:17] All right. So today I'm hanging out with Tom and Diego from Cavalry. Call in the cavalry.
[00:01:25] Tom: Yes. Once again.
[00:01:26] Jason: Talking about what today?
[00:01:28] Tom: Maintenance as always, but I'm super excited, Jason, because we're finally launching our training programs.
[00:01:36] It's actually our in house training program that we use for our own employees. Our own maintenance coordinators, and we're making it available to the public. So super excited about that. Yeah. And the reason why is because we gotten a lot of requests from people outside of our service areas. We're about 18 months into our business now, so we're not covering the whole of the U S yet. And therefore we found a way to still help those property management companies outside of our service areas. And that's what we're doing. Yeah.
[00:02:07] Jason: Awesome. So this training is pretty in depth, I would imagine, right? This is your best stuff. Because this is stuff you want your people to know to represent you and showcase your business.
[00:02:19] Correct.
[00:02:19] A lot of business owners might not want to do that? Like you're giving away your secret sauce.
[00:02:23] Tom: Yeah. So the reason why we're giving it away is, our main mission is to help property management companies.
[00:02:30] And of course this one is also paid. Then the main reason for it being paid is because it's a fully guided course. So it's a cohort course. So it's not just like, "here are some videos go ahead." No, we're actually guiding the students through the whole process. We have two courses, one for the MCs and one for the managers. For the MCs, it's a 30 day bootcamp plus 365 guided throughout all of the seasons because-
[00:02:56] Jason: MCs meaning maintenance coordinator.
[00:02:58] Tom: Yeah, correct. Correct. Yeah, the maintenance coordinators. So that's 30 day bootcamp plus 365 guidance throughout all of the seasons. And then for the maintenance manager course, it is 60 day bootcamp and then also 365 days of guiding and implementation.
[00:03:14] Jason: Got it. Okay. Very cool. We spoke earlier and you're like, "I've got a course." And I was like here's what I've learned about courses. And so what we've learned at DoorGrow it's a lot more effective to do what you're now thinking of doing, which is have a cohort, have people move through a class together, which is great.
[00:03:30] We've just found we get so much like bigger results with our clients instead of just giving them videos, which we used to do. They still have access to some cool video material. But when we take people through a class with their peers, and they're working on it together, it feels like they're actually doing something with other people.
[00:03:48] They tend to get a lot better results. They actually get stuff done. They have homework, they have deadlines, they have completion timelines for getting things done. And so we just found that they just get way better results because the completion rate on most courses is pretty abysmal. A lot of people like buy a course, but then they don't do it.
[00:04:05] And I'm sure everybody listening, you bought a course before and just didn't do it like myself included. Yeah. And so we've learned at DoorGrow, coaching clients for like over a decade now that this is 1 of the best ways to get results is the hybridize everything. It's like we give them, a little bit of the ability to ask questions and have, that little 1 on 1 sort of accountability aspect.
[00:04:30] There's the cohort where we're moving them through a program course material. Then there's the training material that's video course material. They can move through. And I've noticed also that people learn in different ways, right? Some people need to learn visually. Some people are more auditory.
[00:04:43] Some people are more like kinesthetic, which means that it's more about feelings and the physical state in doing things. And so, the more involved you can make the material with all those different elements, the better the results are going to be for everybody. So I love that you've developed this program.
[00:05:02] So why don't you tell us a little bit about. These two programs and how they would know which one should I have my maintenance person do? What's the difference between a maintenance coordinator and a maintenance manager?
[00:05:14] Tom: Yeah. So I would say that the maintenance coordinator course would, I would recommend those for maintenance teams that already have a maintenance manager in place.
[00:05:24] Jason: How do you define that?
[00:05:26] Tom: A maintenance manager does it all and maintenance coordinator coordinates maintenance under the guide of a maintenance manager.
[00:05:33] And that's why I wanted to say, I feel like if you have a one team person, they should follow the maintenance manager course. Why? Because it's so complete and you can build that person to then hire later on other people, them become under their guide.
[00:05:47] Jason: Got it. So if the maintenance person has an assistant or something like this, then they would do the maintenance manager thing.
[00:05:54] And that assistant maybe could go through the maintenance coordinator course.
[00:05:57] Tom: Correct a one person team, 100 percent go with the manager course, because it's much more in depth. Hiring, vendor onboarding, it goes a lot deeper into all of that.
[00:06:06] Jason: Got it. Okay. So tell us about the maintenance manager course.
[00:06:10] What are some of the things that you're going to cover so that you can turn these people into effective maintenance managers?
[00:06:17] Tom: Yeah. So it's going to be how to manage a team. So there's a lot talk about leadership, one on one meetings, evaluation of the team. What also sets it apart is the vendor onboarding aspect of it, how to find vendors, where to find vendors, what the process looks like, how to do it very time efficiently.
[00:06:37] And yeah the manager's course goes a lot deeper into the training as well and how to implement our maintenance system as a manager and how to daily uptrain your team maybe not necessarily every day, but that's what we do. So that's what we recommend.
[00:06:53] So it's really how to manage the team within our system. So the idea is that if you have a larger team, then you would just give the MC course to the maintenance coordinators and then the maintenance manager course to the manager and it all works in harmony.
[00:07:08] Jason: Got it. Okay. Now, a lot of people are like "I don't need my maintenance person to manage a team. I just need one person. I've only got a handful of doors or maybe a hundred or maybe 200 doors. Maybe I just need the maintenance coordinator one," or what if they don't have a maintenance person yet?
[00:07:27] Which one should they do as a business owner? It sounds like maybe the maintenance manager one would make sense because they need to hire somebody.
[00:07:33] Tom: Exactly. 100%. If it's 1 person, it's the maintenance manager. Why? Because we also give a vendor agreement example, an owner agreement example, a maintenance coordinator agreement example.
[00:07:46] So it's very complete. And again, if you have a 1 person team you go with the manager course.
[00:07:53] Got it. Okay, cool. The reason why we made the maintenance coordinator course shorter, it's just because there's stuff in there that they don't really need to know.
[00:08:03] And if at some point they want to become a manager or you just feel like that person should know everything then you can just give them the manager's course.
[00:08:12] Jason: Okay. So what does the maintenance coordinator course material cover? And what's left out?
[00:08:18] Tom: Yeah. Let me grab the modules here.
[00:08:20] So we have eight modules in the maintenance coordinating course. It is an introduction of course, and then understanding property management maintenance. It is about maintenance ethos. It is about why is maintenance important? Everybody thinks they really know, but it really highlights every single detail.
[00:08:39] It's about preserving the property, but it's also about tenant satisfaction, of course, owner satisfaction, and then building a strong relationship with vendors. Then we have a module about vendor management, so how to communicate with vendors, how to explain to them what the NTE means and how to implement it or how to use it.
[00:09:03] We have how to assign work orders to vendors. We have a day in the life of an MC. That's another module that is one of the most important ones. It is rather short, but it is super important because it talks a lot about time management, how to schedule your day and how to be very efficient with your day, because this is one of the biggest problems we see when we hire new MCs or maintenance coordinators is that they start by reading their emails, for example.
[00:09:32] Classic mistake. No, you should never start with reading your emails. You should start with the open emergencies, then the new work orders, and then you go through all of those, and then you can go to your emails, right? So it's it's one of these small details that make a world of difference.
[00:09:49] Okay. We also talk about the snowball effect. That is, for example, when you're a little bit slow and you get complaints, now those emails and those phone calls come in, right? So that means that now you have to spend a lot of time because when emails or complaints come in, you have to always go and dig a little bit, search a little bit further.
[00:10:10] And that takes a lot of time. All that time that you're then spending on that. Now you're delaying all of the other work. So that's what we call the snowball effect. Another module, for example is communication. What you say and how you say it matters. We have leveraging chat GPT to write perfect emails to give great responses, troubleshooting, big one for chat GPT.
[00:10:32] And then we discuss occupied service requests. And then the most important module is all of the flow charts. So the service request flow chart. So we have a full flow chart for every single type of work order. So emergency, normal, recurring vendor, owner, home warranty, or warranty job.
[00:10:49] Jason: Got it. Okay. So Diego, how involved were you with all this stuff?
[00:10:54] Diego: Pretty involved when it came to creating the systems. Yeah, I'm sorry that I'm not talking so much today. I'm feeling a bit under the weather and and that's why I asked.
[00:11:04] Jason: I just figured you're probably the brainchild behind most of the processes and systems. Yeah, we better make sure that you get some credit here.
[00:11:13] Diego: So, yeah, thank you. Yeah. No I'm sorry you guys. I do feel a bit under the weather, but I didn't want to miss this podcast. One of the things that I wanted to add with the maintenance scores and the manager scores. Is what we've seen is with new property management companies that we're working with a lot of times just looking at the KPIs, and looking at how many work orders you have open and how many you have closed and so on, which the course talks about, what happens a lot of times is that no one's really following those numbers. And as a manager, one of the reasons why we recommend the manager course, especially if you're looking to become a manager and how to manage your team members.
[00:11:58] Is taking a look at those numbers and making sure that things don't fall through the cracks. You would be surprised by how easy it is. I've seen it countless times with multiple companies where work orders just get left behind. They were opened. Somebody sent a couple of messages, trying to gather more information, but no one actually followed through with those particular work orders with these type of courses and having those flows the SOPs, it allows you to truly follow up on all of your open work orders, making sure that they're closed out correctly and that nothing else is pending. When a maintenance coordinator, or even a property manager, when you get overwhelmed, especially during high season, it's very easy to let things fall through the cracks.
[00:12:46] So the course does go through that in detail. Tom touched a very important subject about every different flow. Sometimes we tend to want to handle every work order the same way. When they're very different. So, for example, you cannot handle an emergency the same way that you would handle a recurring type of service request.
[00:13:08] And so it does go into detail of yeah, pretty much every flow, how it's broken down and why it's so important to take specific actions depending on the type of service request that it may be.
[00:13:20] Jason: Got it. So you guys probably have certain systems that you use internally with your team. So, property managers, they all have different tools, different software different property management, back office accounting.
[00:13:33] So is this system specific or are they able to use whatever system they have and apply these principles? How does this work? Is that an issue?
[00:13:43] Tom: Yeah, so there's a difference between systems, processes and SOPs, right? So the system is a culmination of all the processes with human intervention and technology, processes is what needs to happen. The SOP is how it needs to happen. It's by the company. So we recommend that every company writes their own SOPs. Now, of course, our courses do guide you on that, but everybody works differently, have different software, all of that. What we will be expanding on is tutorials for the different PropTech software. So Buildium, Meld yeah, whatever. And we also have a community available along with the course. So there's a chat where we discuss the course, but also a price estimating chat, troubleshooting chat, and, I'm sure we'll come up with other chats that we can leverage the community for.
[00:14:30] Jason: Very cool. So it sounds great. I'll be interested to learn more about it. Maybe see it myself. I think this would be great. I think there's definitely clients that we could send your way that could use some support on the maintenance stuff. So how do people get started with this and what would be the next steps for those listening?
[00:14:48] They're like, "Hey, I think I might be interested in this. How do I get more info?"
[00:14:52] Tom: Yes. So you can go to cavalry.works. That's our main website, or you can go to courses.cavalry.Works. That's the landing page for both courses. And we have a special promo for the DoorGrow community. We're actually giving a 50 percent discount for all DoorGrow members.
[00:15:10] It's a way to thank you for inviting us into your community.
[00:15:14] Jason: Okay. Very cool. So DoorGrow people like here you go. So, all right. Very awesome. We appreciate that. That's really cool. The discount code is DoorGrow. It's a difficult one to remember, but I know everyone will be able to do it.
[00:15:26] All right. The discount code is DoorGrow. All right. DoorGrow is the word. All right. Very cool. So, Diego, Tom, I appreciate you coming on the DoorGrow show. Thank you for sharing discount with DoorGrow people. And I love seeing what you guys are doing to recap for those that didn't see the previous episode that I had them on, they do free maintenance coordination.
[00:15:47] Do you want to just plug what you do real quick for those that maybe haven't heard the previous episode?
[00:15:51] Tom: Yeah. So honestly, I should have started with this because the reason why we're even qualified to teaching this is because we do this for a living. So we offer free maintenance teams to any property management company at no cost to you, the way that works is we get paid through a vendor volume discounts on the backend. But if you want more information about that, you can go to cavalry.works.
[00:16:14] Jason: Sounds really awesome. So, all right. Thank you, Diego. Thank you, Tom. Diego. Hope you feel better. I'll let both of you go.
[00:16:20] Appreciate you coming on the DoorGrow show. Thank you so much.
[00:16:23] Diego: Thank you, Jason. Thank you so much.
[00:16:25] Jason: All right. Bye bye. Bye bye. Okay. So if you are a property management entrepreneur, you are wanting to get maintenance, check them out. You're dealing with maintenance. It's one of the most difficult and earliest problems that you need to deal with as a property manager.
[00:16:39] You've got to figure out maintenance, got to figure out leasing. These are some of the basics. If you're struggling though, to add doors, you're like, "I just, I need more doors. I need to get more business. I need more leads. Or I need better processes throughout my business. I need to get like my systems going. I need a better team." Then these are the things that DoorGrow can help you with. So if you're struggling and you're not scaling your business, you're not adding minimum, at least a hundred doors annually, maybe two, maybe even 300. We have clients doing that and we want to help you do that. If you are not getting at least 50 percent profit margin in your business, we can help you get there and help you like implement some of the biggest profit levers that you'll ever implement in your business. So if you are struggling and you've got a handful of doors or you've got hundreds of doors, but you're not making enough money because your profit margin is low. Why are you even doing this crazy business? So let's get you some money.
[00:17:35] Let's get you paid. Let's make sure that this is worth it for you. We've got clients that are able to close more deals more easily at a higher price point because we're optimizing all the different leaks that exist in their sales pipeline. So reach out to us at DoorGrow. We can get you to the next level and we can do it fairly quickly.
[00:17:52] So check us out at doorgrow.Com. Hopefully we're working together soon. Bye everyone.
[00:17:57] 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!
[00:18:24] 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.
We get the question all the time, “What does DoorGrow even do?”
In this short and sweet episode of the #DoorGrowShow, property management entrepreneurs Jason and Sarah Hull share what they do, why they do it, and how to get in touch.
[03:09] Most property managers suck
[05:03] Don’t kill your momentum!
[08:35] We can make the industry better together
[10:43] You might be the problem in your business
“We want to make sure you have a business that you enjoy doing stuff in.”
“If you are not adding at least minimum a hundred doors a year, your business is broken.”
“If you're doing what everybody else does, you're probably getting the same shitty results that everybody else is getting in this industry.”
“The bar is so low in property management that, the phrase ‘a rising tide raises all ships,’ I think a rising tide would just drown several ships.”
[00:00:00] Jason: If you're doing what everybody else does, you're probably getting the same shitty results that everybody else is getting in this industry.
[00:00:07] 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 hacker... or 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... and to becoming a better investor yourself and getting rental properties. 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.
[00:01:02] We're your hosts, property management growth experts, Jason and Sarah Hull, the owners of DoorGrow. Now let's get into the show.
[00:01:10] All right. So we're going to make this a short episode today because I just didn't want to do it. I didn't want to do it. Like, honestly, like there's some days that I'm just like, "I don't want to do the podcast. Like, can we just get on with doing the stuff that I Like we need to get done in the business, right?"
[00:01:26] Sarah: Let's be realistic. There are some days that we don't feel like doing anything. That's normal.
[00:01:31] Jason: Right? That's business, right? I'm sure a lot of you wake up sometimes and you're like, "I do not want to do this today."
[00:01:37] Yeah, so we want to make sure you have a business that you enjoy doing stuff in. So we'll have a quick conversation. So what we were going to talk about is what?
[00:01:45] Sarah: Oh, why do you do this to me?
[00:01:46] Jason: Okay, what we were going to talk about, we're going to talk about just real quick. Let's answer the question.
[00:01:52] What does DoorGrow do? So we get this question all the time. Cause they're like "DoorGrow? You help grow and we grow doors? And like, what does that mean? How do you do that? Do you guys get us leads? Are you an advertising company? Like, what do you do? So what we do, the shortest answer I could give you is we help companies grow rapidly while eliminating their marketing or advertising expense and budget.
[00:02:15] And I know that sounds crazy. So we're helping you not have to waste time doing cold lead marketing or advertising. You might think SEO or pay per click on Google or content marketing or social media marketing or whatever is the secret to getting all the business and growing your business and getting your hopes and dreams to come true.
[00:02:35] And a lot of you have been spending a lot of money doing that, and it's not really working super well. And so what we do is we help you figure out how to grow effectively. We also help optimize businesses for growth. So a lot of times you're trying to grow, you're trying to do a bunch of stuff to get leads and to get doors and to get business, but you have all these blind spots that are eating up and causing you to lose and miss out on deals that you can't see.
[00:03:01] It might be that you have your branding is off. Your reputation stuff is off. Your sales pitch is off. Your pricing stuff is off. If you're doing what everybody else does, you're probably getting the same shitty results that everybody else is getting in this industry. And most property management companies suck.
[00:03:17] Most of you listening know this is true. You look at your business and you think, "we're pretty good, but all the other companies suck." And most property managers I talk to that are starting a property management business. They, I say, "why are you starting a business?" And they say, "I'm an investor, and I've tried to use other companies in my market, but they all suck." The bar is pretty low. The bar is so low in property management that, the phrase "a rising tide raises all ships," I think a rising tide would just drown several ships. Like I think they would just sink because they're just sitting on bedrock.
[00:03:48] There's a lot of bad companies. And there's a lot of miserable property management business owners. This is not an easy business or industry. I know this is true. I've talked to thousands of property managers. I talked to property managers every week that are miserable every week on sales calls. They like get on a call with me and they're like, "I am not enjoying my business. I am struggling. I'm frustrated," and it's because they are trying to wear all the hats or they have team members that are not really making them feel safe, not really taking everything off their plate in particular roles. And so they still have to be involved and wear hats they don't enjoy it. They don't want to keep doing so. We help you get your team in alignment. We help you get your ops in alignment. We help you get your profit margin healthy. We are helping our clients crush it. And if you are not adding at least minimum a hundred doors a year, your business is broken. You do not have effective growth. That is not difficult to do. We've got clients adding a hundred to 200 to 300. And if any of my clients are listening, if you are not adding at least 100 doors a year, you're not listening and doing what we tell you to do. So we've got clients that are crushing it. The other thing that we do is on the operational side.
[00:05:03] Like, if you keep stopping your growth and adding doors because you're like "we've got a whole bunch of business coming on. And now I got to focus on operations." You have to stop pausing. And so you have to stop stopping growth in your business. I see this all the time, even with some of our clients, they start growing really rapidly.
[00:05:19] And they're like, "Oh my gosh, I got to like, stop growing. It's too much. I'm adding too many doors. It's getting painful. It's getting uncomfortable." If you stop, here's the challenge, what I've seen. What I've seen is that if you stop growing right now, you then cannot get things going for at least a quarter or two.
[00:05:36] And then like a sales slump takes about a quarter to get out of. So you lose almost a year of momentum and growth just by stopping growth to focus on ops or to focus on fulfillment or focus on onboarding all these new clients, right? So you have to stop stopping because if you do this, you start growing, it gets uncomfortable and then you stop.
[00:05:57] And then it's months to a year of growth, and then you start trying to build it up and get growth going again, and then you stop again, I see companies that do this, and what happens is your churn rate starts to match your growth rate, and so you end up with a business where you've been stuck at 50 or 60 units for like 3 years, or you've been stuck in the 2 to 400 unit range for like 3 years or more, and you can't figure out how to grow or get ahead.
[00:06:24] And if you aren't stopping and you're still stuck at these stages, then your business has some serious leaks in it. And these are so solvable, like on the other side of this, it's so solvable. You could have such a better life. You could have more time with your family and kids. You could feel like you're actually making progress and not burning yourself out.
[00:06:46] You could be getting out of the stuff that's burning you out and you could start to like have a real impact. You can have the day to day that you want to have. This is all doable. You can be miserable in a business with a thousand doors. You can be miserable in a business with 50 doors or 10.
[00:07:05] Sarah: I'm totally overwhelmed. I'm like, "Oh..."
[00:07:07] Jason: or you could like be having like space and time and taking care of yourself at any stage or level at 50 units or at a thousand plus units. And we need to shift your mindset and build the right business around you. So if you're dealing with some of these challenges, you've been stuck in struggling for a long time, you need to stop doing what I've done in the past and being stubborn and thinking you can solve it all on your own.
[00:07:33] If you just watch enough YouTube videos or read enough books or go to enough NARPM conferences, and you think you'll just figure it out when all you end up doing is heaping more ideas that are just wasting time. And distracting you from what you actually need to do, which you can't usually even see.
[00:07:51] You need some outside perspective because you're too close to the fire and you just keep burning yourself. All right. That's my soapbox.
[00:07:59] Sarah: There. Yeah. Tell us how you really feel today, would you? Don't hold back!
[00:08:03] Jason: Don't be stupid. Get help.
[00:08:05] Sarah: I was talking to you.
[00:08:06] Jason: People! Okay. All right. Yeah. And I've talked to so many property management business owners over the last decade, even the last week.
[00:08:14] And I get really excited when I talk to people with problems because I know how easy it is for us to help them solve these problems. And if everybody knew how easy it would be for us to help them make progress and get their business moving forward, every property manager be signing up for a mastermind.
[00:08:31] Everyone would because I bet a lot of you are frustrated and not happy there shouldn't be as many crappy property management businesses in this industry as there are. There just shouldn't. There's no need for that. We need to make the industry better. If we make it better, it gets better for everyone.
[00:08:49] If your neighboring property managers all start doing a great job, your business and you start doing a great job, you will get more business. There's only 30 percent market share roughly. There's tons of available potential market share. There's no scarcity. There's no like, "Oh man, like there's nobody I could get as clients."
[00:09:07] There's none of that. There's tons of available business, but the bar is so low and property management has such a bad reputation because there's so many crappy companies because they're doing stupid stuff that is not helping them grow, have revenue, have profit margin, and they're making lots of mistakes.
[00:09:24] And because everybody else is doing that, it's like normal. So it's not hard to be exceptional in this industry just by doing a decent job. It's super not hard to be exceptional. Like there are so many companies don't even answer their phones. There's so many companies that don't even communicate with their owners ever.
[00:09:45] There's so many companies that like don't even do inspections. There's so many companies that have their trust accounts, like absolutely mismanaged, right? That it's so simple and easy. You just need to be accurate and available and you would surpass 90 percent of the property management companies out there.
[00:10:02] And then if you're one of our clients, we go way beyond that. We then start to make you a really great legitimate business that would be a great business in any industry, right? But in property management, the bar is really low. So if you want to be exceptional and start stealing all the market share and getting lots of business, that's not hard to do because the bar is so low in almost every single market.
[00:10:23] It's not difficult to be exceptional. So that's my message for today.
[00:10:27] Sarah: So give us a call. If you aren't happy in your property management business, if you feel like you can be doing less of the day to day, if you feel like you're overwhelmed and you're stressed, and maybe you're just not really in love with this business, we can help.
[00:10:42] Jason: Yeah. If you're not growing fast enough, there's something wrong in the business and the problem is probably business owner. It's probably you. And that's the thing. Like, we have to take extreme ownership as business owners. We have to recognize that. "Oh, the business is a problem." If you're blaming your team, you pick that team, right?
[00:11:01] If you're blaming your systems, the problem is you pick those systems. If you're blaming the market, then you're just making excuses because I'm sure somebody else could crush it in your market. We've heard all of the excuses. The only real honest thing that you can do is take ownership. Extreme ownership,
[00:11:18] it's a great book, read extreme ownership. The problem is you. And if you own that problem, then you can actually change it and solve it. And we're here to help you do that. And we will help you see that this is all fixable stuff. All right, I think that's our episode for today.
[00:11:33] Sarah: All right.
[00:11:34] Jason: Anything you want to add?
[00:11:35] Sarah: Nope.
[00:11:36] Jason: Okay, then reach out to us at doorgrow. Check us out at doorgrow. com. Get on a call with me. I want to talk to you. Like if you're struggling, I will show you how we can help you solve this. And if we can't, then we won't take you on as a client. If you're not coachable, then we won't take you on as a client.
[00:11:50] Like, but if I can help you, I want to help you. This is what we do every day. I love helping people grow their business and helping change their life. I want you to have a better life. I want you to have more time with your family. I want you to have more money in your bank account. I want you to have the freedom to take vacations and to do things that really matter.
[00:12:09] Life is too short to be in constant suffering and pain and to live for a business that takes ownership of your life. And now you're like a slave to it, right? The business should be serving you. So let's get the business serving you instead of you feeling like you're waking up every day, serving your business.
[00:12:27] All right. Until next time to our mutual growth. Bye everyone.
[00:12:31] 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!
[00:12:58] 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.
DoorGrow Live 2024 is upon us! If you have been in the property management space for a little while now, you’re probably familiar with DoorGrow Live.
In this episode of the #DoorGrowShow, property management growth experts Jason and Sarah explain how this year’s is expanding upon previous DoorGrow Live events. This year’s theme focuses on creating opportunity in times of uncertainty. Be there May 17-18 in Round Rock, TX.
[01:20] DoorGrow Live, the property management event you don’t want to miss
[03:58] 2024: Creating Opportunity Through Uncertainty
[05:48] Using these hectic times to your advantage
[07:07] First glance at DoorGrow Live topics
[08:32] Networking with growth-minded people
“The market is very uncertain right now, but that is such a great opportunity to do something with it.”
“It's not hard to step up and showcase leadership and become a leader in times of crisis.”
“There's all sorts of craziness that's going to be happening, and this is a big opportunity for you to get more market share to get more investments.”
“This is how some of the largest companies were built were during like recessions or depressions or time periods where they decided to double down and to focus on growth instead of scale back and be a fearful like everybody else. This is when winners are made.”
[00:00:00] Jason: This is when winners are made. And so we want our clients and those that are close to us and attending DoorGrow Live to be those that capitalize and succeed in this industry.
[00:00:11] 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.
[00:00:29] 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.
[00:00:49] At DoorGrow, we are on a mission to transform property management business owners and their businesses. We want to transform the industry, eliminate the BS, build awareness, change perception, expand the market and help the best property management entrepreneurs win. We're your hosts, property management, growth experts, Jason and Sarah Hull the founder and CEO of DoorGrow and the operator COO of DoorGrow.
[00:01:13] And now let's get into the show.
[00:01:16] All right, we'll get that figured out eventually.
[00:01:18] I always love it.
[00:01:19] Okay. So what we're going to be talking about today is what, Sarah?
[00:01:24] Sarah: DoorGrow Live
[00:01:25] Jason: DoorGrow live. DoorGrow Live! Yeah, so DoorGrow Live is our premier conference that we do once a year and it's pretty great.
[00:01:35] So what do we want to say about it?
[00:01:37] Sarah: All right. So let's get them some of the information first. You can get all of this information at DoorGrowlive.Com. So that's the first thing is Just go to doorgrowlive.Com. Everything is on there except for our agenda, which we have not yet released.
[00:01:53] We've got so much good stuff planned for you guys, but we're keeping the agenda a little close right now. So the dates for the event. It's a Friday and Saturday. It's May 17th and 18th, and it's in North Austin, Texas. The city is actually Round Rock, but no one knows where that is, so North Austin, Texas.
[00:02:13] Okay, and where are we holding it this year?
[00:02:17] Jason: It's going to be at the Kalahari Resort in Round Rock, Texas So this is a really cool resort. it's really large and it's brand new. It's just built in the last several years.
[00:02:28] Sarah: 2020? Bad launch date.
[00:02:30] Jason: Yeah, they launched it not knowing there was going to be a pandemic.
[00:02:33] Sarah: Yeah, I think they opened and then the whole world shut down.
[00:02:36] Jason: Yeah. And they have I believe the United States' largest indoor water park. It has this big indoor water park. Which could be fun. Yeah. If you're into that, or you can bring the kiddos maybe with you, but and it has several good restaurants and it's right in the heart of Round Rock.
[00:02:51] Round Rock is just such a cute, cool town. The downtown area is really cool. There's all sorts of, great little restaurants and, bars and whatever you're into. So it's a fun little area and you're just hop, skip, and jump to get to downtown Austin. It's, Flying into Austin, one of the easiest, best airports.
[00:03:09] I love being close to be able to get places through that airport.
[00:03:13] Sarah: Yeah. And they have a lot of flights. Yeah. They really do. They have flights from everywhere. So it's very central. It's easy to get on into. And the airport is really great.
[00:03:22] Jason: And then it's a quick drive over to the Kalahari resort where you can book your room and stay. And we've got a special group rate for you there so.
[00:03:30] Sarah: We do.
[00:03:31] Jason: We negotiated, so.
[00:03:33] Sarah: We do. Jason's assistant Mar, she always negotiates really great deals for you guys. If you want to just go ahead and book, you can, but if you'd rather get the discounted room rate, go to doorgrowlive.Com and then click on the link to register.
[00:03:48] And that will help you get registered for the event and it will help you book your room at the discounted room rate. So that way you can get... I like saving money. I like it. It's great for me.
[00:03:59] Jason: All right. So what else do we want to tell them about DoorGrow Live?
[00:04:02] Sarah: Oh, okay. So this year's theme is going to be Creating Opportunity Through Uncertainty.
[00:04:09] It's a weird year. So I really don't know what's happening with the market. There's a lot of talk. Is it going up? Is it going down? Are interest rates going to change? What's happening with property management? Right now it's a little bit harder to rent things out, whereas before, you could find a tenant in about a week or two.
[00:04:26] And now that has changed and slowed down. And I'm hearing from some people that they're worried about their competitors or new companies are popping up that want to leverage AI and All kinds of technology and not have a lot of humans involved and, all the good stuff. So it's just a weird year and the market is very uncertain right now, but that is such a great opportunity to do something with it.
[00:04:52] So we want to talk with you guys about how you can actually grow your company right now. This is not going to be well, "Hey, this might be relevant in three years if the market does this," this is relevant right now. So we're going to talk about actual strategies that you can implement today.... the day after the conference... if you attend.
[00:05:09] And that you can just immediately implement them and start growing because we have some really amazing things planned for this conference.
[00:05:18] Jason: One of the things that I've noticed over the last several events that we've done and our plans for this one, just to give you a little bit of a teaser is we have a focus on those that want to be involved as investors.
[00:05:32] And most property managers are investors and they're serving investors. And so some of the people are bringing in some of the conversations we're going to be having are how did structure, creative deals especially in this environment where we've got high interest rates and things are a little crazy.
[00:05:48] And what Sarah said is true. 2024 is an election year, right? Every time there's an election cycle, the most powerful people and decision makers that control our lives to some degree start making things crazy. And there's opposing sides and it gets wild. So there's a lot of uncertainty that happens every election cycle.
[00:06:06] Look at 2020, look at four years before that, look at 2024. There's all sorts of craziness that's going to be happening, and this is a big opportunity for you to get more market share to get more investments. There's going to be a big opportunity, I think, for you to establish yourself as a leader in the marketplace, and it's not hard to step up and showcase leadership and become a leader in times of crisis, like during the pandemic. And there's people that failed during that. And there's people that succeeded during that and made a lot of money. And we want to make sure you're prepared because there's patterns to this.
[00:06:42] This is how some of the largest companies were built were during like recessions or depressions or time periods where they decided to double down and to focus on growth instead of scale back and be a fearful like everybody else. This is when winners are made. And so we want our clients and those that are close to us and attending, DoorGrow Live to be those that capitalize and succeed in this industry.
[00:07:07] Sarah: So I'm not saying that this is definitely going to happen. I'm just saying that there's a pretty good chance that we might be talking about things like some creative ways to structure deals. Maybe some seller finance stuff, maybe some subject 2, maybe looking at your portfolio to see if any of your investors start to panic sell.
[00:07:32] If you can capitalize on those opportunities, we might be looking at your profitability. We might be talking about some different business models and growth engines. There's just a chance that those are some of the things that we might talk about, being that we're not releasing the full agenda yet
[00:07:50] Jason: Okay, so yeah, there's gonna be some cool stuff Some of the things we might be talking about is a lot of people have been really curious about how we've been Able to make millions and millions of dollars leveraging Social media, and it's not something I usually want to share because I feel like it's a distraction in a lot of instances, but there are some ways to do this.
[00:08:12] That can make you money as a property manager. And so there might be some conversation around some of that and how to leverage AI and some of the tools we use a DoorGrow to collapse time and cost on getting out to all the social media platforms. And so Yeah, there's several other things that we can tease, but it's going to be a really great event.
[00:08:32] I think the best part about DoorGrow events that's really different from every other property management conference that I've been around or attended is the type of people that are there. They're just, they're a different crowd. The DoorGrow crowd is a different crowd. These are growth minded people.
[00:08:47] These are contribution focused people. These are people that want to make a difference. These are people that are experiencing a different level of mindset, a different level of freedom and fulfillment in their business. These are property managers that actually enjoy what they get to do. This is what we do with clients.
[00:09:02] We get them to the point where they're enjoying their day to day. And we've gotten all of the uncomfortable stuff onto other people's shoulders on their teams. And so we're really good at helping our clients get out of the cycle of suck, getting out of the day to day suck of stress and overwhelm. This is not a conference where everybody shows up and they just want to go hang out at the bar and pretend it's a vacation and get wasted.
[00:09:25] Right. And if that's you, sorry, if I offended you, go do that. That's if that's what you need.
[00:09:30] Sarah: Do that after the event.
[00:09:31] Jason: Yeah, sure.
[00:09:32] Sarah: Go drink in the water park.
[00:09:33] Jason: Go do that. You can't.
[00:09:35] Sarah: I think there's a bar in there.
[00:09:36] Jason: I don't know. Maybe. But our clients are there to connect. They're there to get to the next level.
[00:09:41] They have a growth mindset. And they're there to network. And so the connections made at these events are some of the biggest game changers. People are making friends. And if you want to be part of a community, if you want to come just taste some of the DoorGrow magic in person and see what's DoorGrow about? How is this different?
[00:10:00] Why aren't they going to all of these other conferences and doing what everybody else is doing? How are they unique? Come experience it, come see it, and we'll share some things with you. And you'll get to talk to people that are having phenomenal growth. People that are like startups that are adding a hundred doors in like six months, like people that are adding two, 300 doors a year without spending any money on advertising, like this is real stuff that our clients are doing.
[00:10:24] And you can come rub shoulders with some amazing people. I think that's the thing about DoorGrow is we, I think are attracting the cream of the crop, the best people in the industry, people with the strongest and healthiest mindset, people that are attracted to growth minded people. If you want to be around growth minded people in this industry that are doing innovative and new things like this is the place to be is DoorGrow Live.
[00:10:47] So go to doorgrowlive.Com right now, get your tickets. We do have limited availability. This is not a massive event yet. And we have, we sold out. We've sold out at these events. If you want to get your spot, I recommend get in now because we know what you're going to do.
[00:11:05] Sarah: What happens at every event is we always have more people and then they're like, "can we just grab a chair and maybe put it in the back? Like I'll stand in the back. I don't care." And that has happened at the last three of our events where we've had more people try to show up.
[00:11:20] Jason: And then you stress out my assistant Mar and
[00:11:24] Sarah: I'm like just grab them a chair take a chair from the lobby I don't care make it happen
[00:11:28] So let's make sure that you have a place at a seat at the table.
[00:11:32] Let's do that.
[00:11:33] Jason: Yeah get make sure that you get your tickets early get your tickets soon.
[00:11:38] Sarah: There's early bird tickets on sale right now.
[00:11:40] Jason: Oh, Yeah, so at the time of this recording there are early bird tickets for sale So if you're watching this live right now, or you see this soon There are early bird tickets and the tickets we're not trying to make this some crazy profit center The tickets early bird tickets are what 197?
[00:11:57] They're 197
[00:11:59] Sarah: 197!
[00:12:00] Jason: And what does the room cost?
[00:12:02] Sarah: It's probably somewhere around two to three hundred.
[00:12:04] Jason: We're not trying to make this some big expensive thing.
[00:12:06] We probably make $0 off the whole event.
[00:12:10] Sarah: Oh yeah.
[00:12:10] Jason: It costs us a lot of money to put these events on, but for us, it creates community...
[00:12:14] Sarah: It's an investment that we're willing to make so that we can do cool things in the industry and for our clients and for those who are just interested in being better and leveling up their business and their life.
[00:12:28] Jason: Okay, cool.
[00:12:28] Sarah: So go to DoorGrow Live, grab your early bird tickets. You can do it after the early bird sale too or wait longer, which I'm cool with. Do it now. If you want the sale do it now. And. You'll get there's a whole section on there with frequently asked questions, all of the information that you need is on there, but if you've got any additional questions, just ping us, reach out to us, you can really reach us just about anywhere and our team will be able to help you and answer your questions.
[00:12:55] And then I will also say we still have a few spots. I don't know, exactly how many right now I'll confirm for sure for VIP I want to say there's at least four left right now, and that is tentative, but at three or four, maybe spots left at this point for the VIP. So if you're interested in upgrading to VIP, again, you can do this at doorgrowlive.Com. There's a button that says upgrade to VIP. And if you upgraded VIP then on I think day two, you'll go to lunch. We'll do a little VIP lunch. You'll be able to have lunch with all of the speakers at the event.
[00:13:34] Jason: And us.
[00:13:34] Sarah: And yes, and me and Jason our team is going to be there and you'll get priority seating at the event.
[00:13:41] Jason: Cool. Yay. All right. Okay. That's it. Go to doorgrowlive.Com and until next time to our mutual growth. Bye everyone.
[00:13:49] you just listened to the #DoorGrowShow. We are building a community of the savviest property management entrepreneurs on the planet in the DoorGrowClub. Join your fellow DoorGrow Hackers at doorgrowclub.com. Listen, everyone is doing the same stuff. SEO, PPC, pay-per-lead content, social direct mail, and they still struggle to grow!
[00:14:16] At DoorGrow, we solve your biggest challenge: getting deals and growing your business. Find out more at doorgrow.com. Find any show notes or links from today's episode on our blog doorgrow.com, and to get notified of future events and news subscribe to our newsletter at doorgrow.com/subscribe. Until next time, take what you learn and start DoorGrow Hacking your business and your life.
As a property manager, you know how stressful the industry can be. It’s often a difficult and thankless job. On this podcast, we like to share ways for property management entrepreneurs to take care of their physical and mental well-being, but the importance of sleep is often overlooked…
In today’s episode, property management growth expert, Jason Hull sits down with Bijoy John A.K.A. Dr. SleepFix to talk about how to achieve high-quality sleep to reduce stress and improve overall health.
[01:47] Why sleep matters more than you think
[06:43] Mythbusting sleep hacks
[16:19] How stress and worrying is slowly killing you
[20:52] The 7 proven sleep strategies
[27:51] Daily planning to reduce stress
“Sleep is a superpower.”
“I've never seen anybody sleep better by having too much information.”
“Worrying about anything is probably not an effective way to get to sleep.”
“You cannot data mine yourself to sleep.”
[00:00:00] Bijoy John: People say "I can sleep when I die." But I tell people, "if you're going to go on this path, you're going to die."
[00:00:07] Jason: 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 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. DoorGrow property managers love the opportunities, daily variety, unique challenges, and freedom that property management brings.
[00:00:34] Many in real estate think you're crazy for doing it. You think they're crazy for not because you realize that property management is the ultimate high trust gateway to real estate deals, relationships, and residual income. At DoorGrow, we are on a mission to transform property management business owners and their businesses. We want to transform the industry, eliminate the BS, build awareness, change perception, expand the market, and help the best property management entrepreneurs win. I'm your host, property management growth expert, Jason Hull, the founder and CEO of DoorGrow. Now let's get into the show.
[00:01:11] And I have a special guest today. This is Bijoy John. Welcome to the show, man.
[00:01:17] Bijoy John: Hey Jason, how are you? Thanks, man.
[00:01:18] Jason: I'm great. So we met at a mastermind because we both invest in ourselves and work on growth and he builds himself out as Dr. SleepFix I saw on Instagram. And so we've got Dr. SleepFix in the house with us today. So we're going to chat about sleep and I'm excited to get into this.
[00:01:38] Because you know, we geeked out talking during the mastermind about sleep a bit, but this is something I've put some attention on because it has a serious impact on us. And why don't you give us a little about your background? And tell us a little bit about how you got into focusing on sleep.
[00:01:55] Bijoy John: Thank you, Jason. Thanks for having me. So sleep is a superpower. We don't take it seriously because it doesn't hurt like a toothache or grow like cancer, so we put it off, but with years, it just catches up with you, right? So my background is in pulmonary critical care. I've been practicing sleep medicine for over 25 years, there are patients who have pulmonary problems and lung problems takes precedence.
[00:02:16] To see me was like six months wait to see me in clinic. So finally I decided, as time goes, you change your perspective and, I thought we'll do something preventative for people. So I saw many problems, like blood pressure, diabetes, memory problems, people are in a fog, which can all be prevented by sleeping better.
[00:02:37] So I left my the whole shebang of the ICU, the big flying critical care doctor and started my own clinic three years ago called Sleep Wellness Clinics and then I wrote a book and then I started by a company called SleepFix Academy to reach the masses. So sleep is the superpower. We pay a lot of attention on diet and fitness, but sleep is the foundation on which the other two are built.
[00:03:01] So I just want everybody to find it within themselves and discover the superpower and be the best version of ourselves. That's my goal.
[00:03:08] Jason: Got it. That must have been frustrating to see all these problems in the medical industry that could have just been prevented by sleeping better.
[00:03:17] It seems like such a silly, simple thing that we don't even pay attention to sometimes. Like we just take it for granted. We're like, "yeah, I sleep every day. No big deal." But the difference in quality of sleep can be pretty dramatic.
[00:03:29] Bijoy John: Especially when we talk about mental health, sleep and anxiety and depression have a bidirectional relationship when you don't sleep while you're in a fog, and then you feel anxious, and then you feel depressed. Then when you're more anxious, you don't sleep. And then it's just a vicious cycle. So a lot of people can feel better by just focusing on their sleep. You feel more vitalized and energy. You know how it is when you wake up after a good night's sleep. You're ready to conquer.
[00:03:56] I had my own struggles. I was terrible sleeper in medical school. And then as a father raising children and then my career. And then of course when I lost my mom and then when I started my business, but I have found a way. I found the joy in the power of sleep.
[00:04:12] So I just want this foundation to be built and I want to share this information to as many people as I can.
[00:04:18] Jason: Got it. So you mentioned mental health. What are some of the problems that people might be having that could be prevented by better sleep? Because a lot of people are thinking, "I sleep all right. And it's probably not that big a deal," but then they're dealing with all these health issues and these challenges. And they're like, "yeah. Sleep probably isn't even related to this.:
[00:04:36] Bijoy John: Like I mentioned, we don't have, like a pain, if you have a pain, we're going to take care of it. So what happens is if you wake up in the morning after like seven or eight hours of sleep, if you feel good that day, then mostly you're doing all right. But if you're still feeling tired. then you have a sleep problem. And of course, if you snore, then for sure you have a sleep problem. So this is my simple question I ask people, "are you tired? Or do you snore?" So once I have that answer, then we can go into the depths of what might be causing the problem.
[00:05:10] Jason: Got it. Okay. So snoring is basically choking, right? While they're trying to sleep.
[00:05:15] Bijoy John: Snoring... it's like water going through a pipe. And if I'm going to narrow the pipe.
[00:05:19] The water creates turbulence. Same thing with snoring is air going through an obstructed pathway. So your back of your throat when the tongue falls down is narrowed and then air is not able to get in. And the reverberation and the vibrations that happens around it is the cause for the snoring. Of course, men snore more because the larynx or the voice box it's like a trumpet. So your sound is amplified in women is smaller and it's the, so women don't report that much snoring. So we have to pay particular attention for snoring in people.
[00:05:52] Jason: Got it. Okay. So what are some of the simple hacks that people can do to quickly improve their sleep? And how do they know when it's time to reach out to Dr. SleepFix?
[00:06:07] Bijoy John: So the two complaints that is "I don't sleep enough" or "I sleep too much." So these are the two common complaints in the world of sleep. So if you do not sleep enough, that's the condition called insomnia, right? So that's a time to reach out. People get all the information from the internet most of it is not right and then they try to do half of it and then they get stuck right and then also like I mentioned snoring is a main issue you have a very serious condition called obstructive sleep apnea if you're snoring.
[00:06:39] So what are the hacks? You want me to get right into it, Jason?
[00:06:43] Jason: Yeah. How about I share some hacks I've learned and you tell me if they're valid
[00:06:47] Bijoy John: Correct.
[00:06:47] Jason: Yes. Perfect, man.
[00:06:48] Yes. Because I've geeked out on some of this stuff.
[00:06:50] One of the things, I wear orange glasses at night to block blue light.
[00:06:55] Bijoy John: You wore it during the meeting.
[00:06:57] Jason: Yeah, my eyes were getting tired, so I put them on during the meeting. Yeah, you remember. I wear them at night or in the evenings after sundown so that I'm not being exposed to artificial light, which has blue light in it. Which I've heard disrupts sleep patterns and causes your circadian rhythm to get off track and causes you to have poor sleep.
[00:07:17] So what I find is when I wear the orange glasses, usually within maybe about three or four hours, I start to naturally feel sleepy if I wear them. So if I put them on during the day, I have to be careful because if I forget and I have them on for like three or four hours, I'm like, man, I'm starting to feel tired.
[00:07:33] Right, which is, I think melatonin starting to get produced naturally, which is like the brain starting to clean itself naturally, and then body's getting ready for sleep, right? So am I correct on that?
[00:07:46] Bijoy John: Your hack is right. So we are creatures of light. We wake up because of sunlight.
[00:07:51] If you look at small children, they wake up at the crack of dawn. And so in the evening, we don't want that much sunlight or especially at night, I should not in the evening sunlight is actually good for sleeping, but the night. So what are we doing? We are having our phones, especially with COVID people are bringing the work into the bedroom and the light from the electronic devices. Maybe it's the tablet, it's a phone, the computer. Especially in the bedroom where there's no ambient light. It's just, it sends a signal through our eyes into our brain saying, "Hey, it's not time to go to sleep." So that's one major thing, especially in the bedroom. So melatonin, melamine is darkness, right?
[00:08:30] Melatonin is only secreted in darkness. So we have our own tons of melatonin, which does not secrete because the exposure to light. So you're right. That hack is right.
[00:08:40] Jason: Okay, got it. So that, so the other thing that I do is I have my phone's home screen change to... I can change it to red. I set up a hack and you can set this on your phone where like if I click on it three times, one, two, three, it changes the red. So if I'm in the dark, because sometimes before bed, I'm looking at my phone in the dark or something before I fall asleep, but it's then not affecting my sleep. I also have lights in my room at night, like when I'm going to go to sleep where it's just red. So I can just make it red. So then if I put on the orange glasses or take it off, everything looks exactly the same. So then I don't need to wear the glasses as I'm going to bed. Because it's hard to fall asleep with glasses on your face. I don't want to do that.
[00:09:25] Bijoy John: Yeah. So the bedroom has to be dark.
[00:09:27] So that's an, again, an indication for our body. "Hey, the body is taking the cues from the external environment and from within." See that the pressure to sleep is building throughout the body, but it is counteracted by. But the external influences, the sun, the noise so that's what, sometimes around 1:30-2:00, we feel that lull because your inner body is in a natural lull because of the, the sun goes down a little bit and the noise level is not that much and your body's pressure to sleep is building up.
[00:09:56] So that's why we are tired sometime in the afternoon. So that's a good hack. You're doing great with that with what you're doing there.
[00:10:02] Jason: So as far as the bedroom some of the things that I've also focused on doing is like you mentioned light. Besides light hitting our eyes, let's say our eyes, like we're wearing a sleep mask, we can't see any light, which I have done, like I'll sometimes travel with a sleep mask so I can block out all the light if I'm in a hotel room that it just doesn't have good blackout curtains or whatever. So with our bedrooms Where we're sleeping regularly. I think it's important to kill all the led lights So there's black stickers that you can put over led lights I've used a paint pen to black out some leds on some of the things that are in my room because a lot of these things Like are just and they're always they always make them blue.
[00:10:39] I don't know why but all the leds of all the devices they put in your room. It's like they're trying to give you blue light and hurt your sleep I don't know if there's a conspiracy there. What do you think?
[00:10:49] Bijoy John: No, see Jason, you know why the cops lights are blue There is a reason for it because blue is the first thing that our eyes sees and the lights in the stoplights is red because the red is the farthest you can see. So there is a science behind it. So blue light in the bedroom in the color blue in the bedroom is not good. Yeah. The blue lights is terrible idea to have in your bedroom. So anybody who's listening bedroom blue is not good.
[00:11:15] Jason: Yeah. So related to this orange glass in the evening, the other hack I've heard if you want a lot more energy and you want to get your circadian rhythm in sync is to just get sunlight at the beginning of the day. Is to get a decent amount of sunlight like expose your eyes to the bright blue sky and the sunshine and like be outside for the first maybe 20 30 minutes of the day if at all possible
[00:11:37] Bijoy John: That's a great hack because you're telling your body, "hey is ready to go." So you're putting all the sun in the morning So see I said we are all creatures of the sunlight without modern invention we just revolve around the sun, right? So that is a great hack. But you have to be careful here. There are some people whose circadian rhythm is completely malaligned, and they should not be having sun in the morning.
[00:12:01] Especially, this is a syndrome I call advanced sleep phase syndrome in people who are 70 or older, who tend to sleep earlier than the, accepted norm. They go to bed around seven, eight, and they wake up at three for those people, you should not expose sunlight in the morning. It's going to have an opposite effect.
[00:12:20] So they have to get much more sunlight in the evening. So I see a lot of people walking in the evening. They feel like they're doing really well because they exercise. It's also not only the exercise that makes them sleep better. It's the sunlight. The evening sunlight is really actually really good for people to go to sleep.
[00:12:35] Jason: Interesting. Evening sunlight. Okay. Yes. And then I guess because the evening sunlight triggers a different response in our brain.
[00:12:43] Bijoy John: Yeah, the radiation is a little different. The wavelengths of the light in the evening is is not only the exercise, it's the rays that helps you to fall asleep. Especially people who are in the 60s, retired, they walk more. Our older adults tend to walk in the evening. That's the time they do. That's actually great for them. So yeah, they actually moving the clock forward. So you have to be careful when you get exposure to light.
[00:13:04] Jason: Got it. Okay. Now, question related to that. We're wearing a sleep mask, but we're laying in the sun. Just an extreme example is our body perceiving light in other ways besides just our visual perception that could be affecting our sleep, I'm just curious.
[00:13:20] Bijoy John: No the only way the light goes into the brain and tells us is through our eyes. So once you cover the eyes, it's over, there's no, input to the brain for sleeping. The direct contact to the area in the brain called suprachiasmatic nucleus, which is the master gland which is controlled, that's the one that is important for the circadian rhythm it gets the influences through the eyes.
[00:13:43] Jason: Okay. Interesting. I vaguely remember hearing this weird, like case study in the, or something in the past where they, it said they were helping the military reset and eliminate jet lag by shining like blue light on the back of their legs, but so I don't know if that there's any, maybe I made that up, but I thought I remember reading that.
[00:14:02] I was like, that's super weird. So I didn't know.
[00:14:04] Bijoy John: Legs don't have the lighting on your leg don't have any input to the brain. And of course, we have a new theory saying, we always say, It's the people who work in the farm, they're still working so hard, they tend to sleep better. It's actually the muscles also, now we are knowing, create chemicals and reactions to help us to sleep.
[00:14:21] We always thought brain was the only, source of the chemical reaction to put us to sleep. Now we also know all the muscles can also contribute. This is like new data. I think it'll take a few years for it to come to fruition. Get more details of what muscles help us to sleep.
[00:14:35] Jason: Yeah I've heard some people mention on social media that they have recently found out that you know putting the muscles to work and doing things like weight training stuff like that actually releases chemicals that help the brain right stay sharp.
[00:14:52] Bijoy John: A lot of it, you know information coming through, we know exercise is good for many reasons, even to prevent cancer, because you are moving the lymphatic system, which helps us to clean our cancer producing cells and keeps it moving.
[00:15:03] But the one caution here, when you exercise, you are also secreting endorphins, which are stimulants. So I tell people, make sure you don't exercise at least four hours prior to going to sleep. So the best time is in the morning, but if you can, if you do it in the evening, if your bedtime is 10, make sure you don't exercise past 6 PM.
[00:15:22] Jason: So evening. To afternoon, but not, morning to afternoon, but not evening.
[00:15:27] Bijoy John: You don't want to be close to bedtime because you're going to be up.
[00:15:31] Jason: Got it. So flexing our muscles in the evening is like a mild form of caffeine or something.
[00:15:37] Bijoy John: Correct.
[00:15:38] Jason: Got it. Okay. So that's not going to give us great sleep.
[00:15:41] I've noticed. So another hack, I've got the Oura ring, which tracks my sleep. And then I also have the eight sleep bed, which does something very similar, but it might be a little bit more accurate on the data, but I really liked the eight sleep bed because it keeps me cool at night. So what about temperature and sleep?
[00:15:58] Bijoy John: Perfect question. The, again, the melatonin is secreted in lower temperature. So I tell people to experiment between 65 to 70 degrees at night so that a melatonin can be optimally secreted.
[00:16:10] So it's secretes well in darkness and lower temperature. So having thermostat at a lower temperature is the key at night going to sleep. Great question. I bought the Oura ring. I was laughing and the Oura ring is one of the number one causes of referrals to my clinic and any devices. What happens, people are getting all that information from these devices, but they don't know what to do with it.
[00:16:32] And they start to worry about it, so that actually affects the sleep. So I tell people to wear it, get the data, do something about it, and then see if it's improved. Don't do it every night and then just get on this rumination process.
[00:16:48] Jason: Worrying about anything is probably not an effective way to get to sleep.
[00:16:52] Bijoy John: Too much data. It's out of our brain, I think. Yeah, you cannot data mine yourself to sleep. You cannot do this. So sleep is one thing you have to do gently, right? It's like our golf swings. I tell you, you can't swing it too hard, you're going to have a mulligan. You might have to do it gently and smoothly. That's one thing, everything in our life in the hustle culture. Is great, but sleep is counter hustle culture it is against the grain of our culture and the hustle culture.
[00:17:18] Jason: You can't hiho silver for great sleep.
[00:17:21] Bijoy John: You cannot. Everybody is going the other way and getting too much information. I've never seen anybody sleep better by having too much information. You cannot do it.
[00:17:29] Jason: Got it. I went to my doctor. He's a functional medicine doctor. And he was like, he was asking me questions. He's like, "how's your sleep?" And I said, "I don't know. I have no idea. I'm asleep." And he says get an Oura ring so you can see. And it has been pretty insightful. Like I noticed patterns.
[00:17:43] And so over time you start to notice trends with your sleep, like, "Oh, like if I eat late or if I work out late or, if I do pretty much anything late, like it's messing up my sleep," it's like, Oh, your heart rate was weird, like, stuff like this. And so I don't get as good of sleep.
[00:17:59] Bijoy John: Yeah, eating late, what happens is you have a full stomach. Food stays in the stomach for about two hours.
[00:18:03] Just that uncomfortable feeling. And then also you're at risk for acid reflux. There's tons of acids secreted around two in the morning. And so you have heartburn. And and also eating well late, what happens? The end product of any process is the energy. The end product of any energy is heat.
[00:18:21] It's not very conducive for sleeping. Like I mentioned, melotonin secretes in the lower temperatures. So many reasons you're right. So you'll get all that information. But what mistake people are doing is they don't put it through. You may be the exception. You're doing something about it.
[00:18:37] You know what I'm saying? So with data, you have to act on it. And it looks like you're getting the right information too, Jason.
[00:18:44] Jason: All right, so another hack I've noticed when I sleep really well, so I don't want to work out in the evening, but what I do notice if I do the sauna, which almost is like a workout like for my body, I've noticed, because it shows like a workout sometimes, but if I do the sauna and then I do a cold plunge or a cold shower, afterwards and I get cool myself back down, then I sleep really well.
[00:19:09] So what's going on there?
[00:19:11] Bijoy John: When you do the sauna, there is the release of oxytocin, the Greeks and the Romans, they figured it out there, that they're big proponents of the sauna. So you release oxytocin, oxytocin the peak lasts about four hours. And the cold plunge also does the same thing.
[00:19:26] You are releasing oxytocin, which is the love hormone, but also puts people to sleep. So that's where you are. So it does the sauna does help you the heat from the sauna and the cold. It creates oxytocin. That's where you're sleeping. That is a true fact.
[00:19:40] Jason: Interesting. Yeah. Oxytocin I've heard called the trust hormone. It just feels safe.
[00:19:46] Bijoy John: It's got many name.
[00:19:47] Jason: You get it when you hug people, and when you pet a dog, so four hours of oxytocin. Okay. That's pretty good. So a lot of people, myself included, have noticed like if I have sex before going to bed, then I sleep pretty well after that as well.
[00:20:01] So is that similar? Is this the oxytocin release? Correct.
[00:20:04] Bijoy John: Bedroom is for sex and sleeping, but most people are worrying or snoring, right? So after sex, you have the release of oxytocin and that is the cause of for you to sleep better. Of course the act of lovemaking has a lot of other good components to it, but the chemical or the medical explanation is oxytocin release helps you to sleep better.
[00:20:25] Jason: Okay. Great. So like we want to maximize oxytocin before bed is, it could be a goal, right? Because that's the perfect way to go because if you're anxious, that would be the opposite, right? If we got it, we might get anxious and be concerned and worrying and yeah. And oxytocin is the chemical that says, "Hey, you're okay right now."
[00:20:44] yes. Good. Trust hormone. Love hormone. So some love, peace, and trust. All right, cool. This is good stuff. Is there anything weird or unique that's been shown to affect sleep that people are just not thinking about? That we haven't mentioned,
[00:20:58] Bijoy John: I developed the 7 sleep proven sleep strategies.
[00:21:01] I also have an acronym for this. It's called sleep now. So the 1st hack. So S.L.E.E.P.N.O.W. So that's the 7 combine and NO together. So the 1st thing is the mistake, but people don't. The first is, S is a schedule, right? So for every plan to succeed, we all have plans in our lives. So the correct time to sleep is between 10 p.
[00:21:23] m. and 6 a. m. That's a rough time. You can go 30, whatever. But this is the mistake. If somebody goes to bed at 10, they can't fall asleep till midnight. Guess what most people do? They go to bed 9. So now they're suffering for three more hours. They're getting frustrated. They take the phone, do whatever.
[00:21:43] But I tell people, if you can't sleep, you don't fall asleep till midnight, go to bed at 1130, but make sure you wake up at 6am. So this is called sleep restriction. But you have to wake up at, 6am. So if you do this consistently for a few, at least about one to two weeks, you will start seeing, then you go to bed at 11: 15, 11, you move it the other way, but you have to wake up.
[00:22:08] Another thing I see people when I tell folks to do this, they hit the snooze, 6: 15 you have to wake up at six. Then the L is low light. Low noise, low temperature. We touched on it. Melatonin is only secreted in low light, low temperature, and low noise.
[00:22:27] We touched on it. Next E is electronics. So I tell people not to have electronics at least 30 minutes prior to going to sleep because of the light and of course the dings and the notification. I have my cell phone away from me. I keep it in the bathroom. I have an alarm for 6 or 6: 30 and I wake up.
[00:22:46] I literally wake walk there and I'm done for the night. So what happens is. When you wake up in the middle of the night and you have a tendency to look at your clock and it's three o'clock, you're like wondering, wow, it's three o'clock already? It's only three o'clock or two o'clock. It increases the cognitive.
[00:23:00] One thing will improve your sleep by at least ten, twenty percent is removing all clock, any time pieces, And your phone, even if there's a phone, when you go to a hotel, I angle it or try to unplug it. I trust my phone and keep it away from.
[00:23:16] Jason: Especially if the clock is blue light.
[00:23:19] Bijoy John: Exactly. Blue light clock.
[00:23:21] How many red LED clocks are there anymore? But yeah, you don't want a blue or a white light led clock. That's going to be the, even the worst, right? So just don't look at the clock. Okay.
[00:23:31] So moving along, the next E is exercise we talked about is exercise at least four hours prior to going to sleep.
[00:23:37] Then the P is powering off your mind. So now you're preparing your body, you calmed your body by not exercising you've given your mind a chance to rest, but not having your cell phone. I like, like meditation, some apps and listening to apps on the phone, but what happens, you're taking your phone with you to bed.
[00:23:55] I tell people to meditate or do something. away from the bed. Just unplug your phone, get in the meditative mind, and then hit the bed. So the two techniques I always implement, these are my own, is the first technique to calm your mind is vivid imagination. I do this every night. I am the director of my show.
[00:24:15] You don't want to take your stress into bed. You don't want reality in your bed. You want the abstract. So I watched a show, you went last night. I thought about it. I said, how's the show? It's going to end tomorrow. I'm going to watch it again. So I'm the director. I go into this trend and then, my imagination, that's the vivid imagination for sleeping.
[00:24:32] So I'm the first guy to promote for sleeping. That works really well. And then in the same technique about powering off your mind is something called yoga nidra. Yoga nidra. Nidra means nothingness in Sanskrit. You lay down with your hands up. It's called the shavasana or the corpse pose, where you're laying down like a, corpse and just completely letting go.
[00:24:52] You can also start thinking about the different muscles starting from your head to your face. This is the cognitive behavioral therapy. One of the techniques is muscle relaxation. You just go down to your feet. So now you're given a chance. But you have to prepare. Going to bed is is a process.
[00:25:07] Everybody wants it to be an on and off switch station. It doesn't happen like that. It has to be a timer. You have to slowly work your way. You can't hustle it. So these are the two techniques I use. So the vivid imagination and yoga nidra. You had a question?
[00:25:21] Jason: This is interesting. I remember I was talking about this when we were hanging out at the mastermind.
[00:25:25] And what really stood out to me is this after chatting, that was a new thing for me was the idea that how we get into sleep dictates how good the sleep is. And I thought, man, if I just do this and do that and do the right things and then jump in bed and lay down real quick and close my eyes, then it should be good.
[00:25:46] We, you can't. Do it quickly. You can't force it. And so calming the mind and getting to a calmer place. And I like the idea of vivid imagination and getting into the abstract, right? Like getting more into that dream state.
[00:25:57] Bijoy John: I've been doing that for almost 20, 25 years. So continuing on so I combined NO together, no to worries, right?
[00:26:03] As humans, we worry. I want everybody to worry, but worry between 6 p. m. and 8 p. m. So let's be done with worrying around that time. So from eight on, if your bedtime is 10, you're preparing also give this example. It's like a seven course meal. You have to have the music. You have to have the wine or cheese and salad.
[00:26:23] You just can't go to the meat, right? You have to work your way. So your preparation for bed starts around 8 p. m. I've already started giving up my phone. From 7 p. m. as of as of December. So that was my resolution to be off electronics. I go hard at it from 7 a. m., but I'm at I'm done by 7 p. m. I'm not even have access to my phones. So no to worries. So we have to worry, but write it down after 8pm. Just write things down for the next day, right? So I do that, as a business owner, it was terrible, all these, employees, bills all this stuff. I write it down and done.
[00:26:57] So then the last one is, W. This is the easy part. Win by losing. This is one thing you have to lose yourself. And so you lose yourself by keeping your bedtime ritual very simple. You are the master of your sleep. Life happens to all of us. It happened to me. It happens to you.
[00:27:16] It happens to everyone. But if you have this foundation, if you have the principle and knowledge, you can do it. Win by losing, taking it easy. That's the SLEEP NOW acronym. The S is for schedule. L is for low light, low temperature. E is no to electronics. The next E is not exercise 4 hours. P is powering off your mind. NO is no to worries. W is win by losing. That's my acronym. That's the seven, strategies I teach people. And of course, there are people who ask me about medications. I do prescribe sleep medication, but that'll be the last resort. I take people off the medications. That's my goal. I do this holistic approach for sleeping.
[00:27:51] Jason: Very cool. Yeah, I love the idea of getting rid of the worries at the end of the day. I usually can shut that down, but I know a lot of my clients, they have a difficult time with that. And so what created this process that I would use in the mornings, but a lot of my clients find it's even more effective to use at night, which is Daily planning exercise.
[00:28:10] So for those of you that are listening, you can check that out at doorgrow.com/dailyplanning, one word. And you're welcome to just use that daily planning exercise that I use with clients to just get everything unloaded from your day to be prepared for the next day. And that will just give you a greater sense of calm and allow you to go to sleep without ruminating on a bunch of scary thoughts or worrying about what's going to happen the next day.
[00:28:31] You'll feel like you have a plan. And I think that lets your unconscious kind of unravel and relax. So very cool. Yeah, this is super helpful. Really fun to have you here on the show. Dr. SleepFix. You have a book, correct?
[00:28:46] Bijoy John: Oh, I have it right here.
[00:28:47] Jason: Nobody's sleeping seven proven sleep strategies for better health and happiness. All right. Bijoy John. All right. How do people get this book? Everywhere?
[00:28:56] Bijoy John: Yeah, it's available everywhere. It's official launch date is March 12th. So it's ready to pre order and you can pick it up from your favorite bookstore.
[00:29:04] So it's coming up. Okay, cool.
[00:29:06] Jason: And how else can people get in touch with you or follow you on social or what do you want people to do?
[00:29:12] Bijoy John: So I'm new into this process, so I don't have many social media followers, but I do post a lot of the important things. My website is sleepfixacademy. Com. You can have all the information. I have a quiz. I have free downloads. I have a sleep assessment if you have a problem. So I also have a sleep now course which is ready. So all and all my social media handles I'm known as Dr. SleepFix. So this mission is to sleep is the super power.
[00:29:37] It's a very underrated. People say "I can sleep when I die." But I tell people, "if you're going to go on this path, you're going to die" because you have a uncontrolled blood pressure, heart rate and, of course we didn't go into the sleep apnea part. You're snoring and if you're sleep apnea, make sure you take care of it.
[00:29:52] That can add 10 years to your life. So I'm on this mission to teach the world. If many people can just understand and just keep a pause, you are a better version. You feel better, you're more energetic, and you can discover the joy and have this fruitful full version of yourself.
[00:30:07] Jason: Yeah. I remember when I really used to get really terrible sleep and you know I wasn't sleeping enough because I thought I would just be more productive if I just worked more I thought it was just work. And what I found was my body started breaking down, my joints were not recovering from stress or from workouts.
[00:30:24] I started having a lot of back pain and back problems because the body was getting experienced stress every day and it was compounding, it wasn't recovering. And so recovery is a super important thing related to sleep. And then also cognitive function. I had my clients do time studies and one of my clients did a time study And we started chatting about sleep afterwards, but he said, "I'm noticing that after three o'clock, it's taking me an hour to do things that take me 10 minutes in the morning."
[00:30:51] And he's like, "why is that?" I'm like, "your brain's running out of chemicals. Let's talk about your sleep." sleep is when we produce the chemical cocktail that we're going to use the next day. And when our brain cleans itself so that we can be productive and effective. And a lot of people tap out by lunchtime.
[00:31:06] Bijoy John: There's lymphatic system that I talked about in the body, but the brain has something called a glymphatic system. So that is the system that is activated in the deeper sleep. That's the one that clears all the muck. The muck is the one that's causes dementia, so that's when it, it moves it.
[00:31:22] Like exercise, how exercise moves the lymphatic system in the body. The deep sleep moves the Glymphatic system to move all the muck. So that's why you're more rejuvenated and we heal in our sleep. We grow in our sleep. The human growth hormone that is needed of course, for children and babies, but for adults, for muscle building.
[00:31:43] That is secreted maximally in deep sleep. The thyroid functions alterations. There is increased catecholamines when you're not sleeping well, like norepinephrine, that causes you high blood pressure and diabetes. So if people have uncontrolled diabetes, if you have uncontrolled blood pressure, if you're in a mental fog, you're anxious, you're tired, you're depressed, and if your sexual function is low because sleep also affects one of the common, see, I see most of the time the low libido is associated with untreated sleep apnea.
[00:32:10] So all this function, it affects you from head to toe, your heart, your brain your digestive system. So it is if you sleep well, you can optimize all this bodily functions.
[00:32:21] Jason: Okay. So you mentioned a couple things and I know a lot of people are concerned nowadays because a lot of people are fat and not healthy. Weight gain, water retention, cortisol spiking? Yes. Like stress, like all these things are related to poor sleep. And what did you say? What causes low libido?
[00:32:40] Bijoy John: Have a sleep apnea there's less oxygen to the genital organs. Like the test is don't get enough oxygen.
[00:32:46] So that they don't produce much testosterone. So that's one of the treatable conditions or sexual dysfunction and you and also the weight. What happens, the weight is controlled by two hormones called leptin and ghrelin. Leptin lowers the appetite, ghrelin increases the appetite.
[00:33:03] What happens when you don't sleep, this ratio is altered. You have less of a leptin and more of ghrelin and you gain weight. And also by just by the mere fact that you are being awake, you have more chance to eat. So you're snacking, guess what you're snacking? You're snacking high glycemic foods like potato chips, sugary drinks, chocolate.
[00:33:25] Guess what? If even if you consume that four hours prior to going to sleep, your quality of sleep is affected that night. So that's why shift workers have a tendency to gain more weight because they are more awake compared to the people who don't work shifts, especially the night shift workers. We have not even gone into the accidents, the errors, sports, academics.
[00:33:44] We have the whole slew of things we can talk about, Jason.
[00:33:47] Jason: Yeah. When you get into that, like not getting enough sleep, you are functioning almost like a drunk person. They found like driving tests and stuff. We could talk about this stuff forever. I love the biohacking stuff. I love health. I feel like it's a superpower to be able to focus on this stuff.
[00:34:02] Yeah. Again, really appreciate you coming on the show. This was really fun, super interesting. I hope this was really helpful for all of you property management business owners that are out there listening, that are stressing out and not getting enough sleep. Sleep might just very much like change your life and help you cope with more, help you function more, help you get more things done.
[00:34:21] It's a secret hack that I coach clients on in helping them add more doors and grow their business. And if you want to help growing your business, reach out to us at DoorGrow and Bijoy. Thanks for coming on the show.
[00:34:32] Bijoy John: All right. Thanks, Jason. Sleep well. Be well, my friends. So let's go sleeping.
[00:34:36] Jason: All right. Bye, everyone.
[00:34:37] 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!
[00:35:04] 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.
A lot of people are speculating about the real estate market right now. Some property managers are concerned about how it will affect their business. You might not realize that you actually have an opportunity to take advantage of a potential downturn.
In today’s episode of the #DoorGrowShow, property management growth experts Jason and Sarah Hull talk about what a real estate market downturn would mean for property management entrepreneurs and how they could take advantage of it.
[01:15] Uncertainty in the industry
[04:21] A downturn isn’t the end of the world
[07:36] Millions are made in downturns
[09:59] Going deeper on the topic
“Things do not need to be bad in a downturn. You just need to be prepared.”
“Serious, savvy real estate investors get super excited when there's a downturn.”
“Millions are made is in downturns.”
“If you think it's going to be harder in the downturn, you're right, and it will be harder.”
[00:00:00] Sarah: Pick up the phone and have a conversation with your investors and the ones that are like, "I can't wait," those ones are the ones you call first if and when shit hits the fan.
[00:00:10]
[00:00:12] Jason: 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're interested in growing business and life, and you are 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.
[00:00:37] 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. We're your hosts, property management growth experts, Jason Hull and Sarah Hull, the owners of DoorGrow. Now let's get into the show.
[00:01:12] So we are going to talk about what?
[00:01:15] Sarah: There's a lot of uncertainty right now in the marketplace, especially with might be happening with the real estate market.
[00:01:22] Jason: Okay.
[00:01:22] Sarah: And what to do. What you could do, right? If we have a downturn, because a lot of times people hear downturn and then they panic and they go, "Oh, shit."
[00:01:32] It is like winter. It's coming. Woe is me. Things are bad. And things do not need to be bad in a downturn. You just need to be prepared.
[00:01:41] Jason: So I'm thinking related to this also, this is it's 2024. This is an election year. The election cycle is such that every election year, it gets crazy.
[00:01:52] Sarah: Like, remember last one? We had COVID.
[00:01:56] Jason: Yeah.
[00:01:57] Sarah: So the craziest one yet.
[00:01:59] Jason: Yeah. So every election cycle, there's like racial tensions, there's whatever it takes to get people riled up on every side, everybody's angry and there's like political tension, there's economic challenges, like, I don't know what happens, I don't know if you're a conspiracy theorist, but things get crazy every election year.
[00:02:18] And we have this big black swan event that was COVID and there's been previous ones in the past.
[00:02:23] Sarah: Not like COVID.
[00:02:24] Jason: Not like COVID. Not like COVID. But, there was the housing crisis stuff. There's been things in the past that have happened. And so under the potential possibility that there could be a black swan event in 2024, or that there just could be some significant changes in the real estate market, how do we deal with that uncertainty?
[00:02:41] Sarah: So it's really, it's being prepared. For whatever happens, right? Because when the real estate market, do you remember? Maybe a year or a year and a half ago, when things were like crazy, you would list a property and you would get like three offers the first like ten minutes. You would always be in a multiple offer situation.
[00:02:59] Things were going way over ask price. So you had listed at a million, you knew you were going to get significantly higher than that. And we're not really seeing that so much anymore. Things have started to cool off. Things have started to shift. Interest rates are way higher. So the question always is does this continue to happen?
[00:03:18] And do we see more of a downturn or are things going to pivot and all of a sudden, "Hey, we're going to be back in this bull market with the real estate." Okay. So everybody knows what to do. I think that's fair to say everybody knows what to do when things are great. We're like, "Oh, we'll just list a bunch of properties. And then we have a bunch of investors that are buying and then like property management is easier." It's easier to sell and it's just a more healthy market. And like there's lots of new leads coming in and it's fantastic. And then the rental market usually heats up and then it's easy to rent properties and tenants might be fighting over properties and we're like, "Oh yeah, I could get this rented out in like a couple of days."
[00:04:00] When we're in a downturn, then it's like, properties sit a little bit longer and tenants aren't as hot as they were before. And now it might take a couple of weeks to get it rented out, maybe even longer and selling properties isn't really happening. And maybe investors aren't really buying. And the thing to remember is investors definitely buy in a downturn.
[00:04:24] This is in fact, when they're really excited. Serious, savvy real estate investors get super excited when there's a downturn. So when I was a property manager, what I was doing all the time because I would just connect with my clients. No, I don't ask them every month, but at least once or twice a year, ask them like, "Hey, what's your strategy?"
[00:04:43] Has anything changed? This is why I'm really big on year end reviews so that I know what is their plan for the following year?" So right now, if you haven't done your year end reviews, that's fine. Make up a new reason and you can just say, "Hey, it's the beginning of the year. I'd love to just connect with you."
[00:04:58] There you go. There's your reason. And you can always say, "Hey, listen, things are weird in the real estate market right now. Things might pick up and they might continue to get worse. So if they continue to get worse. Where are you? Are you decking cash? Are you ready to buy a bunch of things? Are you going to be trying to panic sell? Let's not do that." So that may be a separate conversation, but "where are you?" Because some of my investors, they were like, "Oh, it doesn't matter. I'm not really looking at picking anything up. I'm going to stay comfortable where I am." But some of my investors, they were like, "Sarah, I can't wait for this market to crash."
[00:05:33] They were excited. They're like, as soon as things start to dip and really when things start to dip, when there's a hard dip, they're like, "I will call you and we will pick up as many properties as we can pick up." They will do anything. So they might've been stacking cash. They might've had access to capital.
[00:05:52] They might've been able to take out a loan. They might've been able to pull equity from properties they already own to purchase new properties. People love a sale. So if you could pick up a property for 500 K, when typically it might be six or seven or nine, which investors that you work with already are super excited for a market crash.
[00:06:13] And if you don't know this. Then you are missing out. Pick up the phone and have a conversation with your investors and the ones that are like, "I can't wait," those ones are the ones you call first if and when shit hits the fan.
[00:06:27] Jason: Okay, cool. So I think it'd be a really good piece of knowledge to have, if you aren't super familiar with all of your investors or clients situation to be very aware of which ones are ready to capitalize on opportunity. Which ones have a stockpile cash? Which ones are aware that they could pull money out of their existing properties? Maybe do a cash out refi one as soon as interest rates drop and get into more units, right?
[00:06:53] Sarah: Even if not, I would do a cash out refi with an 8 percent interest rate, and I don't care because as soon as the interest rates dip, I'm going to refi that again. Okay. Don't care.
[00:07:01] Jason: Yeah. So we need to be aware, like, what do our clients have and what are their options that are available so that we can help them win if their goal is to do more investing and get more investments and they're thinking, "I have to wait till interest rates drop, like you just said, or I have to wait for this," or whatever it might be. And you can help them figure out how to get funding, or you can help them figure out how to price out a deal, or you've got other investors that are sitting on a bunch of cash that would be willing to go in with another owner on something, right?
[00:07:29] So you need to be aware of these opportunities because you could be leveraging this. Even if in the downturn. Yeah.
[00:07:36] Sarah: So in the downturn, this is what we hear all the time. "Oh, but oh, real estate sucks. And tenants like they don't want to rent. And it's harder now." It is not harder in the downturn. If you think it's going to be harder in the downturn, you're right, and it will be harder. But if instead you just capitalize on the opportunity that lays just awaiting then that's where millions are made is in downturns So people that know that they get really excited when like the stock market crashes when the real estate market crashes in 2008 people lost millions of dollars And then there were people who made their millions because of what they did in 2008.
[00:08:15] Jason: They were ready.
[00:08:16] Sarah: They were ready. They were like, " things are tanking. Let's get in."
[00:08:20] Jason: The people that were ready probably made it happen. I'm just kidding. Conspiracy theory. All right. Be ready and talk to your clients and be ready because when there's crisis... so there's this principle that when there is chaos and crisis and everyone's freaking out and fear is contagious, right?
[00:08:36] Fear is contagious. We saw it during the pandemic and it turned out to be not as crazy as we all thought it was right. But we were made to be super afraid. When there's crisis and when there's chaos, the one person that stands up in the local market to all the investors and says, "Hey, here's the plan. This doesn't have to be scary. We've got the roadmap. We know how to support you. We know what to do." In that moment, you instantly take ownership and leadership of the situation and everybody then trusts you even more because they don't know what to do. They don't have a plan. So they're scrambling.
[00:09:07] You're like, "Hey, I've got the plan." You are a beacon of light in times of darkness, people. So that is a moment where you can now shine and stand out and get more clients. When owners are like, "man, I don't know if my tenants are going to pay rent." And you're like, "I'm a property manager. I can make sure people are paying rent."
[00:09:24] They're like, "Oh, okay. I don't want to be the bad guy." Some people were stacking doors during the pandemic. And then there were some people like, "Oh, this is my excuse for why I lost a whole bunch of business and people freaked out and got out." So I think it's what you perceive it to be. And I think the goal we're talking about here is to perceive it to be an opportunity.
[00:09:43] And if you go in with that mindset, how is this an opportunity? How can I make this an opportunity? You can be the select few that lead others towards success. And make a lot of money. All right. And related to this, before we wrap up, we'll keep this a short episode. This is going to be a large focus of DoorGrowLive.
[00:10:02] We're going to be talking about... what's the theme?
[00:10:05] Sarah: Creating opportunity in times of uncertainty.
[00:10:08] Jason: That's good.
[00:10:08] Sarah: Or something very similar to that.
[00:10:10] Jason: Something like that. All right. And so we've mapped out over the two days a series of conversations, things to be taught that I think are going to help people really capitalize on growth to get you unstuck, to get you moving forward.
[00:10:25] This will be a game changer for anybody that attends and we're really excited. Like we put some serious thought into this and there's some new stuff that we're going to be talking about there as well.
[00:10:35] Sarah: Somebody needed four and a half hours to map it out with me the other day.
[00:10:38] Jason: She's a little bit bent on spending the weekend doing work.
[00:10:41] Sarah: So there was a lot that went into it and that was just the rough draft of the schedule.
[00:10:45] Jason: Hey, to be fair, you make me work on the weekends all the time too, so you know this is true. She was like, "we're watching these videos today and we're doing this thing, learning."
[00:10:53] Sarah: we're learning too. Yeah.
[00:10:55] Jason: Yes. We mapped out something really cool and we're really excited about this.
[00:10:59] So check out this at doorgrowlive.Com. We're going to be adding more and more details as it gets closer, but get your tickets. It's in may. It's going to be at Kalahari resort in round rock, Texas, which is just like a quick drive from downtown Austin, super cool area. And so this is going to be a lot of fun.
[00:11:20] All right, then I think that's it for today. So until next time to our mutual growth.
[00:11:25] 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!
[00:11:52] 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’ve been listening to the #DoorGrowShow for a while, you’re probably familiar with how DoorGrow helps property management business owners grow and scale their businesses, but you might not be ready to take the leap of faith just yet…
In today’s episode, property management growth experts Jason and Sarah Hull reveal a new way to get your feet wet and work with DoorGrow to create a personalized roadmap with a low-risk investment. Go to doorgrow.com/clarity for more details.
[01:23] The creation of a new coaching strategy
[07:43] 4 steps to creating a roadmap
[14:57] The benefits of Planning and Discovery
“So if you want to grow or scale the business faster, understanding each of these strategies and stacking these is going to allow you to grow even faster”
“The healthier your mindset, the faster you grow and the more money you make.”
“You should be doing less of those things if those aren't the things that you actually like.”
“I don't think you'll trust anybody else really to help you move your business forward.”
[00:00:00] Jason: If you want to grow or scale the business faster, understanding each of these strategies and stacking these is going to allow you to grow even faster because you're not wasting time with time wasters or tight kickers or doing the wrong thing So the more of these you stack, the healthier your mindset, the faster you grow
[00:00:20] 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. 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.
[00:00:58] At DoorGrow, we are on a mission to transform property management business owners and their businesses. We want to transform the industry, eliminate the BS, build awareness, change perception, expand the market, and help the best property management entrepreneurs win. We're your hosts, property management growth experts, Jason and Sarah Hull, the owners of DoorGrow. Now let's get into the show.
[00:01:20] All right. So we came up with this idea this last weekend. And this might be helpful for some listening, we used to sell websites. That used to be the main thing. And we used to be called OpenPotion way back in the day.
[00:01:31] And over time I realized I spent a lot of time figuring out how to help these web designers figure out what they needed for their website and to really make it effective as a marketing tool, I had to ask a lot of questions and over time it turned into multiple sessions, like to map everything out.
[00:01:49] And I realized the more time I spent with them, the higher the price I could charge. Like I was able to get people to buy more because I was able to showcase more value, help them understand. They realized, 'Oh there's a lot more of the website could do for me.' So it really created this ultimate win win, better than if I just sat down and said, "what do you want?" and just did whatever I was told. And you can go out and find a cheap web designer and just say, "give me a website." And they'll just go, "okay, what do you want?" And they'll just do whatever you tell them to do, but you're not an expert at this, right? Otherwise you would be building websites, maybe.
[00:02:18] So I, it got to the point where I was telling them, "here's what we need to do, and here's how to do this." And now I was doing these multiple sessions and then I had somebody that wasn't a really great person eat up my time. I spent like probably six hours, maybe eight hours with this guy, like mapping everything out, getting the site map, homepage layout mapped out, like everything we were going to do together. And we had this plan. And then he's, "thanks so much. I'm going to have my team members in India build it." And I was like, "Oh," I was pretty upset. So Sarah and I were driving back on the way from Dallas with our friend, Roya, who's hanging out in the car and she's coming to hang out with us for a day.
[00:02:55] And I was talking with Roya and she was asking about sales and I was explaining how I used to sell websites and what increased the close rate dramatically and added more value. And it was almost, Like I almost never didn't get the deal once I started doing this planning discovery, it was like I always close the deals.
[00:03:13] Like everybody would want to work with me after I did that. And Sarah then had the question...
[00:03:18] Sarah: And he's like, "and I would close a ton of deals and it was really great. And I already knew exactly what they wanted and we had this good relationship. And he's and then I would close like a ton of deals. I would have a bunch of projects." And I said "okay, why don't we sell like that anymore then?"
[00:03:32] Jason: Yeah, it was kind of like "I don't know. Selling a mastermind is a little bit different than doing the website, but we would just get people into the mastermind, but this would increase the close rate."
[00:03:42] And the idea is you know, If they're going to be spending a bunch of money with you, they want to get their feet wet with you. They want to get to know you a little bit. And I've actually coached clients on this strategy of doing planning and discovery sessions in order to increase the close rate and to get more deals in property management. But we haven't been doing that. We haven't done that for a long time. And so I was like, "I don't know. Maybe we should do that." And you're like, "yeah, I think it'd be a good idea." So we then mapped it out while we were driving in the car. Here's what we could do for each session.
[00:04:13] Here's why this would be such a great value. And we mapped it out. And so yesterday I had two calls with potential clients and they were small companies. So they were like, "Oh I've got maybe 30, maybe 50 units." And they're like, "I don't have the funds yet to join your mastermind."
[00:04:31] And I said, "we came up with this thing this weekend. Let me tell you about it." And they were like, "yes! I want to do that" I closed both of them on it right then. And so we wanted to share that with the audience. If you are considering working with DoorGrow. And you want to experience the magic of coaching, we'll tell you about the benefits of this, but we came up with this planning and discovery process that gives you a lot of wins and it's super low risk and it's only a thousand bucks and it's pretty cool.
[00:04:57] So let's talk about this. It's really low risk because you're going to get a lot of value. You'll easily make more than a thousand dollars back in your business from the ideas that you get from this even if you choose not to move forward with us into the mastermind. So it's worth several thousands of dollars. You'll get to know us and we'll get to know you. So this shows us if you'd be a good client, like if you do the homework, if you do the things we give you to do, and it'll allow you to see what it's like to work with us and if you're getting value and it's going to be really deep because this is like one on one with either Sarah or myself. And so I was talking with the team this morning and they were like, "how do we know whether to give one of these to Sarah or to Jason?"
[00:05:37] Sarah: You'll definitely be on these with either Jason or myself. This won't be one of our other coaches. This will be one of the two gurus.
[00:05:45] Jason: So a lot of you listening, you're, you might be a little more familiar with me cause you've seen me on TikTok and I've been around for a while and you might not be as familiar with Sarah unless you've been listening to the podcast.
[00:05:55] And she's an amazing bad ass. So what I told the team, we talked about how to sell Sarah this morning, which was interesting. So we were just like, how do I sell Sarah? I'm like "she's this amazing bad ass who had 260 units at the peak in her own property management business. They were C class properties that were difficult to deal with. She was able to manage them remotely with one part time person boots on the ground. And she had over 60 percent profit margin."
[00:06:20] Sarah: 60 was bad.
[00:06:21] Jason: That was a bad month. Okay. She's flexing now. 70%?
[00:06:26] Sarah: Yeah. Like 70, 80.
[00:06:28] Jason: So this is what we would say.
[00:06:30] And also we then talked about some of the results you've gotten clients. Like she's helped some of our clients cut their staffing costs in half from a single call. She's helped some replace some of our clients' entire team and increase their profitability dramatically. Like this sort of thing.
[00:06:43] Sarah: I'm good at figuring out how things work and why are they working the way that they're working and how the different pieces fit together? And do we have too many pieces? Do we not have enough pieces? Are there the right people, but maybe they're doing the wrong things? I'm really good at figuring out all of that.
[00:06:59] That's just how my brain works. I like to just figure out how things work. And I've done that in every business I've ever worked in. As like an employee and it's uncomfortable for them. It's uncomfortable because I'm like, "why are you doing things like this? You're doing it wrong."
[00:07:14] Jason: Yeah. Business owners love their ego shattered by this pretty young lady in their business, I'm sure.
[00:07:21] But yeah, you're hurting all these fragile egos. All right.
[00:07:24] Sarah: But clients pay me to do that.
[00:07:26] Jason: Clients pay you. So yeah. So anyway that's how we position Sarah. And so there might be some scenarios in which they might be better off, especially if their challenges are more on team, operations, stuff like this, then I told them like, " then you can sell Sarah to them on this, right?"
[00:07:43] So let's talk about what would be included, like what we're going to do. Here's my little roadmap slide, but they can't see that, but we'll show it to you when you get on a call with us. And if you're interested in this, you can easily go book a call at doorgrow.Com. Or just instant message me or anybody on the team on any social and we'll get you on a call and we can tell you more about this or you can just get started by going to our website.
[00:08:07] We should have a page up for this very soon. By the time you hear this, probably. And we're working on that this week. All right. Let's talk about the benefits of this. You're going to get clarity on yourself. You're going to get clarity on your business. You're going to get clarity on how to build the right team around you.
[00:08:23] To some degree, we're going to help you free up a lot of time. We're going to get you time clarity because time is one of the biggest challenges our clients have. So this is something we coach on a lot. How to free up time. So you have more bandwidth to make more money or to do more of what you want to do.
[00:08:39] We may be able to get into some financial stuff a bit to help you find some quick wins financially. And we're going to get you clarity on escaping that solopreneur sand trap or that team sand trap that you might be stuck in right now. And we're going to go over and teach you several powerful frameworks and we're going to apply them to you and to your business in a way that we just can't do by sharing these on a podcast. Like the six core functions, the five currencies, the four reasons, the five exits, and then we're going to get into stackable amplification strategy. So if you want to grow or scale the business faster, understanding each of these strategies and stacking these is going to allow you to grow even faster because you're not wasting time with time wasters or tight kickers or doing the wrong thing. So the more of these you stack, the healthier your mindset, the faster you grow and the more money you make. And so we're going to get into the blue ocean strategy versus the red water, the myth of SEO, the cycle of suck, the four D's to revenue.
[00:09:38] That one really increases our clients closing better deals. Lighthouse versus the battleship. Which is prizing and sales. David versus Goliath, dumb David versus smart David. The fifth reason and why you shouldn't be selling property management and what people want instead, and then getting into all the pipeline leaks, we're going to help you. We're going to assess your business and identify the leaks that exist in your sales pipeline, or that exist in the systems in operations so that you have clarity on moving forward. So do you want to take them through the sessions?
[00:10:09] Sarah: Yeah, and I think it's important to know that we don't go over all of those on all of these that would be an immense amount of sessions an immense amount of times
[00:10:17] Jason: Yeah, but we'll go into what they need and what's relevant.
[00:10:20] Sarah: So basically what we do is we go in and we have to first assess what your business is like. So on the first call, that's what we're doing. We're digging into your business. What does your day look like? What does your team look like? Do you have a team? Who's handling what? How many doors do you have?
[00:10:35] Where are you located? What kind of management do you do? Are you only focusing on long term or are you dabbling in multiple types of management? We're really getting. Into a lot of the details of the business. And then we're also on the call, we're figuring out really, what would your goal be?
[00:10:54] Is that what you enjoy doing? And if you could create the business of your dreams, what really would that look like?
[00:11:01] Jason: So yeah, we're going to assess the business. We're going to figure out what have you tried so far towards the things that the business has challenges with.
[00:11:08] Thank you. But some of the assessment stuff that we'll do with you will give you a lot of clarity. And then you'll get some homework at the end of this. So we're going to get you started on some time stuff, homework wise, and some assessments for yourself, which leads us to session two.
[00:11:22] Sarah: Call number two.
[00:11:23] So then we really dive into you. So we'll look at your time. We'll look at what you're doing and how much time you're spending on certain things. And are you enjoying the things that you're doing or do you feel like you're just spinning a lot of your day? And we'll look at some personality assessments as well so that we can help determine really the things that you actually enjoy doing.
[00:11:46] And we'll look at how we can shift you into doing more of those things. And what personality type you may be, everyone has a different personality type and will enjoy doing different things in the business. And a lot of times when I get on calls with clients, I find that people are like, "Oh, I should be doing operations or I should be doing sales and I, like I should be doing this."
[00:12:10] And then we start to try to get them closer to those things. And then we realize, no, you shouldn't be getting closer to those things. You should be doing less of those things if those aren't the things that you actually like. Just because you think you have to do them, don't do them if you don't actually like doing them.
[00:12:26] So then we find out what they actually like, and then we shift them into doing more of the things that they actually enjoy doing. We've had multiple clients do that and then that changes their entire business.
[00:12:36] Jason: Yeah, this is a big secret to building a business that you actually enjoy being in, building the right team around you.
[00:12:43] So getting clarity on yourself will be a big deal. And so we're going to help you understand your personality type a bit more because you're unique and we've got some self assessments that are going to help you figure some of this stuff out. But that clarity alone will help you make some changes in your business.
[00:12:58] Doing the time stuff that we will also be assessing during this call, the time stuff that you've started doing. And this will help give you a lot of clarity on how to free up time, how to start to leverage whatever team members you might have more effectively, so that you're getting more yield from the dollars you're spending on staff and payroll.
[00:13:14] That alone will probably pay for all of this. All right, then they're going to have some homework to complete some assessments and identify leaks in their pipeline and in their operations and systems, depending on which area they need, if they need growth more, or if they need more on process and ops.
[00:13:31] And then that leads us to call number three, session three.
[00:13:35] So basically the third session, we're going to be focused on the systems of the business and identifying which leaks exist. So if the goal is growth, we're going to be getting you clarity on what are the systems and leaks that are a challenge in the growth side of things.
[00:13:49] And if it's operations, we're going to be figuring out similarly, what are the leaks and the challenges there? And this will all be applied to our DoorGrow code roadmap and how we can help you scale and map out the future, but we'll be creating clarity around all the leaks that exist and discussing how to resolve them And giving you like your options for what we could be doing in the future and Your homework on this will be to get clear on what you want to get from your future with DoorGrow because that's what we're going to talk about in the next video Session four is coming up with the plan.
[00:14:19] So first session: business, second session: you third session: systems, fourth session is the plan.
[00:14:25] Sarah: We give you a personalized roadmap, which is really great because now we have we really understand you and really understand where you are in the business and where you'd like to be.
[00:14:33] So now we can give you a personalized roadmap that will get you closer to where you want to be and that roadmap will apply whether or not you continue on working with us. Yeah, so that is not something that it's like, "oh I only get this if I work with DoorGrow." No, you'll get it and you'll have it and you'll know What are the next steps that you need to take in your business regardless of whether you work with us.
[00:14:54] Of course we want you to, but you don't have to.
[00:14:56] Jason: So the benefit of going through this planning and discovery is one We will really get to know you and your business and how we can help you at a greater level of depth, which is awesome that we do a lot of this during the onboarding process, usually for our mastermind clients.
[00:15:10] So we'll get to get very familiar and you'll be able to then know that I, at the end of this, I don't think you'll trust anybody else really to help you move your business forward because you'll be getting a lot of insight, ideas, knowledge, wisdom, and clarity, the most important thing, on how to move your business forward.
[00:15:28] And we will paint a really nice future with DoorGrow of how we can support you and help you. And even if you don't decide to work with us, like Sarah's saying, and you just do this. You will walk away with more time, more clarity on your team, more clarity on yourself, and some ideas of how to move the business forward to get to the next level.
[00:15:47] And I think at that point, though, you probably won't want to do it without us is our intention and goal. Like we know that we can support you in moving and going through this faster and helping you collapse time and it'll easily be worth the cost. And so you can go through this now here's the kicker where this gets even more awesome. If you do all this with us, it's a thousand bucks, you do these four sessions. And we take maybe a month or so to go through this, maybe less, but we're working together for a few weeks. At the end of this, on the fourth session and when we give you, "here's everything that you could be doing with us, and here's how we could get to the next level. And this is personalized to you." If you decide to continue moving forward with us, this thousand dollars will be applied towards the next thing with DoorGrow. So it's like the lowest risk thing ever.
[00:16:34] And if you decide to walk away, you spend a thousand bucks and you've gotten easily more than a thousand dollars worth of value, but we'll apply the thousand dollars towards the setup or towards the in person events or whatever is coming next for you to join in on the mastermind. No brainer, right?
[00:16:51] Super low risk, right? So we're that confident in what we can do and help you and how we can help you moving forward. So that's just the idea of our planning and discovery. So anything else we should say about this?
[00:17:04] Sarah: I think that when we were creating this, just the one thing that I wanted to make sure is that it's really valuable as a standalone thing.
[00:17:14] Yeah. You do not need to do anything else. It's not "Oh, Hey, at the end, like we're going to shove DoorGrow down your throat." We're not, it's going to be very valuable all on its own and in its own, right. Also, we wanted to make sure that the price point was really accessible to people because to get on a call with Jason or myself, our time is very valuable.
[00:17:34] So we have made this at a hugely discounted rate. So like our normal rate is $1,000 an hour. So this is at a very accessible price point. And we wanted to make sure that we can do that because sometimes we talk with people and they hear everything. What we're all about and what we do and how much we can really help property managers.
[00:17:54] And they're like, "oh my God, that's amazing. I just don't know if i'm ready for the mastermind yet, or I don't know if I can afford the mastermind. I don't know if I can make that move yet." And we wanted to be able to help more people and I think this is a really good way to do that.
[00:18:08] Jason: Yeah, I think just some of the things they'll go through with us and learn just in doing this will help them get to the point where they can then do the mastermind and have the funds to do it.
[00:18:18] We'll help them collapse time and we'll help them figure out some ways to generate some more income as well. For those that are larger companies, this should be an easy no brainer. And we may not do this forever. We may not, this may be too costly in terms of time and energy for Sarah and I to do in the business while running DoorGrow with the hundreds of clients that we have.
[00:18:40] But this is the offer and I think it's an awesome offer. And get in on it while you can. It's really cool. Personalized coaching with the two of us and we get to see inside hundreds of companies. We get to help them figure out how to grow and scale their businesses. And having that personalized time, you're going to get some value and you'll be able to ask questions and we'll be able to move forward.
[00:19:00] Think that's basically it. So if you're interested in this, you can reach out to us at doorgrow.com or message us on social media and we can get you a link to get the call scheduled for your first session with us for this and get you the payment link so you can invest in yourself and invest in collapsing time and invest in moving your business forward with a coach.
[00:19:19] Okay. Yeah. All right. All right. That's it.
[00:19:23] Yeah.
[00:19:23] All right. Until next time then to our mutual growth. Bye everyone.
[00:19:26] 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!
[00:19:53] 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.
Property management entrepreneurs… how many hats are you currently wearing? It’s easy for business owners to get stuck doing things they don’t actually enjoy doing.
Property management growth experts Jason and Sarah Hull talk about how to get out of the roles you don’t enjoy and into the roles you do.
[03:17] The myth of wanting to clone yourself
[07:51] The pros of a great hiring system
[13:46] Which hat do you take off first?
[17:58] Next steps
“That you need 10 people to clone yourself as an entrepreneur.”
“A generalist that's good at everything is never the best.”
“For every role that exists, there's always a person to fill it who actually really love doing that role.”
“If you have office politics, you've got a culture problem.”
[00:00:00] Sarah: For every role that exists, there's always a person to fill it who actually really love doing that role.
[00:00:09] Jason: Welcome DoorGrowers, 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 DoorGrower. DoorGrower 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. 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. We're your hosts, property management growth experts, Jason Hull and Sarah Hull, the owners of DoorGrow.
[00:01:03] Now let's get into the show. All right, so we released a funny video. So if you have not seen any of our funny videos, we put out quite a few of these. We have a whole playlist of them on YouTube. You can go to youtube.com/doorgrow and go to our playlist and look for our playlist of funny videos. Our newest funny video that we released is all about hats.
[00:01:28] It's got a whole bunch of hats and it's silly, and I'm putting on different hats, and so if you want to laugh at me. Go check that out. we thought we would talk about this idea today. So what's the idea?
[00:01:40] Sarah: So the idea is are you wearing too many hats, aka are you filling too many roles in your property management business?
[00:01:50] Jason: All right, so when you first start out, you have to wear every hat, right?
[00:01:55] You do everything in the business because it's all on you. You're like, "Oh, let me send that over to my maintenance coordinator... who's me. And let me get that over to my bookkeeper... who is also me. And Oh, my receptionist will answer my calls for me today because that's me." What are some of the hats that property managers are wearing.
[00:02:15] Sarah: There's so many of them. Let's see. There's maintenance coordinator, a leasing agent, there's usually the bookkeeper, whoever's going to handle finances, there's of course the CEO who's going to set the vision of the company, there's the operator who's going to do things on the backend, there's the salesperson or the BDM, there's usually like a property manager, there's sometimes assistant property managers... As companies grow, they sometimes get tenant coordinators or client coordinators like just to handle like tenant or client communications. But when you start out, like all of this is usually you.
[00:02:55] Jason: One of the things that I hear a lot from early stage entrepreneurs, people that are just getting started is they're like, "I just need to clone myself. I just need to find somebody else. Just like me." And so this is the big mistake that everybody makes initially in hiring. It's everybody does it like we all go and try and find somebody like ourselves.
[00:03:15] That's what we think hiring is. We think hiring is cloning ourselves. The challenge with that is that the clone myth, as I call it, the reality is that you need 10 people to clone yourself as an entrepreneur. You need a different person for each hat.
[00:03:32] Because if you find somebody that is as adaptable as you and that can do everything like you and is driven like you, guess what they're going to do? They're going to do what you did and they're going to leave and go start their own company. I've seen this over and over again where people hire a clone and the clone does exactly what a clone would do. They become like you and they leave and sometimes take your clients and start their own business and become your competition. And so we don't want to fall prey to the clone myth. We want to find specialists that we can give pieces of what we do or hats to that are really good at that particular hat and a generalist that's good at everything is never the best.
[00:04:17] You are not the best at every role. You probably think, "nobody else could do it as good as me." This is the other belief that early stage entrepreneurs say. "Nobody else can do it as well as me. I might as well do it myself." And that's a trap. It's a trap that keeps you doing everything forever. And if you believe that, then that means you will by default be comfortable getting crappy team members that are worse than you at these hats.
[00:04:42] Because if you believe that you're the best and nobody else could be better than you, then you will go hire people and you will tolerate people that are worse than you at these particular roles. And then you'll be frustrated and I have a team of people that are better at their particular roles than I would be and this gives me a lot of confidence being able to let go of stuff. Like Sarah is way better at the details way better operations way better at putting things together. Like you've significantly improved the business and she's better at all of those things than I am and there's things that I'm better at than Sarah, but that allows me to stay in those areas I get to stay in those areas where I am better at those things than Sarah and then we have different team members Adam, and Mar, and they're all better at their particular tasks than I would be.
[00:05:31] Sarah: Or I would be. Yeah.
[00:05:33] Absolutely. And that's what you want, is you want someone who is better at whatever this is than you are, especially if you don't enjoy it. So if you've got things in your business that you're holding on to and you think, "oh, I'll just never find somebody who loves maintenance coordination. Like who on the world would love to do that job because it's horrible?" Somebody will love it.
[00:05:59] Somebody who likes details and organization and they like having a plan and a structure and a system. There are people who function that way and they really enjoy that. And it's so funny because Jason was like, "for every role that exists, there's always a person to fill it who actually really love doing that role." And it's true. It's really true.
[00:06:22] Jason: That's a good point because early stage entrepreneurs also believe that because they hate doing something like if you hate maintenance coordination, you're like, "man, if I never have to do another maintenance escalation or talk to a tenant again, I'd be so happy."
[00:06:37] A lot of times entrepreneurs believe that means nobody else would like it either. It's really a self centered, self centric view to believe that the rest of the world are like you. They're not. Like one of my mentors would say, there are people out there that like changing bedpans, you know?
[00:06:52] And I've said that to some people that were nurses or something like that. And they're like, "yeah, I do. I feel like I'm helping them."
[00:06:58] And I'm like, "that's great. I wouldn't want to do that.
[00:07:00] Sarah: Like Evelyn, she says, "I don't like the changing of the bedpans, but I do like that when I do that, I know that I'm helping somebody who can't do it for themselves."
[00:07:07] Jason: Yeah. And so she's happy to do it.
[00:07:10] Sarah: You can't pay me enough money in this world to change a bedpan.
[00:07:13] Jason: There is not enough money in this entire universe. That's my sister in law. And yeah that's wild. And so I want everyone listening to believe that there are people out there that can do the things that are your minus signs.
[00:07:26] You can find people that's their plus signs and they will do it better than you. If you believe there are people out there that can do it better than you, there's a lot of dinosaur bosses. This is how you know you're a dinosaur boss. If you're the person that just believes everybody in the younger generation is terrible and there's no good hires out there available and nobody wants to work, then guess what you're going to find and attract when you go onto your job search?
[00:07:51] There are great people out there. And if you build a really good hiring process, you can find and attract them. But the great people don't want to work for a dinosaur boss, like somebody that just believes that 'if I pay you, you should just do it and you should just like it and just suck it up.'
[00:08:06] Because that's not very inspiring and people have options nowadays. They don't have to stay at a job very long. They can go work elsewhere. And the way that we retain team members is we create a culture of people that all share the same vision, same mission to transform property management, business owners.
[00:08:23] And because we hire specialists and hire people that are really dialed in personality wise for that particular role that we know they can be great at it. And because each of our team members are great, it creates this sense of mutual respect on the team. Everybody on our team likes each other. Yeah. And they respect each other.
[00:08:42] And in our daily huddles, they're like celebrating each other and sharing, like pointing out how awesome different team members were because they can see that these team members are really good at the things they do and it's things they're not good at or wouldn't want to have to do.
[00:08:57] Sarah: Morgan just said, I think, when she came back from leave, I was catching up with her. And then she was on some coaching calls with clients and she shared part of it with me. And I just had this conversation with one of our clients, and she said, "everybody on our team. I love them. Like I really like these people. I work with them every day, but I really enjoy working with them." And she said, "if anybody on the team came to me with any task and said, 'Hey, like I could really use your help on this.'" She says, "I would do it in a heartbeat. I wouldn't even flinch. I would do it in a heartbeat and I would want to do it because I care about these people and I want to help them."
[00:09:34] Jason: And that's because we've created a culture initially entirely around what I want. Like I as the visionary gets to set the culture of the company and I created values and everything.
[00:09:47] Now, when Sarah became an owner, we took a fresh look at them. And we revisit them and then I don't think we really changed much.
[00:09:55] Sarah: No, we didn't. I gave her an opportunity to have input, but...
[00:09:59] would you, if I wasn't a value match, would you have brought me into the company? You wouldn't have hired me, but nevermind ownership of the company. You don't give ownership of a company to somebody that's like not a culture.
[00:10:10] Jason: If you weren't a value match, we probably wouldn't be married. And so this is the thing. There's a lot of couples in property management. I've noticed we get a lot of couple clients, husband and wife teams.
[00:10:21] And it's very typical that the husband is more visionary, sales, wild, cowboy, entrepreneur and that the wife is like stable, crusher of all hopes and dreams, just kidding, grounded, practical, make sure everything works operator personality type. Yeah.
[00:10:38] Sarah: Sometimes we do see, they're like, "we're going to do this crazy big thing!"
[00:10:41] And operators were like, "we can't afford that. Cool, but that sounds really insane. So what can we actually do and how can we actually make it happen?" So like we are the ones who make sure that things happen instead of just,
[00:10:57] Jason: yeah.
[00:10:57] Sarah: We're not the crusher of the dreams.
[00:10:58] We're the dream makers.
[00:11:00] Jason: They're the dream. Yeah. They bring it into reality. The "maker-happeners". ,
[00:11:04] That's good. That's really good.
[00:11:05] Sarah: It's so good. Madi's going to laugh so hard when she's editing this. She's going to go, "that's not a word."
[00:11:10] Jason: Maker-happeners.
[00:11:11] Sarah: The word now, Madi.
[00:11:13] Jason: This is my Maker-happener.
[00:11:15] And yeah, we've got this mutual respect that exists on the team, and if you don't like your team, be honest. If your team increases your pressure and noise, if they stress you out, if you are frustrated at your team members, you have the wrong team and it's your fault. You created it, you allowed it, and you kept these people because you probably thought that's just how business works or that's what's available.
[00:11:40] Sarah: Even if you're like, "Oh no, I like everybody," but does everybody like everybody else? Because if your team doesn't like each other, how quick do you think they're going to be to really jump in and help the other one? Because everybody needs help at some point.
[00:11:52] Like deadlines come and things happen or whatever. Like summer happens and we're like, "Oh my God! I thought like I had more time on this and all these leases are due. Can somebody help me?" There is going to be a point in which someone on your team needs help from somebody else that doesn't usually do that thing.
[00:12:07] And if they don't like each other, they're not going to help each other. They're going to go, "Oh yeah, look at Susie. She can't even do her own job."
[00:12:14] Jason: Yeah. If you have office politics, you've got a culture problem. If you've got you may have team members that secretly don't even like you and you may not know it, but you can tell. You can feel it.
[00:12:25] Most employees probably here in the U. S., that standard American employee doesn't really like their job. They just want safety and certainty. They want stability. They're not there because it's giving them a sense of fulfillment, freedom, contribution, support. It's like the best thing and they love it.
[00:12:41] So that means they're B players. A players are what we have on our team at DoorGrow. B players are what one of my mentors called hiders. Their secret goal if they were really honest would be to do as little work as possible, get paid as much as possible, and then they go and complain about you and live for the weekend.
[00:13:02] And so if they love the weekend way more than they love their day-to-day, there's probably a problem. Like you want team members that are like, "man, I'm really excited. I love getting to do what I get to do." If I didn't have the role that I have or get to do what I get to do, I would feel probably lost, depressed, and bored out of my mind.
[00:13:23] I love getting to do what I get to do. And my guess is that most of the people on my team would probably feel that same way. If they just had nothing to do. So I don't know, maybe there's some that would love to just not work ever a day in their life. I don't know. But for me, that would be crazy.
[00:13:39] Sarah: Not anymore.
[00:13:40] Jason: So what else can we talk about related to getting rid of these hats? Because in the beginning they're wearing every hat. How did they decide which had to get off first?
[00:13:49] Sarah: What are the things that you like? Because those are the things you should keep.
[00:13:54] And not just "Oh, that's annoying," or like "it's okay, but I don't love it." The things that you really don't like, the things where, like for me it was talking to tenants, that was what it was for me, and sales. I hated sales. I hated doing sales. I was really good at it, but I just, I hated it. Look at, the things that you do and the things that you like, you tend to get them done pretty quickly. Yeah, if you like going through emails. You're going to do that and there's going to be very little friction there.
[00:14:23] No one's going to have to say "Oh, did you check your email?" But if you hate going through emails and you're like, "oh my god. Like why is email even a thing? I don't even know why we have to do this," You're going to procrastinate. Yeah. It's going to build up and you're probably not the right person to be doing it.
[00:14:41] Jason: Yeah. If there's anything that's been on your to do list for more than a month, it's probably because you are not the person that should be doing it. That's a pretty big clue. One of the big mistakes I see people make when getting their initial hire is they try and find team members to wear multiple hats.
[00:14:57] They're like, "I'm going to get an appointment setter slash assistant."
[00:15:02] Sarah: My favorite is, "my operator is also going to do sales for me."
[00:15:05] Jason: Oh yeah.
[00:15:06] Sarah: No, they're not.
[00:15:08] Jason: And why that's a problem is these are opposite personality types. If we're picking people that are two different personality types. If we're giving them a role that's two different personality types, then we are setting them up for some sort of failure.
[00:15:21] And they're not going to really do well at the one that is not their personality type. And so we need to make sure we're not throwing multiple hats onto a person. We're trying to offload multiple hats that are different personality types. It's not going to work. We need specialists that are the right personality for the role.
[00:15:39] So at DoorGrow, we are experts on matching the right personality types, knowing the personality types that you need for particular roles. There's a certain personality type for a BDM, for an operator, for a receptionist, for maintenance coordinator, property manager, leasing agent.
[00:15:54] There's certain personality types that are good at these. And if you hire based on skill, you will miss the personality. And so hiring based on personality and based on culture are more important for the team and for the role. So usually the first person that we recommend in our DoorGrow code that most entrepreneurs get initially to get the most leverage would be an assistant.
[00:16:19] Like maybe around 50 units, you should have your own assistant. But we've got clients that come to us with hundreds of doors and they still don't even have an assistant for themselves. They just keep hiring to take care of the business while not taking care of themselves. So they're not really taking hats off or giving up stuff.
[00:16:35] They're just helping the business out. And so they end up more and more stressed the bigger the team gets. So a big piece of this is you need to make sure that you are taking care of yourself and the way we help our clients get clarity on themselves in clarity on what are their minus signs versus their plus signs, what they, what drains them versus what gives them energy is by doing a time study.
[00:16:57] And this gives them a lot of clarity on how do I get to the next level? How do I offload the negative things so that I can spend more time in my area of genius and wearing the hats that I want to wear? And then we build out job descriptions and et cetera. So we have this whole process for taking entrepreneurs through to give them a lot of clarity.
[00:17:14] Then later. Maybe around 200 plus the most important hire that you will ever make in the business will be to get an operator. If your spouse is already an operator, then you already have the most important person that you will ever bring into the business on your team, which is amazing and awesome. This person needs to be very intelligent.
[00:17:34] They need to be sharp. They need to be driven to getting systems and processes dialed in. They want to see the business succeed. They handle all the details. They make everything work and they make sure that the team makes everything work. And this allows you to spend more time in the visionary role or in the sales role or whatever it is as a visionary entrepreneur that you really enjoy.
[00:17:55] All right. Anything else related to hats?
[00:17:58] Sarah: So I think if you're listening to this and you're going, "yeah, but I'm still doing all this stuff and I would like to offload that, but I don't think I have the money to offload that," because this is what we hear next is, "yeah, that would be great, but I can't afford it. I can't afford to hire, two or three or eight people."
[00:18:18] Jason: So we have processes for this, but we have to back you out of the corner. You've painted yourself into, so first we do need to get you clarity on what you do enjoy and what would make you more money because it doesn't make sense to go get somebody if you could create more leverage, right? And so sometimes it's about creating more leverage related to time right now. So we have processes for helping you get even more done. Like one of my clients did a time study and recently and said that he had found that he was spending an hour after three o'clock, he was spending an hour to get things done that took him 10 minutes in the morning.
[00:18:56] And so part of it is just clarity on your circadian rhythm, your time, like your energy, whether you're getting good enough sleep. So we worked on some hacks to increase his brain's bandwidth so that he could do more later in the day and get a lot more done. This may triple the output of what he can accomplish.
[00:19:15] Then we have processes like daily planning time studies. We have these different things that help you get more yield from your day. We have a training called the priorities training. It talks about how Sarah was able to run her business with over 60 percent profit margin with only one part time person up to 260 units.
[00:19:34] Which is crazy. They add units too.
[00:19:36] Yeah. C class properties. Yeah. In a rough area. Yeah. And she was able to reduce a lot of the communication, a lot of the friction and systematize the business so that it could run very efficiently. And so we train clients on how to do that. We get people come to us and they're like, "I'm burnt out at 50 units."
[00:19:55] Sometimes they're like, "I'm stuck at a hundred units. Like I just can't handle anymore." And you can. There's ways of making this easier.
[00:20:04] Sarah: But you can't give nothing changes, right? So if everything stays the same, you're right. You can't, but you need to make some changes probably to yourself and in your business.
[00:20:15] And then all of a sudden it will allow more space and you'll be able to add on more units.
[00:20:21] Jason: This is where good coaching comes in is we can help you get more yield from your day, create more bandwidth so that you can spend more time growing the business. We give you the strategies to grow. You make more money.
[00:20:32] So a lot of times clients come to us in that scenario. I'm like, "let's create some space and then let's get you focusing on revenue generating stuff. Let's get you making a lot more money. And then let's make sure we hire what you actually need most. So you can spend more time making more money because then you're making smart, strategic moves when you hire. Instead of just hiring what the business needs, which can be really expensive if you make mistakes. And if you get any bad hires, we have a really great hiring system called DoorGrow hiring. One bad hire is going to cost you minimum 10 grand because you're going to spend probably at least three months on them of pay, there's a certain amount of money they're going to cost you and you're going to lose out on because they weren't generating revenue or helping to keep revenue. So there's a lot like bad hires are one of the most expensive and costly things you can do and it eats up your time, which is the most valuable resource in the business.
[00:21:24] When you're onboarding and training somebody that's never going to be good at it. And so we can help with that as well, helping you get really good team members and collapse time on hiring. We've helped companies replace entire teams, cut their staffing costs in half like overnight, she does this stuff and and build out really good hiring systems and processes so that you can get people quickly and scale quickly as you're adding doors.
[00:21:49] We have the stuff to help with all of that.
[00:21:51] Sarah: We do. Cool. If you're hearing this and you're like, "man, that would be really nice, then you should reach out. Contact us. Get on a call. Go to doorgrow.Com. You can see what we're all about, what we do. You can book a call. If you're like, "hey, this is for me and I'm ready to go right now," cool.
[00:22:06] Sign up. Join our mastermind and you'll have some awesome coaches to support you.
[00:22:10] Jason: Yeah. Some of you listening are feeling really stressed out. Every business owner has been there. Some of you listening have felt really stuck.
[00:22:19] It's just things aren't moving forward. You can't figure out why the marketing stuff isn't working. You're not really adding doors. You're not getting ahead. You're getting stressed. You're getting burnt out. You probably cannot see yourself doing this for five more years. And you need to reach out for help.
[00:22:36] One of the most difficult things for entrepreneurs to do in especially early stage entrepreneurs is to humble ourselves. To be humble and to realize we could use some help and ask for help. We just we always think we can handle it all ourselves, like we've got it. "If I just watch enough youtube videos or try and get enough free stuff I can figure out." Or "if I just work hard enough I can save a dollar and do it myself or if I read enough books..." and so our goal at DoorGrow is to help you collapse time and make a lot more money. You can probably figure it all out, and I've seen people work really hard at doing this, but it will probably take you a decade to figure it all out. Whereas we could probably help you figure it out in a small fraction of the time. We've done it over and over again. So if you're feeling stuck or frustrated, reach out to us, let us help you make it make sense financially. We will help you justify the financial expense of working with us because really, a good coaching program should be making you money, not costing you money.
[00:23:40] And if you do what we tell you to do, you will be making more money. Our program pays for itself. This is why we have probably the lowest churn rate in the entire industry. We keep clients because they're winning.
[00:23:52] So reach out to us at DoorGrow. We would love to help you get going.
[00:23:55] Sarah: Be open, just be open to do things a little differently.
[00:23:59] And if that's the case, if you are interested at all in having your company and your business and your life, just be better and different than this might be for you.
[00:24:11] Jason: The slowest path to growth is to do it all yourself or to think you can do it all yourself. That is it for today. So until next time to our mutual growth. Make sure you join our facebook group at doorgrowclub.Com. We have a bunch of free stuff in there and reach out to us at DoorGrow at doorgrow.Com We would love to help you grow your business. Bye everyone
[00:24:30] 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!
[00:24:57] 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.
We all catch ourselves saying, “I just don’t have enough time,” especially as a property management business owner.
In this episode of the #DoorGrowShow, property management growth experts Jason and Sarah Hull talk about the excuse of not having enough time and using time more effectively in property management.
[01:25] The excuse of not having enough time
[05:29] You can buy more time
[10:08] Energy management vs. time management
[13:23] Doing a time study
[16:04] Don’t fight your natural energy level
“It's not actually true to say we don't have time. What we're really saying is, ‘This is not a priority for me right now.’”
“Time is a currency you can buy.”
“You should not be trading your time for money. If you own a business.”
“It's really about energy management, not time management when you're an entrepreneur.”
[00:00:00] Jason: It's really about energy management, not time management when you're an entrepreneur. It's about managing that currency of energy. And what I find is we have endless amounts of energy if we're doing the things that we love, that we enjoy doing.
[00:00:15] Welcome DoorGrowers, 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 DoorGrower. DoorGrower 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. 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. We're your hosts, property management growth experts, Jason Hull and Sarah Hull, the owners of DoorGrow.
[00:01:09] Now let's get into the show. All right. So the topic we discussed last night about talking about on the podcast today is time.
[00:01:20] Time excuse. "I don't have enough time."
[00:01:23] We hear this a lot. Every day. "I don't have time. I don't have time. I don't have enough time to do this." So we're talking about the time excuse and You know sometimes... we've got this amazing mastermind. Sometimes clients want to cancel. And we have a really low churn rate. We keep clients, so we're usually surprised when somebody wants to cancel. And when we find out and ask why, we got this from one of our mentors, but we now ask the question, "is this a time thing or a money thing?" Which has proven to be really effective because a lot of times it's just a time thing and time is easily solvable.
[00:01:59] If it's a money thing, then that's easily solvable too. That's easily solvable too. Just a different route. That's all. So let's talk about time. I've got two clients right now actually that it was a time thing and they're still staying in the program and it's very easy to keep people in the program if it's just a time thing because they're always like, "Oh, we love the program. I just, I don't have time to do all this stuff right now." So what do we say about time?
[00:02:21] Sarah: So this is, I think the thing that I hear the most from property managers. Period. Just, especially in this business is, "Oh my God, I just don't have time for anything. Like I feel like I'm spending my whole day working," and we'll come across clients who are working anywhere from eight to 16 hours a day and that's normal for them.
[00:02:45] Jason: Yeah. So it's our job to get them out of that. Yeah.
[00:02:49] Sarah: If you're working eight to 16 hours a day, I'm talking to you.
[00:02:53] Jason: So we have a training that we did once called the priorities training, and it was all about time really. But the reason we called it the priorities training is because saying, "I don't have time," is a very victim sort of phrase.
[00:03:05] It's not actually true. You can't legitimately go to any other human being on the planet and say, "I don't have time" when we all are allotted the same number of hours in a day. We've all been given the same amount of currency each day. What's different though, it's not actually true to say we don't have time.
[00:03:23] What we're really saying is "this is not a priority for me right now." Or our priorities are just off. So it's really more about priorities. The more honest answer is "I am not making time for this right now because I'm prioritizing something else." And so if you're the type of person that goes around saying, "I don't have time. I don't have time for this," then you are using victim language. This is not effective language if you want to actually be in control of your life. You recognize that you are the creator of your universe, your life, your world. Like you have choice, right? And to walk around saying, "I don't have time" is like putting on the blinders and saying, "the world just takes control of everything I have to do. I have no control of my life," right? You're not a slave. You're not a servant to somebody else. You have control and autonomy over your time. And so you're just making choices. And so the more honest answer would be not to say, "I don't have time," would be to say, "I'm choosing something else right now," right?
[00:04:25] Be honest about that. If what you're spending, what you think you should be spending your time on is not really your priority, then maybe you're not really being honest with yourself. Maybe your priority is something else. Maybe your priority right now is family. Maybe your priority right now is another business.
[00:04:39] We run into this with clients sometimes, their priority is their brokerage. And they're doing real estate deals. It's not the property management side.
[00:04:45] Sarah: And in the property management side, sometimes their focus is the property management side, but they're prioritizing all the wrong things.
[00:04:53] Yeah. They're prioritizing all the little things that the day to day tactical work that has to be done. It has to be done by somebody, but it doesn't probably have to be done by you, right?
[00:05:05] Jason: So what I find is even the two clients that I'm coaching right now helping them get out of this time sort of constraint, they both have assistants, they have team members.
[00:05:14] They have an assistant? Yeah, they have assistants. And so what's really funny is that when we say we don't have time and then we are paying other people for their time so that we can have more time, then we're missing something. We're not doing something effective.
[00:05:29] Sarah: Time is a currency you can buy. Yeah. So to say, "Oh I don't have enough time." You have the same amount of time that everybody else has. Some people are just more effective with their time than others, which is why they're able to do so much or do so much so quickly or be so successful. However, with time, that's the beauty of it is you can literally purchase more time.
[00:05:50] You can purchase time of another human being. Yeah. To help move your business forward.
[00:05:54] Jason: So one of the concepts that I got from one of my mentors in the past, Alex Charfen, he shared this concept called the five currencies and the five currencies that you have to invest in your own life and in your business are time, energy, focus, cash, and effort.
[00:06:11] Now, I believe the most important of those, the scarcest resource of all those is time. We're all going to die. Time is the most significant currency. Time is the most significant currency. It's the most limited. We can do a lot of things to try and have more time and live life a little longer.
[00:06:31] But time is a limited currency. The other ones. We can maximize, but we can't generally do a whole lot to maximize time. We can do a lot to shorten it. So we buy time, right? What's crazy to me though, is that when people start working, they don't have a lot, right? When people start into the workforce, the one thing they can sell though is pieces of their life.
[00:06:54] They can sell time. So it's pretty wild that I can go out into the marketplace. And I can buy people's time. Like they will pay, like I can give them money and they will give me chunks of their life. They're like, "here you go." As a business owner, we want to get out of the trap of being paid for our time.
[00:07:12] We don't want to be paid an hourly wage or being taking care of like hourly. We want to get out of the time trap.
[00:07:20] Sarah: You should not be trading your time for money. If you own a business.
[00:07:24] Jason: Smart business owners are buying people's time with money and not giving their time for money. And so we want to shift that as a business owner and property management is a great business model for that. You can create a lot of leverage. You can build up a lot of doors in your portfolio, and it's not about time. It's not about, Oh I have this many hours. It's all me, right? You can systematize the business. You can get other people to do things for you.
[00:07:45] And so we want to. I want to make sure that we make time something enjoyable. And so we've talked about the four reasons before, but we want to make sure you have more fulfillment in the time that you're spending, that you have more freedom, more a sense of autonomy, more a sense of contribution and more support from your team, right?
[00:08:06] The four reasons. And then there's a fifth reason of safety and certainty. So we want to get more and more of those as the business progresses and as we grow in the business and as we grow in entrepreneurship. But a lot of business owners end up with less and less time, less and less fulfillment, less and less freedom, less and less of a sense of like of contribution.
[00:08:27] And they then burn themselves out even as they build a team. So we want to make sure that we don't do. But what are some of the time excuses or time challenges and then maybe we can talk about how we deal with those briefly and how to get
[00:08:41] Sarah: out of it. I think what's probably. Because there's a gazillion excuses you can come up with, right?
[00:08:47] Leases take forever or tenants always call me or what, whatever it is. And every in, in every business, there's always going to be an infinite number of things that can just eat up all of your time. That's how it works in every business. This is how it works. What we need to do though, is really figure out what are the things that I actually enjoy doing and how can I do more of those things?
[00:09:08] And then the things that I really hate doing, how can I do less of those things? So how would the time that I have, and if I'm willing to invest, because every minute that you put into your business is an investment. So if you're willing to invest eight hours a day in your business, and if you're working for someone else, it just means you're investing eight hours a day into their business, right?
[00:09:31] So you might as well invest in your own. So if you're investing eight hours a day into your business, what can I do in those eight hours a day to really make a difference? And what? In those eight hours a day, can I do that's going to make me happy? Because if you're spending eight hours a day and you hate every minute of it and you're going, "oh my god Is it five o'clock yet? Like I can't wait for this to be over. Is it the weekend yet? Because I can't wait for that to be done," Then you're probably doing the wrong things in your business, and you need to be able to purchase somebody else's time to offload those things that somebody else would actually enjoy doing
[00:10:08] Jason: So it's really about energy management, not time management when you're an entrepreneur.
[00:10:13] It's about managing that currency of energy. And what I find is we have endless amounts of energy if we're doing the things that we love, that we enjoy doing. It like gives us energy. Those are our plus signs energetically.
[00:10:26] Sarah: If you're charging our batteries at a party and they just go. The party is done and they're still gabbing away and they're like handing out, whatever and they're like, "oh, let me get your number Oh, let me hook up with you and let me like get-" It's like "guys, wrap up." But there's like that one person who's still going and it's like you have to kick him You're like I don't care where you go. Just don't go here anymore. Go take this elsewhere That's because they really enjoy that. They're like in their element. They're like, "I love talking to people. I love connecting with people. I love networking. I love this. They can do it all day long." Me, I can't do that because I'm much more of an introvert.
[00:11:04] So the things that you really enjoy truly will energize you. And you'll find them fun and you want to do them instead of just constantly checking the clock. "What time is it now? How long? Oh, geez. How many more calls do I have to do? Oh, I have to do two hours of calls a day. Ah, crap. All right. Like maybe I can dial real slow."
[00:11:20] Jason: Yeah. And so I think one of the mistakes we make early in the early stages and entrepreneurs, we assume that we need to find people like ourselves. Or we just do because we like ourselves to some degree. But we want to find people that their plus signs are our minus signs, right?
[00:11:37] That's where they're a match for us, right? So there are a lot of things that Sarah enjoys that I do not enjoy. He would not. And there's definitely things that are the reverse. right? And you want to find and build a team of people that basically are happy and enjoy your minus signs and are not like you.
[00:11:58] Instead of making the assumption, "this sucks, and now I got to find somebody to give this sucky thing to, because I hate maintenance coordination. And now I got to find somebody else that's going to hate it." When you make those assumptions, then you sometimes attract people that are like you and that hate it. But you need to find people that's their plus sign. So we can keep everybody in your team in their plus signs. And if you're not in your plus signs, your team members definitely aren't. It's just really rare that you'll have a business owner that's absolutely miserable, they are holding onto all these hats and things they don't enjoy wearing... so we got to make sure that we move the things off our plate onto people's plates that enjoy it, but you cannot build the right team for you around the wrong person.
[00:12:38] You have to be showing up as the right person. You have to constantly be moving towards your plus signs. So how do we get you out of all the minus signs and focus on the plus signs? So these two clients, I've got them doing a two week time study right now. And this is the foundation.
[00:12:51] This is the foundation of getting clarity on what things do I enjoy and don't I enjoy because sometimes as entrepreneurs, we just tolerate a lot. It becomes white noise. We just do what we feel like we're supposed to do. " I'm the boss. I have to do sales or I'm the boss. I have to do the accounting" and there's really nothing you have to be doing in the business.
[00:13:09] Sarah: And just because you can do it doesn't mean you enjoy doing it. So can you fill all the roles in your business? Yeah. Because at some point it was just you. So of course you can do it, but it doesn't mean that you like doing it.
[00:13:23] Jason: So they're doing their time studies and they got to do it for two weeks because the first week they learn a lot of things.
[00:13:27] Like we found three major problems in my coaching call with one of the clients that's been doing his time study already for a week, three major time problems. Like one was he was spending an hour to do something after three o'clock. It was taking him an hour to do something that takes him 10 minutes to do in the morning, right?
[00:13:44] So we talked about. His time and how he's becoming less effective at the end of the day because his brain chemicals aren't properly functioning. And then it related to sleep. And so then we were like, "okay, we've got to figure out some hacks for sleep. How do we get the circadian rhythm?" Because he believed his rhythm was messed up because of like working nights previously for a long time. So he had this belief that he was on a schedule. I'm like, "okay we can get your body on a different schedule and affect the circadian rhythm by using light, sunlight in the morning and stuff like this" and some other hacks. So we got into that and that he had two other major issues and he wasn't leveraging his assistant properly. He wasn't doing daily planning. And these are super easy things to install to create a lot more productivity and a lot more space and to actually leverage the team members that this particular client has.
[00:14:34] And so the second week of his time study is going to look very different than the first week. Now, the other mistake we make when it comes to time is our team members will say, "I don't have any more time. So when your team members say that, what I find is it's also still a lie, right? And so usually, I'll have my team members do a time study to prove it.
[00:14:53] And usually the first time study that a team member does, they magically have 30 percent more time available. Almost always. So it usually takes about two or three time studies before they legitimately need an assistant or some support or you need to hire or get some help or advice, get some software or whatever.
[00:15:11] But after you do a time study, a lot of clarity comes out. You're like, "why are you spending four hours doing this?" " This happens and it does this." And you're like, "cool, let's solve that problem." So you'll be able to use your creativity and your innovative mind as to solve problems time wise for your team members.
[00:15:27] And this allows you to get a lot more yield from your existing team, rather than just assuming because they're busy that they are productive and they are doing everything that you need them to do and that you need to go hire more people because then you artificially are building out a much more expensive team than you actually need.
[00:15:47] It's not based on proof or reality and the evidence or proof that you need an assistant and what you should have your assistant do. And that eventually that. Assistant or team member needs their own assistant is all should be based on time studies should be based on looking at time
[00:16:04] Sarah: You brought up something you touched on it really quickly that I've taught on this on the scale call I think a few times is figuring out what your energy levels are like and don't try to fight your body like literally every body is different.
[00:16:19] So some people they're morning people like this one. Some people are not like me. So if you feel really energized in the morning, then utilize that time. And use that time when you feel fresh, when you feel energized, when you feel like, "Hey, I'm like, good to go," use that time to do the most, either the most difficult thing or the thing that's going to take the most amount of brain power.
[00:16:46] Or if you're doing something like sales and you feel like you're in your element, do it then. And if you're more like me where I'm more effective in the afternoon, then. Shift those things to the afternoon. But a lot of times people, they go, "Oh, I have to do this. And it's like sales secrets will say that the morning is the best time to do this, so I must do this in the morning." If you're trying to fight with your own body and your own rhythm and how you're feeling, if you're trying to do sales calls and you have low energy and you feel like "I just, I don't want to do this. I feel like I'm either not ready for the day or I'm done for the day."
[00:17:24] You're probably doing it at the wrong time. So the tasks that are going to take a lot of brain power. Don't try to force yourself to do them when you have really low energy levels because it will take a lot longer and you're probably going to make a lot of mistakes, whereas otherwise you can just fly through it.
[00:17:41] Maybe you know that at least like the back of your hand, it's no problem. But if your energy levels are low or if you're feeling off, then you have to maybe double or triple check some things.
[00:17:51] Jason: You bring up a really good point. These two clients that I'm coaching, we talked about daily planning.
[00:17:57] So daily planning is a great way to get more juice from your day and set the intention, but daily planning. I'd like to do the daily planning in the morning because that's when I'm freshest, I have the best ideas. I can think through things. But for some they probably should be doing it in the evening because like they can't go to bed without unloading their brain.
[00:18:18] I can just shut down. I just go to sleep. I don't worry about a thing. I can just go to bed. I'm like, it's bedtime. But for a lot of my clients, a lot of other people, maybe you listening, you might not be able to do that. So you might be like, "man, I just keep thinking about all the stuff." And until you get that stuff out of your head and it's on paper where it's safe.
[00:18:36] They say the Chinese proverb is the palest ink is stronger than the best memory. When we get it out of our head, it reduces our anxiety and we no longer have to worry that we're going to lose that thing. So I use the notes app on my phone. I put notes all over the place. I just get things out of my head.
[00:18:52] So daily planning is a great process to unload everything out of your head. So that you can go to bed and get some good rest. And so for one of the clients, that was what I advised. Do your daily planning in the evenings so that you can go to sleep, get good sleep and wake up in the morning and you already have a plan and you're ready to attack the day.
[00:19:10] And then you will know how to leverage your assistant. You'll know how to leverage your team members because you made a plan. And the next step in getting a big to do list is to give it to your team members. So if you have two, three team members, like this client did, then they can give these to their team members, anything that they can so it's not sitting on their plate, eating up headspace and stressing them out, and taking up their day and so then they're able to give up some of that time chunk to somebody else to eat. So cool All right. Anything else we should say about time or this time? Excuse and how to kill these time excuses so that they should be focused on?
[00:19:46] One of the things I ask the clients I'm like, "cool if we create this space if we you are able to give more to your assistants and you free up your time and you've got more time... what are you going to use that time for? How are you going to allocate that? What are you going to do that's going to make the business more money or move you forward or make your life better?" And so I think that's the other thing is we need to have a plan for what are we going to do with our time because we have no incentive to create more space or create more bandwidth or create more time if it's just going to mean we're going to be more miserable, right? So we need to figure out what are we going to use this extra time for? It's just like making money. You need a goal. Like "I'm going to go buy this nice car if I make more money." So it's going to motivate me. You need some sort of motivation. What am I going to do with this extra time? If you enjoy doing sales or growing the business or business development, that might be a really great place to invest that time because then it's going to make you more money and which you can use to buy more freedom. Maybe it's to get a BDM because you don't like doing sales, something like that.
[00:20:43] Sarah: So once you free up your time, then you have offloaded a lot of the things you hate, you have some extra time, and now you can decide "what do I actually want to do with that time?" Because if you don't wake up in the morning and go, "what do I want to do with my day today?" Then you may have a time problem.
[00:21:00] Jason: All right. So for those of you listening, if you're like, "man, I'm really been in this time trap. Like I've been stuck doing the same default future for the last two or three years. Every January comes around, I'm like, 'I've got big goals.'" And you still are miserable, you're still wearing all the same hats, you haven't really made progress in adding doors. Then it's time to admit you may need some good advice. You may need some extra ideas. You may need some knowledge outside of yourself. And the slowest way to grow your business is to do it all by yourself. It's time to reach out and get some help and we can help you collapse time significantly and that's what it's all about.
[00:21:42] That's what coaching is all about is collapsing time, helping you find ways to just shorten the time of learning, the time of making mistakes to learn, the time of figuring things out, like what actually works, what gets results, what helps you outdoors quickly, how do we lower costs? So we want to help you figure that out.
[00:22:00] So reach out to us at DoorGrow and go to DoorGrow.com. Until next time, everybody to our mutual growth, bye everyone.
[00:22:07] 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!
[00:22:33] 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.
At this point in the year, it’s still early enough to make some plans to level up your property management business. One of the best ways to learn new strategies is by masterminding with other professionals.
In this episode, property management growth experts Jason and Sarah Hull talk about the importance of strategic time as a business owner as well as some upcoming events for property management entrepreneurs.
[02:06] The concept of your default future
[06:43] The four reasons for having a business
[10:26] 2024 events for property managers
[16:51] Why masterminding matters
[19:44] The ultimate event for property management entrepreneurs
“If you're working with any business, they should be helping you change your future outcomes.”
“Worse is still different, but not probably the change we were hoping for.”
“I never want to be the smartest person in the room. If I am, that means I'm in the wrong room.”
“They say you're the sum of the five people that you are around the most or something like that, but I think your business will be the sum of the five property managers are the most connected to.”
[00:00:00] Jason: They say you're the sum of the five people that you are around the most or something like that, but I think your business will be the sum of the five property managers are the most connected to and to be connected in our mastermind to other mastermind members
[00:00:13] Welcome DoorGrowers 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 are open to doing things a bit differently, then you are a DoorGrower. DoorGrower property managers love the opportunities, daily variety, unique challenges, and freedom that property management brings. Many 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.
[00:00:53] We want to transform the industry, eliminate the BS, build awareness, change perception, expand the market, and help the best property management entrepreneurs win. We're your hosts, property management growth experts, Jason Hull and Sarah Hull, the owners of DoorGrow. Now let's get into the show. All right.
[00:01:11] So before this show, we were talking about what we should be talking about in today's episode. So what are we going to talk about today?
[00:01:18] Sarah: We will talk about getting ready for your 2024 and prepping, getting your schedule ready for some events that we've got coming up.
[00:01:27] Jason: Okay. It is January 26. January 2nd. Sorry. I don't know why I said that January 2nd. What's wrong with you? I don't know. I don't know. I think I saw the clock. All right, so it's January 2nd The new year has just started. This episode will probably come out on the main podcast a little bit later, but we wanted to kick things off for the new year.
[00:01:49] Make sure that everybody gets in momentum. I think 2024 is going to be a wild year. Every election year is. It's going to be interesting. So let's talk about your property management business, how you can get more of what you want and grow. So let's talk about some of the stuff coming up. All right. Where should we start?
[00:02:06] Sarah: Let's first start about talking about what did your 2023 look like? Was it what you wanted it to look like? Was it maybe a little different where there's some curve balls that came at you in the middle of the year and threw the whole plan that you had off balance and if so, what are you going to do differently in 2024?
[00:02:26] So if you change nothing, if you do nothing different, your 2024 will look probably pretty similar to your 2023 if not worse because the market is totally different, at least part of 2023. The market was good. The real estate market was pretty decent. It's not so decent right now. It's a little bit cooler.
[00:02:45] In fact, we're really close to it flipping over to a buyer's market.
[00:02:49] Jason: Okay. And for those of you listening, I think you'll really enjoy this concept. This is one of my favorite closes when it comes to converting people into clients or customers. And we call it the default future versus created future close. So it's important to take a look at your default future is. What you're going to get in the next year, and you can easily base it on what you did the last year and the year before that, and the year before that, you should have a pretty good idea of what your default future looks like. And if you're working with any business, they should be helping you change your future outcomes, right? They should be helping you improve your future. So for you selling to your clients, they should have a default future if they continue to DIY, do it themselves, manage their own property, work with the crappy property manager they've got now, whatever their current future is.
[00:03:36] They should have a different created future if they're working with you and you need to help them see a different alternate future reality that includes you. So we run into people all the time that have had a very uncomfortable default future in property management. They have not grown for the last sometimes 10 years.
[00:03:55] They've struggled. We have a client we just got on. He's been around 50 units for a decade. So that means it's a grind. That means there's a lot of churn, losing a lot of customers while you're adding customers and you're just not growing, right? Some of y'all are down in doors because I've heard the excuse of the pandemic or people, a bunch of my clients sold or whatever.
[00:04:15] So a lot of you might be down in doors. And so your current future, default future looks even worse than last year or the year before, right? So we want to shift you towards a created future. Yeah, so how do we do that. Okay you do that with DoorGrow, right? So we are really good at helping create a different alternate reality for you a different future That includes us.
[00:04:39] And because we've been able to coach and support so many, like hundreds of property management, business owners, we have tactics strategies that we've developed over time that we're always. Honing, improving, figuring out that have allowed us to increase our client's door count, make their operations smoother, improve their team, lower the entrepreneur's pressure and noise, decrease their stress, make the business more fun so they feel like they're more of a business owner.
[00:05:07] And so these are the things that we do. At door girl. All right. And we've got a bunch of events that we do throughout the year that help to facilitate our vision in helping transform property management business owners and their businesses.
[00:05:20] Sarah: Now is a really good time to plan out "what do I want my year to look like this year? Do I want it to look like more of the same? Or do I want it to look different, but positively different" because it can still look different, just maybe worse. Worse is still different, but not probably the change we were hoping for. Yeah. So if you want your business and your life and your income and your team and your day to improve, then you may need to just be open to doing things a little bit differently than you have before.
[00:05:52] And I think being that we're at the beginning of the year, this is a really good time to set some time aside for you. Set some time aside to make sure that you're prioritizing the things that you really want to get out of the business or out of your life. And how do we do that? There's a few events that we have coming up throughout the year.
[00:06:12] You can find all of our events, all of the details on doorgrow.com/events. And that will show you our event calendar. What event, who it's for, what the cost is, where it's located, the dates, all of that kind of information is on there. And if you go all the way to the bottom, there's a quick little video I recorded with even more details.
[00:06:34] So you can watch the whole thing. It's only a couple minutes long, or you can skip to the part that talks about the event you're interested in.
[00:06:41] Jason: Okay, cool. So for this new year, I would like to recap the four reasons, because I think. It's important to take a step back and assess your business through the lens of these four things.
[00:06:55] We have a fifth reason, so maybe the five, but we want to take a look at your business through this lens and make sure you're actually headed in the right direction. Because it's very possible to be making more and more money in your business and become more and more miserable. And that's not the goal.
[00:07:09] We didn't start businesses to become more miserable. We thought we started them to make more money, but what we really want is what more money can give us, right? We're hoping more money can give us more, number one, fulfillment. We get to spend more of our time doing the things we enjoy doing. More and more freedom.
[00:07:24] We feel free. We don't feel trapped. We don't feel stuck. We don't feel like we're controlled. We don't feel like our business runs us. We don't feel like a slave or servant to our business. We feel free, right? Freedom. The third reason is Contribution. So if we have freedom and fulfillment, usually then we want to make a difference to others, right?
[00:07:44] We want to benefit other people too. It's just innate I think in entrepreneurs, we want to change the world. We want to make it a better place. We want to improve things. We see problems and we're like, "I can make money solving that problem, right? That's contribution. That means making a difference to your family, to your team, to your clients, to everybody that you can have impact with and so contribution, I think, is one of the greatest gifts we can give ourselves. It feels really good to benefit others. And then the fourth reason is support. It's really difficult to have fulfillment, freedom, contribution if we don't have a team because then we end up doing and wearing all the hats that we don't want to wear and we should only be wearing the hats. Eventually, if we had the ultimate business, it gives us the ultimate level of fulfillment and freedom. Then we are only spending our time wearing the hats that we most enjoy wearing, which would mean we have a really good team that supports us and they enjoy wearing the hats that they're wearing and they take those off of our plates.
[00:08:41] So we don't have to wear those hats. And so those are the four reasons. Now there is a fifth reason, and this is important to recognize. This is what your team members want more than the four reasons, typically. This is what your clients want often more than the four reasons... they want safety and certainty.
[00:08:58] They want peace of mind. And so this is why a lot of people are willing to give up fulfillment, freedom, even contribution. They're willing to give those up and trade them in order to have safety and certainty. This is why they will go get a job. This is why they want to do what they're told to by maybe the media at times, right?
[00:09:17] They want to be safe and entrepreneurs were a little bit, we're wired a little bit differently. We care more about having our freedom than safety and certainty, but we also want that too. And so having our business built out in a way that gives us all five of those things gives us the ultimate business and it allows us then to make a real impact and to have a really good team and to have less stress.
[00:09:39] And so this is our primary goal with DoorGrow is to move you towards that. So take inventory. How do you feel you rate on each of these five areas right now? Do you feel you have safety and certainty? Do you feel like you have support and a really great team? You really feel supported in your business?
[00:09:54] Do you feel like you've got freedom and fulfillment? You get to do the things that you really want to do. You're really enjoying your day today. You feel like you're making a difference out there and contributing in the best way. If you don't have those things, even though you have a bunch of money coming in or a lot of doors, you built the wrong business.
[00:10:11] And it doesn't mean you need to change businesses or industries. It just means you need to change what your role is in that business. So 2024, let's move you towards more towards the four reasons. All right. So should we talk about some of the events we have coming up? Yeah, let's do it.
[00:10:26] Sarah: Let's talk about the events scheduled for 2024.
[00:10:29] By the time this airs, it'll still be early in the year. So you should be able to mark your calendars for the things that sound interesting to you and make sure that you prioritize your business so that you are set up for success so that you are able to grow so that you are able to get more of the day to day stuff that you just don't enjoy the stuff that bogs you down off of your plate because this is not the life that you need to live, but it's really common for property managers, so make sure that you prioritize this stuff.
[00:10:59] So let's talk about some of the events that we've got coming up this year. What's first? Okay. The first thing we have, this is for our clients only. It's in January this month now. And that is open to all of our current mastermind clients. We're going to San Diego, California. So these type of events if you join the DoorGrow Mastermind, you'll have access to them.
[00:11:20] So what our tribe events are. They're usually smaller events. They're not huge with, like 100 people or more. They're smaller, more intimate events. So if you're a little bit more on the introverted side, then this event might be really good for you because you get to create close connections with people.
[00:11:39] So Jason and I attend these events as well as some of our clients. So you'll get to network and spend some time with other property management business owners. And what we'll be doing, this event, we do a little bit of business and a little bit of fun. So we have some activities planned out there for the day and either before lunch or at lunch or probably both because that's what happened last time is we're going to be, talking shop, talking business, what's working, what's not working, what's your plan?
[00:12:07] What are you working on? How can we help support you in that? So that's our first one.
[00:12:11] Jason: Okay, cool. Now we have some other things happening in January.
[00:12:13] I'll just throw out there. If you're hearing this later and you miss this stuff, we might have recordings that you might be able to get access to if it's one of our public things. But make sure that you stay connected to us, follow us and are connected to us on social media or you're inside our Facebook group at doorgrowclub. com where we broadcast this and stream it live so that you don't miss out each week. January 11th in a week, we are going to do with our clients a jumpstart 2024 call on zoom where you can 10x your year. And we're going to talk about 10xing your growth in your property management business.
[00:12:47] What's next?
[00:12:48] Sarah: Okay. So the next event that's coming up will be open to everyone So if you're currently in our mastermind or not yet in our mastermind, or you were formerly in the mastermind, this will be open to everyone. We have our boardroom event that's coming up March 13th and 14th. It will be in Round Rock, Texas, which is just north of Austin.
[00:13:10] And that event, we actually launched a lot of these events for the first time last year in 2023. We've had some success with them. Clients really enjoy these style of events, so we carried them on into this year. So the boardroom event, it is a smaller event. We will probably limit it to about six clients, like six businesses total.
[00:13:35] For that reason, because we really want to be able to go deep. If the event gets too big, then we have to stay granular and more topical and this event, we call it boardroom because we sit on each other's boards, it's a two day event. And what we'll do is we'll really get in and we'll like tinker with your business and see, where are you spending your time?
[00:13:55] What does your team look like, what does your profit margin look like? What does your revenue look like? Where are you struggling? Where are you succeeding? So we really get in and we go deep with clients on the smaller style events. So spots will be limited. If you're interested in attending any of our events or getting more information, just go to doorgrow.com/events.
[00:14:15] All of the information is there.
[00:14:17] Jason: Yeah. The last boardroom room event that we did was pretty awesome. So everybody walked away with a really solid set of clarity and to do items to take their business to the next level. And what was interesting is, a lot of them were really stuck and couldn't see where they needed to go next.
[00:14:34] And so this allows us the opportunity to really go deep with the business owners. And so they get a lot of value from this.
[00:14:40] Sarah: So that one is coming up March 13th and 14th. It will be in round rock, which is like North Austin here in Texas. That one is very focused on business. So we do break for lunch.
[00:14:52] We do go for dinner. But it's boardroom style events. So we're in session almost all day. It goes from about nine to five
[00:14:59] Jason: is serious stuff. All right
[00:15:01] Sarah: Yes, cool. All right, then this one personally is my favorite is our premium mastermind events we also launched that last year for the first time and This one for me, it's just so fun because it mixes the two things that I love, which is business and travel.
[00:15:16] I'm like all about both of these things. So if you're looking for an event that allows you to travel, do something fun, explore the area and really dive into your business in that same depth that we offer in the boardroom, then this event will be for you. So this we do reserve for our current and former mastermind clients only.
[00:15:38] It's not open to everyone. But what we do is we get a luxury Airbnb or rental of some sort and we will rotate where they're held. This one that's coming up, it's April 9th and 10th. It will be in Bentonville, Arkansas. Very random spot, but the home is beautiful and it's huge. So we'll do some fun stuff in the area.
[00:16:01] What we do, it's about a day and a half event. So we come in, we'll do a mastermind during the day, and then at night we spend some time just, hanging out at the property and getting to know each other and really connecting. It was really interesting because we did this last year in April, and then in May, we had our DoorGrowLive and the clients that attended our premium mastermind, oddly enough, they all also attended our DoorGrowLive, they were like their own little group of people because you just know each other so well, like you've spent time with each other. You really get to know each other's businesses and like business model and what are they doing and what are they all about?
[00:16:39] So it was like so worth it for me. And it was amazing to see that at our DoorGrowLive. So if you are a current or former mastermind client, then. This might be a really great event for you.
[00:16:51] Jason: Yeah. These are super fun. It's more of a more personal, more of an intimate setting.
[00:16:56] We're hanging out together in the same house. And so the conversations are just, they're just really great. And this allows you to create some relationships and friendships. They say you're the sum of the five people that you are around the most or something like that, but I think your business will be the sum of the five property managers are the most connected to and to be connected in our mastermind to other mastermind members and our mastermind members are different. They're just different than the typical NARPM crowd or the typical crowd of people that are involved in property management. They like love what they get to do and they've shifted more towards the four reasons. They have a much healthier mindset because we've installed a lot of mindset things. This is why we want to bring mastermind clients to these, they're just a different crowd and being able to hang out with other people that are playing a similar game that have a similar mindset is just like next level.
[00:17:45] And so the relationships that are created, I think will last a lifetime, which is really awesome.
[00:17:50] Sarah: And I think that's a really good point is there's a lot to be said about who's in your circle and, who you're spending time with. So if your circle is doing things that are either similar or if they're even a step ahead of you, that's fantastic.
[00:18:06] You're in the right circle. So I never want to be the smartest person in the room. If I am that means I'm in the wrong room.
[00:18:12] Jason: I like being the smartest person in the room sometimes, but not all the time
[00:18:15] Sarah: No, it's like when we run the events, yeah. I'm talking about when we attend.
[00:18:19] Jason: Yeah, we invest a lot.
[00:18:20] We invest a lot And we're a part of groups and have mentors that are like beyond where we're at here at DoorGrow. And being able to create that for clients and facilitate that, is really awesome. We love being able to experience that as well. So great leaders, I think are also great followers.
[00:18:36] And I think that's why we're able to deliver so much to our clients is because we go join programs and events and do things like this, where we're the student, where we're learning, where we're connecting with people, where we're masterminding, we want to bring the same value to those that we serve.
[00:18:49] So we've gotten really great benefits. We've done some really cool trips, different places, hang out with other entrepreneurs, and we always get a lot out of it. Even when I don't think I'm going to, I'm like "it might be fun." But then it like, sometimes it's changed my life. It's been really impactful.
[00:19:04] All right.
[00:19:05] Sarah: Next, we've got our DoorGrow Live. Okay. And as an added kicker this year, if you are a current mastermind client in our super system tier you get your own special event. Yay, so we're tacking it on right before DoorGrowLive, that way it's not additional travel, it's not really like hard to do, it's just gonna mash in with DoorGrowLive, so it will be the day before DoorGrowLive, which is, I believe it's a Thursday, it's May 16th, this is for our current SuperSystem clients only, we will be diving into all things SuperSystem, all things operations at this event.
[00:19:41] Jason: Okay. So now DoorGrowLive. The DoorGrowLive is our ultimate event. This is where we get everybody to go, clients, non clients. It's our biggest event of the year. This is fun, interesting. We've got speakers, there's lots of interaction. We've got a lot of fun stuff going on. So this is going to be at the Kalahari Resort in Round Rock, Texas, which is the North Austin area. And it's a super cool resort has a huge indoor water park. It has a bunch of restaurants.
[00:20:11] Sarah: It is Friday and Saturday. It's May 17th and 18th. This is open to everyone. So whether you are a current, former, it doesn't matter. You are never in our mastermind, never a client at all.
[00:20:21] Does not matter. It's open to everyone. This is our big event of the year. So we bring in a bunch of different property managers. We bring in some vendors, we bring in some speakers, like it's a two day event. And we're holding it in again, North Austin. So Round Rock, Texas. And the resort is really, it's really great.
[00:20:43] It's very nice. The rooms are nice. They have plenty of restaurants to choose from. We did our DoorGrowLive last year there, and we liked it so much. We decided to go back.
[00:20:54] Jason: Yeah. Some venues treat you really well and some treat you really not well. And this one was really good. We really liked it.
[00:21:00] Yeah, so make sure you get tickets to DoorGrow live. If you're wanting to just initially put your foot in the toe in the water to see what is it like around the DoorGrow culture? What is it like around DoorGrowers? What is it like around people that are involved in their ecosystem? This would be a great way to decide whether or not you should be spending a whole bunch of money with DoorGrow, right?
[00:21:22] Is come hang out at DoorGrow live and see the magic that's going on and learn about the DoorGrow code, learn about people that are scaling up, talk to people that have their different lanyard colors with their different belt levels. Like we've got a whole program of ascension and, just like in martial arts, and so come check it out.
[00:21:40] It really is a different thing. This is not your usual conference. Let's say it like that. This is like the ultimate conference We've decided like we want to make these the best that we can make them. So sometimes NARPM events are okay and sometimes NARPM events... maybe they're not. Some of them though, we like we've even had clients say well on some of them our event and NARPM event were right at the same time and they said "there's no way I would skip DoorGrowLive to go to a NARPM But what we've done is we've done everything that we could to make these conferences, the best conferences ever for property managers.
[00:22:16] Sarah: There's a lot that goes into it like every little detail that we put into it, we really try to make sure that this is so beneficial and it's the big event of the year. It's open to everyone. So if you're thinking, "Hey I don't know what event I should go to," this would be a really good one to go to because it's so big and there's just so much that goes into it.
[00:22:36] You'll get a lot out of it and it's not the boring conference that you're going to go and sit and fall asleep. And go, "Oh God, is it lunch yet. Can I go home now?" It's not like that at all. It's very exciting. There's a lot going on and we always provide really good opportunities to meet and talk with other people too.
[00:22:55] So it's not just like you're in session all day long. There's a lot of opportunities to network with other property management business owners.
[00:23:02] Jason: Yeah we actively try to facilitate that because we know that that's one of the biggest benefits we've gotten from going to events. It's just the connections that we actively facilitate that.
[00:23:11] I think what makes, the DoorGrowLive events stand out is that it's a bit more holistic. We're not just focused only on property management. We're focused on improving you and your life and focusing on entrepreneurship, focusing on taking things to the next level. So people get a lot out of it and it really can be life changing instead of just business changing.
[00:23:30] Sarah: So that's our big one. Now, if you like vacation style events, this one is a newer one. So we're testing this out this year. This is going to be our first one ever it's DoorGrow retreat. Yeah, so this will mix a little bit of business and lots of vacation style.
[00:23:47] So this is open to your family to your kids to your spouse, whomever wants to join you and let it be like a business trip on a tax write off for sure So we will still do some business stuff and it's vacation style event, and that is going to be July 17th through 21st. And it will be in Punta de Mita in Mexico.
[00:24:10] Yay. Super excited. So you will need a passport.
[00:24:12] Jason: Get those passports ready. Get them now. We're going to mexico. So yeah, and this is gonna be a nice resort.
[00:24:19] Sarah: Oh, it's yeah, it's very nice.
[00:24:21] Jason: We go to nice places. All right. Yeah. Cool. A little picky. All right. All right.
[00:24:25] Sarah: Then, second half of the year, we just mirror what we do the first half of the year. So for a lot of things, not for everything, but for a lot of them, we like to have a spring session and a fall session.
[00:24:35] So our tribe meetup, we do two per year, one in January and then one in September. And again, this is for our current mastermind clients only. It will be September 11th will be our next in person tribe meetup location to be announced. Why? Because if you're a mastermind member, you guys get to submit your ideas and vote on it.
[00:24:52] Then we have another premium mastermind event. So again, spring session, fall session, our fall session will be October 22nd and 23rd. This is open for our current and former mastermind clients. Only this one will be in Water Sound, Florida. We've got a really nice place there lined up. And then boardroom. So again, spring session, fall session. Our fall session will be November 20th and 21st, and we'll hold that here in round rock, Texas. Those are our events that we've got coming up. I'm super excited for all of them.
[00:25:21] Jason: Yeah. I don't know that we've ever talked about all the different events and there's a lot of virtual events and online things we do for our mastermind members as well, besides all of this.
[00:25:29] And we've never really talked about this. I don't think as much on the podcast. So I'm sure there's people listening. They're like, "Oh, I didn't realize DoorGrow did all this stuff or had all this stuff going on." We've got a lot going on. Yeah. In fact, one of the consistent pieces of feedback we get from Mastermind members is, "wow, there's a lot."
[00:25:44] There is a lot. It can be a little overwhelming in the beginning. So we really hold people's hand to make sure they can navigate everything in DoorGrow Academy, all of our events, all the online classes, everything that we've got going on to make sure that it is geared towards what they need most and they don't get distracted by all the shiny objects everywhere.
[00:26:02] So it's important. But if you're interested in any of this. You're interested in coming and jumping into the DoorGrow ecosystem. We have plenty of free trainings we would love to throw at you based on what your current challenges are, so you can get an idea of how we can support you, how we can help you. We've got a lot of case studies and testimonials.
[00:26:18] I think over a hundred now on our playlist on YouTube of our case studies you can check out. See if you can trust these DoorGrow people. And once you're beyond the paywall and you're in with our clients, you'll get it. It's pretty awesome. But between now and then, feel free to join our Facebook group, which I mentioned earlier, go to DoorGrowClub.com and you get access to our podcast live. You get access to our masterclasses that we promote. That are free, you get access to a lot of really cool stuff and we've got a bunch of stuff, cool stuff in the file section there as well. It's available.
[00:26:51] It's a great online community. And if you join it and you have to put in your email address, answer the questions and if we give you access, it's for property management business owners. We reject 70 percent of applicants. So it's a little bit exclusive, which makes it really cool. But if we give you access, you'll also get five emails that are sent to you. Like a fee Bible we're gonna send you gifts, we're gonna send you some free stuff.
[00:27:15] I think we've covered all the events. Sarah's always coming up with more ideas, so there might be more stuff that we're going to be doing.
[00:27:21] But yes, this is a pretty good overview.
[00:27:22] Sarah: If you can give me the opportunity to travel, I'm probably going to take it.
[00:27:25] Jason: She'll add it to the program for sure. All right. All right. So we appreciate everybody hanging out with us. We hope that this has opened your eyes a little bit to some of the cool stuff that's going on in DoorGrow, inspiring you to get plugged into our ecosystem.
[00:27:37] And we are all about helping property management business owners take their business to the next level and grow. And until next time to our mutual growth. Bye everyone.
[00:27:46] you just listened to the #DoorGrowShow. We are building a community of the savviest property management entrepreneurs on the planet in the DoorGrowClub. Join your fellow DoorGrow Hackers at doorgrowclub.com. Listen, everyone is doing the same stuff. SEO, PPC, pay-per-lead content, social direct mail, and they still struggle to grow!
[00:28:12] 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.
Tax season is upon us. Every property management business owner knows the struggle of trying to navigate IRS regulations each year and find the best outcome.
In this episode, property management growth experts Jason and Sarah Hull sit down with Mo Hussein with Balanced Asset Solutions.
[02:05] Talking tax code and regulations
[10:02] Why you need an accounting tool/software
[18:38] Reducing your tax liability
[23:21] Writing off education costs
[26:24] A few more tips for the road
“The experts are worth a lot more to me than software.”
“You're going to pay for everything in business, whether it's going to be in time or in cash.”
“If a handyman shows up with only a multi tool instead of a toolbox to do a job, the property manager is probably not going to call that guy back.”
“There's certainly a wrong way to do taxes, but there isn't a right way or one way to submit your taxes.”
[00:00:00] Mo: I think what's most important is having a single source of accounting truth I think that's probably what one of the biggest things that a lot of businesses struggle with, especially when it comes to tax season.
[00:00:10] Jason: Welcome doorGrowers 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 a business and life, and you're open to doing things a bit differently, then you are a DoorGrower. DoorGrower 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. 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. We're your hosts property management, growth experts, Jason Hall and Sarah Hall, the owners of DoorGrow. Now let's get into the show. All right.
[00:01:08] And today we have Mo Hussain back on the show. What's up Mo?
[00:01:12] Mo: Hey, doing well. Pleasure to be here.
[00:01:15] Jason: So we're going to be chatting a bit about tax strategies today. Yes. All right, cool. So let's dig into this. This is something that is near and dear to Sarah's heart, which is super weird.
[00:01:25] Sarah: I hate paying taxes. Fun fact, I don't want to give more of my money away if I don't have to.
[00:01:31] Jason: I know if I see something on Instagram about a tax strategy, I should just send it to her and she'll find it interesting. Like she just gets into this stuff. So Mo, what do you got for us today?
[00:01:42] Mo: Yeah. Sarah, you are definitely probably the first person I've come across that has actually made a comment that you actually love going through this entire process.
[00:01:50] Taxes is one of those things that, there's a saying, there's two things guaranteed in life, death and taxes.
[00:01:55] Jason: And I'm trying to avoid both. So how do we avoid some of the tax?
[00:01:59] Mo: I don't know if we can help with the death part. Maybe over time.
[00:02:01] Jason: We'll probably all be somewhat avoid some of the death maybe.
[00:02:05] Mo: Unfortunately, the tax code is very thick. It's honestly created an entire industry of professionals like myself and other CPA firms that are specifically just dedicated to decoding it and maximizing savings with our clients and with taxpayers in general, there's, there's a litany of information that's on the IRS website.
[00:02:22] It's very difficult to parse through and and there's also consistent changes that are happening each year. I think probably the biggest changes that are happening this year that a lot of property managers are being impacted by is the new 1099 filings and the IRS portal. Prior to 2023, you'd be able to file your 1099s via paper as of 2023 now, for any filers that are filing more than 10 returns, those have to be filed electronically on the IRS has created the iris. The IRS has created this new portal called the IRIS and allows for you to be able to submit your 1099s electronically. And there's some changes that have happened between the fire system that a lot of folks were using before and the new IRIS system, of course, making things more and more, more, more complex as usual.
[00:03:07] Jason: Got it. Why would they make anything easy? Yeah, it's definitely not the goal to be audited next year. Now, it seems when it comes to tax strategies, you've got every everything ranging from across the spectrum from risky, maybe not even actually viable strategies all the way to really safe and conservative.
[00:03:31] And some will save you a lot more on taxes on the risky side, going towards more conservative. How do you balance this?
[00:03:39] Mo: Good question. Medium. Good question. The interesting thing is although our CPA firm will file taxes on behalf of our clients. And there'll be another CPA firm maybe the client was working with before that filed taxes the year before. And maybe even though the deductions or maybe other things haven't changed significantly the return and the actual filing and the composition of it is different. And but it doesn't necessarily mean 1 way to do it is wrong than another way. There's a lot of different strategies, especially when it comes to things like depreciating assets and taking advantage, for example, of a bonus depreciation.
[00:04:12] And just give you some context, bonus depreciation was a tax incentive that was enacted by Congress and in 2002 and it basically allows for accelerated business tax deduction on a large asset over an accelerated period of time versus over the duration or the lifetime of the actual asset.
[00:04:30] Real estate is a great example of that. In 2023, you have bonus depreciation of up to 80 percent that can be taken advantage of, and then it drops to 60 percent in 2024, 40.25%, 26%, and 0% thereafter. However, a lot of these deductions, you may not want to take advantage of depending on where your revenues are at, so you can actually minimize your tax liability.
[00:04:53] And so there's a lot of strategy around in different ways that a tax account or CPA will file your tax. And so that's where we see the variation what you mentioned about risky. There's certainly a wrong way to do taxes, but there isn't a right way or 1 way to submit your taxes.
[00:05:09] And that's why you see a lot of different tax accounts and CPAs have different ways and strategies of submitting their clients' taxes.
[00:05:15] Jason: Okay. All right. What are some things that property managers should be paying attention to this time of year here at year end? Yeah. Max this out.
[00:05:24] Mo: Yeah. All right. One thing that we always urge our clients is the tax season shouldn't be an annual kind of activity or flurry at the end of the year, but a lot of folks wind up doing is nobody really thinks about taxes until after the new year and it's February and you're looking at March and April when the tax deadline is due for both your business and your personal taxes.
[00:05:44] And honestly, that isn't the best time that you should be thinking about it. You should be thinking about it throughout the duration of the year. You should have some accounting system that's keeping track of all your expenses with the path act that got enacted in 2015, real estate agents and brokers have some additional relief when it comes to business related purchases that got that made changes to the IRS section I believe 179 deduction. And for example. In the tax year 2023, you can expense or write off up to $28,900 of the price of a new car for the tax year in which you bought it another certain limits of the type of vehicle that qualifies for this tax break. However, these limits are part of allowable deductions.
[00:06:21] And if you're thinking about your taxes throughout the year, certain decisions that you'll make about acquisitions or things that you may be purchasing for the business may make a material impact at the end of the year on kind of your tax implications. And it's important to keep a log of all your receipts, expenses and everything throughout the year.
[00:06:37] A lot of times when clients wait until February to start putting together all the prep work and the receipts and everything for their expenses, a lot of times you'll miss things and we always suggest you should take your time and file an accurate return. Versus just trying to be beat the deadline and not get hit with a potential fine you have in April when the taxes are due, but you can always file for an extension. And if there is a tax liability that's assessed, there will be interest that will be accrued during that period of time. But again, it's better to be accurate and maximize your deductions versus being in a hurry.
[00:07:08] Sarah: Got it. Are there any deductions or obvious tech strategies that you would recommend for property managers or real estate agents in general?
[00:07:18] Mo: Yeah great question. Some of the most common types of deductions for agents and brokers and property managers are marketing expenses, such as sales, open house signs, flyers, web development, business cards, mailers.
[00:07:31] If you're leveraging a service, like DoorGrow, just consider real estate coaching and training. Those are considered education cost. Licensing and renewal fees. Things like association dues for MLSes, brokerage desk fees, any type of transportation kind of expenses, whether it be automobile maintenance or repairs, gas, mileage, travel, home office expenses, and even gifts, although there is a limit on gifts of a 25 dollar deduction for per client per year, and so there's a lot of different things that you can deduct. And a lot of times what happens is, you may be a broker or a property manager that's going to show a property and you need to go buy some flyers or handful flyers or something like there's some type of piece of marketing collateral.
[00:08:13] And so you may go to FedEx and just use your credit card. And although at the time, it's registering in your head, that may be something that you forget to enter into the accounting system later. And so you're not leveraging that and as an actual viable business deduction.
[00:08:26] And so this is why it's important that you're logging kind of your accounting activity and have a easy system to use something to use that's on the go as well. So you can easily kind of catalog and log these expenses. All these minor costs add up over time. And, you need to make accounts so you can maximize your deductions here.
[00:08:43] Okay.
[00:08:43] Jason: What do you think is the easiest system to use?
[00:08:46] Mo: To stay away from words of easiest system or things like that, because it's very subjective, right? It's, we're all creatures of kind of habit. And some folks are tethered to their phones and are okay with using a litany of different applications.
[00:08:57] A lot of our clients will use kind of QuickBooks for their management system, and for their to manage the kind of their corporate books, there is a mobile app can easily log things as you're going. You can connect that directly to your bank account and your credit card. And so as transactions occur, you can make sure that those are logged correctly.
[00:09:13] I would say that, having a system that has an integration to whatever banking and credit cards that you're using and reconciling that account on a monthly basis to ensure that you're logging all the transaction. And then also keep in mind in scenarios where you're paying out of pocket for something or loaning something to the business, even though you may be the sole owner and want to take advantage of those.
[00:09:33] There's a lot of different pieces of software that are out there that can help with that. We usually suggest for clients is, if you're already using some type of a property management and accounting system to manage your business, let's say Appfolio, there is a way to also manage your corporate books.
[00:09:45] A lot of these property based accounting systems also have the ability to manage your corporate books. And it's not only specifically for real estate. They're an accounting system at the end of the day. And you can just create kind of things like a fictitious property labeled your corporate business and run all your financials and keep track of your finances that way.
[00:10:02] Sarah: Now would be a really good time to send a reminder to property managers that your property management software is probably not the best software to do your internal accounting. So a lot of times clients are like, "Oh yeah, I have software for that. I use Rent Manager or Appfolio or Buildium. And that's fantastic to manage your client's accounts, but it's not the best system to like internally manage your accounting, it's not going to have the same functionality as something like QuickBooks would.
[00:10:36] Jason: But you're saying some that's what they do.
[00:10:39] They use a lot. That's what they do.
[00:10:41] Mo: What I'm saying is that so these accounting systems. So the main difference. So if you think about something like a QuickBooks, it's a general accounting system. So it's meant for any business. The chart of accounts is very malleable, if you will, something like property based accounting system there is no such thing as like a business. There's a property, there's tenants, there's owners, there's vendors. Now, you can finagle or manipulate and come up with work around so that you can manage your books there. However, you'll have kind of an entire different chart of accounts for your corporate business, which would be different than, what shows up on the financial owners.
[00:11:13] And so there's a trade off. You can use another system that's maybe tailored specifically to your business, like a QuickBooks and you have the flexibility of things like integrating credit cards and stuff, which is a nuance when you come to property based accounting systems. But then you have to manage 2 different platforms, or you can figure out some work arounds and try to manage and keep track of your financials in 1 of these property based accounting systems.
[00:11:35] But then have to keep in mind about some of these work arounds, like reconciling, like a credit card, which isn't the same thing as reconciling like a bank account. But. So there are trade offs. But I think what's most important is, what we say having a single source of accounting truth I think that's probably what one of the biggest things that a lot of businesses struggle with, especially when it comes to tax season. Is that. " Oh, I have a bunch of receipts and stuff that are in my inbox. I have some screenshots on my iPhone. I have, this random Google Drive folder with other information. I need to call Sally, who's my, maintenance supervisor or whatever about some other transactions and stuff," and there isn't a single place of accounting truth. And having that will definitely save a lot of time, especially when it comes to prep.
[00:12:15] Jason: I would think that grown up property managers are probably at least using something like QuickBooks because at some point they really should be on the NARPM standard accounting, standard of accounting chart of accounts. There's just some advantages.
[00:12:29] Especially if they're wanting to exit that business someday, having clean books that are not commingled with your client's stuff inside Appfolio, for example, would make your business a lot more appealing and you'd probably fetch a prettier penny.
[00:12:44] Sarah: And I think a lot of times people think, "Oh this is an accounting software because it does all of the accounting for my clients."
[00:12:50] And there are differences for sure between how your PM software and how something like QuickBooks doesn't have to be QuickBooks, but we use QuickBooks. I like it and I can use it and I don't like technology. So something like QuickBooks functions, there are differences. And the other thing to keep in mind is if you have a team and your team has access to your property management software and you're putting all of your bookkeeping and accounting and financial data in there, your team has access to it and you may or may not want that. Some people might be very open and they have an open books policy and they don't care at all.
[00:13:30] Some people, they hear that idea and they go, "there is no way I would do that." So if you're one of these people who's using your property management software as your own internal accounting system, you might want to think about doing that maybe a little differently.
[00:13:44] Jason: I think this is where there's a challenge in business and in this industry that a lot of business owners don't recognize the differentiator between all these systems that you need in order to run a business.
[00:13:55] You definitely need something like Property Ware, Appfolio, Buildium and Rent Manager, Rent Vine, whatever as a back office. And as a billing system as the main system for getting paid basically, and then you need an accounting and financial system. And those are different, the accounting and financial system, you need a system for how to manage money, how to do finances. So for example, Profit First is a nice baby step for a lot of businesses that are just getting started and have Frankenstein accounting as Mike Michalowicz calls it, and then you need a sales CRM system, which is usually very different than the CRM, which they're calling their back office where it's focused on bringing clients into the business. They're like "I have a CRM. It's Appfolio." And it's not the same thing. And and then there's several other systems that you need in a business process system, planning systems, et cetera.
[00:14:47] When people start to think that they have a one system, they're like "I've got Appfolio, so I've got every system I need." This is where they struggle then to be able to scale their business because they don't have the knowledge, the insights and the transparency that they would need in order to get to the next level.
[00:15:03] And they don't have the right tool to do all these other jobs. It's not the Swiss army knife. And what's funny is I sometimes equate this to the little multi tool that a handyman might have on his belt. If a handyman shows up with only a multi tool instead of a toolbox to do a job, the property manager is probably not going to call that guy back.
[00:15:23] "Oh yeah, I've got a hammer. It's right here." It's not the same. It's not the same. So same thing in business. You can't just run it off of one system. There's no magic one system. Everybody has to build a stack of tools. I'm sure in your business, you have a stack of tools that use as well.
[00:15:37] You don't have just one system, right?
[00:15:39] Mo: That's right. It's all about using the best tool using the best tool to get the job done. That's an example that you mentioned about the handyman. At least when it comes to business, it's a huge cost when it comes with time and you're going to pay for everything in business, whether it's going to be in time or in cash. And where you take shortcuts on investing in certain systems, you're going to pay for it in the amount of additional time it's going to take for work arounds and manual things and processes, which is also brings up another point that we always stress to our clients is always consistently read like evaluating the business and your processes and the tooling that's being used so that you can constantly as we say, evolve forward.
[00:16:15] Jason: Yeah, it's interesting. I had a mentor and he taught me this concept he called the five currencies. And basically there's five currencies you have to invest in life and in business. And it's time, energy, focus, cash, and effort. And what's funny is there's you get early on stage entrepreneurs that I think are trying to just avoid cash.
[00:16:35] They're like, "I want to be cheap. I want to not spend money." And these are the ones that struggle to grow the most because they don't understand that their money is something that you can renew and earn. But time, as far as our life goes, is the scarcest resource. And what's really crazy to me is that our team members, we're buying their life. We're buying chunks of their time. They're trading time of their life for money. And they're trading probably the cheapest commodity for the best, or the trade and the best commodity for the easiest to get it seems like, but that's where they're at. And so as entrepreneurs, our goal is to move beyond just giving up our time and to get money.
[00:17:16] And, we can invest more effort. We can invest more focus. We can limit the stuff we're focused on to grow faster, but in business, same thing with these tools, if we think we are saving money by only using one tool, we've got our crappy multi tool instead of building the ultimate stack,
[00:17:36] then usually they just end up spending more on payroll. There's having to buy more time to do less stuff. And get less stuff done. So technology is a lot cheaper than people. That's I'm sure everyone listening realizes that, but.
[00:17:49] Mo: Yeah, there's a difference in business when you're looking at things from the lens of a perspective of an expense, versus looking at the total cost of ownership for a particular solution or process or something like that.
[00:18:02] And and and in that regard, you can actually, assess the amount of time that's wasted and there's always going to be some opportunity cost. You are a business owner, nobody gets into real estate because they want to do accounting or because they want to work on taxes and whatnot.
[00:18:16] And so there are professionals out there who's, sole service and focus and business models is focused on that. And and that's not something that's going to differentiate you from your competition. So those things that are not going to differentiate you, those are the things you should be outsourcing and the things that you should be seeking help to take off your plate.
[00:18:31] So you can focus on the things that actually drive your business forward. And allow for you to be able to grow your portfolio.
[00:18:37] Sarah: Yeah, for sure. All right. Now I know this won't be the same for everyone because taxes is this crazy like mishmash of information and what works for you might not work for me and vice versa. Knowing that there's no one size fits all here. We're not shopping like off the rack. This is all tailored. What are some strategies that property managers should at least look into? Now, it might not make sense for everybody, but what are some things that they should at least look into and see "hey, does this make sense for me to implement this? I love learning right? So I love learning especially like how I can save money on taxes. So what are some ways that they can look into and see if it's right for them?
[00:19:18] Mo: Reducing their tax liability Yeah, no, great question. . Of the biggest nuances are just things in accounting is that, there's no such thing as being a creative accountant, right? There's always a right way to do things.
[00:19:27] But there isn't just one right way to structure your business. And so one thing that we see a lot of clients struggle with is, they'll create a business initially, most folks don't start off in property management or they're either doing, they either own a brokerage firm or they're an agent and whatnot and they're doing actual real estate sales.
[00:19:45] And then they'll try to, get into property management and maybe they have also they're doing in house maintenance and whatnot and maybe like a leasing only service and and maybe they also have assets on the side that they own themselves. And one common-
[00:19:56] Sarah: yeah. They're like, "I do all of these things."
[00:19:59] Mo: I do all of these things, but they're doing it all under one entity. And so it's " hey, you should have a separate entity and LLC. There are liability reasons or mitigation for liability that you want to do this. And also, there are some potential tax benefits you can have an actual main corporation and you can have a sub entity or an LLC." That's your brokerage business. A separate LLC, that's the property management business. A separate LLC, that's the leasing only business. Separate LLC, that's the maintenance only business. And that, for example, that corporation can tax each of those sub LLCs, like a licensing cost, just to be able to actually use the name.
[00:20:32] Of course, it may be the same ownership structure, but that's a potential way of of having a tax savings. A great example is you have the largest Companies like Apple and Nike and stuff like that, they have separate entities that are outside the US that tax licensing fees, just to use like the check mark with the entity that exists, that's actually transacting with the customers.
[00:20:49] And then the other benefit of having all these entities that are separated out is that if you ever want to have a portion of the business that you wanna sell, you can demonstrate what the profitability, the profit and loss looks for that business. And you can have a separate valuation metric for that particular business and spin it off, especially if you have assets of your own, you want to have that in a separate entity, because you'll be able to take advantage of bonus depreciation. And that bonus depreciation essentially allows for you to be able to, take a rental property and take an immediate 1st year kind of deduction. If it's in 2023, you can start at 80 percent and whatever the bottom net losses on that particular asset, or that particular business that owns that asset that can now be offset the excess income. That's liable to taxes to offset against another entity. And so there's some strategies around that. There's also ways to be able to loan a particular asset or for example, if you have a car, you can rent it out to 1 of the entities, even though it may be the same individual that's using it.
[00:21:49] There's a way to structure your taxes so that. Even if you own the property, you can technically lease it to 1 of the other entities and that can be a business expense and write off against another against 1 of your other entities. And so there's a lot of kind of small things like that that can make a material difference when collectively put together. But what it will ultimately we suggested something that we don't see too much. And usually we see a lot of clients struggling with is rather than having all your different enterprises and your sales activities, just revenue generating activities wrapped up into 1 entity to separate them out based on business lines.
[00:22:22] And this also gives you as an owner perspective on what is working, what is not what needs help and attention and things that sort of be a little bit more prescriptive and data driven and how you make those decisions.
[00:22:32] Sarah: Like that. For sure. Yeah. And then it's. Different P and L's to see, "Hey, what part is actually profitable here and what part, if any, is taking a loss. Where does my attention actually need to be? Because what makes me the most money?" Instead of going "I think this looks pretty good."
[00:22:47] Jason: Things get mixed up. People make bad decisions. It's funny. Just for example, we'll get somebody that says, "oh yeah, I'm getting plenty of leads" and they're spending thousands of dollars on internet marketing.
[00:22:57] And I'm like, cool. And they justify it. But I say, "where are you getting the leads from?" The majority were word of mouth. And so you're spending a bunch of money and I'm like, "cool, let's separate this out. What's your acquisition costs on ones you can attribute to the internet marketing stuff you're doing?
[00:23:11] And sometimes they're like, "Oh yeah, it's 3- 400 a unit to like, to get on a client." And I'm like, that's ridiculous. And then they're like, "cool. I'll sign up for DoorGrow." I'm curious about the education costs and here at the end of the year, how do we help people justify signing up with DoorGrow leveraging education costs and getting that tax deduction?
[00:23:33] Sarah: Such a good question because that's R and D! Research and development.
[00:23:36] Mo: Yeah, it is. It is. Yeah. Real estate coaching training and education costs is considered an expense. It can be considered a deductible expense at the end of the day, especially a lot of the insight and kind of value that you guys add to the community is something that I think is priceless.
[00:23:52] And if it's going to make a material impact to clients, bottom line, the thing is that none of us can be experts in everything. And so kinda the reality in business is you can learn in two ways. You can either learn from somebody else's mistakes or learnings, or you can learn the hard way yourself.
[00:24:05] The latter is going to take more time, which you're not going to get back. And so the folks that are able to accelerate and grow their business, take advantage of like coaching and training and educational type of costs, I would say, "how do you justify that expense?" At the end of the year, if you're going to have an excess of income, that's going to be tax liable. And in these educational costs, and so you might as well invest instead of giving that money to Uncle Sam, give it to Uncle Jason and find a way to maximize and grow that kind of that ROI. I would say that's probably something that a lot of novice kind of entrepreneurs don't probably put too much emphasis on when they're 1st, embarking on their entrepreneurial journey it's just the importance and significance of education and insight, especially from those that have blazed the path before you, or have exposure to a lot of other folks that are in your same shoes.
[00:24:49] Jason: It really is probably one of my greatest secrets in how we've scaled and built DoorGrow and the success we've had is once I finally stopped being the idiot that thought they could do everything and watch all the videos on YouTube and read books and figure it out myself.
[00:25:05] I started to collapse time significantly when I got coaches and mentors and we shell out a lot of money to coaches and mentors and I've got some amazing ones right now, like really amazing coaches and mentors. And what it does is, yes, I'm spending more money, but I'm decreasing time. So it's collapsing time for me significantly.
[00:25:24] I'm making a lot less mistakes. I'm not having to figure it out because every stage of business, you're stepping into the dark. And it's nice if somebody has already been there before you 'cause they're not in the dark about it. So they're like, "Oh yeah, just do this and do this. I've already tried that and that, and it doesn't work." And I was like, that's what I was going to do. And the same thing, the majority of the people that come to me are like, "I'm having trouble growing my business." And I'm like, "cool. What do you, what have you been trying? Or what are you planning to do at the startup stage?"
[00:25:50] They're like, "I'm going to do internet marketing and SEO, pay per click," they're going to do everything. All the biggest companies that they're competing with are already spending way more money than them doing it. And they're just going to do it worse. And that's their strategy. "I'm going to do what the big companies are doing, but worse. And I'm going to try and charge less money. I'll be cheaper. And I will somehow provide better service." And I'm like, "good luck with that." And so we don't know what we don't know. And we make mistakes at each stage. And the secret to collapsing time is to spend money and invest in yourself. You get that back.
[00:26:21] There's a big ROI. All right. Thanks for helping us sell door. I appreciate it.
[00:26:24] Sarah: All right. So if you're looking for tax write offs at the end of the year, sign up with DoorGrow, we can help. Yeah. Don't give your money to the government.
[00:26:31] Jason: And then we'll help you make more money. Nobody stays with us unless we're helping them make more money.
[00:26:36] Sarah: Yeah, they haven't helped me yet.
[00:26:38] Jason: Taxes are not giving you an ROI.
[00:26:39] Sarah: Next year when we audited them, they're like..
[00:26:42] Mo: Another thing that I wanted to comment on, actually, a lot of people may not be aware of is between the COVID period of time, there's a Biden had released this this new initiative to be able to give back payable taxes.
[00:26:53] And so if you had full time employees, between 2020 and 2021, I think it's up to $25,000 for each employee for each year, and that you can potentially be entitled to up to that amount. And so if you had full time employees, and that's free money, that's not free money. Technically, those are Payroll taxes that your organization already paid, but the government is literally just give it back to you as part of this initiative.
[00:27:16] I'll take my payroll taxes back. That sounds great. The only requirement is that you had, you kept people on full time payroll during the 2020, 2021 year. And that those folks were with you for at least a year. And that those were actual W2 employees, not 1099.
[00:27:31] Jason: Okay. That's worth talking about it.
[00:27:34] Oh, she's up on all this.
[00:27:37] Sarah: I don't know. Did you think I would have missed that? Okay. I'm telling you, I'm like-
[00:27:43] Jason: She has some strange hobbies. Alright. I do, I know. Mo this has been really interesting. I appreciate you coming and hanging out on the show. Why don't you tell us a little bit about your company and how you can help people with some of this stuff if they're listening to all this going, "man, this is a bunch of gobbledygook I really could use help making this all make sense, and I thought Appfolio was an accounting system for my business" and they're just trying to figure it all out. How can they get ahold of you?
[00:28:07] Mo: Great question. Before I comment on that, one, one thing that I do want to the misconception of Hey, just because you bought accounting software doesn't mean you bought accounting experts.
[00:28:14] Sarah: Okay. Oh, that's so good. I love, I'm going to use that.
[00:28:18] Jason: The experts are worth a lot more to me than software.
[00:28:22] Mo: And usually there'll be priced a lot higher too, because the software, the proper application of it, it's like buying, It's like buying a seesaw or hammer or some tool, it's much cheaper to actually buy the tool versus buying or having the expert that's actually going to be utilizing the tool to build whatever. The peace of mind to me is priceless. So it is. I lead a group, a consulting group balance asset solutions been over for a little bit over 7 years. We are a CPA and technology advisory firm assisting clients with accounting, CFO services, like taxes, acquisition, disposition strategy, software implementations we're partners with a lot of the accounting systems like Yardi, and Appfolio, and Propertyware, and Buildium. We also help with Department of Real Estate audits and forensic accounting customer reporting, fund management. We're here to help maximize the value out of your subscription, streamline your business with technology and software, and give you time back to spend on the things that matter to your business, which is growing kind of your top line and working with your tenants and owners. We have clients in over 35 states and we have deep expertise when it comes to the trust accounting gap, the department of real estate compliance representation. So consultations are free and you can find us online at www. balancedassetsolutions. com.
[00:29:33] Jason: Man, that's an awesome combo, nerdy accountants.
[00:29:36] That's like the best combo ever, right? All right. Super cool. All right. So hopefully some people are reaching out to you right now when they're watching this and we appreciate you coming on the show.
[00:29:46] Mo: Of course. Thank you so much, Jason. Take care.
[00:29:48] Jason: All right. Take care. If you are a property management entrepreneur, you're wanting to grow your business, reach out to us at DoorGrow.
[00:29:54] We would love to help you out. You can check us out at doorgrow.Com and join our free Facebook group at doorgrowclub.Com. Bye everyone.
[00:30:00] 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!
[00:30:26] 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.
Savvy property management entrepreneurs are always on the lookout for new ways to expand their services and better serve their clients and residents.
In this episode, property management growth experts Jason and Sarah Hull chat with Nick Friedman, founder of College Hunks Hauling Junk and Trash Butler.
[02:08] Becoming an entrepreneur
[09:14] Daily trash removal for multifamily communities
[16:45] A butler service for trash? How does it work?
[19:47] Vetting team members
[27:50] Junk removal services for property managers
“Property managers are that front-line resource for all things community.”
“We've got to have urgency of effort, patience for the results.”
“Culture drives behavior. Behavior drives results.”
“Execution is a differentiator if you can out-execute everybody else.”
[00:00:00] Nick: I have come to realize, because we're in a blue collar industry ourselves, moving furniture and picking up trash at residents' doorsteps. Execution is a differentiator if you can out execute everybody else.
[00:00:14] Jason: All right. Welcome DoorGrowers 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 a business and life, and you're open to doing things a bit differently then you are a DoorGrower. DoorGrower property managers, love the opportunities, daily variety, unique challenges and freedom that property management brings.
[00:00:39] 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.
[00:00:56] We want to transform the industry, eliminate the BS, build awareness, change perception, expand the market, and help the best property management entrepreneurs win. We're your hosts, property management growth experts, Jason Hull, the founder and CEO of DoorGrow and Sarah Hull, the co owner and COO of DoorGrow.
[00:01:12] Now let's get into the show. All right. And our guest today is Nick Friedman. Did I say your name right?
[00:01:20] You got it right.
[00:01:21] Cool. And Nick has two different businesses. And why don't you introduce the two businesses and then I'd love to get into your background of how you got into entrepreneurship.
[00:01:30] Nick: Absolutely. So two businesses that are relevant to property management, one is a doorstep amenity for apartment complexes called Trash Butler. It helps increase revenue and net operating income for the communities while also providing an amenity for the residents and that kind of incubated out of our first company that we launched, which is a company called College Hunks Hauling Junk and Moving. I'm a little more widely known for that business that I started back in college. It's a moving and bulk removal service that now has over 300 franchises across the U.S. So it's been a fun journey and a very entrepreneurial journey to say the least.
[00:02:08] Jason: Awesome. So Nick, when did you first realize you were an entrepreneur that you were a little bit weird?
[00:02:13] Nick: I would have to say in retrospect, it was all the way into my early days of childhood. My sister had a lemonade stand in front of our house. She wanted to charge 25 cents for lemonade. I went out and started a competing lemonade next to hers and I wanted to charge a dollar for my lemonade because I thought my lemonade was better and I think we probably sold the same amount of cups, but I made four times the amount of money than she did because I was charging a dollar then she was charging 25 cents. So in hindsight, I think I would always do some out of the box things. My teachers would call me a little bit restless. But really our business innovation took place when we were in college. Because we had always been brought up and told to follow the more traditional career path, work hard in school, get good grades, get a job after you graduate, climb up that ladder.
[00:02:56] And the summer before my senior year of college. My buddy's mom had a beat up cargo van from her furniture store and she said, "why don't you guys go do something with the van? You guys could move furniture, haul trash, you guys could be like college hunks who haul junk," and we just started laughing about it decided to put that on flyers and the phone started ringing so we were in business and realized that the name was catchy.
[00:03:18] People appreciated quality service and and that was the light bulb moment for us to pursue a career of entrepreneurship and not the traditional path.
[00:03:26] Jason: There you go. So thank goodness for that truck, right? That's right. Changed your life.
[00:03:31] Nick: Totally changed our life. We credit her with the name. Yeah.
[00:03:34] Jason: Competing with the sister. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I think for me, it was my entrepreneurial mom who was a real estate agent. She just, she was always hustling, trying to figure out how to make money. And she would have us fold flyers for her and canvas neighborhoods.
[00:03:50] Nick: And that's really when we realized the niche for us is very much so within property management, right?
[00:03:56] Because. A homeowner or business might move every couple of years, might have junk to be removed every so often, but property managers are that front line resource for all things community, whether that's residents who are moving in and out, whether that's bulk trash is being left behind and needs to get turned around for the next move in. And then that ultimately, as I mentioned, incubated our Trash Butler business, which is more of a recurring revenue model, but it produces income for the apartment complexes that we partner with. It was an evolution for us. I always tell the story when we 1st started, we were doing all the work ourselves.
[00:04:29] So we went out and we bought an 800 number. And we slapped it on the back of our truck, trying to make ourselves look bigger, but it was still routed to our cell phone. And so people would call to complain about erratic driving and we'd be in the driver's seat answering the phone, pretending like we weren't, saying, "Oh yeah, we'll fire those guys when they get back on the road, yeah, they're the worst." Yeah. Yeah. "We don't condone that driving in our company." So we probably fired ourselves at least three or four times. And I'm sure, your property manager listeners can relate to that. When they first started their business, you're doing all the work yourself.
[00:04:59] You're fixing the doorknobs, you're changing out the light bulbs and everything in between. And one of our mentors recommended to us that we read a book called the E Myth Revisited, it's by a guy named Michael Gerber. And in it really emphasizes the notion of working on your business, not just in your business, creating systems and processes for the business to scale, which is obviously what you're doing for folks.
[00:05:20] And so I think that was the next light bulb moment for us is if we're ever going to have another truck. Let alone another location, let alone eventually a second business. We've got to start documenting how we do everything.
[00:05:31] Jason: Yeah. And is that what kind of helped it take off?
[00:05:34] Nick: I describe ourselves as a 20 year overnight success because it feels like it took that long for us to get to where we are.
[00:05:40] It really did. And I think a lot of entrepreneurs, a lot of business owners and leaders have a level of impatience, which is good. But I always preach to our team, we've got to have urgency of effort, patience for the results, because if we get up every day, grind it out, and then we look a year from now, two years from now, three years from now, based on that consistent grind, we're going to see long term results start to manifest.
[00:06:03] And so none of it happened overnight but it was a process and it was putting systems in place, aligning ourselves with great people and just being committed to our purpose and our vision.
[00:06:14] Jason: Yeah, I love it. I think I love that. Urgency of effort, patience for the result.
[00:06:18] I think as entrepreneurs, nothing's ever fast enough for us.
[00:06:22] Nick: No, and that's a good and a bad thing as a business leader and an entrepreneur is, if we weren't optimistic, we would never start the business in the first place because we believe that the business is going to be successful.
[00:06:34] We may minimize how hard it's going to be. We may minimize some of the challenges that we're going to encounter along the way. And that sort of maybe, cognitive dissonance or whatever you want to call it, getting into business, I think is a good thing, but you then have to then have the grit and the resilience and the sophistication to muscle through the challenging times.
[00:06:56] But I don't think I've ever met an entrepreneur that says, "I made more money faster than I expected to." It's usually longer. "I didn't make as much as I had hoped for when I first started out." And when reality sinks in, some people give up and go back to their corporate grind and other people just stick it out and keep pushing forward.
[00:07:13] Jason: Yeah, I call that the fantasy stage of entrepreneurship. That's the beginning. We only see upside. It's all upside. It's going to be a success. I get property managers coming to me, potential property managers are like, I'm going to start a property management business. I'm like, "Oh yeah, how are you going to do this?"
[00:07:28] And they're like, "it's going to be amazing because all the other companies in my market suck. And I'm like, "okay, what are you going to do different?" "We're going to charge less. And we're going to provide better service." I'm like, "okay, good luck with that."
[00:07:38] Nick: So yeah, that's a tough recipe. Look, I have come to realize, because we're in a blue collar industry ourselves, moving furniture and picking up trash at residents' doorsteps. And execution is a differentiator if you can out execute everybody else. It's not easy. It's not the flashy, shiny objects that entrepreneurs like to chase, but we, coming through this past year, obviously, the market has shifted its leads aren't falling from the sky like they used to, we've had to assess are we doing everything that we're supposed to with every client touch point?
[00:08:09] Are we consistently delivering the service that we preach in all of our markets across all the apartment communities that we service? And that I think is something that that takes reinforcement and repetition. And sometimes it can be a little bit boring, but it matters because that does make a difference.
[00:08:25] I wouldn't charge less than everybody. That's not a sustainable business strategy. But if you can consistently out execute everybody else, that is an advantage.
[00:08:34] Jason: Yeah, if you can out execute everybody else, then you can probably out price everybody else, too, the leader gets to dictate the price, I think.
[00:08:41] Nick: That's right, and usually it's going to cost us more to be able to out execute everybody else, unless you've got just, these magic employees that are willing to take less money to provide a better experience for the customer so that you can charge less it becomes a difficult equation.
[00:08:56] Jason: Yeah. It's not too difficult to close the deal when somebody comes to you and says, "I want the other company's price, but I want your level of service."
[00:09:03] Nick: That's right. That's right. And that is hard to explain in the sales process. If they, having, don't have the relationship or don't have the trust built that, that takes time.
[00:09:14] Jason: Cool. Explain how Trash Butler works for people that have multifamily communities.
[00:09:19] Nick: Yeah, so as I mentioned, it incubated out of our college hunks business. We recognize this opportunity in the apartment space, particularly in a multifamily communities where there's a long walk for the residents to take the trash out.
[00:09:31] If you think about the garden style apartments, even mid rise or raps, where there's a long walk to the trash room or trash shoot. And so this industry has emerged doorstep trash service, where we've signed a contract with the apartment complex and then 5 nights a week, the resident can simply put the trash in front of their door and recyclables in some markets, and then our Butler will come by and take the trash and the recyclables to the onsite compactor, which is provided by the 3rd party hauler. So it saves the resident a trip to the dumpster or the compactor each night or every other night. There's a safety component for the residents, an amenity component for the communities and looking to try to enhance the their quality of life for the residents.
[00:10:10] And then it actually becomes an income producer for the apartment complex. I know that there's some, skepticism about upcharging services in the industry right now. We're staying very close to that legislation, but let's say we charge $10 a month per door to the apartment community.
[00:10:24] They have the ability to, charge anywhere from $20 to in some cases, $30, $40 a month per door to the residents. So it becomes an NOI. Producer, net operating income producer for the community, and it's an amenity for the resident, many times an expected amenity for the resident. So currently, we're the second largest provider in that industry.
[00:10:41] We service about 300, 000 doors nightly. We're the national partner with Graystar, of course, the big 800 pound gorilla of property management. And we started out as a side venture has all of a sudden, blossomed into a meaningful business that we've actually brought in some private equity money to help sustain that growth.
[00:10:58] Jason: Yeah, brilliant. So yeah, I've lived at a complex for a while, and I had to walk forever to go drop my trash off. I hated it. It was super annoying. So I had to have some sort of stupid cart or something just to carry all my trash and like...
[00:11:12] Nick: I used to live in an apartment complex that did not have this service, and I would put the trash either on the hood of my car or in my trunk at times to drive it to the compactor, and one day, I actually forgot that I put it in my trunk, and so I passed by the compactor and this was a hot day in Florida in the summertime.
[00:11:30] So of course, when I came back to my car at the end of a long work day and realized that I had failed to take the trash bag out of the trunk, it was a direct trip to the trash compactor and then the the car dealership. Oh yeah.
[00:11:42] Sarah: And then this is a service that the tenants pay for. Yes?
[00:11:46] Nick: It is.
[00:11:47] So we contract directly with the community, but the tenants pay for it through their lease. So what we do when we sign up a community is we have a what we call phase in pricing where it steps up over the 1st year of the service. And so the community is never out of pocket. It's never a cost to the community.
[00:12:03] The residents are either just paying a pass through, or even an upcharge to the community so that it becomes a profit center for the community. Yes, it does become an ancillary income stream for the apartment complexes. The resident is paying for it. It's part of their lease. It's not something that's opt in, opt out, but if they haven't had it before, it'll wait till the lease renews for it to be added in.
[00:12:24] And so we're not charging full rate during the first year. We're stepping it up during month one, month two, month three in order to ensure that the residents are all paying for it by the time we're fully phased.
[00:12:34] Sarah: Oh, very nice. And then is this nationwide? If someone were like, "Hey, I think that's a great idea. Can I?"
[00:12:40] Nick: It is. Yeah. So we're in about 30 states right now. Usually when you have a national partnership with a company like Graystar, they point to that direction and we run in that direction. So we opened up in the Northeast, we opened up in California. Our biggest presence is in the Southeast, Florida, Texas, Georgia, Carolinas. We've got a pretty big presence in Arizona. I know that's where you guys are. We're all over. We got boots on the ground. That business is not franchised. Our college hunks business is a franchise model that we have independent operators, but our Trash Butler business is all corporately operated.
[00:13:12] So we have managers and and sort of area supervisors in each market that we service.
[00:13:17] Sarah: Oh, very cool.
[00:13:18] Jason: Got it. Yeah. All right. And is there a lot of competition for Trash Butler?
[00:13:22] Nick: Trash Butler and College Hunts has a lot of competition. What I always like to say, there's low barriers to entry, but high barriers to scale.
[00:13:29] So there's probably a lot of similarities with the property management business as well, right? Any mom and pop can go out, hang a sign out or get a truck and say, "I'm in business." and you can do that with one or two communities or maybe one market. But when it comes to scaling out that infrastructure and providing a consistent level of service nationwide there's only a small handful that have done it and that's because it costs a lot of money to get to that scale. You've got to have software. You've got to have great people in every market. You've got to have accountabilities in every market. And that's been good and bad. There's always the people that will come in and try to undercut what we're charging or what their competitors are charging, but they can do that on a one off community or two communities.
[00:14:09] But at some point their systems are going to break because they're doing all the work themselves. Like we did when we first started.
[00:14:15] Jason: Yeah. And I'm sure occasionally you see the cheap, dumb property manager that wants to like, "Oh I'll just do this myself. And I'll just make my team members, I'll make my gal at the front office desk go haul garbage."
[00:14:26] Nick: And, we all know that employee retention is one of the hardest things right now to keeping good people. And you want your good people doing high value activities. At the property management level, you don't want your good people picking up trash from, 100, 200, 300 units every single night.
[00:14:42] That's a surefire way to lose your good people. We think of us as an outsourced arm of property management. We pride ourselves on being an extra set of eyes and ears because we're walking the communities in the night. Night walks and when we're doing our patrol, so we're able to report back if we see a safety hazard or we see anything, suspicious activity, we can report that back in our reporting tools.
[00:15:03] And so it becomes an extension for property management, not a cost center. And that's, I think, the most important piece. And there's redundancy. We've got backup butlers if a butler misses because he's sick or, has a wedding or something, I don't know. And so we send people in their place and that redundancy is important because, the residents will let you hear it if the trash gets missed.
[00:15:22] That's for sure. Yeah. And they're paying for it. So they expect it to get picked up every night that they put it out there.
[00:15:28] Jason: Yeah. If trash day gets missed, there's going to be some pretty unhappy people. It's just sitting on their porch for a week. "Do I bring this back inside? Where do I have to walk it over myself?"
[00:15:37] So how small of a complex do you guys take on? Like what are your sort of limits here?
[00:15:42] Nick: To be honest with you, the sweet spot for a trash butler is really a hundred units and greater. So I know there's a lot of property managers that manage smaller facilities or single family properties.
[00:15:52] Usually communities like that it's smaller communities, it's more difficult to create a scalable model for the nightly doorstep trash pickup service. But we do see a lot of partnerships with our College Hunks business and the single family rentals the smaller apartment complexes where there's tenant leave behinds, or they want to have a move in special, so they'll contract with our College Hunks location in their market to move the resident in or move the resident out because the move in and the move out are two very critical touch points of the overall living experience as it relates to a community. And so I think the property manager may, in some cases, undervalue the importance of that high touch experience, especially on the move in when they're moving out, unless they're moving to another 1 of your properties. "Have a great day. Sorry to see you go." But when they're moving in, you really want to make that a special, memorable, positive experience so that then it reinforces the positive experience they have while living there.
[00:16:45] Jason: Now, normally trash pickup by the garbage companies is weekly, but you get, you mentioned nightly that you're doing this.
[00:16:52] Nick: So we're doing the butler service nightly. We're not taking the trash off property. We're taking it from the doorstep of each resident to the onsite compactor. So if you think about it, the compactor pickups are still going to be weekly but the trash can be picked up from the residents doorstep on a nightly basis, typically 5 nights a week.
[00:17:09] This kind of industry standard is Sunday to Thursday night. And so that's where this is becomes a very attractive amenity because if your trash fills up, you got to take it out and you want to wait until the trash day or whatever. You can put it out five nights a week and the butler's gonna take it to the onsite compactor.
[00:17:24] Jason: Nice. . Yeah, that makes it really convenient. Okay. Got it. Cool. What do property managers typically. Ask about this service that I haven't asked yet?
[00:17:35] Nick: Ah, so what we like to do is we boil it down to three very simple things. What's most important in this service, the doorstep amenity is the trash going to be picked up on time?
[00:17:45] Is it going to be consistent? And is it going to be clean? In other words, is the trash butler not going to leave a mess or loose trash and all those sorts of things. And so we actually have what we call A 3x guarantee of Trash Butler, where we guarantee that those 3 things are going to be 100 percent consistent.
[00:18:02] If not, we're going to make it right financially by reimbursing for the night, or in some cases, the week. And so I think that's really important. Another question that we actually make sure we emphasize is that there are some companies that do this that will use independent contractors and we recommend steering away from that because there's a level of liability and also accountability that's missing if you've got independent contractors picking up the trash five nights a week on your community. And so having a W 2, uniform, background check butler that's walking the hallways, walking the breezeways, picking up the items is really critical as well. So those are usually the most consistent questions.
[00:18:41] I think not a lot of not all property managers really know how to charge the residents back for the service. So we try to pride ourselves on being revenue consultants and sustainability consultants as well. Not just the doorstep vendor for picking up the trash. And so I think, creating that partnership with any of the vendors is really critical, for your listeners not just our category but anybody who they're working with is having that trust and go to relationship.
[00:19:04] That they can, rely on. It's not just an invoice, it's not just a contract, but there's actually a relationship there to ensure that, stuff is getting done when it needs to get done. And again, that goes with maintenance, that goes with roofing, that goes with insurance which I know is a huge issue, with properties these days.
[00:19:21] And I think that we want to be a piece of that overall equation.
[00:19:24] Jason: Yeah. One bad independent contractor story could probably destroy a property management company. It certainly could destroy a relationship with one particular multi family complex or with that particular owner, but it could destroy a business if it were serious enough.
[00:19:41] So that's right. That's right. Yeah. So related to that, how do you vet your butlers?
[00:19:47] Nick: So we prided ourselves both in our college hunts hauling junk business and our trash butler business on really being a culture first team member driven organization. And what I mean by that is we want to get great people.
[00:20:01] It's a blue collar industry, but we want to get people to have pride of ownership of the work that they're doing. So it starts with the recruiting, our job posting, our recruiting machine, our interview process, our background checks, our reference checks, and then our onboarding. Our onboarding and retention is all about, we say, enrolling our team members in either the Trash Butler way or the College Hunks way of doing business.
[00:20:24] And so I think it's important anytime you're hiring employees that you've got a system and a process. For identifying who are the type of people you want to bring into the organization because that's going to help define the culture and we always say culture drives behavior. Behavior drives results.
[00:20:38] And so if you're just picking up any body off the street to fill a hole, you might get somebody good, but chances are, they're not going to be. Aligned with the core values of the company, the purpose of the company. And so we've viewed ourselves as our secret sauce as being able to recruit a widespread labor team decentralized across the country, train them, onboard them and retain them to go out and provide a good service on a consistent basis. And so I think again, relevant to your listeners and their businesses as they think about who they're hiring or teams that they're developing having a set of core values that you would abide by having a long term vision of what you're trying to become as an organization, what you want to be recognized for as an organization.
[00:21:21] And then and then work to the present, the action items that you're going to take to, to ensure that those values are upheld and that the vision is becoming a reality.
[00:21:30] Jason: Yeah, that's that's so in alignment with the stuff that we teach, you mentioned culture, behavior results.
[00:21:35] And when we focus on helping clients figure out their hiring systems, we focus on what I call the three fits, which is culture first personality fit, which relates to behavior and then skill. And skill's the only one that you really can move the needle hugely on. Usually it's about finding people that match your culture, that share your values, and then finding somebody that is the right personality fit to succeed in the role, and then you can train them.
[00:22:01] But most business owners do the opposite. They're like, let's just find somebody with the skill.
[00:22:05] Nick: Somebody who knows how to do it. Yeah you're 100 percent right. There's a mantra. I'm sure you've said it probably is, you hire for attitude, you train for skill. And if you can hold true to that now, look, obviously they have to be capable and competent of learning the skill. If you're providing them the tools to do the work and they still can't do it, then there's a competency gap there that's missing. And you, you have to have, we like to say results based, performance based objectives, but you also have to have good people who align with your values because, if you've got somebody who's not good at the job, but a really good person, ideally, you could train them or find a seat for them to fill. If they're a bad person, but good at their job, then you feel handcuffed and it becomes this poison seed and an apple pie that ends up making the whole thing rotten.
[00:22:56] Yeah, I want a team that can perform on the field, but you've got to have a good dynamic locker room. You can't have somebody in there that's upsetting the team dynamics, and that's where leadership comes in. That's where the leader of the organization has to champion the values, has to champion the vision, has to champion the culture, has to hold people accountable, especially their fellow leaders about, what are the behaviors that we value in our organization that matter to us?
[00:23:24] Jason: Yeah, love it. It's got to be pretty daunting task to run a large empire, especially in a blue collar industry of people to make sure you've got good leadership. Managing good people and a good hiring process.
[00:23:38] Nick: Yeah. It's like I said it was a 20 year overnight success for us and it never gets easier.
[00:23:43] Maybe, new level kind of different devil, but it's it's a lot of fun growing a business and embracing those challenges along the way. But, you hit it on the head, having the right leadership team to help support the founder of the entrepreneur in the journey.
[00:23:58] And another thing that I think your listeners probably can relate to is along the way as their business grows is sometimes you're going to outgrow your leadership team, which we've gone through, multiple layers of that. And it's not easy because somebody who helps you get from, 0 to 20 properties may not be able to take you from 20 to 100 properties or somebody who took, in our business that took us from, 0 to 50 franchises or or what have you.
[00:24:22] And there's a lot of parallels between our trash Butler business and property management. And so I'm sure we're facing the same sort of things and, making sure that you've got folks that... that's probably the hardest part is when they fit the culture, but the business starts to outgrow them.
[00:24:33] And so that's why leadership development is very critical and also identifying the skill sets to make sure they're built for the longterm.
[00:24:41] Jason: Yeah. It said that the number one indicator of success is actually intelligence. And if somebody has enough intelligence, they can rise to different levels of competency and improve.
[00:24:53] For example, like somebody might have a good executive assistant and maybe someday they're CEO, but I've had some assistants in the past that were not capable of that. They just weren't right. And then I've had some that were able to rise to different levels of, management.
[00:25:06] And I think being able to, I think it's a knack or a talent to be able to identify that light because you can't just give people intelligent tests.
[00:25:14] Nick: Although they, they do have some different tests out there. Now there's the wonder liquid, which I think is what the NFL uses.
[00:25:18] We use predictive index, which has a cognitive test and then also a personality profile matching, it's not an exact science, but it definitely provides another data point. Because hiring is probably the toughest thing. Even the sports teams get it wrong half the time, they can actually see the person playing on the field and they know from the other coaches, what type of person that individual is.
[00:25:40] And yet they still draft the wrong player or sign the wrong position. And we got to give us, give ourselves a little bit of a break too, because our managers and our franchise owners who view the leadership role as a blessing rather than a burden, I think are the ones that are going to see the most success because they embrace the challenges of turnover.
[00:26:01] They embrace the challenge, teaching their team members or empowering their team members to tackle new obstacles. They embrace the fact that maybe certain individuals on their team might have to be layered underneath the next layer of leadership. And so I think that's I think that's something that we got to keep reminding ourselves also as entrepreneurs.
[00:26:17] Jason: We've, we partnered here at DoorGrow for DoorGrow Hiring with an AI assessment company before AI was big. And it's pretty spot on and amazing at identifying people that are the right culture, personality, and intelligence level. I used to use Myers Briggs, human design, Wonderlic DISC, and I would get a pretty decent picture of a person incorporating all of these things, but I had to know all these different systems and and I can hire with pretty good accuracy.
[00:26:46] And so we started testing against this AI tool and it got the right candidate every time. And it was pretty obvious in the tool. We now use it with clients and it does a really good job. So it's pretty awesome. Very cool. That's how I got my current assistant, Mar, who's awesome. And I think all of our last several team members.
[00:27:03] Nick: So yeah, it's pretty cool. Are you able to share the AI tool or is that proprietary to you guys now?
[00:27:08] Jason: So we've partnered with a company called BRYQ, B R Y Q. And yeah, it's super cool. So it's usually not affordable for the small business owner.
[00:27:17] Nick: Got it. So you guys have like an enterprise platform for, because you do recruiting as well?
[00:27:22] Jason: Yeah, we help property managers with the hiring and recruit recruiting piece. 'cause if you get that wrong, that's a $10,000 minimum mistake. Minimum. And plus the opportunity cost of the money that you're just not going to get because they didn't do as good of a job. And I've seen it at the multimillion dollar level, most business owners just doing Russian roulette in hiring until they finally get a good team after a decade,
[00:27:41] Nick: I've been guilty of that myself.
[00:27:42] Jason: So me too. Yeah we're the summation of our mistakes when it comes to success. Super cool to have you here on the show. What should property managers know about the College Hunks Hauling Junk? How could that benefit
[00:27:54] Nick: them?
[00:27:54] Yeah. A lot of people don't realize that our college hunks business is nationwide. We have almost 300 franchise owners in that business. We're in about 40 States. And so that business is local moving as well as we call bulk trash removal. So it's not just homeowners that we're moving.
[00:28:10] It's not college campuses that we're moving, but we're moving anybody that's moving from point A to point B, whether that's a business, an apartment, a resident, a homeowner. And everything in between and we also do junk removal or bulk trash removal. So we're really the only one stop solution that can do both the move and the bulk removal as one brand, one company.
[00:28:30] And I think it's important for apartments and multifamily in general, because you want to know that the individuals and the companies that are coming onto your property are insured, have a reputable, accountable brand behind them. And so we've started to see a lot of traction with apartment partnerships where we've become this preferred mover for them to recommend to the residents in the moving leasing packets. So they know that, the trucks are going to be branded. The property is going to be protected. The elevators or stairways are going to be, wraps that are not damaged. The individuals are going to be properly insured, so there's no injury, no injuries, properly trained.
[00:29:09] We're not going to be blocking resident cars with the moving van, which, makes everybody upset. We've got a whole national platform and local platform for partnering with property managers. To be their go to solution for moving the residents in and out as well as the tenant leave behind the bulk trash removal, clearing out, for the turns.
[00:29:28] And whether that's, corporate removal or just furniture removal, we have a partnership with goodwill where we can donate anything it's reusable. So I think that's something that maybe a lot of property managers don't realize is our College Hunks Hauling Junk and moving business is a great resource for property management in general.
[00:29:44] Sarah: That's awesome. That was one of the things that was so frustrating is just waiting on the junk removal. Like it's finally vacant. Go! And sometimes they're like, "yeah, I'm a week out."
[00:29:55] Nick: Yeah. And we can do same day, next day. And look, there's going to be a wide range of prices on junk removal. I know that, there's a budget consciousness and property management.
[00:30:03] I get that. Anyone with the truck can come and claim to do junk removal, but he might not answer the phone the next time you call him, or he might be a week out or he might say he's coming and not come. We've got a national call center, a national booking platform, a national accounts program.
[00:30:18] So we've got responsiveness and that's something else again for your listeners. Nine out of 10 service companies don't even answer the phone. And so it's something as simple as just making sure the phone gets answered when people call if you've got a property management company, making sure your phone, you have somebody, even if it's an outsourced third party, answers the phone when your residents call or answers the ticket when, the client calls. That goes a long way. It's simple and often overlooked, but it gets back to what we talked about earlier about just being able to out execute what other people aren't doing.
[00:30:48] Jason: Yeah. That's the foundation of decent customer service is accuracy and availability, according to the Gallup polls customer satisfaction pyramid that they had in one of their books.
[00:30:59] And if you're perfectly accurate and perfectly available. They don't notice you like that's just default. They just assume that should be done. So it's a math that it's partnership and then advice. And so when you get to that level where you're giving advice, like you had mentioned, like helping them with their fees and helping them figure out how to make money off of this and get the NOI, that's where you're at an exceptional level is when you get to that peak of partnership and then advice.
[00:31:25] Nick, this has been a really cool, appreciate you coming here on the show. How can people get connected to College Hunks Hauling Junk and a Trash Butler?
[00:31:36] Nick: So the best way for Trash Butler, really simple, TrashButler. com and for our College Hunks hauling junk and moving business, really simple, CollegeHunks. com. So TrashButler. com, CollegeHunks. com, that's for the doorstep trash and recycling amenity as well as the moving and junk removal partnership opportunity and and look, I appreciate you having me on. I think it's awesome what you're doing to help, empower and motivate and inspire and elevate the property management industry because it's a great industry. And it's one that is right for people to continue to elevate and improve upon.
[00:32:07] Jason: Awesome. Thanks, Nick. Appreciate you being here on the DoorGrow show.
[00:32:10] Nick: Thank you.
[00:32:12] Jason: Thanks for being here. All right. So if you're a property management business owner, you're wanting to grow and scale your business.
[00:32:18] Reach out to us. You can check us out at DoorGrow. com or go to join our community and hang out with a bunch of property management entrepreneurs and find out if we're legit and see what everybody else is doing. Go to DoorGrow club. com, and hopefully we're talking and working together soon. Bye everyone.
[00:32:36] 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!
[00:33:03] 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’re a property manager, you know that property management is a tough and demanding industry at times. Property managers often feel pressure to make owners and tenants happy.
In today’s episode, property management growth expert Jason Hull sits down with Logan from Virtually Incredible to talk about how property management entrepreneurs can improve their company’s customer service.
[03:41] Making big impressions as a small business
[10:39] Does every other property manager suck?
[18:52] Things you can do to improve your customer service
[25:59] The importance of process documentation
[32:46] Importance of culture when hiring remotely
“If you are letting yourself get bogged down on the stuff that you can delegate and the stuff that doesn't need your immediate attention, you're going to be limited on the big impact stuff that really deserves your attention.”
“If you avoid investing cash, then you're going to have to invest more time and effort.”
“Phone calls are probably the biggest source of interruptions and the biggest source of staffing expense in a property management company.”
“Automation shakes hands with customer service.”
[00:00:00] Jason: Phone calls are probably the biggest source of interruptions and the biggest source of staffing expense in a property management company. And we've been able to cut some of our clients staffing costs in half just by convincing them to not do phone calls
[00:00:17] All right. Welcome DoorGrowers 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 are open to doing things a bit differently then you are a DoorGrower, DoorGrower property managers love the opportunities, daily variety, unique challenges, and freedom that property management brings.
[00:00:42] 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.
[00:01:19] And I'm hanging out today with Logan Breen of Virtually Incredible. What's up, Logan?
[00:01:25] Logan: What's going on, man. Thanks for having me. It's good to have you.
[00:01:28] Jason: So in our topic today, we're going to be chatting about small business, big impressions: mastering customer service for a professional edge. So before we get into that, Logan, why don't you give people a little bit of background on yourself? How did you get into property management? And give us some backstory.
[00:01:51] Logan: Okay. I'm third generation in property management myself. A lot of people might know my dad, Todd Breen. He is a pioneer in outsourcing and the property management industry. And I'm sitting today. I usually work from my home office, but I wanted to make sure I had a nice, bright background for our podcast today. So I'm sitting in our property management office here in South Florida. And I grew up with my dad being a one man show and running a small business without a lot of the automation and tools and outsourcing that has come with technology. And I can recall as a kid cleaning this same office with my sister. If we wanted to use the family company vehicle, part of our chores was to make sure all the office was clean and we would see stress pills and we would see a heart monitor what is it? Heart pressure monitors and stress tea remedies all over the place and we made a blood oath that we would never get into property management because it was way too stressful. And now fast forward to today, she's the broker at our management office and I'm helping hundreds of property managers across the U S implement the same best practice strategies, outsourcing strategies to make life a little bit easier.
[00:03:10] Jason: All right. So what was the consequence of this blood oath?
[00:03:13] Logan: There's a little bit of an exaggeration, but we promised that we would not be in the family business, but you know what? It's a complex business and we learned it just through working with dad growing up, we worked in a variety of ways in the management company.
[00:03:30] And with the tools of outsourcing and having a good team, it's not as stressful as it once was.
[00:03:35] Jason: Yeah. And now you're helping alleviate everybody else's stress, so they don't need stress pills and yeah. So let's talk about this topic, small business big impressions. And I think when entrepreneurs are starting a business, they all want to appear big. They all want to because their insecurity is they're small. Yeah. It feels small. And they're like, "people are going to know that I'm small. And if they know that I'm small, they're not going to want to work with me and trust me because I'm small." I remember feeling that way when I started my web design business decades and decades ago. And so I was like, "I got to make this sound really big and really official." like, you know, as openers, they're like adding the word group to the end of their business name. There's no group.
[00:04:17] Logan: That's great. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:04:19] Jason: So one of the things we would help with is we help them have branding website, like stuff to look like they are a larger, more established or more reputable company. And it does, it helps trust, but let's talk about customer service. How does this really play into people's perception and trust? And as everybody's heard me say on this podcast, a million times, sales and deals in this industry and every other happen at the speed of trust.
[00:04:47] Logan: I think you're right when you say that it's a mental thing as well, because there's benefits of being a small business and a level of personal touch that a small growing business can give somebody who's trusting you with their biggest asset.
[00:05:02] Depends on who you're working with, right? If you're talking about a big investor that has multiple pile of bricks that makes them a few bucks. If you're talking about somebody who, is an accidental landlord, that's just trying to be financially responsible with this asset they're trying to hold on to, having somebody they can get ahold of having somebody they can talk to, those are all strengths if you want to do a concierge side of thing, but regardless of how big you want to get and what your goals are, it comes down to time management. And if you're tripping over, what's that saying, tripping over dollars to pick up dimes if you are letting yourself get bogged down on the stuff that you can delegate and the stuff that doesn't need your immediate attention, you're going to be limited on the big impact stuff that really deserves your attention. And it's really going to help you meet your goals.
[00:05:53] Jason: Yeah, there's really this interesting dichotomy between the cheapos, as I call them, that are being cheap while trying to start a business in order to save money versus being smart and spending effectively so they can have even more money.
[00:06:10] Logan: Yeah. Yeah. There's definitely something to be said about, being smart with your money. It's something to look at. You need to monitor where your labor costs are going. For instance one of the biggest things we did at our management company. Is we started looking into the labor costs in our leasing on a micro level to where we're looking at each property, how much it's costing to rent it and the labor costs going towards it.
[00:06:38] And if you're not taking reports of your call volume per property, your super competitive properties are very likely exceeding your leasing fee, the labor costs to be able to rent them. So there's tools out there. And in fact, that's one thing we do at Virtually Incredible is when somebody is using phone tenders, or 24/7 call center, we give them a breakdown of their call volume per property.
[00:07:01] So that way you can look at, "okay, This really competitive three bedroom is getting 40 percent of our calls. We need to yank the phone number right off of that sucker because we're not going to make money losing money by exceeding our leasing fees on that specific one." And on the opposite side of the fact, if we're getting a really low call volume on a specific property, that's a perfect opportunity to tell your landlord, "Hey. You're losing more money than this place is sitting vacant." but if you don't take the time to invest in these tools and these procedures, and you're just spending money blindly or saving money blindly by doing it yourself, you're going to be time poor. Time poor is something you can't invest. You know what I mean? It's something you can't regain or build.
[00:07:41] Jason: Yeah. I talk about five currencies. I learned this concept from Alex Charfen and five currencies are time, energy, focus, cash, and effort. We have to invest some of these in order to grow and scale a business. And if you avoid investing cash, then you're going to have to invest more time and effort. But I think one of the biggest secrets that we have at DoorGrow is instead of time management, we get our clients focusing on energy management. We get them on which things give them life and energy and which things drain them. And the things that are usually the lowest level tactical type of work.
[00:08:19] It's not this strategic stuff of planning and being a visionary and dreaming about the business and learning new stuff. It's the stuff that's like detail oriented, nitty gritty stuff that should be offloaded and it's usually low dollar work, right? I think the very first person, any entrepreneur should hire, and usually they will get something the business needs.
[00:08:42] Not what they need. They'll get like a maintenance coordinator or they'll get something. But I think the very first thing that every entrepreneur should get is an assistant for themselves. They should take care of themselves and get rid of the stuff that's draining them because then they have so much more energy.
[00:08:59] And I think the biggest challenge I see in this industry and in any industry is that usually entrepreneurs in the early stages try to build the business around what the business needs. They started to build the team around what the business needs instead of building it around what they need. And so then eventually they end up with a business that maxes out their level of miserableness and they have an entire team.
[00:09:24] Yeah, so by default that means they have the wrong team because they should be getting more freedom and more fulfillment If they were doing it correctly. Even though they have more money, they have less of those things and so what we have people do to figure out what sort of assistant and what they could do is we just have them do a Time study and put plus or minus signs next to everything like does this give me life or take it away?
[00:09:46] Logan: I love that and you know. When people decide that they want to be an entrepreneurs versus have a J O B and, clock in, it tends to be because they want the freedom and they want the energy and then they end up giving themselves a job. And if you've given yourself a job, I wouldn't call that prime entrepreneurial.
[00:10:03] You know what I'm saying? Yeah. That's so cool. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Delegation buys you freedom and it's a skillset. If your slogan is, if it's to be, it's up to me, you're giving yourself a glass ceiling. And so yeah, we're on the same page. I agree with you.
[00:10:20] Jason: Yeah. So why don't you let everybody know, how do we master customer service for professional edge? How do we solve this problem? Because customer service in this industry is generally considered to be pretty shitty. Yeah, property management has a bad rap. Yeah, most property managers I talk to, especially the startups and they always tell me, " I started this business because I had some rental properties and all the other companies sucked in my market." But it's never them.
[00:10:52] Nobody ever thinks they suck. Everybody else sucks. Yeah. So what do you think needs to happen there? Like, why is that?
[00:11:00] Logan: It depends on your goals. Okay. I talked to hundreds of management companies, maybe dozens every month, we'll say on what their goals are with their portfolio.
[00:11:09] If their goal is to have a not real demanding, residual income to just supplement a retirement or something like that. I would say, keep your current clients, the owners happy. And and, try to reduce turnover. So nobody's losing money. If their goal is growth and building, then it's going to come down to meeting the needs of your market. Now, what we're seeing in most markets right now is that our leasing market is getting back to normal. Okay. And what I mean by that pre pandemic, we had these seasonal fluctuations where summer was red hot.
[00:11:49] And fourth quarter and into the first quarter was a little bit cooler, and everybody tried to make their leases end in summer for quick turnover. And then 2020 was dead, but then 21 and 22 was a red hot leasing season. And people took leasing for granted. If you ask me. And what I mean by that is it was going to move, right?
[00:12:13] In most markets you were going to get that, and there's different theories as to why that is. I think part of it is people were a little weary to move if it was already in their agenda anyways in 2020. 'cause they didn't know what was going on. But then we had this super surge of a lot of different areas and people started working remotely. So they weren't really considering in 21 and 22 necessarily geography distance between them and their careers because a lot of people remote work when went way up. So I think that kind of played into it as well.
[00:12:46] But this is the first year that i'm seeing that we're back into this seasonal dip where people are having long times on market. And fourth quarter which to me is signifying business as usual again but you know a lot of people in my opinion treat leasing as their red headed stepchild because, you know when it's a healthy season, it's something easy to overlook as long as you know screen the applicants appropriately everything goes well. But when a leasing season gets tight that, separates the men from the boys if you will on how you're going to do it because when somebody's showing up and they need a property manager, it's generally not because they have a awesome tenant that's paying rent on time in place and they just are looking for somebody to split the money with. They're looking for somebody who's going to give them a good long term return on their investment. And when they're deciding who they're going to park their best investment with, they need somebody who's going to answer the phone and really juice every bit of leads when these tight leasing markets are happening.
[00:13:47] So that's one aspect. And then the other aspect, Jason, and I know this, in fact, we've talked about this before, but somebody who dumps a bunch of money and to getting management leads, but then lets those leads go to voicemail. Yeah. It's like cranking your AC all the way down and leaving the windows open.
[00:14:05] Yeah, that's a good analogy. Yeah, it doesn't make sense. We do a secret shopping campaign where we call management companies across the U S and we document how many of them answer the phones. And we call as both an owner. And as a prospective tenant and even for owner calls, which I would argue if scaling or even maintaining a door count matters to you, the management leads matter to you. And less than 50%. In fact, I think it was even less than a third. It's been a minute since I've looked at the numbers, but less than a third of people are answering that line live. So it's not really hard to stick out and do well. But if you're bogged down saying, "I don't want to spend any money," and "if it's to be, it's up to me," and "I'm the only person that's going to run the show," then you're limited and you end up letting what you consider low importance tasks fall off.
[00:14:59] And then, the cycle of suck that you just mentioned that nobody can answer the phone, give me good customer service. I'm going to start my own management company. You'll end up doing that to yourself.
[00:15:08] Jason: Yeah. It's a cyclical thing because if they're spending money on marketing and they're not answering their phones, and a lead's only good for maybe five, 10 minutes max, and then it drops I don't know, 80 percent in conversion rates, right? So then you're right. It's like leaving the window open with AC on. And then because they're spending all this money on marketing and they're allowing these leads to fall flat and they're not getting a good ROI, they're spending a bunch of money.
[00:15:34] Some companies spend 20, 30 percent of their revenue. And a lot, there's a lot of property management companies that don't even have that percentage of profitability in their business. And so they're wasting money on marketing. They're not answering their phones. And then that's going to lead to a lack of cashflow and a lack of cashflow means they can't hire good or enough people.
[00:15:56] And then there's bad customer service. And then it makes the problem worse. And for some reason they just bounce around like this rock in a tumbler rolling at the bottom when they could be flying, like it could be a lot better. And so that's interesting. So I'm curious what else you're, people that you're talking to are seeing right now.
[00:16:16] Are you seeing people in some markets, I've heard some complaints that it's becoming more and more difficult to get renters. Others, I think are like have a scarcity of property. And I think maybe it could be due to like migration. There's been a lot of migration, migrating happening due to, from COVID people gravitating towards States with more freedom.
[00:16:38] Logan: As far as the limitation of properties, that's going to vary a lot more market to market and I think that the higher interest rates on sales and deflating what sale prices are, is going to lead to more people holding on to their investments to regain their equity again, which I think that'll bring that back around if somebody's having a hard time finding accidental landlords who, for, I'd say the majority of our clients.
[00:17:07] I have people that work with hedge funds and people that work with big time investors, but would say the majority of our clients, our own management company is designed on the one off two off handful, maybe 34 units that somebody is a small time investor. And I think that for us has always been a good long term strategy of somebody just keep it being happy at splitting their money with and getting rid of the headache with a property manager So on that side of things, I think the interest rates are going to bring that back now when it comes to the leasing leads yeah, I do think politically and stuff like that, that can that likely has a lot to do with some of the inflows and stuff like that.
[00:17:45] But I think that we're getting back to the norm of people don't want to move during the holidays, especially you get up north of interstate 40. That'd be brutal to move in the winter up North during the holidays and in that time. And I think we're getting more into the steady flow. I'll tell you with leasing, I think that's a more quickly moving market, which is why those call stats that I mentioned before are so important.
[00:18:13] Like down here in Florida, we've had huge influxes and huge rate increases on both rent and own, and purchase prices. Yeah. Yeah. And being able to see the call volume in real time per property. Allows us to really make micro changes and what the market's doing on a seasonal basis and all that.
[00:18:37] Jason: Yeah. And that's from calls coming in on these vacant properties or up for rent properties that that your team are fielding. So this is an advantage using Virtually Incredible that you get data and metrics and insights that you just probably wouldn't be able to gather otherwise.
[00:18:52] Logan: Yes, it's a perk that we use.
[00:18:54] I'd imagine that somebody could make a system to do it. That is a big perk that our clients enjoy. Yes. Is that they get a call breakdown for their leasing calls per property and for mainline calls per caller type, for instance, at our own management company when we first started looking at our mainline calls, we noticed that current tenant calls made up almost 50% of our call volume. Meanwhile, we're using cutting edge management softwares with tenant interfaces, and yet people would still rather pick up the phone. So we took that insight and we created a newsletter that said " hey, it's in your best interest to be communicating with us in writing." In reality it's in our best interest too because we're saving on the labor costs and the time management and all that comes with it. But we were able to reduce that down to 12 to 15%. And if you're not looking at those stats, you're not looking at the opportunity to save on the labor cost.
[00:19:49] Jason: Yeah, it's interesting because phone calls are probably the biggest source of interruptions and the biggest source of staffing expense in a property management company. And we've been able to cut some of our clients staffing costs in half just by convincing them to not do phone calls and to figure out ways to do things through text and email so there's a record kept in a lot of instances. Now, and I've read some books on customer service recently, and nowadays people do prefer to be able to self serve like that would be better, but they always look for whatever's easiest. And if they can't figure out how to self serve easily, or they don't know, they're just going to pick up the phone because making a phone call seems like the easiest option. But a lot of people, especially the younger crowd today, they don't like talking on the phone to human
[00:20:38] Logan: beings.
[00:20:39] Automation shakes hands with customer service, right? So the more that you're able to supplement a "do it yourself," frequently asked questions, texting, whether it be, any interface like that with portals is absolutely great.
[00:20:57] And it allows you to have the budget for the customer service where it matters. For instance, you mentioned earlier, a management lead goes goes down in value you say in five minutes, I say in the moment that the voicemail is hit. The moment, because if it is a referral that you're getting, maybe that person wants to work with you more than anybody else.
[00:21:23] But if this was just a, if you're just a company they found online due to whatever marketing advertising, you have good reviews. That'll be a plus, obviously. But if they hit a voicemail, the immediate thoughts that they're thinking, "Is this company still taking on more management accounts?" Yeah. "Is my property even going to be a fit to their portfolio?"
[00:21:45] " If it's hard to get ahold of them right now, is it going to be hard to get ahold of them about my investment later?" And they're thinking all of that while they're scrolling down to the next lead and calling them. So yes, I think that having the do it yourself is key to be able to have the budget to put the customer service where it really matters.
[00:22:04] Jason: So what are some things that property managers can do based on what you've seen to improve their customer service directly? And then what are some ways in which virtually incredible could help do that?
[00:22:17] Logan: So it's going to depend on the goals and it's also going to depend on their size. Okay. Usually one of the first questions when I'm sitting down with a potential new client and I'm doing a outsourcing consultation.
[00:22:30] On what would be best for them is I get an idea of their team size, their door count, and their goals. So the two options that we then discuss from there is either phone tenders, which is our 24/7 property management call center that's divided up into three departments where we have a leasing call center where we pre qualify, answer questions, and schedule showings. We have a main line where we answer any call with custom scripting and escalation that would come into a management office. So we have custom scripts for current owners, current tenants, applicants, vendors, whoever would come in and however we can best assist them, answer their frequently asked questions, and escalate them to the right person if that's what they end up needing. And then we have the emergency repair where we're available for after hours maintenance emergencies to qualify the emergency and troubleshoot it with them over the phone, seeing if we can delay it and that sort of thing.
[00:23:32] And the cool part about that particular service is it, the minimum subscription cost is 97 bucks a month and you have 24/7 coverage on all of these departments. And then based on your usage, it can go up from there on a per minute basis. So somebody who is really wanting to grow, doesn't have the need for a full time person yet, and really wants to grab time management and and grab control of their life and their, their work life balance, that's a great first place to start.
[00:24:03] Then from there, if you have an idea that, "okay, I've got all my systems in my head. I really need somebody who isn't just fielding these calls for me and helping me with time management, I need somebody who's going to help me and executing processes and taking the process from what's between my ears and making a policy, procedure, and systems," because I'll tell you right now, most people that start their management company from the ground up, it all starts right here. It's all going to be between their ears and if it's to be, it's up to me because it's going to take longer for me to train somebody how to do it than it is for me to just do it myself.
[00:24:43] That's all the limiting beliefs that I find a lot of people who have not mastered the power of delegating, that's what's blocking them. That's what's limiting their imagination here. And so what we do is we train each one of our virtual assistants, how to take a screen recording, and we give all of our clients a subscription to Screencast O Matic or Loom or some other screen recording tool where they just demonstrate a process over the computer and it hooks up to their microphones. They dictate anything they're keeping in mind while demonstrating that process. And then our virtual assistant will review that video, create a step by step outline and then file it in their network next to the video to create a handbook process and procedure on everything they're doing. And it serves as a point of reference for our virtual assistant to be able to refer to later or it as this person scales, whether it be in their own.
[00:25:40] Whether it be locally they scale or remotely with remote team members and virtual assistants, this serves as a starting training manual. On everything that they do. So we're helping them bring everything from here and lay it out to really get over that hurdle of scaling.
[00:25:59] Jason: Yeah. I think it's important to get that first level of process documentation done, and a lot of entrepreneurs mistakenly think they need to do it when they're usually the worst person to do it. So it just show somebody how to do it and record it then they can give that to them and then give them the challenge of creating that process documentation.
[00:26:20] The second level after process documentation level two is like process checklist. This is where you're using maybe a tool like Lead Simple or Process Street or something where now people have to run through some steps and check things off to complete a process. And the third level is something like DoorGrow Flow. Which is a visual workflow and it has the ability to have checklist, but it's something that everyone understands and it's a lot more intuitive visually and workflows are how humans think about process or flow charts and so you're building a flow chart to build your processes. Anyone can check this out at doorgrowflow.com this is new but if you're following the process visually and you map it out that way, it's super intuitive. Everybody on the team understands it. And it doesn't have to just follow a linear path because a lot of processes in property management are not just linear. There's things happening concurrently. So there might be decisions to be made and building that stuff out in checklist based software is really complicated. You have to be like systems nerd. And then once you build that, no one understands it, but you. But if it's visual, it could be like, "do they have pets" go down this path. No? This way... back together." and so you can do more complicated stuff and everybody can look at it and go, "Oh, this makes sense."
[00:27:43] Logan: Yeah, absolutely. Getting that systems out in a way that's navigable, but navigable by everybody else. I'd say that's the biggest hurdle to scaling.
[00:27:51] Jason: Yeah, in order to scale rapidly, you need a really good process system. You need a really good people system for hiring. And if you're not, you don't have that developed yet and you're playing Russian roulette, it's good to start with some agencies to get help, right?
[00:28:06] Yeah. Your first initial hires, you're going to learn a lot just by working with agencies like virtually incredible because they're going to walk you through the process. They're going to ask you a lot of questions, things you haven't thought about yet. They're going to help you avoid some of the common pitfalls and mistakes.
[00:28:22] Like I call it the clone myth where everybody, when they're starting out, thinks they need to go find themselves. Yeah. You go find a clone. And later they learn that in order to actually duplicate yourself as an entrepreneur who wears every hat in the business, you need 10 people to actually clone yourself and not do anything.
[00:28:39] And so that's the clone myth. But then yeah, so I think getting all these things mapped out and then being able to get the help that you need early on. Then you can graduate to having your own hiring system if you want to but you're going to need really great people to help you run that as well.
[00:28:55] Logan: So when you're doing it yourself when it comes to hiring somebody remote, there's a couple big pitfalls that I make sure to talk with clients about because we have recruit direct options. So there's traditional virtual assistant placement is basically a version of a no compete contract, right?
[00:29:17] It's a staffing company that says, "I want to be the middleman forever and ever, amen. You'll never work with this person except through me." And then over the last few years, we've seen an evolution to like recruitment to where somebody helps you pick the right person and helps you with all the different processes, maybe some of the training and they do an initial upfront fee, and then you pay that person the hourly rate that they take home. And the pitfalls with that is there's only so much that's in their control after they hand you the wheel. So they give you like a 90 day warranty on turnover. And if hit bumps in the road and lose the person after that, start from scratch, you've got some of the training materials.
[00:29:57] "Here was a list of best practices. Good luck." And so that inspired our hybrid model, which is that people are welcome to work with our staff member as long as they like through us on a month to month basis. And if they ever decide that they like their person, but for whatever reason, they'd like to take advantage of the savings and work with the person directly or they don't see the value in the different tools and free replacements that we offer and they're welcome to take that same person they're experienced in working with and not only will we allow them to hire that person direct, but we will coordinate it with them and we will have an orientation and we will walk them through the process of offboarding from Virtually Incredible and onboarding directly with them. Some best practices and we do it at a discounted rate for the longer that the person has worked. With that person through us.
[00:30:52] Jason: Got it. So the longer they're using you as an agency to have this team member, the less it costs to buy out their contract or to have them just move over to paying you directly.
[00:31:03] Logan: Even less they have to pay if they use the promo code DoorGrow, where they get 5 percent off on the hourly rate and the per minute rate.
[00:31:11] Jason: Yeah, there you go. Say that discount again. A discount promo code is DoorGrow D O O R G R O W. And if you have any technical difficulties, just talk to Logan and he'll make sure it's it's applied for you when you're doing it, but it's pretty simple. There should just be a spot for it.
[00:31:28] Cool. So get your discount.
[00:31:30] So yeah, if you're in the early stages, you haven't had a lot of success in hiring, or you've been around for a while and I've seen larger companies, they're still playing Russian roulette when it comes to getting team members. And if you have not successfully had several experiences yet in the outsourcing, getting people from Philippines or Mexico or anything else, I highly recommend to anyone listening, you leverage an agency.
[00:31:55] They're going to help you manage that relationship. They're going to help you manage cultural differences. They're going to help you make sure there's a stronger level of accountability and they back it up that if they, you need to replace the person, they can help you do that quickly because there's a lot of potential pitfalls, a lot.
[00:32:10] Logan: There is. And one of the biggest ones that I see people that they just haven't even thought of is with the growing industry of freelance work and Fiverr and all these other things. You don't want what I would call a mini entrepreneur or a freelancer.
[00:32:28] Somebody who's building their skillset and then is going to just keep their resume out for a couple of bucks an hour more than what you're paying them. Because I don't care whether you're talking about hiring somebody local or you're talking about hiring somebody remote. Turnover is the most expensive part of staffing.
[00:32:46] Jason: Yeah, I want to own the team members attention if they're on my team. And so one of the biggest challenges I'll see when people are hiring freelancers, and I've hired lots of different types of people right in the past from lots of different areas. And I've learned the costly mistake of hiring people that are not focused on your business.
[00:33:06] If somebody is a freelancer, And they're working maybe part time for you and part time for somebody else. They have their primary focus is getting jobs. Their primary focus is their own life and business. Whereas if they are full time with you or dedicated just to you, even if they're part time, cause that's all the bandwidth they wanted to like to focus on you have their full attention. Their focus becomes your business, which is what we want. We want them to be focused on our business to help us improve our business, not constantly working on their own agenda and their business. And that's the big differentiator that I've seen. And I want team members that are thinking about DoorGrow in the shower.
[00:33:50] I want team members that are giving me their discretionary time, believe in what we're doing. And they're excited about it and they're doing something that they enjoy doing, right? I want them to be a culture fit for DoorGrow, personality fit for the role, and a skill fit, meaning they've learned what they need to do in order to be successful. And then we're winning and I think that's the greatest secret in business is that it doesn't matter how many processes you have, it doesn't matter how many KPIs you have, it doesn't matter how many metrics you throw at your team... if you want a team to perform well, it doesn't even matter how much money you throw at your team members.
[00:34:26] A lot of entrepreneurs mistakenly think team members behavior will improve if they throw more money at them or bonuses. And that actually tends to go get worse for most team members. That may be entrepreneurs and salespeople. Most people don't actually deep down like money. I know that sounds crazy. And so we need to make sure that we are building an effective team.
[00:34:47] An effective team is the secret sauce to having great customer service. That's the secret sauce, is to have a great team that like, buy into you, believe in you, and are not just what I call a hider employee, where their secret goal is to do as little as possible if they could get away with it, get paid as much as possible if they could get away with it, and complain about you and live for the weekend.
[00:35:10] Logan: Yeah. Yeah. One of the first things I ask in an interview regardless of the position is what motivates you? And it's super important to be able to speak somebody's motivation language. You throw money at somebody who cares more about work life balance or who cares about accommodations.
[00:35:27] A lot of people on my team we make sure that everybody's very well taken care of and money's not overlooked by any means, but reassurance and it's no secret that we do the majority of our hiring out of the Philippines and one thing that is a beautiful thing about their culture in the Philippines is how naturally it meshes with customer service and the wanting to please. Okay. And in fact, one of the training modules. that we have is that your job is not necessarily your identity, which means that when you have a tenant that is so frustrated because when they moved in and just spent all this money and it wasn't exactly how they wanted it, or, something happened and they need to they feel that they, that breaking their lease is the way they need to do it.
[00:36:23] And they want everything the way they want it when they want it, we found that a lot of our really rockstar virtual assistants that were just great were getting high burnout because their level of empathy with these people and having to enforce was just hurting, crying. And so we have a, "Hey, you're not your role."
[00:36:42] And when you're at home and when you're with your family and your friends. We love your culture and what you're driven to just always be such a helpful, great person and do that when you can, but it's okay to say no, and it's okay to enforce policies and to not take that personally.
[00:36:58] And until you understand the nuances of the culture that you're working with, if you're not working with a professional who has a leadership team that shares that same culture and values, you're going to have burnout that you don't even know why you're burning out. Because you'll hear. "Oh, I have a sick relative.
[00:37:19] Oh, I have to go move and I have to go take care of this and I can't work with you anymore because I don't want conflict and I don't want you to feel bad about yourself, so I'm going to tell you that I have to leave because of something that's out of your control and in my life." And so people are sitting there beating their head against the wall, not knowing why.
[00:37:37] Jason: Like, "why do I keep losing all these Filipino team members? Yeah. And they're all having all these problems?" No, the problems you and you need to be a better boss probably. Yeah. Yeah. Culture in a team and in a business is everything. You cannot have a great team without great culture like that. And culture, it means you shared values. You have to find people to share your values. Otherwise you have hiders and hiders are trying to get money from you and do as little as possible and, or they're going to quit and leave because they don't believe in you. They don't believe in the company.
[00:38:09] They don't believe in what they're doing. You need believers. Yeah Logan, this has been fun. And you've told us a little bit about phone tenders. You told us about your mainline service, the emergency repairs service. Line, it sounds like it's pretty affordable for people to get started.
[00:38:25] How can people reach out to Virtually Incredible and find you guys?
[00:38:30] Logan: So info at virtuallyincredible. com, Logan@virtuallyincredible. Com. My direct line is (561)-323-7039. I should be a better person to know our mainline office number, but I'll re I'll answer that one too. But it's on the website virtuallyincredible. com and if you are interested in the idea of outsourcing and you're not really ready to talk with somebody about it, but you're just curious. If you go on our virtual assistant page, we have something that's pretty interesting. We have a list of people. These are not examples. I'm not just shining up our brightest and best and and have a sample of resumes and voice recordings.
[00:39:14] We have a live list that's updated automatically every 10 minutes with candidates that are ready to get started and have already started training. And there's voice samples where you can hear what they sound like. And there are their resumes where you can see the difference experience and stuff that they have.
[00:39:33] And then there's a little note that mentions based on our experience, what their ideal role would be. It's like a catalog of humans. You can just go on there and listen to them. And
[00:39:43] yeah, that's pretty cool. It's just a job. Yeah. It's something that these people have already been vetted.
[00:39:48] We've already done all the background checks. We've already validated their resume, contacted their previous employers. And so if anybody on that list looks interesting then reach out to me, we'll chat about it and we'll start talking about scheduling interviews.
[00:40:04] Jason: So go to virtuallyincredible. com and start window shopping some virtual team members. All right. All right. Thanks, Logan. Appreciate you being here on the show.
[00:40:14] Logan: Thanks, Jason. Appreciate you having me.
[00:40:15] Jason: All right. So if you are a property management entrepreneur that wants to grow your business, you want to add doors, you want to figure out when is the right time to hire, how do I scale my team?
[00:40:25] How do I start adding and scaling doors without wasting any money at all on advertising? How can I do this? We have clients that are scaling rapidly. We just need really good property managers. So if you feel like you're a good property manager and you just need the right system. We've got the system and we call it the DoorGrow code and the DoorGrow code is our roadmap and our system for scaling businesses.
[00:40:49] It's like a martial arts style belt system going all the way from white belt, stepping onto the mat with your first door to yellow belt with your first 50 doors on and on until black belt, a thousand doors. And we confidently know that we can get you to a thousand doors in the next three to five years, even starting from zero, if you will follow the code and do what we say, you can do this. There's really only two ways to 10x the growth in your property management business. That's through acquisition or that's through doing our strategy of organic rapid growth. It's not going to be through advertising.
[00:41:25] It's not going to be through cold lead marketing. It's not going to be through SEO or pay per click or content marketing. So if you want a 10 X to grow through your business and be like one of our recent podcast guests, Kent Hardman, who added went from zero to a hundred doors in six months, investing only 10 to 15 hours a week, two to three hours a day towards making some phone calls, using our strategies.
[00:41:47] We want to help you grow, reach out to us. We can help you scale your business. And if adding more doors right now sounds uncomfortable or not fun for you. It means if you add another a hundred or 200 doors, it would increase your stress level. And you have a business that's not scalable. So reach out to DoorGrow.
[00:42:04] We can help you turn this around, turn around your team and turn this into a scalable business. You probably believe what we call the process myth, but it's not true. You don't just need more processes. You need a better team and we have a whole training on this. We're happy to give to you for free. Just comment on any of our social media, the word myth, or say you would like our process myth training.
[00:42:27] And we're happy to send you that for free. It might blow your mind and change your thinking forever. So reach out to us. We would love to help you figure out how to get more leads and how to solve the process problem in your business. And you will become infinitely scalable and you can grow rapidly. And just like our clients are doing. So we'd love to support you and help you out. Reach out to us at DoorGrow. com. Bye everyone.
[00:42:50] 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!
[00:43:17] 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 tends to get busier during the Summer months and slow down as the holiday season begins. The colder months are the perfect time for property management entrepreneurs to work on their business instead of in it.
In this episode, property management growth experts Jason and Sarah Hull discuss how utilizing strategic planning strategies can start your year off right.
[01:22] Utilizing the beginning of the year
[05:11] Making a plan “to escape property management hell”
[11:12] Strategic time helps you grow the business
[17:42] Using this time to maintain relationships
“Strategic time is what actually grows businesses.”
“As the world cools down, you should heat up.”
“If you lay the right foundation and you get really prepared during these cooler months, you can have an amazing growth season during this coming summer.”
“There's nothing in the business that you have to do personally.”
[00:00:00] Jason: If you lay the right foundation and you get really prepared during these cooler months, you can have an amazing growth season during this coming summer.
[00:00:11] Welcome DoorGrowers 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 DoorGrower.
[00:00:28] DoorGrower 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. We are your hosts, property management, growth experts, Jason Hull, the founder and CEO of DoorGrow and Sarah Hull, the co owner and COO of DoorGrow. Now let's get into the show.
[00:01:15] All right. So we were talking beforehand, "what should we talk about on today's podcast episode?" And what did we decide?
[00:01:22] Sarah: We decided to talk about the beginning of the year. And getting a plan together.
[00:01:28] Jason: Okay. So I've noticed over time doing this for over a decade, helping and supporting property managers, that property management ebbs and flows. It obviously heats up in the summer. You can even see this on Google trends. It's funny. If you look at the history for property management as a keyword, every summer it spikes, and then it cools down in the winter, right? In search volume, even though it hasn't grown really over the last decade.
[00:01:54] And so what tends to happen is property managers, business owners, they get really busy during the summer, things heat up, things feel a little bit crazy, and then it cools down, and things get quiet, a little bit quiet. And what I've noticed is then the business owners start focusing on their business.
[00:02:11] Then what happens is some holidays come, they've got Thanksgiving, they've got Christmas, and they start to get a little stir crazy... new years. And what I find is when business owners have idle time on their hands... what do you think they start doing? They start working on their businesses, right?
[00:02:31] All of you crazy entrepreneurs. That's what you start doing. You're like, "I'm going to entrepreneur some more." So you start working on your business even more. And so this is the time, this is the season. It's November 28th at the time we're recording this. And so we just had Thanksgiving and now we're going into these cooler months and there's going to be a slow down, less attention on, the property management stuff for a lot of you.
[00:02:57] And that means you can be a business owner and you can start focusing on your business. Use this time. This is the season. This is the time for you to sharpen the ax, to make the business better, to improve things so that you can tackle and grow in the summer. Summer's the greatest time to be able to expand and grow your property management business.
[00:03:20] There's a lot more turnover. A lot of owners are looking for additional help. They're not wanting to do this stuff. And if you are prepared, if you lay the right foundation and you get really prepared during these cooler months, you can have an amazing growth season during this coming summer.
[00:03:37] Sarah: So this is a really good time when things are slow and quiet and calm, this is a great time to start a new project. Summer not so much. Don't be switching team members, if you can help it. Don't be changing the business. Don't be implementing new systems or "Hey, I'm going to change my property management software." July is not a great time for that right now is a really great time for things like that. The projects that would rock the boat, as I call it in your business, this is a perfect time to do stuff like that.
[00:04:11] Jason: So let's talk a little bit about planning, coming up with a plan. Because if you don't have a plan to succeed and you don't have a system that's going to work for you, then you might blow this season and waste it. And you're not going to have the growth or you're not going to get out of the day to day stuff that you've been holding onto for the last year and the year before that.
[00:04:35] And so the goal of a business, to remind you, is to give you more freedom. It's to give you more fulfillment. It's to give you a sense of contribution. It's to give you what you want and money helps with all those things, but you can make more money and have less of what I call the four reasons of fulfillment, freedom, contribution, and support. You should be feeling more supported in your business the bigger it gets. You should be feeling more of a sense of making a difference and contributing to others. You should feel more of these things. If you're feeling less of these things and it's becoming a grind and you're getting burnt out, you're doing it wrong.
[00:05:11] And so how do we make a plan to escape property management hell?
[00:05:15] Sarah: The million dollar question, right? I think one of the things that we do really well is, this is all part of DoorGrow OS, which is our operating system. If you are interested in implementing that system, you do have access to it, whether you're a mastermind client or not. You can see all of our softwares that we offer on our website.
[00:05:33] But the thing that really helps keep us on track is just our cadence. So we do our annual planning. We do quarterly planning. We do monthly planning. We do weekly commitments. And we do this all the time without fail. There's never a point where we're like, "Oh we just won't do weekly planning today."
[00:05:50] Never. We never do that. We always fit it in and this will help keep us moving forward. It will help keep us on track and it really sets the rhythm. And I will caution you against doing annual planning in January. Jason can talk a little bit more about that too. But if you just go into the new year, a lot of times, like this is just a fresh slate for us mentally because it starts a new, right? New Year's Eve. It's a new year. It's a new time. We're like, "okay, let's just forget about the previous year and move on." It's a clean slate mentally. So even if you're in the middle, like for us, this is technically the middle of our year. So January 1 is like quarter three for us.
[00:06:36] So it's like the second half of the year, but still it's like this mental refresh. So even though we've already done our annual planning in June and we're now just in the second half of the same year fiscally we still get that reset and we might go, "okay, let's just take a break, take a breath, regroup, and then let's look at things again" and you know, "are we on track? Is there anything that we need to do differently? Are there things that we're lacking? Are there things that we can change?" Because right now, being that it's a slow season. Now oddly enough, it's not a slow season for us. Because when you guys have a slow season, then we pick up a lot. But for you guys, it's a great time to regroup and say, "okay, is there anything that we need to change that has been like a thorn in my side for a while? Let's get a plan together, implement that plan and get it done now and really start that year off with a bang." Cool. So why would someone not want to do their annual planning starting in December because everyone's going, "what? Like that makes so much sense. It's the beginning of the year."
[00:07:47] Jason: Yeah, I think, the biggest reason is, during this season where entrepreneurs like to focus more on their business, your team focus less on the business because it's the end of the year. They're focused on holidays and family. They're thinking about like travel and like whether they're going to have funds to pay for all the Christmas gifts and all the shopping they've got to do. It's like they start another job. And so they've started this other job of family and travel and holidays and they're not as productive a lot of times we're not as effective or as efficient. And this then is where most businesses do their annual planning and try to hit their year end goals. And at the year end, we want to have a big push towards our goals. Property management naturally heats up, but in general this ebb and flow happens for every business.
[00:08:42] Things tend to cool down in the winter. And so what we want to do, what we do at DoorGrow and what we coach our clients to do is to offset by six months. And so we start our planning year on July 1st. And so that is the beginning of our first quarter for us in our planning year. And so if we do planning then in the summer, things are exciting.
[00:09:07] There's like plenty of movement. We can do things, we can get things done. The team is energized. The team's energized instead of checked out. They've got plenty of bandwidth. There's no like significant holidays, like right in the middle of, June and July that they're focused on. They might want to take some vacation time or like travel or something like this, but they've got the bandwidth.
[00:09:28] When it comes to Christmas and the holidays and thanksgiving and New Year's and all of this time period for us is just the middle of the year. So it's just a great time for us to as business owners to do a reset, take a look, "how are we doing towards our annual goals?"
[00:09:44] Are we making progress? What do we need to adjust? And so we're just making adjustments. We're not trying to like, get the team to finally hit some goal at the end of the year.
[00:09:54] Sarah: "Hurry up! We still need 28 doors to get our goal, and we only have 32 days to do it." The team is like, "I don't care, man" At this point. It's not that they're completely done, but they're tired.
[00:10:08] And the other thing that we have unfortunately, no control over is the weather. That's a real thing. Like once the weather changes and things get a little colder and the days get shorter because for whatever reason we still do daylight savings time. Somebody seriously has to change that by the way, but it really has a physical effect on our bodies and we will just naturally start to slow down a little bit with the weather.
[00:10:36] Like animals, they go into hibernation. We're mammals too. This is what mentally we start doing that a little bit. Now, It'd be great if we could just check out and hang out in a den for three months and come out in springtime But our minds do this especially right around the holidays because we kick it off with Thanksgiving, then we get into Christmas, then we get into New Year's, the weather's cold, the days are shorter, It's the end of the year. Everyone's tired This is not a great time of year to be like, "rally the troops guys! Go get them!" Not going to have great success there.
[00:11:12] Jason: Yeah. And this is a good opportunity, when things cool down and your team are a little bit more focused on their personal lives and things are shifting, this gives you a lot of space and a lot of bandwidth to really focus on what you want.
[00:11:26] And so I would say is that as the world cools down, you should heat up. Like you should then step more into that strategic role of being a business owner instead of being an employee in your own business, which you're doing at least half the time, probably, or more. Now you can get out of that daily tactical stuff a little bit more and start to focus on strategic. Strategic time is what actually grows businesses. Tactical work, emailing, calling, that's not really what grows or moves companies forward. It just keeps them alive. But what helps is innovating, moving the business forward, planning, scheming. This is your time to be able to come up with a plan, come up with an idea. And if you don't have a really solid plan, you don't know how to 10X your growth over the previous year.
[00:12:14] Like you're like, "that sounds impossible, Jason. I don't have a clue. Like the last year before that, we've had maybe consistent growth. Maybe it's even slowing down. We don't know how to 10x it." Then you need a better system and you don't know what you don't know. So you might want to reach out to us and maybe it's that you just want to get out of the day to day. You're like, you're really starting to feel burnt out. Look at the future. Can you do this for another five years? Can you do this last year for another five years? You may have been doing this for five years already.
[00:12:44] Sarah: Can we do groundhogs day again and again?
[00:12:47] Jason: Yeah, and You know that probably feels like a grind if you're not enjoying if you didn't enjoy last year, if you weren't like, "hey I love this. This is amazing," Then you're probably doing it wrong and it's pretty wild to see how quickly we can shift clients' businesses to restructure their business around them and allow them to have more freedom and more fulfillment and more contribution and more support and help them get a better team, help them get better systems, and then they're enjoying their life.
[00:13:17] There's nothing in the business that you have to do personally. There's nothing that you have to hold on to. We can build this business around you and you just hold on to the pieces that you really enjoy or that you really love, or they give you momentum. And very few of you really, if you could just do nothing would really enjoy that.
[00:13:36] You might be telling yourself that right now, because you're burnt out, but what I find is once clients are in alignment with the things that they actually enjoy doing, then they no longer hate their business and they start to enjoy it and it becomes a source of life for them. That's fulfillment. And that's what freedom feels like.
[00:13:56] And then they want to benefit others, and that's contribution. They want to start contributing to their team. They want to make everybody's life better. And what you'll find is if you get in proper alignment, then you can build the right team around you, but you can't build the right team around the wrong person, and you've probably been showing up as the wrong person for a while now.
[00:14:16] And it's time to shift that, and it's very doable. We have a process for how to do this. We have clients do a time study. We figure out which things energize and drain them. We then take all the things that drain them that are very tactical, and we create new job descriptions for new hires for this, or we give these things to existing team members.
[00:14:35] And then we create a plan to get the business moving forward, either related to growth or related to systems, so that the business becomes scalable. And then, You start to see there's light at the end of the tunnel and business can become really fun. It was fun when you started it. It was exciting. It was new.
[00:14:53] You had belief in what you were doing. We want to get you back to that.
[00:14:57] Sarah: Yeah, for sure. So if you're feeling the stress and the overwhelm, then you're holding on to things that you probably shouldn't be doing at this point. We have one client who just, he still won't do it. He knows what he needs to do, but it's so painful for him to do. And he's "I can't fire my team. Can't do it." When he does make that leap, I'm telling you, it's going to be night and day for him. But when you have the right things on your plate and when you have the right people surrounding you in the business, and they're on board with helping you like move the business's mission forward, not just "Hey, I'm clocking in and I'm here to do a job."
[00:15:35] Everything is different and everything is easy, which is crazy to think in property management that it can actually be easy, but it can, as long as you're building things the right way.
[00:15:46] Jason: Yeah. A lot of property managers see the pain and the challenge that they have right now. And maybe you have a hundred doors and you're like, "this is tough."
[00:15:53] Or maybe you have 200 doors, like, "this is tough." And so what ends up happening in the back of their mind, they see "if I had another 100 doors or another 200, or I doubled the size of my business, it would be worse. It would be harder." But if you do it the right way, it actually gets a lot easier.
[00:16:10] In fact, the bigger you get, the easier it can get if you do it the right way. Because you can get better and better team members. You have more resources. You can get better and better tools, right? You have more and more leverage if you do it the right way. And property management can be death by a thousand cuts, especially if you have a thousand doors, or it can be a really great systemizable business that you don't have to be super involved in the day to day, if you're the business owner, especially the larger you get.
[00:16:40] And this can happen at any stage. At any stage, you can be miserable or you can be enjoying yourself. And we want to make sure that we get you towards enjoying yourself, because what you'll find is when you are in alignment with the four reasons, your team members then have a chance of doing it, and it'll be a lot easier to help them get in alignment with the four reasons.
[00:16:59] And then you'll probably get two to three times the output from those team members. Because they'll be on fire, they'll be excited, they'll be in momentum, they'll have a sense of fulfillment and freedom and contribution and they'll feel supported. And you will get a lot more out of those team members than you do out of the ones that are just grinding every day.
[00:17:20] So right now is the time, it's time to make a plan. And if you need some help making a plan or you need a really good system or your current plan is to do whatever you did last year or just wing it, then that's not a great plan. So you need a better plan and we can help you come up with a better plan here at DoorGrow.
[00:17:38] So anything else we should say about this season? I don't think so. So I think this is also an opportunity to check in with your owners, reconnect with your clients as you move through this season, since things have cooled down a bit, this is a time that you can re establish the connection and in those relationships to increase the lifetime value of your clientele and to decrease churn and so this is as things cool down, as things are a little quieter, feel free to show some care and leverage the holidays to reach out to your existing clients and just let them know that you care about them. Wish them happy holidays, merry Christmas And Happy New Year's and let them know that you they're in good hands with you. And this is an opportunity right now also to increase future revenue through retention and decreased churn. So I think that's pretty good for today.
[00:18:33] Sarah: All right. Cool. That's my topic for this week's scale call. You must've heard me talking about that on last week's.
[00:18:39] Jason: I did. I heard you mention it. You talk loud. I'm just kidding. All right. So if you are a property management entrepreneur, you're wanting to add doors, you want to grow your business, you want to get out of the day to day, you want to make your business scalable so that adding more doors does not make your life personally worse. Reach out to us at DoorGrow. We can help. We help people like this all the time and we just get better and better every year. So if you have been listening to this podcast a while, or if you are a past client for maybe two, three, four, five, something, many years back, even one year back, even one year back, we've changed super system a year ago, right? We've changed any of that a lot and we've taken the things that have helped us scale our business and we are now leveraging these to help scale our clients businesses and it's working incredibly well. So I'm obviously biased, but I think we have the best stuff for the property management industry. I don't think there's any other coaching or mentoring or consulting that can touch what we're able to achieve with our clients. Our clients are crushing it.
[00:19:42] And we can help them through every major issue or problem that they're dealing with, whether it be the op stuff or whether it be adding doors. Our clients are crushing it. So reach out to us. We want to make you our next success in our next successful case study. Hopefully we're talking to you soon. Go to DoorGrow.com. Join our free Facebook group community at DoorGrowclub.Com. And hopefully we're talking and working together soon. Bye everyone.
[00:20:11] 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!
[00:20:38] 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 biggest questions we get from property management business owners once they start building out their team is “How do I compensate and recognize my team members?”
In this episode, property management growth experts Jason and Sarah Hull discuss the different kinds of compensation structures for different personality types and roles on your team.
[02:15] The difference between you and your team
[07:56] The problem with giving out percentages
[12:13] How to set up commission structures
[21:23] Recognizing your team effectively
[25:44] Giving out raises and job titles
“Business is a more effective vehicle than even a charity at creating lasting and impactful change.”
“When you dangle the carrot in front of a great salesperson, they will jump off a freaking cliff to get it.”
“Your discomfort in giving somebody a raise should be equal to their discomfort in asking for it.”
“Recognition costs nothing.”
[00:00:00] Jason: They need to be invested in like committed to helping you grow this business and helping you move it forward, otherwise they are just dead weight and you're creating a bigger and bigger monster of dead weight as the business grows.
[00:00:14] Welcome DoorGrowers 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 DoorGrower.
[00:00:31] DoorGrower property managers love the opportunities, daily variety, unique challenges, and freedom that property management brings. Many 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. We are your hosts, property management, growth experts, Jason Hull and Sarah Hull, owners of DoorGrow.
[00:01:11] That good? Now let's get into the show. All right. We were trying to change the intro right before we did it. And sometimes she's not on it. Sometimes she is. She's mostly on it now. So. Anyway, here we are. So our topic today, I'm getting a lot of questions, a lot of questions, and this has been going on for a long time, but we're getting a lot of questions about compensation.
[00:01:37] This just keeps coming up and we see a lot of mistakes when it comes to compensation. So the challenge with compensation is that entrepreneurs think differently than most people that they are paying, and so they make mistakes in how they compensate people because they think it's going to help them get more of what they want and they actually create the opposite.
[00:02:00] And so I want you to pay close attention to this today. If you watch this you should not ever ask if you should be giving out a commission or percent sign to somebody or whatever So let's talk about a couple of things here. So where should we start?
[00:02:15] Sarah: Well, I think the best place to start is probably from just for background.
[00:02:20] What is the difference between someone who has a sales mindset or entrepreneurial mindset versus someone that may not.
[00:02:30] Jason: Cool. Let's talk about that. The two types of team members that you're going to have. There's two types of people on the planet, those that like money and those that don't. And I know you're thinking, "man, no, everybody likes money."
[00:02:42] And you'd be surprised. And so if you had all of your team members take a DISC assessment, there's usually on a nice DISC assessment, a section called the values index. And one of those values is the economic or financial score. And so on the economic or financial score, what you will see is that the score is low, then they don't like money.
[00:03:04] And I know that sounds weird. They're not focused on money. They're not trying to get money. Money is not a big part of their psyche. It's just not. And I know entrepreneurs, you don't get this because you like money. Sarah and I do not hate money. We don't hate money. Okay,
[00:03:20] Sarah: I need that shirt. This is the one t shirt.
[00:03:22] I'll wear the capitalistic pig shirt
[00:03:24] Jason: Right and so we don't hate money. You probably don't hate money either. If you do hate money and you're an entrepreneur Then you are probably struggling to have money, right. Money is the ability to change lives, make a difference and have impact. This is why business is a more effective vehicle than even a charity at creating lasting and impactful change in my opinion.
[00:03:47] Okay? Because it has healthy motivators connected to it. Right. And money is the energy and currency of what everything moves through to happen. Right. So let's talk about this. So if the economic score is low, what does that mean? I'll tell you whose economic score is high. If your economic score is high, you are probably an entrepreneur or a sales person, right?
[00:04:11] Those are probably the only two personality types or people that you should be paying out more money or bonuses or commissions to incentivize better behavior. That means most people, you should not be paying bonuses, additional financial compensation to try and motivate or change behavior. Now, if you just want to be generous and it's Christmas, that's different.
[00:04:36] But if you're trying to consistently compensate somebody and motivate them, the motivators need to be connected to what your outcomes are and most people are doing it incorrectly. Now, if the economic score is low, this is what this means, they would rather what they most value is recognition. They would rather be recognized.
[00:04:55] And recognition costs nothing. It costs nothing. And if you don't give them recognition, but you give them bonuses, it's often the opposite, it has the opposite effect. There's another values index called the charitable score. If they have a high charitable score, which means they might want to volunteer to soup kitchen.
[00:05:14] They want to like donate money. They want to give money away, not get money. They want to give money away. And then they have a low end economic score. That means if you pay them more money than what is comfortable for them. You pay them more than that. They will start to become a worse team member. They will start to self sabotage because they feel guilty. And then they're going to project that and externalize it because they have to justify it. They're taking more money. They don't want to give up the more money, but they feel guilty. If Sarah was my boss, it'd be like, "Oh, Sarah's giving me more money. Well, all right. I have to be worth this. So I'm worth this more money. And you know what? I'm entitled now. And maybe I deserve even more because I'm developing this kind of cancerous blind spot of I deserve this money because I feel guilty. So I externalize it. And I blame that uncomfortable feeling on my boss. Oh, well, my boss is like terrible and doesn't do this stuff. So I deserve that more money to compensate for it." And so they start to find fault with the boss and they start to justify them taking this more money cause they feel bad so that they can feel somewhat okay about it. And then their behavior starts to show that and they start to perform worse.
[00:06:23] I know entrepreneurs, you're like, "that makes no sense." But that's how a lot of people think. Most people do not enjoy seeking money. This is not their goal.
[00:06:33] Sarah: There is a caveat team members, they have to have enough to be comfortable, right?
[00:06:38] Jason: If they're starving, broke or hurting, they're not comfortable.
[00:06:42] Sarah: In pain or like worried, like, "Oh my God, I might lose my house or I can't feed my kids."
[00:06:47] Like. Yeah. We're not saying, Hey, like give them no money, they'll work for free. That's not the case at all. Right. They have to have enough to feel comfortable to make sure that their needs are met and make sure that they're able to provide for themselves and anyone else or anything else that is important to them.
[00:07:02] Once they reach that level though, and I think studies have been done on this, which is really interesting to me I don't know if they just surveyed Americans. Don't know, but I think $75k was like that magic number or $65k. It was something like that somewhere in that ballpark is that's like where people feel like they have most people feel like they have enough.
[00:07:25] So once they feel like they have enough money to live and be okay and make sure their needs are met and bills are paid and things are taken care of and like Johnny can do soccer and whatever they, you know, they want to do, they don't then go, "well, now I want a hundred and now I want 200." They don't keep trying to climb that ladder.
[00:07:46] Once they feel comfortable and they have to make sure that their needs are met, then they're not interested. So if you take it from 75 to a hundred, they're like, "it's okay."
[00:07:55] Jason: Okay. So the other piece to this, another challenge that I see is that because business owners want people to have skin in the game and they want them to, they think everybody wants money, they hand out percent signs.
[00:08:08] This is one of the most dangerous things to hand out. We even made a silly video called, what's it called?
[00:08:13] Sarah: I think it's called Percentage Breaks the Property Manager for the Property Management Business.
[00:08:19] Jason: Yeah. So you can check that out on YouTube. But the idea we're playing this, these roles and I'm a business owner and I don't have money in the beginning, so I'm going to pay her a percentage of all the doors that I get in.
[00:08:29] We made it ridiculous, like 50%. Right? Which means if you're handing out a percent sign, and we see this all the time, say Sarah's my employee and I'm the boss, and I hand out 50% or whatever to a property manager.
[00:08:42] Sarah: Or even if you're like, "okay, here have 30," because like even 10, 30, 40, I still, I see the that a lot.
[00:08:48] Sometimes I see 20.
[00:08:50] Jason: It doesn't matter what the percentage is, right? The challenge is in a business, some property management companies don't even make 10 percent profit margin. And so handing out percent signs is really dangerous for businesses. So what they'll do is hand out a percent sign. So let's say I give her 50%.
[00:09:06] That means my 50%. My, the other half, all of the expenses have to come out of that. And usually if a business has 50 percent profit margin, that's pure expense. So then I'm broke. So what happens is she's making more and more money because she has all upside. It's pure profit. And I have all the expenses do not give a percentage to a broker.
[00:09:28] Pay them a flat fee of like five, 600 bucks. Do not pay a percentage of broker. If you don't have your broker's license, don't create relationships or situations where you are giving up a percentage to a property manager. "Hey, you get like 50 percent of each door that you get on when you get a 30 percent of each door," whatever, right?
[00:09:46] Because then what happens is these property managers, if they're the personality type of handling property management, instead of doing sales, they are not going to be focused on getting more business on. They're going to be focused on just helping run the business and you're giving them more and more money the more doors you get, which means you're making less and less money, right? They're making more and more money, the more doors that you get. And they will get more and more lazy and more and more comfortable because there's no incentive for them to go work harder or hunt or chase to get money. You need to make sure if you're handing out a percent sign in any capacity, that's like giving out ownership of the business and they need to be invested in like committed to helping you grow this business and helping you move it forward, otherwise they are just dead weight and you're creating a bigger and bigger monster of dead weight as the business grows. This is why a lot of people join a franchise and then regret it later on because they're paying out six to eight percent, which is a lot, of their gross revenue not of profit not of what's left over for you. And some business owners.
[00:10:56] That's their whole owner payout. Yeah, that's like top one. Some business owners, that's what they take out like you're giving away that to basically to a team member that's not really adding value. I could go on and on about franchises. You can check out my YouTube video about franchises.
[00:11:12] I'm obviously like not a fan of the franchise model because I believe it hurts the entire industry. There he said it. All right. So don't hand out percent signs. Do not get into a relationship with a business partner and give them a percent sign unless they are the type that wants to hustle and grow and make money.
[00:11:33] The challenge is I see a lot of business partnerships are like, "here's a percent sign" when they should have just said, "here's your salary. You can be the operator." So operator personality types, for example, systems, process, whatever, they don't usually want ownership. They're not often that entrepreneurial type.
[00:11:51] They just want to make sure they're getting paid enough and taking care of enough. Now there's exceptions to this, right? But you don't want to be handing out percent signs to somebody unless it's like super critical for growth. And I do not recommend. I recommend in any way possible, don't hand out any percent signs to anybody ever except to yourself and maybe a salesperson.
[00:12:13] Now, let's talk about commissions, right? Let's say somebody is money motivated and they can help you make more money. So if they're money motivated, then you need to be using them to help you make more money. If you're going to pay them a percent sign, but you're not going to pay them a percent sign residually.
[00:12:30] Because then you're motivating them to not do more work. What you want from a good salesperson or a BDM, a business development manager, or a BD business development person. What you want from them is what? You want results, which is more doors. You want them to add more money to the business. That's the result you want.
[00:12:49] So you're going to pay for them to get more business, not keeping the business because keeping the business is the rest of the team. And that's fulfillment. So don't pay them a percentage residual. You pay them a percentage of maybe the first month or the, like some sort of commission upfront.
[00:13:07] And it could be a percent, or it could just be a flat fee. Like, "Hey, we'll give you 200 bucks or 300 bucks or 500 bucks or per unit that you bring on." and give them an incentive. So that means they have an incentive every month. They stay to hunt and to chase. Now, another mistake people make with salespeople is like, "I want to get a salesperson, but I want to have zero downside and I want all the upsides.
[00:13:33] So they create another unfair structure where they're like, I will pay you pure commission. And if you don't hunt and kill, you starve. And if you hunt and kill, I make money and we both make money." so I need to address this. That only makes sense if you are giving the salesperson, all of the leads, they have a great follow up and nurture system, and all they do is show up to calls and close.
[00:13:56] Sarah: Now, can you clarify what giving them the leads means? Because you're like, "Oh here's the leads. Like, here's a list of 10, 000 people."
[00:14:04] Jason: Okay. That's not what I mean.
[00:14:05] Sarah: So yeah, exactly. So let's clarify that.
[00:14:09] Jason: Okay.
[00:14:09] Sarah: So 18, 000 people in my CRM. Here's your leads.
[00:14:13] Jason: If somebody is going to be paid pure commission, which means they're just paid for basically closing deals, they should not have to go find potential clients. They should not have to be hunting for potential clients. They shouldn't be spending any time doing any of that stuff. They should just be taking appointments, somebody else scheduled for them and closing deals.
[00:14:33] Then they're a closer. Everything that happens before that would be handled by a setter and the setter would be cold calling, following up, like all this stuff. Setting appointments. Setting appointments, rescheduling.
[00:14:46] Sarah: Making sure people show up. They don't show up. Right. Calling them again.
[00:14:49] Jason: Feeding the closer.
[00:14:51] Feeding the closer. Then the closer can be peer commissioned and the setter would be paid a base, mostly a base, plus a small percentage for each like appointment they set or some sort of results. So they're motivated to get more results and they should be a little bit money motivated, right? Now, most people are going to hire a BDM and expect them to do both.
[00:15:11] And if you're going to hire a BDM and expect them to do both, you need to pay them a base. I would recommend at least maybe 20 to 30 K, something like this of a base that covers their setting activities. And then they, the rest, they should be able to make somewhere annually about maybe six figures should be possible.
[00:15:30] So work it backwards, but there should be a commission structure that if they're adding 10 to 20 doors a month, they should be able to make. Some sort of six figure sort of salary would be the goal. So figure out a commission on top of that base. Because what you're doing, if you say it's pure commission, you're expecting a closer who lives or dies by whether they hunt or kill and create some money, you're expecting them to starve for at least two months, usually. Because usually three. Because it takes about 90 days to build up a sales pipeline. So they're going to have to do networking and prospecting and outreach and they're working for free and. If they're starving for 90 days, they're just going to quit.
[00:16:10] I've seen so many BDMs burn out and it sounds like this great model. "Well, I'll pay you basically nothing in the beginning." And you might get somebody to agree to do that, but they might be stupid if they're willing to do that. And then they're going to be like starving and not figuring it out. And then you don't give them a good system.
[00:16:26] If you plug them in to DoorGrow, we can get them making a lot of money. We have an amazing system. Like we had a client in just 10 to 15 hours. We go from zero to a hundred doors in six months. And he didn't spend any money on ads and he was a solopreneur. He was all by himself. This is absolutely possible.
[00:16:44] We can help BDMs crush it. We've helped some BDMs add two- three hundred dollars in a year. That's absolutely possible to do but they need to be able to dedicate their time to that and you are not going to get that kind of result if you just pay them a commission because they will only focus on the closing type of activities or the commission generating activities, and they won't do what the leading activities that actually generates the opportunities to close.
[00:17:12] And so you're putting too much attention on the wrong thing. They need more attention. Most of the attention should be on the leading activities. Phone calls, outreach, networking that leads to this and then deals will happen. They don't even have to be super amazing at closing if they're doing enough leading activities And so we want to make sure we give them a base and then we give them an incentive to move those things forward.
[00:17:35] Sarah: Okay. Now with the base, this is the big one. "Well, how much is the base supposed to be Jason? I don't know?"
[00:17:41] Jason: 20 or 30 K. Maybe
[00:17:42] Sarah: You need to find an amount that would be uncomfortable if that's all you made. It needs to be comfortable enough that if that's all they made, they're not going to be starving and eating out of a dumpster.
[00:17:58] And it needs to be uncomfortable enough that if that's all they made, they wouldn't be happy and they would be hungry for more.
[00:18:06] Jason: They need to be hungry. They got to be motivated. It's financial compensation is all about motivation, right?
[00:18:13] Sarah: With a salesperson, when you lay out their commission structure and you let them know like, "Hey, this is your base and I'm giving you this base because of these reasons. I don't want you to be starving. I want you to be motivated. The real money, it's over here. This other piece, I'm going to give it to you because there's things like phone calls and settings and appointments and you know, all the stupid crap that you don't want to do, but that you will do because it leads to deals."
[00:18:38] And they're like "yeah, I get that. But the real money is over here. So when you close deals, that's when you start to make money." And when you dangle the carrot in front of a great salesperson, they will jump off a freaking cliff to get it. The problem is if you just give them the carrot and you're like, here, have a 50, 000 base, have 100, 000 base, have a 200, 000 base.
[00:19:03] They're like "Yeah. I don't need to work that hard. I mean, if I do nothing, I still make 50k." We just at the boardroom event, we had a client whose BDM has a 50, 000 base.
[00:19:13] Jason: And then he was wondering why they weren't super motivated.
[00:19:16] Sarah: She doesn't really, she closed like two doors a month. And I'm like, well, yeah, cause she's comfortable.
[00:19:22] She's super comfortable there. So she's never going to be motivated to work harder and do more and stretch herself and go above and beyond. Because she doesn't have to, you gave it to her. I have to work for it. There's a difference. And the other thing is salespeople who they love the challenge. They don't want you to give it to them.
[00:19:43] They don't want it. Like they'll tell you like, "Oh, I'll take 500, 000 a year for doing nothing." But they wouldn't really be fulfilled by that. They'll probably take it because they love money. I mean, who doesn't, but they wouldn't be fulfilled by it. Yeah. If you give them 500, 000 for doing nothing versus if they make 500, 000 because of the work that they did and because of their efforts, there's a big difference.
[00:20:06] They're going to feel really proud of that and they're going to want that. So they're going to chase it. So you have to dangle the carrot and make it something that's interesting enough. You have to, you, and you have to set it up so that they have the ability to make at least six figures because that's what sales people want But don't just throw it to them.
[00:20:24] Jason: And to be clear No, bdm should be making five hundred thousand dollars.
[00:20:28] Sarah: That's not accurate at all.
[00:20:30] Jason: There's really great bdm. Maybe if they're helping do some acquisition deals If they're adding 500 a year, maybe all right So but if your bdm can live comfortably without adding 10 doors a month, your commission structure is wrong. They should be minimum adding about 10 doors a month as a full time BDM minimum.
[00:20:52] And they should need to do 10 doors a month in order to just reach comfort. And if they're really motivated, they'll do even more than that. They'll do even more than that because then it gets exciting, right? Then it's the game, right? It's the hunt. Okay. So we talked about compensation.
[00:21:08] Is there any other challenges or mistakes we see people make compensation wise?
[00:21:13] Sarah: I think those are the big ones. I think let's though, before we wrap up, let's talk a little bit more about the recognition piece and then we'll close it out. Okay. Because people are like what do you mean recognition?
[00:21:25] Like, "Hey, I see you."
[00:21:26] Jason: So recognition is a process of just helping the team members be seen, especially in front of other team members for doing good things or accomplishing things. So the way that we do that in DoorGrow and in our operating system, DoorGrow OS. Maybe you've heard of like EOS or traction or some of these things.
[00:21:43] DoorGrow OS is better. And what we do in DoorGrow OS to increase the amount of recognition is in every meeting we share wins. So if it's our weekly commitments meeting, we're sharing what wins did we have last week and everybody adds to the list. What did we do in our monthly goal setting?
[00:22:03] We share wins for everything we did the previous month. Same thing with the quarter and annually, and it's pretty awesome. Like, we're building these lists and everybody feels great. And then even in our daily huddle meeting, which is like a 15 minute, 20 minute meeting we do every morning, I guess we do ours in the afternoon, but we do with our team.
[00:22:21] We do Caught Being Awesome and we allow team members to share their wins or to highlight somebody else. And so our team are highly motivated because most of them are recognition motivated. So we're recognizing them. If we do give a bonus, like say for the holidays or something like that, we do it in a way that the focus is we wanted to recognize you because of what you've done for us this last year. So it's still about recognition and appreciation. And so that will get you team members that are incredibly loyal to you, that love being part of the team, that feel a sense of belonging, and that means a lot more to most of your team members than getting more dollars.
[00:23:04] Is that good?
[00:23:04] Sarah: They want to feel important and they want to feel valued and they want to know that you care about what they're doing and especially in an industry like property management because it's tough. Yeah. Everybody has those like really awful days because let's be honest, sometimes owners or tenants or vendors and sometimes life just happens, right?
[00:23:27] So it's tough and sometimes it's tough. All the time or it's tough for a while. This is not an easy industry. So when you've got this pressure all the time and this like annoyance, like, "Oh, that tenant's going to call me and yell at me again, or, Oh, like, Oh, I have to have this uncomfortable conversation and tell my client that we need a $15,000 sewer repair.
[00:23:50] I don't want to do this." The it's the little things that will keep your team going and make sure that they understand like, "Hey. I know it's not the most glorious thing. I know it's always not super exciting, and it's not always super easy. However, what you're doing really makes a difference. It really is important and this is like the bigger mission and vision of the business and you contribute directly to that vision and what you're doing matters."
[00:24:22] So that way it's like, Oh, you know, it's not this grind and this drain and we don't have a lot of churn on our own team and burnout and you know, bad team members that are like, "Oh, I hate my job." Right. Because that's super easy. It's easy and then you make it even harder. It's easy just by itself and then you make it harder because it's property management.
[00:24:43] So it's super easy in property management to have that. So let's combat that. And just by recognizing them and saying like, "Hey, I saw you took care of that thing. Like, hey, oh my god, you got all the leases done. And hey," like, and it could be the littlest things. It's things that they do. Anyway, it doesn't matter.
[00:25:00] They don't have to do anything that's like spectacular. "Oh my God. You like cleaned all the bathrooms today, Sally. Thank you. That was amazing. Like you didn't have to do that." It's little things and it's things that they're going to be doing anyway, but just let them know, "Hey, I see it. And I appreciate it."
[00:25:16] Jason: All right. So the other thing I'll say about recognition is you might be thinking, well, salespeople and entrepreneurs, do they like recognition? The answer is yes. They like it too. We still like it. They like it too. So if you're giving them recognition that adds more fuel to the fire, right? And so you need a system like DoorGrow OS in which everybody gets recognized for their accomplishments and everyone will perform and behave better because they feel seen by everyone.
[00:25:42] And that has value, right? Now one more point I want to make is you might get somebody, an assistant, you're like a VA, you're like they're amazing. I love them so much. They're so awesome. I don't want to lose them. And then you are like, because you're hardwired to be so money focused, you're like, I'm going to pay them a whole bunch more money.
[00:26:02] I see this happen so often. Be very careful about just giving out raises prematurely. Be very careful about this because what I've seen over and over again, I've been in masterminds, multimillion dollar business owners, we're hanging out together and they're like, "Hey I just got this assistant. She was super amazing. So I gave her this big raise 'cause she's so awesome. And now she's showing up late. She's not like getting things done. She seems like entitled." This is what happens when you compensate people financially, instead of giving them recognition and doing it based on how you think instead of what they want, you then sabotage their efforts or they start to sabotage their efforts.
[00:26:43] So don't start paying somebody more just because you like them, right? There needs to be a justifiable reason and they need to be able to justify that reason. And so they may need to come to you and be like, "Hey, here's why I deserve more compensation." And you're checking in with them regularly and saying, "Hey, how are things going?"
[00:27:01] And if you have an open communication with your team members, they're going to tell you when they feel like it's time that they deserve some more money. And it's going to be really uncomfortable for them to do it if they don't like money, it's going to be so uncomfortable to have that conversation, but it's also uncomfortable for you to spend more money.
[00:27:17] Team are the biggest expense. Your discomfort in giving somebody a raise should be equal to their discomfort in asking for it. It's my thought. And so they need to be reaching out. To some degree, and you may recognize somebody deserves more pay, you know, deep down they're being paid too little.
[00:27:36] So then you can give them a raise, but be careful about handing this out.
[00:27:40] Sarah: My other little tip with raises is I worked in corporate for a bit and it was like every year, you know, you're going to get a raise and how much of a raise you get depend, depend on all your stupid numbers and metrics and all, you know, call time and all that stuff.
[00:27:55] So you knew you were getting a raise though, like for sure, unless for some reason they're firing you, right? But other than that, you know, like, "Oh, my annual review is coming up. How much money am I going to make now?" And then they expect it. And then you don't really appreciate it because it's expected. And it's like normal now it's like, "Oh, well I'm getting a raise now.
[00:28:13] Now I'm going to raise." And then. What also happens is, "well, I'm getting a raise," and sometimes people go, "Oh, well I deserve like this much." And then they don't get that. They get less. And then they're like mad about it. They're mad because they're making more money. It's not as much money as they wanted or as I expected.
[00:28:30] So one of my big rules when it comes to raises is with raise comes responsibility. Don't just throw out more money. Like, "Hey, if you want to go from here to here, I'm happy to take you there. This is what that would look like. Are you in?
[00:28:44] Jason: Okay. One last thing. Titles. Titles are heavily connected to compensation.
[00:28:49] So I dealt with this week. I talked to a property manager. They had like 20 doors or something and they hired a director of operations. No. You can't afford a director of operations. So the thing is, yeah, I said, "tell them they are an operations assistant in ecrow." And said, I gave you this inflated title.
[00:29:06] You're an operations assistant. Maybe then eventually they could graduate operations manager. Maybe then be the, you know, maybe eventually. The director of operations, VP of operations, COO, but titles matter. So be very careful about handing out titles. Start everybody out as a something assistant or junior
[00:29:24] Sarah: property manager, junior assistant, property manager, or you can just have levels, property manager, one property manager, two property manager, three, like.
[00:29:32] There's a lot of different ways you can do it. Be careful about titles. Yeah, be super careful about
[00:29:36] Jason: titles. Because they'll go look it up on salary. com and they'll be like, "Oh I deserve this. I'm director of property management. I guess I should be getting 150k or whatever, right?"
[00:29:46] Sarah: And also, 20 doors, fun little caveat. Be careful when you're reviewing resumes with titles for the same reason. Because titles they sound really impressive sometimes and they mean they could be made up They mean nothing when I got hired at an insurance job. They were like, oh we have to make your business card And I said, "okay," and they said "well, what do you want your title to be?"
[00:30:05] And I said, "I pick my own title?" And they're like, "yeah, you can put whatever you want on there." And I said, "well, aren't I a sales rep?" And they're like, "yeah, but don't put sales rep." I'm like, "oh, okay. So what should I put?" They're like, "put like account manager or account executive or like something like that."
[00:30:24] So I don't remember what we came up with, but. Came up with something that sounded like I was like, "Ooh, I'm a big deal." I was a sales rep. That's it. I sell things. That's it. But the title sounded a lot more impressive. And sometimes that can go to people's head just a bit. And keep in mind, money is connected to the title.
[00:30:45] It always will be. So get on. And if you're like, "well, I don't know what to," Google will help you just get on. Well, I just had this conversation, I think two weeks ago with client. " Well, I don't want to hire like the COO of the company. I can't afford that." You're right. You can't. So.
[00:31:00] What are they doing? Maybe they're the team leader. Maybe they're the office manager. Maybe they're an operations assistant. Like get on, find some kind of title, get on Google and say, what are other job titles for this thing? And it will tell you and pick one of those and avoid things like manager, juror, and like VP president or like, Senior account executive, things like that.
[00:31:26] Because it. It will be startling if someone. Looks at their position and realizes. "Oh, I should be making 125 and I'm only paid 55. Huh? That's odd."
[00:31:38] Jason: All right, so wrap us up. Give us a call to action.
[00:31:41] Sarah: Just If you feel like you're struggling with any of this and I know there's so many of you that are like, "oh man. Yeah, that's me."
[00:31:48] I might have made some of these mistakes and that's okay because we all have we've done it to Go on doorgrow. com Book a call with us. We can help you with this stuff.
[00:31:56] Jason: This is what we do. Yeah, and if you made any of these mistakes, I guarantee there's a lot of others going on in the business you can't see right now.
[00:32:03] We can help you get this cleaned up and help you make a lot more money, help you grow a lot faster. All right. All right until next time, to our mutual growth. Bye everyone.
[00:32:11] 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!
[00:32:37] At DoorGrow, we solve your biggest challenge: getting deals and growing your business. Find out more at doorgrow.com. Find any show notes or links from today's episode on our blog doorgrow.com, and to get notified of future events and news subscribe to our newsletter at doorgrow.com/subscribe. Until next time, take what you learn and start DoorGrow Hacking your business and your life.
Several property managers find themselves feeling alone in their difficult market. It might feel impossible to grow after being stagnant for so long.
In this episode, property management growth experts Jason and Sarah Hull sit down with DoorGrow client Brian Bean to talk about how he grew his property management business despite the challenges he faced.
[01:55] Getting started in property management
[06:20] Making business partnerships work
[09:47] Shifting from real estate to property management
[18:21] What’s next for your property management business?
“It's really difficult for partnerships to be successful because for most people, the ego is getting in the way.”
“What you focus on is what you get.”
“Until we learn how to get and find people that we feel safe with, I don't think we're supposed to trust.”
“When you get really great people, it's not hard to trust them.”
[00:00:00] Brian: After 10 years of just being flat from 30 to 35 units. And then now literally doubled it last week. And that's been from following your instruction, your philosophies and you know, focusing on building this business.
[00:00:15] Jason: Welcome DoorGrowers 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 DoorGrower. DoorGrower, 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. 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 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] So our guest today we're hanging out with Brian Bean, who is one of our clients and Brian your company is Dream Big Property Management.
[00:01:28] Brian: That's right. We're in Merced, California.
[00:01:30] Jason: All right. In Merced, California. So Brian welcome to the show. Oh, Riverside. You said Riverside.
[00:01:37] Okay. Got it. I know this area. So yeah, I grew up in Rancho Cucamonga. So just a little bit near there. So Brian tell us a little bit about your journey and how you got into property management and then eventually how you stumbled across DoorGrow, I guess.
[00:01:55] Brian: Right, so, I was a newspaper editor and reporter and I got a job, grew up in the Pacific Northwest, got a journalism degree, got a job in Palm Springs on the Daily Newspaper, and moved to California in the 80s.
[00:02:11] And so I did that for 13 or 14 years toward the end I, you know, coming from an entrepreneurial background, my uncle gave me my first, second, third job when I was a kid he owned a, like, old style service station. So I grew up in that small business atmosphere. And when I went to work in newspapers, you know, I had these lofty aspirations, these utopian ideas, you know, you're getting your twenties about doing something to change the world or, you know, to have an impact. And I found out after about 10 years, that was just, it's just another corporate job. And so I was looking around for something else and I looked at a lot of different businesses.
[00:02:55] And I ended up coming upon real estate and I was able to, while I was a newspaper editor, I was able to buy five, two five unit apartment buildings in Palm Spring. Nice. And that was my introduction to property management. I was pretty much doing that during the day. We were putting out newspapers in a, from like three in the afternoon to midnight, you know, the press would roll at midnight and and I did it all, you know, I, from everything from dealing with the tenants face to, you know, patch and drywall to whatever collecting rents, chasing rents, made all the mistakes.
[00:03:33] And I was, it was self education trial by fire. And then a few years later, I went into real estate full time and sales. I had a partner in the apartments who was actually the listing agent on those apartments at the time, but he invited me into real estate full time in 2001.
[00:03:49] And then we were off on a, and it was a run. And so I, I did property management for a while from on our own properties. And then I've just morphed into sales and we were pretty successful and very busy and then the market crashed, and you know, we just kind of moved with the market.
[00:04:08] Jason: And when was that?
[00:04:09] Like 2006,
[00:04:11] Brian: maybe, or?
[00:04:11] Yeah. So 2006 at least in our area, it was August, 2006 when we peaked sales wise. And in 2007, we had, I don't know, a dozen listings and nobody, you couldn't buy a showing, you know? And so 2007, it was the real estate market was, you know, dead man walking. It was, there was nobody really knew what was happening? Well, the masses, right? Some people knew, right? There was stuff going on obviously on wall street, but, the masses didn't know what was happening. Prices stayed up for awhile and they were, it was just like that, that hovering just before the, you know, you throw a ball in the air and it just kind of floats at the apex for a moment right before 2008 and then wow.
[00:04:54] Right. Who knew? Yeah. So, You we just kind of morphed with it. I've worked, I did a lot of, I helped a lot of people with short sales, we worked in foreclosures and. And then I met my current business partner in sales working in an REO house as a buyer's agent. And we started our own company, Dream Big Real Estate, and that was 2008, 2009.
[00:05:15] So from there, a couple of years later I just happened to say to my partner, you know, even though we were very busy, I said, "I really think we should launch a property management division" because at that time, my mentality was, it's a place where we can create sales listings, right?
[00:05:35] And so we did that for a few years. And, you know, the interesting thing about it was that we didn't do any marketing. It was just really word of mouth, but. The day that I mentioned that to my partner, Tim, he just said, "yeah, cool, whatever." Right. he knew I was going to probably be working on it because I had the background in it, but I didn't tell anybody.
[00:05:55] And the next day the phone rang and our first property management client just was calling out of the blue. Still have them, still work with them.
[00:06:03] And then a week later, somebody else called. And it was the same thing, and that was our second client. Still working with them as well. And the, you know, I'm not into rubbing crystals or sleeping under pyramids, but you know, you ask the universe and the universe will provide.
[00:06:19] Jason: One of the things that you mentioned, Brian, that I think's really interest is, it sounds like part of your journey, like there's this importance you've probably realized in partnerships.
[00:06:28] because you've mentioned multiple times, you know, you partner with the listing agent and then eventually you partner with Tim. And so how is finding the right partners been instrumental in your growth and your progress?
[00:06:41] Brian: Well, I will say this is that later on more recently, this year, they have broken out the property management business that was running as part of our real estate sales business. I've broken that out separately, and I'm now solo doing that. Right. Have had partners in the past, and I have found working with partners to be that there's advantages and disadvantages. Totally. It's hard to find, it's really difficult for partnerships to be successful because most people, the ego is getting in the way or, you know, there becomes a battle about, you know, who's doing what, who deserves this, who deserves that.
[00:07:24] Yeah. Personality wise, I'm kind of roll with it person, you know? I'm more of a solution oriented person. Just what we need to get from point A to point B, what's the best way to do that? What for the good of the company, not necessarily for what's best for me personally. Yeah. So I've gone through a couple of partnerships with different people, I have been able to make that work from my point of view, because.
[00:07:49] Because of my personality type, I think, but it is not for the the weak hearted, you know, I mean, it is some days are a lot harder than others.
[00:07:58] Jason: I've seen some of the most successful I've seen have really healthy partnerships in some of the worst situations I've seen where they couldn't grow because one was like an anchor, not willing to move and they had just as much decision making power and until they were able to get that partner out of the business, they weren't able to progress. So it can be a boost in the positive, but it's really difficult to find a really good match.
[00:08:24] Brian: Yeah, and that's the thing is like, I'm more of a behind the scenes person, just in general, I'm more like I can implement. I generally will have the ideas as well, but I'm the one that I'm kind of a control freak, quite frankly, and so one of my character flaws is right now that I'm trying to work on is feeling like I need to touch everything, you know, because that's that is a throttle in the business.
[00:08:48] Jason: Well, I think we all start there. Every entrepreneur starts there, so everybody listening should be able to empathize with that because you know we want to do a good job because we care. We want to look good. We care about how we look right like whatever it is. The challenge with being a control freak is trust and until we learn how to get and find people that we feel safe with, I don't think we're supposed to trust, you know. We're not supposed to just trust blindly. We need to find people that deserve to be trusted and know how to build that team. And that's probably kind of the next level, right? Is for you maybe is to build that team of people that you trust because when you get really great people, it's not hard to trust them.
[00:09:30] Yeah. But they need to match you. Like they need to be a good coach. And then it's a lot easier to trust them. And so in this journey, you split out your business and then you have a property management business. It's all yours. You're still doing real estate stuff also? You still connected to that?
[00:09:47] Brian: I am, but my mentality has shifted. It's probably been more than two years since the first time I talked to someone from your company and yet we didn't start with your company until, when was it, March this year? It was a two year lag of wrapping my mind around the philosophy of, Just making the shift, right?
[00:10:06] Because property management always for us was a, just a holding place for future sales listings. And now, it's the business. Property management's the business and sales is ancillary benefit.
[00:10:21] Jason: So what prompted that shift? How did your brain work that out eventually?
[00:10:25] Brian: I think it's a combination of a variety of things. Having now 20 plus years in the business, I've been through an up and a down and an up and a flat, right? Who knows what the next one looks like. Is it eighties, nineties, or is it two thousands downturn? Yeah. And where I am in life, right. And I mean, do I want to work forever? Just slinging, right? Do I want to be out there, you know, showing, opening doors at, you know, 68 years old?
[00:10:57] Jason: And chasing deals? Yeah.
[00:10:59] Brian: So mailbox money, right. Building a business that's sellable. Right now, or up until this point, I should say, it has been 100 percent every dollar that comes into our house is product of my labor, and that is a train coming down the track.
[00:11:19] Right. So I needed to make some changes now that would have dramatic impacts on my future. If I wanted to change what I was doing, you know.
[00:11:27] Jason: Yeah. Got it. Yeah. That switch from kind of recognizing you're kind of trading time for dollars to realizing, "Hey maybe I want to build something."
[00:11:36] I mean, it's really tempting because you close one real estate deal, that can be a lot of money, but eventually I think there's a lot of real estate agents that wake up to this, that they're like, "Hey, if real estate kind of takes a nosedive or do I want to do this forever?" Maybe not.
[00:11:52] Property management might be a really great business model.
[00:11:55] Brian: Like I said, we did our sales under under Better Homes and Gardens now, and I don't know, did I say that? Maybe in my own head. So the property management is under my own brokerage. The sales that we do, we work under Better Homes and Gardens.
[00:12:10] I, you know, Tim and I as sales agents here until this year, we've been the number one agent, like since we came here. So seven, eight years, however long it's been. I do see the changes. I have seen the changes come in and perhaps it's a little bit of you just mental scar tissue from the crash of, you know, '8, '9, '10, ' 11. Yeah. It's just, you know, because the cracks have been forming in the foundation of this real estate sales market for a few years. Right. And it's been propped up artificially by government policies. Yeah. For three, four years. Right. And so, I've been waiting for a shoe to drop quite frankly.
[00:12:51] And so two years ago a guy used to work for you, Jon. I called Jon back in like February this year. "Hey, Jon, you still working over at DoorGrow?" Jon was actually the one who said to me two years ago, two and a half years ago now, " if you do this, our expectation is that you're going to change your philosophy. You're going to be a property manager who doesn't do sales." What? That took me a while to embrace.
[00:13:17] Jason: Yeah. Yeah. Jon's a good friend of mine. We just went out to lunch recently. He's really sharp, dude. So, you know, I'm really curious, Brian, this journey from being a reporter for a while to real estate, to now shifting your identity into being a property manager, and that's the focus. How do you feel the reporter in you helps the property manager?
[00:13:44] Brian: Yeah, perfect proving ground. It's who I am is based on education, information gathering, being an advocate for consumers, right?
[00:13:56] That's what I was trained to be as a reporter and editor, as a journalist, and that just morphs perfectly into what I do now, which is to look after my client's financial well being, right? And it doesn't hurt that I tend to over explain things, right? Because that's what I do, right? Is my job is to go out and gather information and then provide it in an objective way so that people can then make the best decisions for them and their family, right? So that's being a reporter, right? It is to shine a light on the facts so that people can decide. I mean, sometimes you got to take them by the hand and lead them down the path, right, educating them along the way. Yeah, for sure.
[00:14:37] Sarah: So what was the thing that made you go, "all right, I'm finally going to do this. Like I'm going to jump on board, get involved with DoorGrow and start really focusing on this property management thing?
[00:14:49] Brian: Yeah. So earlier this year I had been kicking around, you know, you're looking at numbers, right? Kicking around the idea of "how much more time do I want to do this?"
[00:14:59] And there were some personal things that got into it too, because you start looking at relationships and your family and looking at the things that are most important in your life. And priority wise, where have they been on your list? And so I decided I wanted to make some changes and then I lost some friends and family members just in the past year.
[00:15:25] And so, one of the things that I picked up in the newspaper was Spending too much time in the office and and spending the less time seeing family and, you know, coming out of COVID and just, it's just like a combination of a lot of things all crashing together at one time.
[00:15:41] Sarah: We are under attack in our house right now.
[00:15:43] We have groceries being delivered.
[00:15:45] Jason: Dogs are going nuts.
[00:15:49] Our professional podcast, everybody, so.
[00:15:53] Brian: Anyway, so that was you know, some personal stuff came up and I decided to reevaluate. Now, in the past 10 plus years, I've been doing property management.
[00:16:04] providing a supply of say two to six listings a year and making that shift. I don't know, it was a conversation with my wife and you know, running numbers and trying to figure out like, is it even possible? And there's a transition period because what you focus on is what you get. Right. So if I start focusing a hundred percent on property management, and how is that going to affect my income for people? You know, because what I do today in sales, that's not income for 90 days. Right. So at some point you have to be able to make that transition. And so, you know, it was a bit of a leap of faith.
[00:16:42] And so, like I said, when I called Jon to ask if he was still working with you guys, then he said, no. He called me back though, but he said no, but he then referred me over to somebody. So, but making that switch, it wasn't an overnight decision by any means.
[00:16:58] I agonized over it. It was sleepless nights, some nights. But I knew that I had to do something.
[00:17:04] Jason: So, well, you took a big risk then this leap of faith and then jumped on board with DoorGrow, decided to focus on property management. You feel like you made a good choice?
[00:17:14] Brian: Yes. You don't know what you don't know. And so, I've been on a journey of learning what other people are doing, best practices, ancillary services to go along, you know, support type pieces of everything from other streams of income that are related that are, you know, not just management fees and placement fees, right?
[00:17:37] I mean, there's a variety, but it's crazy what I've implemented just in the past six months, it's just been an insane pace and now I'm like eight days away from moving to a new, property management portal, and that will be the cherry on top, really. Most of the footwork of putting the foundation together will be mostly done, and then it's digging into processes.
[00:18:02] Jason: Awesome. Yeah. So. Yeah. So you've made a lot of changes to your business and you said you've been learning it at an insane pace. So hopefully we're not making you bored with all this stuff. We've got plenty of stuff, right? It can be a bit overwhelming. We give the feedback on. So Brian, well, what's what's next for you in the future?
[00:18:25] Brian: Right now I'm just trying to continue to learn from you and I'm just focusing on growing the number of doors that we manage and creating a business that will have sustainable and continuous growth and then part of the process has been, yes, putting the tools in place and doing the things that you know, I've been advised to do to create this and grow this business.
[00:18:53] But when you start, you don't necessarily believe it, right? It truly is that leap of faith. And over time, my belief is starting to catch up with my activity. And so, you know, to go like when last week we literally hit the doubling point of when we started with you and after 10 years of just being flat from 30 to 35 units. And then now literally doubled it last week. And that's been from following your instruction, your philosophies and you know, focusing on building this business.
[00:19:30] Jason: Yeah. Well, I'm glad that the next 30 doors didn't take 10 years. That's awesome. Doubling in four months and I think things will speed up from here. So, well, I think that's a good place to end on. I think that's really awesome. So we appreciate you as a client. It's been great seeing your progress. You know, I think there's a lot of property managers out there that are like you, they come from the real estate industry. They want to get out of the hunt and the chase. Maybe they've been doing property management for even a decade, but you know, they haven't really made progress in their growth significantly in the last year or two or three or 10, you know, and and now maybe it's time, maybe it's time.
[00:20:10] So maybe some parting words, Brian, what would you say to those that like they've been watching DoorGrow for a while? What would you say to them?
[00:20:17] Brian: Don't wait. You know, where would I be if I'd started two years ago? . I think about that occasionally, and then I have to stop myself because that just takes me off track.
[00:20:26] And you get into that regret, you know, loop in your head. Like, no, I don't have time for that. I am where I'm now. And everybody is where they are now, right? And so you can either take action today or not, your results will reflect that. Yeah.
[00:20:42] Sarah: And you're exactly where you're supposed to be in that moment. I can do that to myself too. I can go back and go, "Oh, what if I did this sooner? It could be so much farther." Right. But I think that things just tend to work out the way that they're supposed to work out and things kind of line up. And I think you were prepped, right?
[00:20:59] You knew about DoorGrow. You were kind of checking it out. You weren't sure if you were going to make that jump and you did when you were ready and it paid off.
[00:21:06] Jason: Yeah. So, there's a cool book called the gap and the gain. And the idea is that it's so easy for us as entrepreneurs to focus on the gap between where we should be by now. Where our dream or what we could have done. And that's not really an effective comparison psychologically. Like that, like doesn't make us feel super great about ourselves. But what is effective though, is to look at the gain. How far have we come? And I mean, four months. You've come a long way.
[00:21:34] And so the next year, I think it's going to be really awesome for you. So I'm excited to see what you do, Brian. So thank you. All right. Thanks for coming on the DoorGrow show.
[00:21:44] Brian: Glad to be here. Thanks.
[00:21:46] Jason: Thanks again. All right. If you are a property management entrepreneur, you're wanting to grow your business.
[00:21:51] Maybe you've been sitting stagnant for a while. You haven't had significant progress in the last year, maybe the year before that you might even be a really large company and you're not making progress. I've talked to several with thousands of doors in just the last week. We just got one of them on as a client and they've been struggling to figure out how to grow and they cannot even spend any more money on ads to get any more clients.
[00:22:13] It's not working. If you want to figure out how to start moving your business forward significantly, we can easily help you add 100, 200, maybe even 300 doors in a year. And it's without wasting money or spending money on advertising. And that might sound ridiculous, but Brian's going to do it.
[00:22:29] Like we're seeing people do it all the time. So reach out, you can check us out at doorgrow. com. We would love to help you grow your business. Talk to you soon. Bye everyone.
[00:22:39] 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!
[00:23:06] 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.
We are always looking for new, revolutionary property management tools and strategies that benefit property managers, owners, tenants, and vendors.
In today’s episode, property management growth expert Jason Hull sits down with Tom and Diego from a new company called Calvary to discuss how property management entrepreneurs can improve maintenance processes at NO COST.
[01:35] Innovating in the property management industry
[08:30] Improving maintenance at no cost to the property manager
[17:26] What kinds of businesses does this work for?
[21:26] The biggest maintenance challenges
[27:28] How do I implement this?
“You show what you can do and then you build trust.”
“It all goes back to systems, SOPs, and training individuals.”
“The one piece that's not scalable in a business is depth and depth is where the magic happens.”
“If you want to scale your business, you have to do the things that are unscalable.”
[00:00:00] Tom: It's a true win for everybody. It really is.
[00:00:02] Jason: And you guys don't charge the property manager... anything?
[00:00:06] Tom: Nothing.
[00:00:08] Jason: Welcome DoorGrowers 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 DoorGrower. DoorGrower property managers love the opportunities, daily variety, unique challenges, and freedom that property management brings.
[00:00:33] 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.
[00:00:52] We want to transform the industry, eliminate the BS, build awareness, change perception, expand the market, and help the best property management entrepreneurs win. I'm your host, property management growth expert, Jason Hull, the founder and CEO of DoorGrow. Now let's get into the show.
[00:01:10] So today I'm hanging out with Tom and Diego Alatorre? All right. I got it. Sort of. All right. And Tom Van Waelem. Yes. Perfect. You guys are stressing me out with these last names, man. These are not easy. All right. So it's good to have you both on the show. So Diego and Tom have this cool idea and business called Calvary. And we'll get into that in a minute.
[00:01:34] And our topic today is how to improve maintenance processes at no cost ever. And this is something really unique. And I was like pretty surprised when they originally shared this idea with me, their business. And so we'll get into that, but first let's get into some background between the two of you, how did you get into property management?
[00:01:56] And I think this will also help, you know, qualify you to the audience. So they go, "all right. Should I trust these guys with some maintenance stuff?
[00:02:03] Diego: So actually I could go ahead and get started and tell you a little bit about my background story. Yeah. It's actually really interesting, Jason, this was looking at your podcast and I saw that you did an interview with Pete Neubig. Pete Neubig was the owner of Empire.
[00:02:21] Sorry, I'm a little bit, I'm a little bit nervous. It's the first time I'm doing a podcast. And he was talking about in your podcast that he hired four individuals, right? One of those four individuals that he hired, I was one of them. I started at the very bottom. I started as an assistant to a property manager. And from there working at Empire, I started to learn that maintenance was a very big struggle. Most issues pretty much happened because of maintenance, right? Escalations, billing problems, you name it. And from that point on I became a maintenance coordinator.
[00:02:58] I started to take a really big like at maintenance. And I started to understand and build processes and start to, you know, find solutions on how to handle maintenance. So, and it really helped me because once Empire merged with a bigger property management company, I was able to utilize those same processes, that same structure and we were able to implement it at a very big property management company that had over 9,000 homes at the time.
[00:03:30] And so after we implemented that, it really helped that company grow because we were able to rebuild the entire company you know, and scale it. Maintenance was one of those things that was hindering that company from growing and in less than two years that company went from 9,000 doors to over 18,000 homes.
[00:03:51] And so after that, first I was headhunted by a couple of property management companies that knew what I was able to do when it came to, you know, to maintenance. And so that's when I decided to start working at Austin investors, I was able to do the same exact thing, which was implement you know, the maintenance knowledge, the processes, SOPs systems, and we had a lot of success.
[00:04:18] We were able to help Austin investors grow as well, and we were able to solidify the maintenance department. It was actually during that time that I was at a conference with over 100 plus property management companies, and they were talking about their maintenance struggles and their maintenance issues and why they couldn't figure out how to handle it, you know, from you know, vendor relations growing from 100 doors to 500 doors and then how to handle maintenance, you know, once you have 1000 doors and so on. And that's when I realized that I had a lot of these answers that could help them. With these maintenance struggles, right? So after noticing those particular struggles, that's when I realized that we could help multiple property management companies, you know, and that was actually the same exact time that Tom approached me with the business proposition, and his business proposition it went very well with the idea of helping multiple property management companies. So Tom, my business partner he'll tell you a little bit more about, you know, himself and how we started our relationship. But yeah, that's
[00:05:32] pretty much it.
[00:05:33] Jason: So Tom, what did you think when you heard about some of the stuff that Diego had been accomplishing?
[00:05:39] Tom: Yeah, crazy. I mean, when I approached him, I was a roofing salesman at the time, and I was knocking door to door. There was just a big hailstorm that hit Austin and the surrounding areas. And I was knocking doors, you know, helping people get insurance involved so they don't have to pay it out of pocket.
[00:05:55] And I reached out to Diego with the hopes of, you know, landing, you know, a lot of inspections very easily without having to bother people knocking on the actual doors. So I reached out to Diego and I was like, "Hey, listen I would love to inspect all of your roofs because I believe that we can save your homeowners a lot of money just simply by inspecting them. If I find that if the homeowner doesn't want to continue, that's fine. At least the homeowner will know what the situation is with their roof."
[00:06:19] Diego said, "wow, great. I've never heard about that. Let's do it." So we did the project, inspected 600 homes myself, and then after the project, we saved homeowners a lot.
[00:06:29] We replaced about 60 or 70 roofs. So that's a lot of money that we saved because insurance claims, they have an expiration date, usually depending on the insurance company. And anyway, after that project, I reached out to Diego and I was like, "hey, what do you think? Do you think other property management companies would do this? Or are you the only one who was willing to do this? Because it was a lot of work." Right.
[00:06:52] And he was like, "yeah, I think they would, but," he said, "you're forgetting about all the other trades."
[00:06:58] I was like, "what do you mean?" I was like, "yeah, roofing is only about 10 percent of all the work orders. So you're forgetting about all this."
[00:07:06] And he said, "listen, I've been thinking about the same thing, and I believe that there's a way for us to provide excellent maintenance to all property management companies and we can figure out a way for us to do it for them for free."
[00:07:20] I was like, "well, look, if we partner with multiple property management companies, and we get so much work, we can leverage that volume with our techs. So we reduce our technicians that we work with, we reduce their marketing and sales costs, and then they give us a percentage, which is much less than the marketing and sales costs. So the vendor wins, the homeowner wins because they don't get marked up, the property management company, of course, wins because they don't have to pay for payroll, and we win.
[00:07:52] So everybody really wins. And also of course, the tenant wins because with our systems and our really well trained people. We can actually provide great service, faster and arounds and all of that.
[00:08:03] Jason: All right. So I think we need like a break sound effect. Everybody listening is like, "wait, whoa, what'd you just say?"
[00:08:10] Like, that's like, sounds crazy. Could you take us back through that and help us make this make sense? So, cause you're talking a little crazy here. Like you can make maintenance more affordable and like, and do it and it would be free for them. And so let's break down the business model. So how does this work for a property manager?
[00:08:34] Tom: All right. So when we partner with a property management company we basically. We can plug into their org chart wherever they'd like. So, for example, we work with big companies and we plug in underneath their maintenance coordinator, right? So that maintenance coordinator, they have about three, four hundred properties that they manage.
[00:08:55] We just plug in there, they become our supervisor, and we provide the maintenance coordinators, we provide the vendor network, we provide everything. So we handle the work orders from start to finish. And whoever is supervising us within the company is also the liaison with the higher up.
[00:09:13] Okay. Does that make sense? So for the smaller companies, for example, we would report to property managers. If a property manager is currently handling all of their maintenance themselves, they can just leverage our team. We have a specialized team with following the right processes. They leverage us and they just supervise us.
[00:09:31] They send us the work and they become a supervisor. It eliminates 90 percent of their work. Yeah, sure. You know, sometimes there's an escalation. It's still maintenance, but at least we can handle most of it. They get daily updates. Everything runs very smooth.
[00:09:46] Jason: Okay. So the property managers listening are like, "yeah, but how's this free?"
[00:09:50] Like explain that again, like take us through, how is it possible for this to be free? Because they know you want to make money. This is a business. Yes. So how is it free? And if it's free, then are the maintenance costs being marked up. Expressly high, right? And so this there, there's got to be a catch is what they're thinking.
[00:10:10] Tom: Yeah, so there's no catch. So the way it works is with our vendors. We send them a lot of work. That work means that they have less cost on marketing and sales department. Usually that's about 25 to 30 percent of their revenue.
[00:10:25] Jason: Yeah. So let's explain this. So like, if you're a vendor, you have to spend a lot of time trying to market.
[00:10:32] You're doing door flyers. You're like putting out mailers. You're like, they're wasting a ton of money. I get this stuff in the mail and it just goes right in the trash, right? They are going out on bids constantly trying to give quotes and none of this is making them money. This is all an expense.
[00:10:49] So they're spending like a third of their revenue just to try and get customers. Exactly. Yes, sir. Yeah, exactly. And so vendors, you're able to basically eliminate that expense.
[00:11:02] Tom: Yes, correct. We cut it more than in half.
[00:11:04] Jason: Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So that's a big savings for them. They're not having to go out on bids. They're not having to like waste time. With the property management company, they're not having to deal with a lot of headaches and garbage. They just have work. And that's really what they want to spend their time doing is just doing the work. So this sounds like a selling point for these vendors and an incentive for them to work with you over maybe other, like through you rather than directly with property managers or rather out in the marketplace with random homeowners.
[00:11:35] Tom: That is exactly.
[00:11:36] Diego: Exactly. And the really unique thing about this, Jason, is that it doesn't just save them money, right? And we don't just get you know, the flat rate or we don't just mark up. We actually save the owner's money. Why? Because these vendors, they're so happy with the amount of work that we're sending them, that they also provide the best rates in the market.
[00:12:02] Which are usually way below average. You know why? Because they want to be your number one go to technician, you know, they want you to send as much work as possible. And so they're pretty much booked up. You know, most of the vendors that we utilize, they're pretty much booked up.
[00:12:19] And so they don't want to lose that relationship with you, which, you know, allows us to get better pricing for the owners, because that means we'll continue to get more work, you know, we'll continue to get more business, which also allows the vendors that we work with to expand as well.
[00:12:37] We've had multiple vendors that started working with us in Austin and they have expanded to Houston, San Antonio, Dallas. And, you know, it's really a win scenario for everyone because vendors save money, owners save money, and property management companies don't have to pay any money when it comes to handling maintenance.
[00:12:58] You know, they just have to have someone that oversees us.
[00:13:01] Tom: And I also would like to add in terms of pricing. So for example, because we handle so much volume, we actually have access to very good priced GE appliances. So the homeowners will pay around 15 to 25 percent less on appliances. That's black on white proof. You can check our price versus the store and then also Goodman HVAC units. We have extremely good pricing on a regular unit for 2400 square foot home. We save a homeowner easily 1500 to 2,500 dollars, depending on who we compared with. But those are things that we can actually prove black and white that we say.
[00:13:42] Jason: Yeah, awesome. So they're getting better rates on maintenance. They're not having to spend any money on doing that. They get discounted rates on appliances because of your buying power and they get discounted rates on HVAC.
[00:13:57] Tom: Yes, sir. It's really a win. It's a true win for everybody. It really is. And it works.
[00:14:03] Jason: Yeah, and you guys don't charge the property manager... anything?
[00:14:09] Tom: Nothing. Nothing. No. So because we have such a efficient processes we can provide a maintenance coordinator, a maintenance manager, a regional manager, we have vendor onboarding, we have a tenant success, and quality control. We have everything in place to function as a full maintenance department. And again, we just plug in right where you want it underneath a property manager, maintenance manager, maintenance coordinator. It doesn't matter. We just report and that person becomes the liaison to the directors.
[00:14:42] Jason: Got it. So you guys can be the entire maintenance department for a small manager. If a big company already has. Some things going that they really like and some team members that they really value, then you guys can just plug in and be the pieces that they still need.
[00:14:57] Tom: Yeah, that's important to state. We don't want you to fire people.
[00:15:02] That's not our goal. What our goal is, though, is now those people who are already in place, they can focus on tenant relationships. That is word to mouth right there. Same thing with the homeowners. Now you're going to grow your business because you provide a better service and you do not have to scale as fast.
[00:15:20] So even without firing somebody, you just keep those people. They give a better service. Now you grow, but you don't have to hire as fast.
[00:15:30] Jason: The one piece that's not scalable in a business is depth and depth is where the magic happens. I always say to my clients, if you want to scale your business, you have to do the things that are unscalable and being able to spend more time talking directly with the owners, connecting with them, letting them know what's going on in maintenance, making them feel calm and that you've got things handled.
[00:15:54] Yeah. That interaction is what's going to retain those clients. I mean, the number one reason people leave property management companies and go find somebody else is communication. It's lack of communication. So you can increase the communication level significantly. So you keep these clients forever and Calvary can handle all the maintenance, correct?
[00:16:15] This sounds like such a good idea. Why has nobody thought of this before? Why is no one else doing this?
[00:16:22] Tom: Honestly, I think because it's hard. Maintenance is hard. And then not only that, yeah, I don't know if in maintenance, I guess you have to be a specific type of person, right to be able to handle that. And then you need to match that with entrepreneurship. Right. And most people, I think they have not seen the disconnect it's. Within the culture, all maintenance is handled inside the company. So I think, I don't know if like, a third company maintenance team has not come across.
[00:16:57] Also, all of our competitors, they charge. They charge. Why? Because they can. You know, we want to provide value. We don't have to charge. We can. We don't have to. Our service is worth the extra cost, but we don't want to. You know, we want the smaller companies and bigger companies just to be able to grow without an extra cost.
[00:17:17] And of course, by doing this it's smart business wise because now, you know, we can get our foot in the door more easily. So it lowers the barrier to entry.
[00:17:25] Jason: Okay. So, how small is too small of a company to work with you? Some people listening are like, "man, this sounds like a great thing. Like, I don't really like maintenance.
[00:17:34] I don't have a maintenance coordinator yet. I would love to work with them." What's too small?
[00:17:38] Tom: Honestly, I don't think there is a too small. And the reason one caveat though, if we are already active in the market.
[00:17:46] Jason: And that's the next question then is there's certain markets you mentioned, you know, around Austin, Texas, et cetera, which markets are you in currently?
[00:17:54] And what does it take for you to go into a new market? Like, so it's an option for people.
[00:18:01] Tom: So we're currently in all Texas markets. So Austin, San Antonio, Houston, Dallas, Fort Worth. We are very active in Denver, Colorado Springs. We have Tucson, Charlotte, North Carolina, Detroit. So those are the markets that we're already active in, so it's easy to just add a smaller PM company because we don't need to set up the whole vendor network right. We're constantly tackling new markets, by the way. But if we are in a market if you are a property manager looking, you're watching this and you're in a market that we are not in, we need about three weeks.
[00:18:36] Jason: Yeah. Okay. That's it. So three weeks and how many units for a new market for it to make sense for you?
[00:18:42] Tom: I think 250 would be the minimum.
[00:18:45] Jason: Yes. Okay. Yeah. Got it. All right. So a property manager in a new market, if they've got at least 250 units. That could be it. If there's smaller ones, maybe they get together with their NARPM buddies and they're like, "Hey, let's get this."
[00:18:57] And they add up to 250. That could work.
[00:19:00] Tom: Yeah. But also whenever we open a new market, for example, 250 would not be profitable for us. So then we just focus on these markets as well. So we have our sales team now has more to do.
[00:19:10] Jason: So then you start to like build that market up. Correct. Got it. And that builds up the business there and that allows you to get the discounts and do all the good juicy stuff that you guys do.
[00:19:21] All right. Okay. Got it. Okay, cool. So you guys, this product sounds like a no brainer. And so you guys must be pretty busy rolling out to new markets.
[00:19:30] Tom: Yeah, we are. I mean, we started business when Diego? On October 21st, 2022, we received our first work order and now we're in what 12 markets already.
[00:19:41] Jason: And it must you know, it sounds like Diego is a pretty sharp operator. So like the systemization of being able to do these rollouts is probably pretty tight.
[00:19:49] Tom: Oh, yeah. You go.
[00:19:51] Diego: Yeah. So it's actually one of the things that I wanted to mention, Jason cause Pete Neubig actually, you know, mentioned it in his podcast as well.
[00:19:59] It all goes back to systems, SOPs and training individuals. You know what I mean? Because. A lot of people focus on churn when it comes to owner churn or you know, tenants leaving and so on. Right. But not that many people focus on you know, your maintenance coordinator churn or your internal churn.
[00:20:20] And so that's one of the things that we like to focus on, you know, you want to train individuals correctly. You don't just want to, you know, let their hand go and roam free and figure out things on their own. You want to take time to, you know, to teach them, to train them, for them to understand the guidelines, the SOPs, the structure, so that whenever we do fit in with a new property management company,
[00:20:46] they're ready to go. They understand the business, they understand the concept, they understand what is needed of them to make that maintenance department better. Because at the end of the day, that's what we want. We want to help property management companies grow. And so we can grow alongside them. And because that's what allows us to, you know, to continue to grow.
[00:21:07] And so it all goes back to that. Yeah, exactly.
[00:21:10] Jason: So Diego, you know, having seen inside probably several lots of property management companies, maintenance issues and problems and having, you know, and being able to brilliantly do it really effectively and seeing that contrast, what are the biggest challenges that you're seeing or the biggest mistakes property managers are making when it comes to maintenance? And I think this is valuable because it helps people to understand how your brain works and how what you do at Calvary is a bit different than what they're doing.
[00:21:39] Diego: I think it's a couple of things, but let me pick the top that come to mind I would say vendor relations. Vendor relationships are so important because what ends up happening is if you tarnish vendor relationships, what ends up happening, you don't have good, reliable vendors that you can count on, you know, that will provide the best service, the best pricing possible. And so I feel like. In this industry, a lot of companies have treated vendors poorly, you know, and we notice it constantly when we go to new markets they usually mention like, "Hey, I don't want to work with a property management company." And then, you know, you ask them why, and it's usually because of that. You know, building that relationship is very important because they're part of your group, they're part of your network, and once they see that they're super, super reliable. They give you the best pricing, the best service possible, and so on. I would say that's number one.
[00:22:40] Jason: And before we move on from that one, like, this is really interesting because what we hear a lot in the industry is people complaining about their vendors. Like property managers are always complaining about their vendors saying they're the problem. They're unreliable and having such a negative perception of the vendors and they might be creating it. Like maybe the property managers are the ones creating this problem. They're like, but maybe they're not like paying them on time, or maybe they're not like being responsive in communication, or maybe they're treating them poorly if there's like an issue or a mistake or a challenge, right. Yeah. Putting them into a bidding war. Yeah. None of them want to be doing that. Right. It's a big waste of their time.
[00:23:20] Diego: Yeah. Yeah, pretty much. I'm not saying all of them, you know, all property management companies do that, but I would say most do have that, you know, that they feel like they're entitled to get the best service instead of working together to, to build that relationship, to get the best service to have reliable individuals.
[00:23:40] Jason: What's the next thing that you noticed in contrast between, you know, the property managers that are ineffective with maintenance and dealing with issues versus how you do things at Calvary?
[00:23:50] Diego: Yeah. So I think it goes back to the maintenance coordinators or property managers, right?
[00:23:56] Everybody is kind of doing their own thing. Right. So I've gone to different property management companies, and they're like, "Oh, no, I do things like this because this is the way to go. This is how I've been doing it for so long." But if you have five property managers, or if you have five maintenance coordinators.
[00:24:14] They're all doing their own thing. They're not all working as a group, you know, towards the same direction. Which goes back to the structure, it goes back to the ESO piece. And so I feel like not that many companies understand maintenance entirely and so everybody's kind of doing a little bit different things, which is not scalable, you know. You can't have five individuals working, you know, differently because then what's going to happen is you're going to have people frustrated saying, "Hey, but this person said I could do this, but now you're telling me I can't do this and so on."
[00:24:51] So I think it also goes, you know, that's one of the biggest things that I've seen going into different markets, different companies everybody's doing their own thing and so.
[00:25:01] Jason: So there's a lack of consistency and yeah, I could see how that'd be frustrating for vendors too. If like a company had like five property managers, like bugging them portfolio style and all of them are different.
[00:25:12] One of them might be a jerk to the vendors and the other one might be cool. Yeah, it could be messy.
[00:25:17] Diego: Yeah, and then last but not least, numbers, KPIs, they never lie. And so if you have maintenance service requests that are taking too long, well, tenants are going to be frustrated.
[00:25:32] Owners are also going to be frustrated. Why? Because most of the time, especially for small property management companies, the tenant has the owner's phone number most of the time, or, you know, I've seen that happen many times. So what they will do is they will reach out to the owner and they'll be like, "hey, they're lagging on this. They're not taking care of this. Hey, I'm having an issue with this." And so if you don't take care of things in a timely manner, it's always going to affect your business. I've seen where, you know, some clients they're okay with taking 14, 15 days to handle a maintenance request. And that's a big no no.
[00:26:09] You know, you want things taken care of in less than five days. That should always be the goal. If it's an emergency, you want to handle it same day, you know, or at least mitigate the issue that same day so that the tenant is happy. So that they trust in the service that you're providing, and that will allow you to, you know, to dictate how you run your maintenance department and how tenants are trustworthy of your services.
[00:26:36] And then, of course, you know, owners are also going to be happy with the services that you're providing, since you're not going to have that many escalations, that many issues, or that many problems that surface.
[00:26:46] Jason: So, yeah, it seems like kind of a snowball effect that when you start to be inconsistent, you don't have a quick enough turnaround time on maintenance.
[00:26:54] You've got, you know, all these challenges that it starts to then. Turn it into escalations, more conversations, owners might even be getting involved. And so it starts to get messy. And that complexity then takes over the business because then something that should have taken maybe an hour is now taking three hours of manpower and time in the business.
[00:27:16] And so then it's like the business owner is trying to run a race and they're shooting themselves in the feet, right? So things are just like snowballing and getting worse and worse. And then they're like, this is chaos. This is crazy. Yeah. So, all right. So those that are dealing with these challenges, they're like, maintenance is tough, like vendors are tough.
[00:27:35] Like all of these are problems and they don't have all this stuff dialed in. Or maybe they've got things pretty well dialed in, but they're like, "Hey man, maybe I could save some money on. You know, team, or I could just improve and get my team focused on higher level tasks of like communicating with people, more depth and retaining clients longer."
[00:27:53] What. What would be the first step? How do they connect with you?
[00:27:57] Diego: So they can pretty much, you know, reach out. We could set up a meeting where we can go ahead and explain, you know, go a little bit further in depth with their particular property management company, you know, how many homes they have and so on.
[00:28:12] And then if they do sign up with us, in 7 days, we'll have a plan ready to go for them that will dictate exactly, you know, what is needed and what we're going to be implementing within those 7 days so that we're ready to hit the ground running.
[00:28:26] Jason: Yeah, that's pretty awesome. And so what's kind of the onboarding process like, like for those that would be getting started? What would, what's sort of the experience?
[00:28:36] Tom: So we have a two week process. So it starts by sending over the contract so they can read it over.
[00:28:42] It starts by also getting all of the data of the current of the units they currently have, their history, the history of the work orders. Also, their current vendors are very important. We understand that property management companies, most of them have already built solid relationships with those vendors.
[00:28:59] We don't want them to push them out. No, actually what we're going to do is we're going to contact those vendors. We're going to propose our proposal. And we're going to tell them like, "Hey, you will get more work, you know, by also getting work from other property management companies." So, yes, so we can use the same vendors as well.
[00:29:18] So we collect all of the data, then we analyze the data. We implement everything into our software. There's something we actually haven't touched on, but we have found that Rentvine is a really, I mean, the best software out there. And we're also providing that for free to our clients. So we can I mean, we can work with any software, but if we do not have one, we can work with Rentvine.
[00:29:44] Anyway, so that is also part of that onboarding process. Maybe it's like, "okay what software do you use? Do you want to switch to Rentvine?" And then over the second week, we start implementing. We have a few meetings where we discuss all the final, like who like the communication with the billing department.
[00:30:01] Who's going to take care of that? Is that going to be the liaison? Is that going to be somebody of ours? So, yeah, it's a two week process. We have everything dialed down from a launch date, minus 14 days to launch date.
[00:30:13] Jason: And the reason you like Rentvine, do they have a pretty good maintenance system?
[00:30:18] Tom: Yeah, the communication is excellent.
[00:30:21] The communication can be logged with timestamps, but more importantly as well, it aligns very well with bookkeeping. The bookkeeping is really solid in there and it just works.
[00:30:32] Jason: So, what about those that have different maintenance tools, like maybe they've been using Latchel and they've got them handling the phones, or maybe they've been using Property Meld and they're using that text based communication system, these things that they need to keep, are these things that you would work with?
[00:30:49] Like this sends a whole nother level of complexity I would imagine to your business.
[00:30:54] Tom: Yeah, no, it actually, I mean, it works. So we started, so to get our foot in the door in the industry, we actually started as a vendor, right? So we, our systems work with any software. So it does work. It adds complexity, yes. But if we assign a certain maintenance coordinator to a certain account, they get used to that very fast. So it does work.
[00:31:15] Jason: Got it. So you can work with whatever tools that they do have. And if not, you've got some good ideas for them to get their maintenance systems dialed in well.
[00:31:24] Tom: Correct.
[00:31:24] Diego: Yeah. Correct. And then, so that actually brings up a really good topic. So we can help them save money because most property management companies, they utilize, for example, Property Meld. Right. And that's an external tool to their actual software, which is usually Appfolio. And so they usually pay extra for per property for Property Meld, if they switch over to Rentvine instead of Property Meld, then we pay for that and it's, you know, it's completely free for them. So that means they save money there as well and pretty much Rentvine can do what Property Meld does. And one of the reasons why people choose Property Meld is because of the communication and Rentvine has a very good communication factor built into it. But it goes a little bit further when it comes to the, like, Tom mentioned the billing processes, because vendors can go ahead and submit the bills there and you can break down all of the information there, which fits in perfectly to the tool that the property manager is using.
[00:32:27] So it allows us to have a very robust system that allows property managers, you know, to save money by choosing to work with us.
[00:32:35] Tom: So. Yeah.
[00:32:37] Jason: The more you share, the more stupid people might feel for not working with you.
[00:32:43] Tom: I have one more, 24- 7 maintenance. Okay. Say that again. 24- 7 maintenance.
[00:32:49] So rather than paying an external company for a call center to, you know, receive phone calls from tenants. Yeah, we actually have a night crew that will pick up the phone and also dispatch those work orders for work orders, of course, that are dispatchable at night, right? For certain emergencies. So we have a team working around the clock.
[00:33:10] The night team is a little bit smaller, but it's around the clock.
[00:33:13] Jason: That's amazing. So, yeah, because I know there's companies that are using Appfolio, they're using Property Meld, they're using maybe Latchel or EZ Repair H otline or something to do the calls. And these are all stacking as expenses in the business.
[00:33:30] And then they're also having to coordinate all of the maintenance and go and source and find all the vendors. And you're saying, "we'll just take over all of this for you and it'll not cost you anything." Exactly. It worked. It worked. So, all right. So, a lot of people might be thinking this sounds too good to be true.
[00:33:51] So let's say I sign up with these guys and I switch all my stuff over to using them and then I don't like it or there's something like they're afraid, right? This is their fear. And I've given everything to them. Are they going to have some benefits still? Like, will they have better processes?
[00:34:09] Will they know what's going on? Like, like how do we lower this risk for those that are like concerned about handing over a piece of their business to somebody else and then what if it isn't good? Like, that's their fear.
[00:34:23] Tom: Yeah. So, part of our marketing strategy and part of our vision and mission is to share all of our information.
[00:34:30] So, we're not going to keep everything to ourselves. We're actually in the process of writing a book, which will be finished very soon, on how we actually do the maintenance. So, it's one thing saying, "oh, we know how to do it." It's another thing showing it and that's what we're going to do. So we have the processes, we can share that with the teams, you know, if we're hopping on a call, we can share what that is, but also to make it available to the public, we've written a book, it's almost finished, which holds all of our processes in a story form, which then is connected to presentations and actually implementable knowledge. So if they don't want to work with us, fine. We will still teach you how to do it. That also means that, you know...
[00:35:11] Jason: like you're open sourcing your product.
[00:35:14] Tom: It is the 2023 way of marketing, right? You show what you can do and then you build trust. So, but that's really, and you know, it's also to help people. Many property management companies might not want to do this and that's totally fine, you know, but we can still help those people.
[00:35:31] Jason: Cool Well, I mean if things go well for you guys, which sounds like it will because it's a pretty sharp product If there might be the day when people are wanting Calvary doing the maintenance and not local property managers handling it.
[00:35:46] So that's our vision. Awesome guys. I think this sounds like a no brainer. It sounds like a really awesome product. I'm really excited to see what you guys do. And I'm sure there's several that are interested in just once they hear this podcast episode, they'll be interested in giving you guys a shot.because maintenance is one of the biggest complaints we hear about in the industry. It's usually the first big challenge they all need to solve. And it sounds like you guys have got the product where it's solved and they can just get some Calvary and everything's going to be better. So, yeah.
[00:36:19] Tom: So our website is cavalry.works. That is cavalry, C A V A L R Y dot W O R K S, because cavalry works.
[00:36:29] Jason: Got it. Okay, cool. So check it out, everybody. So anything else you want to say before we end the show today?
[00:36:37] Tom: Yeah. Thank you for the opportunity to come and present us. It was our first podcast. I hope we did a good job.
[00:36:43] Jason: Diego's camera's a little crazy, but it kept us on our toes. So I'm really impressed with you two. I know we met earlier and chatted and I was like this like, it sounds like such a crazy good business model. And I think it's possible because of the expertise that you both have and that you're able to bring to the table and excited to see about that.
[00:37:05] When that book comes out, maybe we'll have you come on again and plug that book. That'd be really cool. And then man, Diego, I'd love to have you come and maybe present to some of our clients in our mastermind, just about maintenance because everybody has this challenge and I think it'd be really cool.
[00:37:20] So. All right. Well, looking forward to hanging out a little bit more with y'all and seeing what you guys accomplished. So, thanks for being on the DoorGrow show.
[00:37:30] Thank you, Jason.
[00:37:32] All right. Cool. So if you are a property management entrepreneur that wants to add doors, grow your business and you are struggling with getting more business and getting more doors, we can help you with that.
[00:37:45] And we are really good at helping people grow. One of our clients, brand new, zero doors went through our rapid revamp class that we teach in our mastermind had zero doors and then after we cleaned up to the front end of his business, he started working on adding doors part time, like maybe 2 to 3 hours a day and then he was able to add and break the hundred door barrier. He was able to add a hundred doors in six months, and he was doing this part time. That would be impossible with advertising. That would be impossible with going and buying cold leads from doing SEO or pay per click or content marketing or social media marketing.
[00:38:22] We gave him the right strategies. He went and took action. And he spent less time doing it than most people do. And he was able to add than most people do trying to grow their business. He was able to add a hundred doors in six months. That was what our client, Kent, who we just recently had on our podcast episode.
[00:38:39] And if Kent can do it, you can do it too. And our clients can add a hundred to 200 doors every year, organically, just by using our strategies. If you have a really good full time BDM, we can help you add two to four hundred doors a year, organically. And then, we can also get you the right processes, and the right systems and things dialed in, so that you can become infinitely scalable, and then you can start to do acquisitions.
[00:39:06] And you will make a lot more money off their doors, than the person you're buying them from was. So anyway, reach out to us at DoorGrow. You can check us out at DoorGrow. com and join our free Facebook group. You can get access to that. We have some free gifts for you by joining our community, go to DoorGrow club. com. This is just for property management, entrepreneurs, property management, business owners. Join that community. If you're starting a property management company, join that community. If you have an established company, join that community. People are helping people out in that group. It's an awesome community.
[00:39:37] And our hope is that you will get so much value from the free stuff that we put out there and from our free content and our podcasts that you will want to join our mastermind, get beyond the paywall and see the amazing stuff that we're helping companies do and be part of an even more amazing community, our mastermind.
[00:39:56] So until next time, to our mutual growth. Bye everyone.
[00:39:59] 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!
[00:40:25] 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 been looking for ways to improve your owners’ experiences as property management clients?
In this episode, property management growth experts Jason and Sarah Hull sit down with Matthew Kaddatz from Appfolio to talk about elevating the owner experience in property management.
[01:35] Getting started in the property management industry
[05:18] Improving relationships with owners and investors
[10:24] What does your ideal client look like?
[18:31] Why you get stuck doing things you hate
[26:25] How elevating the owner experience helps you
“Once property management gets you, you're stuck. You're not going anywhere.”
“I think one of the biggest mistakes property managers make by not having clarity on who their ideal customer is they try to get everybody.”
“‘No’ is often better than ‘yes’ if you're being careful and focused.”
“I don't think that you can really figure out a lot about your clients and what they truly want, what's really important to them, if you're unclear on what you truly want.”
[00:00:00] Jason: I think one of the biggest mistakes property managers make by not having clarity on who their ideal customer is, is they try to get everybody. Then they're taking on a lot of accidental investors and they churn out like after a year.
[00:00:12] Welcome DoorGrowers 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 DoorGrower.
[00:00:28] DoorGrower 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. 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, my wife, co-owner and COO of DoorGrow.
[00:01:11] Now let's get into the show. All right. Today's guest. We have Matthew Kaddatz from Appfolio. So Matthew, welcome to the show.
[00:01:22] Matthew: Yeah. Thanks for having me excited to be here.
[00:01:25] Jason: So we have not yet had somebody from AppFolio, but we have a ton of clients that use AppFolio and we've heard great things about it. The perception has always been, it's the Mac of the property management software out there.
[00:01:37] So, Matthew, why don't you tell our listeners a little bit about you? How did you get into property management into this industry? And and you know, what do you do at Appfolio?
[00:01:48] Matthew: Yeah. So, I've been in property management pretty much my whole professional career. I studied computer science in college, realized I didn't want to be behind a computer all day and knew some developers developing some land, and they were looking to turn over the management and there weren't a lot of local operators. And I was like, "Oh, I could do it." You know, naive, 22, and 2006, right? So that all thought the best way to make money is real estate. It's 2006, everyone was making money right at the brothiest point in the industry.
[00:02:23] And I went down and started the property management company. These developers were my first contract and I ended up really liking the business, building the business. I grew it in the local area, did property management, community association management, a little bit of short term rentals, small, little, mostly second home market. And had a fun time growing it. Ultimately, I ended up selling it to an outfit out of Texas called Associa, and was looking to do something else and found my way to AppFolio.
[00:02:58] Jason: All right. Now you are then, based on the numbers you shared, you're about to hit the big 4-0, right?
[00:03:05] I am. And did you ever think as a kid when you turned 40 someday that you're going to be doing property management stuff?
[00:03:13] Matthew: No, never. Even when I sold my business, I stayed around for two years and was looking for something else. I looked hard to get out of the industry. I wanted something different and the furthest I could get was a technology company that provides software for the industry.
[00:03:31] And you know, I joke around once property management gets you, you're stuck. You're not going anywhere else.
[00:03:37] Jason: You know, a lot of property managers joke about it and they complain and they throw out memes like about drinking wine is solving their problems, you know, and stuff like this. But I fell in love with the industry because I love how, 1. MRR is a beautiful business model. Yes. It's monthly residual revenue, right? It's the ultimate business recurring revenue, monthly recurring revenue. And I love the residual income of a coaching business and property management is similar.
[00:04:07] And so what I love about the property management industry is that it is it's similar to me, right? The people that I get to serve and they're my people. They're a little bit nerdy sometimes. They tend to like technology to some degree, or they have to at least use it. And they they're entrepreneurial and they're not just the sales oriented person that's just hunting and chasing the next deal they want to build. That recurring revenue.
[00:04:35] Matthew: You know, the SAS business model, like technology, like AppFolio is very similar as well. The parallels and just how we think about our customers and how our customers think about their customers are wildly similar, which I think gives us some insight into just how to build great software.
[00:04:54] But I too am obviously attracted to the business model. It's a really good business model. You're not always hunting for that big fish to get or whatnot. You have predictable revenue and that gives you some comfort to take a step back and kind of think about what I truly love is like strategic priorities.
[00:05:16] Jason: Yeah, it creates some stability. So the topic we're going to get into today is elevating the owner experience. And so, where should we start with this?
[00:05:27] Matthew: Yeah, good question. So I've been my job at AppFolio is to really focus on small business property managers and make sure we're building product for them. And I've been doing this for two and a half, almost three years now here. I've had other jobs AppFolio, but this recent gig has been really focused on the small business property managers and you know, six to eight months into the job, I realized the owner of the property is just so fundamental to how the SMB industry works, which is less true as you go high up market into like large multifamily. The relationship between the property manager and the property owner is just so important, and I think really understanding that dynamic from my perspective, like helped us think through how we're going to innovate and build software to make those relationships better to leverage software. But what got me more excited was just learning how great property managers think about this, how they think about acquiring these people, how they think about onboarding these people, how they think about retaining these owners and how the group of property owners, it's not a homogenous group, right? Like there are different subsets.
[00:06:50] A person who owns five four plexes is going to think and operate different than a person who had to leave town for work and is giving their house over to property manager because they had to leave town for work for a period of time. So just understanding the dynamics there is really important.
[00:07:13] And the great property managers, I think do that well, but it's amazing how many people don't think carefully about who their clients are, what their interests are and how diverse they can be.
[00:07:24] Jason: What do you think are some of the most common mistakes people are making? In the small business category with their owners?
[00:07:32] Matthew: I think they're pushing to either one of two polarizing extremes, right? Like one size fits all, my services must fit for everyone in which like they don't because it's not a homogenous group or, I will be everything to everyone which doesn't scale. And that's probably the more dangerous thing. I think property management tends to attract people great at customer service who like to say yes and hate to say no, and it's hard to not be every thing to everyone. If that's just sort of your disposition that got you to be very successful at providing great customer service, you can't grow a business that way.
[00:08:15] You can't scale a business that way. Once you have to hire people to manage owner relationships.
[00:08:20] Jason: Yeah, we see these problems as well. The one size fits all usually relates very simply to how property managers are pricing. Like everybody's like, "we'll just charge 10 percent or we'll just charge a flat fee."
[00:08:32] And one of the things that we teach is this three tier hybrid pricing model where you're focused that psychologically on at least three different types of buyers based on their motivation or based on their pain psychologically so that it's not just one size fits all. It's tailored towards the pain threshold when it comes to spending and it's tailored towards, you know, the level of service or safety and certainty when it comes to like what they're hoping to spend money on.
[00:08:58] And so that's really interesting. And then you mentioned: don't be everything to everyone. So I have this slide and one of my slides in my pitch deck says "you're not Burger King." " your way right away," right? And so "don't be Burger King" is what it says. So, and the opposite is like to be the lighthouse, right?
[00:09:16] The lighthouse is guides, but it doesn't move, right? It has boundaries and standards.
[00:09:22] Matthew: Yeah. So many great operators have done too much of everything to everyone and they get to what, 300 ish units and they can't figure out how to get beyond. They just can't figure out how to scale because. It actually costs a bit of money to go from 300 to 600 units.
[00:09:40] You have to like reorganize a bit.
[00:09:42] Jason: That's funny. We call the stage between two to 400 units, the second sand trap.
[00:09:49] Matthew: Yeah.
[00:09:49] Jason: Interesting. It's basically the swamp of success. We call it the team sand trap because usually it's because staffing costs are so high at this stage, they end up stuck and it's usually they think they need more processes.
[00:10:02] But what they actually need are better team members.
[00:10:04] Matthew: Yeah, and I would argue higher degree of focus. Yeah, the way I like think about my customers is I get very clear on who they are and what they care about. So, you know, AppFolio is a large company.
[00:10:19] We have lots of customers and as much as we'd love them to be homogenous, like all the same property managers are very diverse group of small businesses. So it's really important for me to understand the profile of business that I'm solving for what type of product and service are we building for that specific profile? So much so that I want to be so intimate with that profile of customer that if I meet them, it's easy for me to have a conversation with them. I know what their common pains and challenges are. I know what they care about. Like I could talk to them for two hours and they were like, "Oh, it felt like I've known you forever." That's how like close I want to understand their types of businesses.
[00:11:04] And I think that's similar for property managers as they reach out to different types of owners. So you have accidental landlords that care about something very different than an like mom and pop investor that's trying to grow a real estate portfolio. And depending on your market might depend on which one of those or both of those you focus on.
[00:11:26] But having a degree of focus and on that specific buyer or owner that you fit best for is really important to scale because then you can build systems and processes around that. You can build what you mentioned earlier, pricing and packaging around those people. And you're not trying to do everything for everyone.
[00:11:49] You're focused on solving the needs of. A specific like group of people. They, I think it's Seth Godin who talks about a thousand true fans. And I think his point is to be very successful in life, you just need to have a thousand people that really love what you're doing and want to pay you to keep doing it.
[00:12:09] You think about it, like people are looking for massive scale, but you can actually have an incredibly successful business just by solving the needs of a thousand people.
[00:12:19] Jason: So when you said be everything to everyone, I was immediately thinking, "Oh yeah, some property managers just like are doormats."
[00:12:25] They're trying to do everything. What you're talking about, I think is also super powerful, which is this, having this, a higher degree of focus, which you said. And I was thinking we'll focus on what, right? And you're talking about like really getting clear on their avatar, like really getting clear on who they want, what their ideal customer looks like.
[00:12:42] Sarah does a lot of work right now with our clients in our rapid revamp program, focusing specifically on this.
[00:12:49] Sarah: Well, I think one of the things we do and actually we're going to be getting into that in a couple of weeks right now, what we're focused on is figuring out their why and their business why.
[00:12:59] And I don't think that you can really figure out a lot about your clients and what they truly want, what's really important to them, if you're unclear on what you truly want. It's like that saying, like if you can't love yourself, you also can't love another person, so don't get into a relationship. It's kind of like that.
[00:13:20] So if you're unclear about what you're doing and why you're doing it. And why... the big thing is, why does it even matter? Then if you can't answer that question and feel really solid in that answer, then you're never going to be able to figure that out about other people either. Because if you can't start with yourself you're never really going to absorb the information the way that you need to in order to create a really powerful relationship with a client.
[00:13:47] Jason: Yeah. Powerful. If you get into a relationship with somebody and they have more clarity on what they want than you do, they win. Totally. You are giving up what you want because you just never got clear enough on it. We all have things we want. It's built into us. Like we have desires. But a lot of us aren't willing to just want things like the, a book I read recently on 10x is easier than 2x kind of talks about this a little bit on the audio book.
[00:14:15] They were talking about wanting and how important it is to want, but society, religion, everything kind of conditions us that, "well, you don't need that." And that's what we always hear. "You don't need that. What do you need that for? What do you need that for? Why do you need a house?"
[00:14:29] Matthew: You know, I think about what I've noticed is a common theme of the skills that got you here aren't going to get you there. And, what I mean by that is like a lot of people do fall into property management by accident.
[00:14:42] Yes. Yeah. I, for one, can definitely relate to building a business that tried to do everything for everyone. And that helped me get a foothold into the market. It helped me build a reputation of a doer. I was really successful at creating customers who really liked me. But I sold the business before I ever learned to scale it.
[00:15:04] Effectively. I've learned those scaling skills working in a software company but I've had to go from highly successful doer to slowing down, thinking strategically, getting to the why and being careful about choices and realizing like "no" is often better than "yes" if you're being careful and focused.
[00:15:28] And I think that set of skills is, at least for me, it was incredibly hard to go from doer to strategy is kind of how I talk about it or think about it. And that is how you get a business from working very successfully, but working 60 hours a week to growing. And maybe you're still working 60 hours a week, but you're not unclogging a toilet because you can't get ahold of a maintenance person and you have a plunger in the back of your truck or whatever, you know, you're building systems and procedures to allow things to grow sustainably.
[00:16:09] Jason: Yeah, there's a really good book. We've had the author on the show and he's spoken to one of our conferences.
[00:16:14] Mike Michalowicz wrote a book called The Pumpkin Plan in which he talks about this analogy of growing a business is akin to like growing prize winning pumpkins in a pumpkin patch. One of the principles is it's impossible to grow the business that you want if you plant the wrong seed. You cannot grow a prize winning pumpkin if you plant a pumpkin pie pumpkin for example. It's just not going to be big enough. Right? And I think you'd mentioned accidental investors. I think one of the biggest mistakes property managers make by not having clarity on who their ideal customer is they try to get everybody. Then they're taking on a lot of accidental investors and they churn out like after a year.
[00:16:52] Right. And churn is it's impossible to outpace with adding more doors and growth, a bad churn rate. That's really a grind. Like that's brutal and painful. And it actually takes less work to work with 10 year buy and hold investors, less work to convince them to use you, less work to do stuff versus you know, working with accidental investors.
[00:17:14] And so if a business builds a business off of the back of accidental investors, they're building a business that has a high churn rate, the MRR model gets destroyed, and it's a grind, and their business will more likely fail or stay stagnant for years.
[00:17:31] Matthew: That makes total sense. What I think about too is like, how do I build software tools that help the property managers elevate the conversations they're having with their intentional investors, mom and pop investors, or how do they convert an accidental investor into a more active investor? Like How do we help them show property performance and move the conversation beyond the like three bids we got for the last maintenance issue to what's the overall longterm value of this property and what type of return should it produce? And what's your ideal investment, what types of returns are you looking for? Does this asset actually fit what you're looking for? because property managers, they could underwrite markets better than anyone else can in terms of property investment.
[00:18:30] Jason: And I think they're connected to reality. You know what actually works and they know which things need to be improved or change on a property to get the best rent rate. They like, they know all this. They're the best equipped to handle investors, period.
[00:18:44] Matthew: And they're stuck having these, like, what arguably are low level, like not important conversations around, "do we like this maintenance bid or that maintenance bid or like the tenant paid three days late. Are you sure we should renew the lease?" Like, like stuff that's like fairly insignificant for the overall, like performance of the assets.
[00:19:06] Jason: Yeah. Yeah. I agree. Like big focus on the minuscule things that really aren't that significant or that important. And a lot of times it's, they've just set up a relationship that involves way too much communication. Just unnecessary and irrelevant. And then I think that's just has goes to setting boundaries. I mean, Sarah was able to set amazing boundaries when she ran her property management company, like her stats and metrics were ridiculous from what I've seen inside thousands of property management companies.
[00:19:37] And so, I mean, she had like 60 percent profit margin, 260 doors, C class properties and ran it remotely part time with one part time person boots on the ground. Like it's insane. And then we see clients that are like the complete opposite. They're like working like a dog with 50 units and like stuck in the first sand trap.
[00:19:57] Sarah: I hear them say like, "I have 37 and I work like 58 hours a week." I don't even know what you're doing. What are you doing? How?
[00:20:03] Matthew: I can relate to that.
[00:20:05] Sarah: I don't understand what you're doing. I don't get it.
[00:20:08] Jason: The testament to having a really sharp operator in a business. She makes us a lot more efficient. So, so how does Appfolio help with all of this?
[00:20:17] So you've mentioned you know, having some clarity on the customer and, you know, getting clear on who you want. How is Appfolio software facilitating these owner relationships?
[00:20:29] Matthew: Yeah, our main channel is the owner portal that we have, right? That's the main channel that we can build technology in that allow property managers to communicate better with their owners.
[00:20:44] So we've been making a lot of investments to bring property performance into the owner portal in and visualize it via dashboards to give more insight to the property owner about how the property is performing. I think the first problem that we solved rather successfully based upon customer feedback is how can I get data to my owners so they stop calling me about things that are low value and relatively trivial?
[00:21:16] So like getting all of that, like did they pay their rent on time? Approving maintenance work orders, like simple things that most of the time can be just a click of a button and happen via technology that's been like, now we're looking at like, what are other ways we can help visualize the performance of the property so that property managers can, if they want, have what I would call like a more asset management conversation as opposed to a like operational conversation.
[00:21:49] What I believe is going to continue to be true is there's going to be more consolidation of single family, and there's going to be less accidental landlords over time and more people that are actually looking for real returns on their assets. And so property managers are going to have to learn how to have asset management type conversations which talk about cash on cash return, IRR, those types of things that might sound intimidating.
[00:22:22] They're really not that complicated if you spend some time learning them. We basically want to empower our customers to have those conversations easier and try to be thought leaders for the real estate investing space, which they serve and typically are their best customers.
[00:22:40] Jason: Yeah, I love that.
[00:22:42] Sarah: So the, I feel like our ROI calculator does a really good job of that. And that's something that's new. So most people have no idea what that is. because we just rolled it out. But we gave early access to some people who had attended an in person event last month with with us. And they all really loved it.
[00:23:02] But what I think I like the most about it is a lot of property managers, they have great knowledge. They have great understanding and they have great data. Sometimes, not all the time, but sometimes there's a little bit of a gap. When an investor or there's a little bit of an like just the clench, right?
[00:23:20] When an investor, like a really savvy investor calls, any property management owner and says, "Hey, you know, I'm looking for, you know, properties with X cap rate," or, you know, I'm, you know, looking to get this kind of right. And sometimes they're like, "Oh, I don't know how to approach this conversation. I just don't. Maybe I know some of the data and I just don't have all of the data. But I think our ROI calculator really helps with that because it kind of breaks down. You just enter it and it's really easy. You can get it from the MLS. So literally anyone can do it. You just, you don't even have to be a real estate agent. You just pull the data from the MLS. And there are certain things you might need a property manager's guidance on things like, you know, how much might the rehab take and how much is market rent for this property or this area.
[00:24:11] And from there, it'll show you, you know, does this property cash flow well? And what kind of tax benefits do you get from owning and holding the property? Because everyone, I think when they think about real estate investing, they think, Oh, it's cash flow. It's not always about the cash flow. There's so many other ways to actually make money in real estate.
[00:24:37] And cash flow is a small little chunk of the pie. So I think the ROI calculator really helps empower property managers to have these really great deep conversations with realtors and with investors and do so confidently, not just, "Oh, well, I think this will be a good property to invest in, or I feel like this is probably a good..."
[00:25:03] We know because now we have the data and now it just comes down to: do the numbers work or not?
[00:25:10] Matthew: Yeah. What you're talking about sounds really familiar to what I call like underwriting. And that's really common in multifamily. Every single multifamily operator or investor underwrites a property before acquisition so that they have a pro forma.
[00:25:28] They know how it's going to operate and that will happen more in single family over time. It's just been such a fragmented market that is less mature, but the returns and yields are higher. And that's why you have invitation homes and other big, large owners that own nationally in this single family space, because if you can figure out how to buy in a market that's working, has the right fundamentals and is working, can get quite a good return. And so, yeah my belief is everyone in this space needs to learn how to have these conversations. And our part is to build as much technology as we can to make it easier for people to navigate.
[00:26:16] What I view is a world that will continue to change and mature and get more sophisticated over time.
[00:26:25] Jason: Well, love it. I think to wrap this up, I think it's really an interesting thought to, you know, when people are picking property management software, I don't think the owner portal is at the top of their list.
[00:26:36] I don't think it's their main focus. They're like, "how is this for me? How is this for me?" Instead of the person that's going to pay them, you know? And so I think this is an interesting take or an interesting concept that Appfolio is placing some attention to focus on. You know, optimizing the owner portal and maybe innovating there to improve the owner's experience, which in turn will benefit the property manager and hopefully help them retain clients longer or showcase the value maybe depending on how you develop it, even convince accidentals to turn into buy and hold long term investors, you know, like, because they can see some numbers and some stats and go, "why would I like give this up?"
[00:27:14] But I think it's an interesting concept and And it also adds some validation to our ROI calculator that we brought to the industry to, so, well, Matthew, it's been great having you on the show. How can people find out more about Appfolio and any parting words for our listeners?
[00:27:29] Matthew: Yeah, go to our website. I'm also pretty available on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn. So look me up. Hopefully my name's in the show notes, Matthew Kaddatz at appfolio.com is where we got. I love having conversations with property managers about just what they're experiencing in the business. So always happy to have a conversation with anyone.
[00:27:50] Thank you both for your time. Really appreciated the conversation. Excited what you guys are up to. Sounds like there's some overlap and parallel, which is always a good thing.
[00:27:59] Jason: Well, awesome. Great having you on the show. Thanks Matthew for being here. All right. So if you are a property management entrepreneur, you're wanting to grow your business and you are interested in that ROI calculator that Sarah mentioned, make sure to reach out.
[00:28:13] Sarah: It's live now so everyone can get it.
[00:28:16] Jason: So basically it'll show the the ROI on a property, so they can contrast this to like investing in stock or anything else and generally the property is going to win, right? You know, on almost anything. There's no way people can get these kind of returns if they invest. And tax benefits. The tax benefits.
[00:28:35] Sarah: The tax benefits, like this is where it's at people, the tax benefits. And the nice thing, I will also plug this too, is it shows you on a particular property, if you were to buy it cash versus if you were to finance it because sometimes one or the other like totally wrecks the deal Or sometimes one or the other you're like, "well, this is what I want. This is what i'm really looking for tax benefit wise or cash flow wise." Well, okay, then if that's what you're looking for now, I know as a property manager or as a real estate agent. Now, I know which way does the deal make more sense for you? Because perhaps it doesn't make sense if you buy in cash, if you're looking for cash flow or vice versa, right?
[00:29:17] So it kind of gives you the, you know, here's if you do it this way, this is what it looks like. And if you do it this way, this is what it looks like. And it shows you the benefits of both really of both on one report. And it's it's really great. I think it makes it I think it's streamlined everything that make things super simple and it makes these I think one of the big problems really is there are some investors that know how to do this.
[00:29:43] Like we, we talk to them sometimes and they can just, they spit out. They're like, "Oh, I know based off of this data, this is how the taxes would work." But I would say the majority of people, they aren't as familiar with the tax code because it's not a very interesting read. So if they're not as familiar with the tax code, they might not look at it through that lens, or they might miss something.
[00:30:10] This is really nice because it will show you exactly, you know, here's all of the tax benefits, and here's actually what it looks like on this particular property with these particular numbers. Yeah.
[00:30:20] Jason: So special shout out to John Chin for working closely with me on developing this. He has a certification for real estate agents to become investor savvy, all the certified residential investment specialists or Chris.
[00:30:34] So, you know, check that out. And we, I work closely with John for months developing this tool and getting it to work in a certain way that it outputs a nice, pretty PDF. And what's really magical about this is that this is a lead generation tool so that you can provide these documents to on each property.
[00:30:56] You can provide an assessment for real estate agents, and it's branded with your brand and you can give this to real estate agents. They will come and fill out a form and submit a property so that they can get this. You will give it to them. You can create a video about it and send them the video and this document.
[00:31:13] We have give you a script for this as well, and you then have this tool or this resource and they're giving it to their investors, the investors. It's already got property management factored in as part of the investment strategy. And so it's part of the conversation. It's an assumed given thing. So this allows you to get property management clients is the bottom line.
[00:31:34] This is why we developed this for our clients to help them grow faster. And our clients are loving having conversations around this. Yeah.
[00:31:41] Sarah: And they're like, "I'm going to plug this on my website. That way I can just get all this traffic on my website. I can get people right there. Easily accessible. I can promote it right from there. The data goes right to them." It's fantastic.
[00:31:51] Jason: Yeah. This allows you to help real estate agents look smart and look good with investments because most really aren't that good with investments. They aren't familiar. A lot of real estate agents don't even have a single investment. And so 50 percent real estate agents didn't even do a deal last year.
[00:32:05] So let alone with an investor, right? So this allows you to help some of them become more investor savvy and feed you more deals as a property manager. So pretty awesome. So anyway, reach out to us at doorgrow.Com to get access to the ROI calculator. And I guarantee it's going to make you a lot of money if you use it effectively.
[00:32:23] All right. So that's it for today until next time to our mutual growth. Bye everyone.
[00:32:29] 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!
[00:32:56] 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.
Kent Hardman is a property management entrepreneur who took his property management company from zero to over 120 doors in less than a year!
In this episode, property management growth experts Jason and Sarah Hull sit down with Kent to talk about the mindset changes and routines he implemented to kickstart and grow his property management company.
[04:51] How your personal life impacts your business
[08:23] Shifting your mindset toward growth
[17:44] 10x-ing your business
[24:48] Changing your life and business
“Self-care is the foundation. You’ve got to start there. Put your own oxygen mask on first.”
“When it's somebody's doing sales and they start to get evidence, that's when magic happens because then we have our confidence.”
“You’ve got to have that long-term vision to get through that kind of rut of a week.”
“If you have more than 3 priorities in your life, you have 0.”
[00:00:00] Jason: Self-care is the foundation. You got to start there. Put your own oxygen mask on first.
[00:00:05] Kent: Yeah. The plane's going down. You're supposed to put your mask on first. You know, how can I help my daughter if I can't even help myself
[00:00:12] Jason: All right. Welcome DoorGrowers 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 DoorGrower. DoorGrower property managers love the opportunities, daily variety, unique challenges, and freedom that property management brings.
[00:00:36] 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.
[00:00:52] 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.
[00:01:12] And we're hanging out here with Kent Hardman. Kent, how you doing, man?
[00:01:16] Kent: I'm doing well. Glad to finally be here.
[00:01:19] Jason: It's good to have you. So you've been a client for how long now?
[00:01:23] Kent: About a year.
[00:01:24] Jason: About a year. And this has been quite a journey for you. You're in a very different place you were, you know, now from a year ago. And so why don't we go back and why don't you give the listeners a little bit of your background and history so they get an idea of who you are and what got you into property management.
[00:01:40] Kent: Sure. Yeah, so I'm here in Cincinnati, Ohio. I grew up in Cincinnati. Won, the parent lottery had a pair of awesome parents, and I grew up in this old tutor and from a young age, just I was fascinated with architecture, real estate. Went to Miami University here, close to Cincinnati had what I refer to as my real job for a couple of years worked for a manufacturer. In the marketing department and I just knew it wasn't for me.
[00:02:06] I always wanted to get into real estate. And you know, it was about 2006. I was networking with real estate companies. Nobody was hiring because of the economy. 2008 happened and literally I got into real estate in September of 2008, you know, people were running for the doors and I was running into a burning building.
[00:02:25] And started out, I got my real estate license first, because that was the easiest thing for me to do. And did the realtor thing for a little bit, nothing against real estate agents, but I just, I had bigger ambitions than that. And got into buying rental property in Cincinnati and at the time my father retired financially, he had some cash to throw at some investments and me and my dad started buying apartment buildings and how I got into property management was just learning by doing, doing it for myself. Bought a bunch of apartment buildings, a lot of 10 families.
[00:03:00] That then evolved into doing some urban development in Cincinnati. Cincinnati has recently gone through a great renaissance, so I was also in charge of doing the property management, but then also putting deals together development type deals, specifically in historic type shells that me and my dad would buy and, you know, build new on the inside.
[00:03:19] And going back, so I'm 44 right now, going back two years ago, I was trying to kind of figure out what my second act is going to be, and, you know, I just identified how much I enjoy property management. Everything that you listed at the beginning of of your podcast, that's why I'm in it. And, you know, I love the flexibility, the freedom. I just enjoy the different people I meet, both from landlords to tenants.
[00:03:43] And, yeah, so then I joined DoorGrow about a year ago. And it changed it from just a thought to me actually being serious. Like, yeah, I'm actually doing this.
[00:03:53] Jason: So where were you at when you joined DoorGrow? What was going on that made you decide, "Hey, I need to get some help or I want to join a coaching program." what was going on?
[00:04:02] Kent: You guys found me on Facebook. You know, some ads start popping up. I'm like, you know, "what is this?" And clicked on it. And immediately, you know, in the original video, I saw you just jumped right into mindset and I was like, "wow. Okay. This is, you know, a property management type coach with mindset." I'm like, "that's a pretty potent mix. And yeah, just at the time, personally, I was in a really rough spot that I'm happy to dive into if you like. And yeah, DoorGrow just helped me just get the momentum to start making some phone calls. You know, I was sitting there having the idea to do it, but not doing it.
[00:04:37] And I was like, "well, I'm going to join this." And by doing that, it just gave me the confidence to, you know, start reaching out to people and "hey, I'll manage your property."
[00:04:47] Jason: Yeah. So, well, cool. You had mentioned you know, you were struggling with some stuff. What was going on in your life at the time that you joined the program?
[00:04:55] Kent: Sure. Yeah. A lot from what I remember. Yeah, so, long story short, I was in a mentally abusive relationship with somebody, and we were not married, and something happened that I was able to get her out of my life, well then, our daughter, we share a daughter together that I basically raised by myself, in the state of Ohio, women have all the rights over children. And she got at me, and I didn't see my daughter for about six months. I compare it's about the closest thing to losing a child that you can, you know, get to my sense.
[00:05:26] I didn't, but it was basically on that level.
[00:05:29] Jason: There's nothing to make you value your kids like somebody taking them away from you So, my kids are what got me into entrepreneurs and that's really what drove me to be able to have the flexibility to control my day and my life and my weeks so that when I had them, I could spend time.
[00:05:43] It was a big deal to me. So, but their perspective is probably "dad's always working because he's working from home," you know? Being able to be an entrepreneur and have that freedom was what really drove me to do what I do. So yeah, I remember us having some pointed conversations, like you were struggling, I think, just cognitively or mentally with everything that was going on with you. There was a lot of stress. You were dealing with a lot of stuff. And my perception, from the coach's perspective is that your confidence was kind of shot. You just like, you had the skill, you had the knowledge, and we could teach you the stuff to do, but in the beginning you really weren't believing in yourself.
[00:06:23] Kent: Yeah, 100%. Yeah. I mean, you know, mentally, I'm struggling just to get out of bed. I mean, it was a challenge just to face the day, you know, and I'll never forget at the time. I went to go see somebody a therapist talk to and she said, "oh, what are you doing?" I'm like, "well, I'm trying to do this property management thing."
[00:06:39] "Well, what do you do on a daily basis?"
[00:06:41] "Well, I call people that don't want to, you know, hear from me" and, you know, and she's like, "probably need to get another job." I'll never forget.
[00:06:49] She said, "well, why don't tomorrow you call one person and then from there, you know, try to do better the next day." And at the same time, I reached out to a good friend of mine, probably my closest friend.
[00:06:59] And I just said, "Hey, man, I'm not doing good, you know, like, what should I do?" And he said, "man, concentrate on the little things. You know, "are you taking care of yourself? You know, are you eating good? Are you sleeping? You know, are you keeping a regular routine with the sleep schedule?" I wasn't doing any of those things, you know, and so just--
[00:07:15] Jason: One day, we had a similar conversation.
[00:07:17] I'm like, self care is the foundation. You got to start there. Put your own oxygen mask on first. Yeah.
[00:07:23] Kent: So, yeah, you know, exactly. Yeah. The plane's going down. You're supposed to put your mask on first. You know, how can I help my daughter if I can't even help myself and, you know, it just started just one day I got out of bed and took a shower and I'm like, wow, that's more than I've done in a couple of weeks. And then I picked up the phone and the next day I called somebody else. And then it got into a point of me just, you know, I'm not naturally a outgoing sales, salesy type person. And you know, then I just start killing it. I just enjoy the numbers game. I enjoy that I could have, I could call 50 people and it wouldn't bother me 49 of them wouldn't want to talk to me.
[00:08:02] It'd be that one, you know, just that feeling of just, you know, that home run that you hit, like, man, that was worth it, you know. And that's how I started. I just started calling strangers. I have a specific geographical area that I targeted and I had a way that I hunted down their information. It was a lot of data mining, but it was just the dialing
[00:08:20] for dollars is how I got my start. Yeah.
[00:08:23] Jason: So what shifted being involved in the coaching at DoorGrow? What do you feel like really had an impact for you and how did it help you? And how many doors did you have when you started with us? Let's start over there.
[00:08:34] Kent: Zero.
[00:08:35] Jason: Okay. Zero doors. How many doors are you at right now?
[00:08:38] Kent: 107.
[00:08:38] Jason: That's awesome. Yeah. That's awesome. Thank you. And so, you know, where do you think you would be if you didn't have DoorGrow? How, how did DoorGrow contribute? How would this be different?
[00:08:49] Kent: Yeah. Well, you know, the first question you asked, you know, how did DoorGrow help me? Sense of community is the first thing that came to mind.
[00:08:56] The fact that I was joining forward thinking property managers. You know, I felt like I was at home because it's something that, you know, I believe in, I believe the industry is a little behind the times and a couple of different areas. Technology being one and, you know, we can dive into all the other areas, but just.
[00:09:13] I felt like I was in a place where people understood what I was trying to do professionally. And, you know, that was a big thing, the community, but then another big portion of it was having somebody holding me accountable you know, I'll never forget Morgan reaching out to me, "hey, how can I help? How can I help?" I'm like, hey check in with me, you know, make sure I'm calling my 50 people a day, you know, just do that weekly, you know, because then I'm telling you, I'm doing it. If I'm not doing it you know, I feel a lot more responsible if I'm telling somebody I'm going to do what I need to do.
[00:09:43] Jason: So, yeah, I think you put in the work and it's awesome to see that. You know, we can give clients the strategies. And the stuff that we give people to do works, but not everybody does it. A lot of people listening are like, all they're hearing is like, "Kent makes a bunch of phone calls."
[00:09:57] They're like," I don't want to do that." You know, what's different about the strategies that you're doing with DoorGrow versus what you maybe would have tried on your own then. I would have just been kicking tires
[00:10:07] Kent: if it was just myself. You know, it still would have been idea,
[00:10:10] "hey, I'm going to do this. You know, it's really just, it just gave me that confidence, you know, even jumping on the weekly calls and talking to people kind of sharing the war stories. You know, it's like, oh, you know, I'm not the only one having these struggles, and it's been great to, not that I like hearing people struggle, but it's, you know, it's nice to hear other people are going through the same thing I was, and that goes back to kind of that sense of community that I got from joining DoorGrow.
[00:10:36] Jason: Did you go through the rapid revamp class? I did. Yep. And so what changes did you make to your business going through that pricing, your sales pitch, brand new website, any of these?
[00:10:48] Kent: All of them. But the one that really stands out is my pitch. You know, that was something that, like I said earlier, I'm not naturally a very confident person.
[00:10:58] I'm a very empathetic he's some love type person, you know, and the idea of being a very salesy person intimidated me. But you kind of alluded to it. It was just a lack of confidence. You know, I know I can do what I need to do. It's just having that confidence and believing and yeah, just really defining my pitch, it was the biggest thing I took from that course. You know, website was an amazing, you know, pricing, all that stuff. But that was the one big thing I took from
[00:11:24] Jason: it. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it really is. It's pretty significant that the level of confidence that you go into in sales when you just know that what your pitches and you know why you're doing what you're doing and you know that you can benefit people.
[00:11:39] And and that's what we teach. We teach authentic sales and, you know, seeing you shift from thinking you had to be a salesperson to shifting into having a solid pitch and just knowing that you could help people and being able to go out and do that. It probably made it a lot easier to just even make the phone calls and reach out to the right partners and the right people that could do some business with you.
[00:12:02] Kent: Oh yeah. You know, having that confidence and you know, another big thing that I'm thinking of coming through the year with us talking here is just the the whole concept of momentum. I would call get one person, okay, let me get another person. And just that idea of just, let's keep the ball rolling. Let's do a little bit better the next day.
[00:12:18] Jason: Yeah, it starts to give you evidence. When it's somebody's doing sales and they start to get evidence, that's when magic happens because then we have our confidence. It becomes real, then we can see that we are getting results. We can see that the needles moving for, you know, in a positive direction and that can be really significant.
[00:12:36] Sarah: So Kent, do you mind kind of talking about like the financial situation that you were in and kind of like your journey through all of that? Because, I think that's something that a lot of people really struggle with is like, business is not easy. And sometimes, you know, we either underestimate or really overestimate, like, what it's going to look like.
[00:12:58] Very rarely, I think, are we accurate in our planning and our methodology? So if you wouldn't mind, like, you know, it's just sharing some of the. You know, the financial piece, like, what did this look like, you know, from the start to like, where you are now.?
[00:13:13] Kent: Yeah. You know, what I've described to people is when I said what I do, you know, I said, "hey, you know, growing a property management company is not impossible. It's a difficult thing to do, but I did it with two, my two arms tied behind my back, you know, because I was struggling just to get out of bed," you know, is where I began. And, you know, it's just. I knew that I could do it. Once again, going back to the confidence and the routine of doing it, but yeah, you know, the, at the end of the day, I enjoy this business for multiple reasons, but from a financial piece, I enjoy the residual income that comes in. I enjoyed the flexibility that this job allows. And yeah, you know, my expectations coming in, you know, I had my spreadsheet on what it would look like and, you know, my goal was 100 doors. I'm going to be at 100 doors and I know Jason, you shared that's a lot of people when they start up their goal and I'll never forget. It was right around Christmas time last year. I'm like, "well, I got to call somebody" and, you know, I started calling people and after my first day, "I said, my goal is 100 doors by the end of the year, 1 year from now." Yeah. Well, I was able to reach that last month September 13th and it was a very good feeling that day, kind of walking on clouds, like, man, did I really just do that? You know, and just looking back yeah, I just had to put in the work. At the end of the day, it was a challenge to call that first person, but I just knew, I told myself, I'm going to have to pound these phones for six months. Is what I told myself and you know, so I'm like, all right, May, June, I should start getting some income man. It was right on the dot. I mean, literally day one of the second half of the year, client number one, client number two, you know, but it's like you got to have that long term vision to get through that kind of rut of a week of without securing anything, you know, you just got to.
[00:15:07] And once again, going back to DoorGrow gave me the confidence. I mean, you know, if I didn't have DoorGrow, I'm sure I would have gave up like, yeah, this is not going anywhere.
[00:15:15] Jason: Yeah. So, I mean, it's been awesome seeing your growth and where are you at now? Like we know you've got more doors, what, but how does life feel different for you? And what I mean is in the beginning, struggling to get out of bed, like life was difficult, zero doors in the beginning. Give us some contrast, help us understand where, what's life like now for you.
[00:15:34] Kent: I mean, night and day, you know, I love the quote.
[00:15:37] I don't know who said it, but "if you have more than 3 priorities in your life, you have 0," and right when I heard that, I'm like, man, what are my 3 priorities? Well, my health, because if I don't have my health my longevity, I got nothing, you know, that's the foundation. So, taking time to work out, to exercise, to bike you know, family is the second one.
[00:15:57] You know, my daughter, my parents and then the third is work. And just having that focus has given me great clarity. You know, I don't have time for anything else outside of my three priorities. You know, I, you know, I'm going to, I went to bed last night about eight o'clock. I was dead tired because I busted my butt on my three priorities.
[00:16:17] So, you know, to answer your question, how's it switched? It's just I'm so thankful for what I went through because it's given me extreme focus on what's important to me, what I need to do to survive and to thrive.
[00:16:28] Jason: Yeah. We had a good conversation about 10x. I remember. What did you take away from that coaching call?
[00:16:36] Kent: Yeah, it's so funny. We talked when you originally and you started with health, you know, "hey, man, make sure you're working out. Make sure you're taking care of yourself. I mean, I took a lot from that, but that was the biggest thing. I wasn't taking care of myself. And I got better over this year, but I made that priority.
[00:16:53] Number 1, you know, I prioritize sleep. I prioritize going to the gym and you know, the other big thing I got from it was I was kind of messing around. Like, I didn't realize how close I actually was, you know, I thought it was gonna take me forever to get where I wanted to be door count wise. And it was like, to the day, like, maybe not even a week when I went from 30 doors to 105 doors, And all that was I, you know, it was easier or what I took from the conversation. It was easier for me to, like, try to be a professional athlete than trying to be like a college athlete. You know, so what I did was I started calling people in my database with more doors. You know, I started stop messing around with the 2 families, and I was going 4 families and up and just there was things just started gushing in.
[00:17:44] Jason: Yeah yeah, we chatted about that. And for those listening, the conversation was something like it's easier to do 10x and 2x, which comes from that the book with the title 10x is easier than 2x by Ben Hardy. Which is he's teaching Dan Sullivan's principles in that book. And but the idea is there's very few things that can get you, that you can do to 10x.
[00:18:06] And when you think about that, and there's a lot of things, infinite things you could do to 2x your business, right to have incremental growth. So. I just, I challenged you. I said, I want you to sit with that question and think, what could I do to 10x? And when we just start exploring that question, we start to change your behaviors.
[00:18:22] And you've found some ways you're like, well, I'll go after people with more doors, people with more doors secretly for those listening, the people with more units and more doors are better clients, they value you more typically, and they are easier to get on, you know, than the one offs in a lot of situations.
[00:18:40] And so, you know, we can choose our ideal customer and go after them. And you started shifting your focus, which is interesting. And then you started seeing a shift in your door count significantly.
[00:18:52] Kent: And, you know, it's worth repeating what you said there, you know, the higher door count people, the more sophisticated investors are way easier than some of the mom and pops with, like, a 2 family, you know, for every reason you just mentioned right there.
[00:19:07] Jason: Yeah, they get so emotional about their property. They maybe used to live in it. They're like, "Timmy etched his height in the wall, like, since he was, you know, a little kid and like, we need to maintain it to like, it has to stay the same forever," and they don't want to treat it like a rental property.
[00:19:22] Yeah. So, yeah, well, Kent, you know, we've really appreciated having you as a client. It's been great to see your growth and success. Where do you see yourself in a year from now?
[00:19:31] Kent: Yeah. So there's kind of two things going on when I'm thinking, you know, I've just seen, you know, my number one priority right now, I'm where I'm at the door number that I wanted to be you know, I want to make sure my highest priority right now is make sure I can deliver to what I told the people I can do so, yes, I have greater ambitions of growing doors, but me servicing what I already have right now is of my number 1 priority and number 2 and I've mentioned this to you, Jason.
[00:20:02] I've mentioned it to a couple other people. You know, me getting up to 1000 doors. Is going to be easier than what I just went through over the past year to get to 100. And, I'm using the last part of this year to kind of button up my processes with the things that I'm servicing right now and going into the next year My goal is going to be to let me double what I did.
[00:20:23] Let me try to get 200 doors, you know And just see where that goes But then I, you know, I say that it's like, wow, screw that. I'm going to go after a thousand doors. Why am I selling myself short? You know?
[00:20:35] Jason: Yeah. Yeah. I think you're, you know, that's interesting. I think a lot of people listening to this might have less than a hundred doors.
[00:20:42] And if you do reach out to DoorGrow, let's get your business fixed up because having less than a hundred doors is not really a profitable business. Like it's really difficult. To make money when you have like 20 doors or 30 doors, right? 50 doors. And a lot of people get stuck right there as a solopreneur.
[00:20:59] And and they've already made usually a lot of mistakes related to pricing and branding and everything else. So everything feels so uphill. And then a lot of times they're losing more doors sometimes than they're getting on or about the same. So they're just, they have this high churn rate where they're losing clients every year.
[00:21:13] And then getting some clients and they're like, "I'm not growing." That's a painful grind to be in. And that's way harder than if you break the hundred door barrier in a healthy way, which you did and you know how to grow, which you do. And you know how to grow independently of ads. You don't, you're not beholden to some marketer to advertising agencies.
[00:21:33] Like you can just go out there and create business. And it actually takes you less time than it would to follow up on cold, crappy leads that you were buying. And so you're doing things in a smarter way than most property managers do, because most probably are listening to this going, "well, I don't want to make phone calls.
[00:21:48] I'm going to go be stupid and spend a bunch of money on ads and try and do a bunch of advertising instead," because they want to avoid something that's going to actually work well and get them warmer leads that have a higher close rate that they're not competing with the low price property manager, you know, out in the market.
[00:22:05] Sarah: I think it's the perception of pain. It's all, it's not, you know, people aren't like, "Oh, I want to do this way instead." It's just that it sounds painful where it sounds a lot easier just to be like, "Oh, I'll just pay for ads. I'll pay a marketer. And then like leads will come to me." It sounds easier.
[00:22:23] And it's so deceptive because it's so hard. It's so hard. But it sounds, I think when people hear like, "Oh, well, I have to talk to people and I have to make a bunch of calls and I have to reach out to a bunch of people? I have to do a bunch of work?" Then they go, "Oh, this is like this hard thing." But what they don't realize is that if you, like, if you're spending money on ads and you're advertising, like, and you're getting leads that are coming to you, you still have to make a bunch of calls. You still have to talk to a bunch of people. You still have to do a bunch of work and you're actually doing more work because these people don't know who you are and you're just spending money. Like hopefully this works! I hope it works. So, like, is that something that was like hard for you to get over that hurdle and just like start doing the work. Was that hard for you?
[00:23:07] Kent: Oh, yeah. I mean, I you know, I procrastinated forever, you know, it's you know, I spent so much time, "I'm gonna do this with you know, trying to find leads and you know," basically I was just prolonging the pain, you know, I'm then finally one day. I'm like just call somebody, you know I think the best example was it was right around Memorial Day. It was that Saturday And I got up, I'm like, all right, "I'm going to call my 50 contacts or my 50 buildings." And man, I was pacing around my computer cause I did not want to do it. You know, I came up with every excuse.
[00:23:44] "Oh, it's a holiday. Nobody wants to talk to me." You know, there were some curse words that I just started saying to myself, like just trying to hype myself up, like, "man, just do it." Finally, I sat down and did and started calling and call number one. So I reached out to 50. Prospects 50 buildings call number 1 was a home run call.
[00:24:03] Number 50 was a home run. Everything in the middle was a dud, but I was just like, I got off. It was so funny to have that 1st 1 and that 50th. I was like, wow, that was a lesson right there. You just don't know what's around the corner. But yeah, Sarah, yeah, definitely procrastinated to finally pick up the phone.
[00:24:21] But once I, you know, talking about that momentum, once I started getting some first base hits, those then turned into double plays, and then they got a couple of home runs out of it, but you just got to start.
[00:24:32] Sarah: Yeah. Awesome. Thanks for sharing that.
[00:24:34] Jason: Cool. Well, can any parting words of wisdom for people that are, or were are right now in a similar spot to where you were when you first came to us?
[00:24:44] Or maybe they're dabbling like 20, 30 doors are struggling?
[00:24:48] Kent: Yeah. I mean, it's been, you know, there's been a couple of things in my life that were like moments. I'm like, man, that, that changed my course. And one was joining DoorGrow. Professionally. And, you know, the second Jason's the call that mean you had, you know, maybe a month or two ago when I shared what I went through.
[00:25:05] You know, that was just 2 things that just, you just get tattooed in my brain. And I know I've said this a few times to you even, you know, I'm like, "Oh, I could have got where I am right now, but DoorGrow helped me do it quicker." I'm confident in saying I'm even going to remove that from my vocabulary.
[00:25:21] I would not have been able to get to where I am right now. Yes, I did put in the work, but DoorGrow was great on showing me little tricks of the trade, some different technologies I can implement that just compress that time from a very long time into a very short time. So, yeah, you know, if anybody's on the fence about joining you guys I'm a customer for life.
[00:25:44] That's good stuff. We're ending right now. That's like, that's it.
[00:25:48] Sarah: That's it. That's all we need to hear. My day is complete. Thank you. And because this is what we do. This is what we do and we like doing it. Like I'm, this like really fulfills me. This is what I'm really passionate about doing is making that change and making that impact.
[00:26:03] Jason: Yeah. Can we be real? So like yesterday was a rough day for us, right? Business can be rough sometimes, like, you know, we get stressed out. We like feel overwhelmed. Things change in the business. Things change with the team. You know, sometimes you get bad news.
[00:26:18] Like business is not easy. It's a new day, you pick yourself up, you get to work, and Kent, it's been awesome seeing you put in the work, get the results, and that's really what we value as coaches, we need clients that are willing to do the work required to get the result, we will just help them with the system, and when we get great people, and they have a system, they're going to win.
[00:26:46] There's no question. Our system's proven. We love when we get to connect with the right people that are ready for a good system. And those of you listening, when you really want success, when you're really committed to success, and you're willing to do the work required, and you just do it, even if you're sucking at it, the system will become clear.
[00:27:06] You will find the system. And that's when greatness starts to come. That's where success starts to come. So put in the work, put in the effort. And then when you're ready, reach out the DoorGrow, we've got the system and then we'll help you get going. So Kent, thanks for coming on the show. Appreciate you.
[00:27:20] Thank you. Yeah. Thanks for your time. We'll talk to you again soon. All right. Sounds good. See you guys. All right. So if you are a property management entrepreneur, that's wanting to add doors and make a difference in everything that we talked about, then, you know, reach out. We would love to support you.
[00:27:37] Just go to doorgrow.Com. Also go to doorgrowclub.Com, join our free group and community. We give away a lot of value. Hopefully that'll get you up to the point where you can afford to work with us. And and when you're ready, we're here to help you take things to the next level. So bye everyone. Until next time to our mutual growth.
[00:27:54] 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!
[00:28:21] 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.
Do you feel comfortable where you are at in your property management business? You might have achieved your initial goals. You started the business, you got the number of doors you wanted… now what?
Today, property management growth experts Jason and Sarah Hull talk about growing beyond the initial goals you set as a business owner by leveling up your mindset.
[01:30] Don’t be a slave to your own business
[04:11] You can achieve more
[09:28] The 3 different levels of want
[16:33] The 3 things necessary to achieve
[20:15] Only YOU know what you are capable of
“You know, deep down whether your business is great or not.”
“You're able to make a bigger impact and a bigger difference if you have a successful healthy business.”
“Find a way to justify success because success allows you contribution.”
“You spend your whole life trying to fit in when really you need to spend time trying to stand out.”
[00:00:00] Jason: Are you a "kinda" property manager or business owner or entrepreneur or are you non-negotiable, you refuse to be in an industry and not be one of the best. You're going to be great. Like you've committed to being great.
[00:00:14] 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. 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.
[00:00:51] At DoorGrow, we are on a mission to transform property management, business owners. 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. All right.
[00:01:14] So, a lot has been going on. Last episode, Sarah and I talked about how we had just come back from an event. We had a whole bunch of different ideas. This last week, then her family came to visit, so I haven't been able to implement a lot of these ideas, but it was super great seeing her family.
[00:01:30] And, you know, one thing I was really grateful for during the last week, at the end of the week, I said to Sarah, "you know, it's really great that we have a business that allows us that when we want to, we can have those moments with family. Like family had come to visit, we can spend that time with them." And she agreed.
[00:01:48] And so. This is something that I want all of you to be able to have an experience too. Hopefully you have this already in your business. If you do not, if you're struggling, if you're like, man, "I haven't even taken a vacation, let alone a few days off to spend with family. I haven't taken a vacation or a few days off to spend with family or anything like that in a while," then you have built the wrong business. You didn't build a business for you. You didn't build a business based on what you wanted. You built a business based on what your clients want maybe. You built a business that you let take over and become its own boss. And the business is now in control of you. You are now a servant or a slave to your business, and you should be the one in control, the one in charge. And so if you're in that position, you know, I want you to get out of this. I want to give you an escape route. So I just did a masterclass on the biggest secret killer or thief in a business, and that's interruptions. And I talked about doing a time study, and this is also the beginning gateway to escaping your business and creating some freedom is to do a time study.
[00:02:58] And you can use our time study. If you'd like, reach out to us. We can give you our time study document. Just DM me on social anywhere and just say time study or something like that. And my team will say “what am I supposed to give them? Give them the link to our time study document." But the basic idea is that you're going to track your time every 15 minutes.
[00:03:19] You're going to figure out where your time's going. You're going to figure out: "What am I doing that gives me fulfillment and what am I doing that's taking it away like it's draining me?" And so you're either going to have a plus sign or a minus sign that you're going to write next to every 15 minutes of where your time goes.
[00:03:36] So if you're doing something where you feel like you're in the flow and you really enjoy it and this is fun for you and whatever it is, plus sign if you're like, "man, if I never had to do that ever again, and I had a team member to do that thing..." minus sign. Put down a minus sign. I have a special guest Welcome, Sarah.
[00:03:55] I'm giving up.
[00:03:55] To the DoorGrow show. She was waiting for somebody to show up at our door They didn't show up.
[00:04:00] So, all right. Nope. I was mentioning that if they haven't been able to take a trip or vacation a while, that they should maybe do a time study. So that's kind of where I've gotten so far.
[00:04:11] All right. Cool. So I was thinking at funnel hanging live at the event that we went to, I really enjoyed Eric Thomas. Yeah. And here's my notes from that, but I was thinking we would touch on that for the remainder of the episode.
[00:04:25] Yeah. That's cool. Cool. And it's kind of related. He's an inspirational speaker, this gentleman named Eric Thomas. And he's gotten to speak to Warren Buffett and billionaires and, you know, stuff like this. And he was sharing this idea about this concept of these three levels of desire.
[00:04:42] And he started out by talking about, you have to give yourself permission. So if you want success, you want to achieve, and I want you all to crack your mind open and be open to the idea of having massive success in your property management business. I don't know why you would want to suppress that anyway, right? So be open to the idea that a thousand doors would be a lot more fun, give you a lot more money and be a lot easier to do as a business owner, because you have a great team than doing a hundred doors. Right. And some of your dreams, like a hundred doors, I want you to 10x that. They need to go big, and we also got to hear Dr. Ben Hardy who wrote 10x is easier than 2x, which is a great book that I read. I really love that. So why don't you think 10x bigger, but give yourself permission to dream and the level of your ambition dream and set that level higher. Not to the level of other people's expectations.
[00:05:32] And it talks about this in 10x and Eric Thomas touched about this, but it's the idea that a lot of times we are too afraid to just want, we're too afraid to just want something bigger. And so we feel almost guilty for wanting what we actually want or wanting something big. And so instead we hear this feedback from the world that says, "well, that's nuts. You don't need all that. You don't need a nice car. You don't really need a nice house. You don't need this." And that's other people's expectations. But that might not be what you want. And I really believe God puts desires in our heart for a reason.
[00:06:06] Like, so the first question he asks is "what do you want?" Not what do other people want? Like, what do you really want? And whatever you want is okay. You get to want whatever you want. And then he asked, "why are you here? Why are you here?" And I've heard other coaches ask, what do you want and why does it matter?
[00:06:23] But there needs to be a why. I like, "why are you here?" Because this speaks to your purpose. We have a purpose and what you want and your purpose are probably aligned in some way. Like having, you know, your dream life and being able to benefit others and have success. They're all interconnected. So, and he talks about three levels of want.
[00:06:44] So I don't want to do all the talking. Do you want to talk about the three levels of want?
[00:06:48] Sarah: Yeah. Well, there's something too that I want to kind of add in because I've heard this my whole life and I've been different for a long time and I'm totally fine with being different. Like even, you know, elementary school, high school, like I've just always thought differently.
[00:07:03] I've done things differently. I don't like fit in with like the popular kids. I'm weird. Yeah. I'm weird. And I'm really good with being weird, but sometimes people aren't. And especially when they're in school and they're young and everybody's like, "Oh no, you must conform and you must like fit in."
[00:07:19] You spend your whole life trying to fit in when really you need to spend time trying to stand out, trying to be different. So, I've, like I said, I've always just done things a little differently. And a lot of times when I make a decision, you know, people will ask me like, why do you need that?
[00:07:36] Why do you need that? You know? And I'm like, I don't need it. I want it. And that's been my answer every time. Like my whole life, you know, like I bought, so I refused to my very first home that I ever bought. I bought when I was 26. And until then I had just been renting, but I bought my very first home on my own by myself.
[00:07:55] No help. I did have a mortgage. Yes, but like I didn't get money from my parents or like money from a spouse. Like it was me. I just did it. And I refused to buy a starter home. I was like, I am not going to buy a house that I want to live in for, you know, a year to three years and I'm going to just make it work.
[00:08:15] And then I'm going to like upgrade and, you know, do the normal thing that people do. They're like, "Oh, I'll just start here and then I'll upgrade later." I refused to do that. And so I bought a home that I could live in for anywhere from like five to 10 years, I was like "I'm not doing this stupid game that people do."
[00:08:33] So I just did what I needed to do in order to make that happen. And everybody was asking me like, well, "why are you doing that? Like, just buy a house that's smaller, just buy a house that's less expensive. Just do this. Just like, why do you need all that?" And I was like, "I don't need it. I don't need it. I want it, and it's okay to want big things and it's okay if the things that you want are not necessarily the same things that other people want."
[00:09:01] So I really want to Mention that because I think we get this like pressure sometimes to conform to, you know, societal norms and just, you know, do just do what you're supposed to do. Just do the thing that everybody else does. And there's a lot of times I don't want to do the thing that everybody else does because it's not exciting.
[00:09:22] So it's okay to like think outside of this box that everybody's trying to put you in. But anyway, so, there are three different levels of want. This is one of the things that he was kind of talking about is if you kind of want something and you're like, "Oh, that would be nice." Right. This is what I'm going to call like, "Hey, I'm like, I'm fantasizing" like, "Oh, it'd be nice if one day we could take this amazing vacation and go to Italy for like three weeks and like, you know, tour everything and like just like forget about all of our stresses at home. Oh, wouldn't it be nice if one day we lived in like a million dollar home? Wouldn't it be nice if one day I had a Maserati, right?" Like, and we all do this. Every person on the planet does this.
[00:10:04] Like, "oh, it'd be really awesome. Like, this is like my dream life. Like if I could just snap my fingers and make something happen, like it'd be great if I lived in this mansion, right?" That's when you like, kind of want it. You're like you can think it, you can maybe say it out loud.
[00:10:17] There's nothing solid behind that. You're just like speaking it out and you're like, "oh yeah, it'd be cool if this."
[00:10:23] Jason: Yeah. He said I can't, he says when you kind of want it, it's, but only if it isn't too difficult or inconvenient, I want it. That's how bad I want it. I want it enough that, yeah, it'd be nice, but only if it isn't too difficult or inconvenient.
[00:10:38] That's the lowest level. What's the next level?
[00:10:41] Sarah: So then there's something when you really want it. Now, when you really want it versus when we kind of want it, when you really want it, you're like, "Hey, I'm going to do things, I'm going to make this happen, like I'm going to take some action, you know, I'm going to make some, maybe some choices a little bit differently."
[00:10:58] This is like, "Hey, I'm going to take the thing that I want and I'm going to connect it to action." And that's, I think where most people live, is in this I really want it stage. They're like, "Hey, I really want to make this happen. Like, I'm going to start the business. I'm going to, you know, like make the calls. I'm going to reach out to people. I'm going to promote myself. I'm going to do what it takes." Right. "I'm going to do it." And I think this is where a lot of people think they live right here. You're like, "I'm doing the thing. Here I am like, I'm showing up, I'm doing the thing." Right. And I think what happens a lot of time is this is where we get comfortable because we're doing it. You're like, "I want to start a property management business." And then you did it and now you have clients and maybe you have a team and you've got like, right, you've got money coming in and you're like, "I did it. I did it." Yeah. Cool. Like first, are you dreaming big enough? Like did you started a property management business?
[00:11:47] Maybe you have a couple of doors, maybe you have a hundred doors, maybe you've got 500 hours. Right. But are we thinking like as big as we should be or, and are we living in this like "I'm just kind of doing it" stage. Like I'm doing it. I want it. I wanted it. I really wanted it. I made it happen. And now here I am doing it.
[00:12:03] And I think stage two and stage three are really different. And stage three is when the thing that you want is an absolute non negotiable thing. I don't remember if it was I don't remember if it was Eric or if it was Namaia. I don't remember which one it might've been. It might've been Namaia.
[00:12:21] Jason: Eric is Namaia's mentor.
[00:12:22] Sarah: So yeah, they probably both said it, so, but one of them said, "listen, I have to do this. Like, I want to do it. I want to. Yeah, I want to. Like, I'm committed. I, like, I have the desire. I have the dream, but I also have to do this. I have an obligation to do this. And I have to do this because if I don't do this... he's like, I retired my mom.
[00:12:44] I retired her. She's been retired for 10 years. If I don't do this, if I stop doing this, my mom has to go back to work and that can't happen is like, if I don't do this, my wife has to go get a job and that can't happen. If I don't do this, my kids see me quit and they see me stop and they see me playing small, and that can't happen. So when you want it so much so that it's an absolute non negotiable and you're willing to do anything that it takes, obviously ethically, anything that it takes until you get this thing and then you keep going That's I think a different level than like I just really want.
[00:13:25] Jason: So yeah Eric said that non negotiable level when you want what you want, like you want to breathe, then you'll have it.
[00:13:34] And I thought about that. I mean, you have to want something pretty bad. I know what it feels like to want to breathe. Right. And I mean, that's serious desire. He then got into the three levels of why, cause we talked about why. And again, there's kinda, really, and non negotiable.
[00:13:48] And you know, we have a motive and it's like, "well, I want, you know, kind of as maybe, well, it'd be nice to have some extra cash or whatever." That's not a big enough motive. Really want it, man. "I'm really hurting for cash right now, maybe," but non negotiable is like, "I 100 percent committed. I'm all in on this because this has to work. I have to make this happen. I feel calling inside myself. This is my purpose and I need to fulfill it. I need to achieve it. You know, no matter what the cost." there's always the one way that's going to get us there to make it work, and it's not going to be unethical. It's going to be the right way. And so I think focusing on what do you really want and figuring out what would be a non negotiable for you? Like I'm going to have this and what's a really solid why for some of you, like we were able to, I think last year, like a charity reached out and we donated like four grand to this charity to help, I don't know, homeless people or something.
[00:14:46] And, you know, if I was in a financially difficult spot with cashflow in the business, and personally, I wouldn't be able to just drop money to charity like that and benefit a group, right? And as a company we wouldn't be able to do that. Are you able to benefit groups? Are you able to do good things for other people then you need to be making more money if you're not able to So find a way to justify success because success allows you contribution.
[00:15:13] We talked about the four reasons: Freedom, fulfillment, contribution, and support. Contribution. You're able to make a bigger impact and a bigger difference if you have a successful healthy business. And one of the things that Eric said that I wrote down, he's a inspirational speaker,
[00:15:29] and so he said, "I'm going to be the best inspirational speaker. I'm going to study it. I'm going to do whatever it takes. I'm going to speak before Kings and rulers, you know, I'm going to be the best." He said, "I refuse to be in an industry and not be one of the best in the industry." He said, "be great." So are you a kinda property manager or business owner or entrepreneur?
[00:15:50] Are you like, you know, you really level or you non negotiable, you refuse to be in an industry and not be one of the best. You're going to be great. Like you've committed to being great. I've always had this commitment at DoorGrow. Sarah shares this with me. We've always had this commitment to being the best, and we believe we are the world leaders.
[00:16:12] Nobody else has what we have in property management coaching. We're the best. And I'm committed to staying the best. And this is why we invest so much into the business. In terms of learning, investing in other masterminds, getting coaches, getting mentors. We spend more on that than other programs probably make, you know, other coaches probably make.
[00:16:33] So you talked about three things that are necessary in order to like achieve what you want and have the success. And these three things, I recommend you write these down. First, you need desire. So we kind of talked about that. You have to really want it and you have to have a why and that's that, and then he said, you need an A team.
[00:16:52] You need a really awesome team, like of A players. And then he said, you need a system. And what he shared these examples. He's like, Michael Jordan was, you know, an amazing basketball player. But until he got Phil Jackson as a coach, he was not able to play super well with others and he wasn't able to get championships.
[00:17:11] He needed a system and Phil Jackson created a system that allowed Michael Jordan to win and succeed multiple times. But before then he was just getting lots of points, but he was not winning championships. He then talked about Michael Jackson. Michael Jackson needed a system and then he found Quincy Jones and started to have a ton of success.
[00:17:32] And he shared some other examples. People need a system. And I got really excited when I heard this. I think I leaned over to you and said something. I think I was like, "we're the system." We are the system. I was like so excited. I'm like, that's us. We are the system! We just need to find the Michael Jordans and the Michael Jackson's out there.
[00:17:52] Like the property managers that are like the greats, the ones that want to be great.
[00:17:57] Sarah: And can I say too, because I already know what's going through at least like three quarters of y'all's brains right now, they're going, "well, I'm better than everybody else in my market. So look, I am great." Yeah, and that's fantastic, right?
[00:18:13] But if you're the best one in the market, and you might be, so I'm talking to you right now, because I was the best one in my market, hands down. There was like no competition but I was still playing really small. I got up to 260 doors because I was in that really want it. I wasn't in this, Hey, I'm like going to make this a non negotiable.
[00:18:32] And I know, like, I was very aware. I knew where I was. Jason's like, you could make this a thousand door company if you wanted to. I know that I could, and it would have been really easy. I already know what I would have done. I could have doubled my business overnight and I know that. But I wasn't in this stage where it was a non negotiable.
[00:18:47] So was I the best one in my market? Hands down, but am I really playing full out? No. And I knew I wasn't so if you're thinking like, yeah, but I am the, like, I am the greatest already. You might be but I think the one thing that I would say here because I realized this Actually when I was working at an insurance company, you can't compete with other people That is not don't and we all do this.
[00:19:16] Like this is super common for us to do We go, "oh, well like my neighbor over there just got a new ferrari now I have to get a new ferrari." No, you compete against yourself. So every day you need to be better than you were yesterday.
[00:19:29] That's the game you have to play. You can't worry about what your neighbors are doing, what your competition is doing and what other people in your market are doing. Who cares what they're doing? Let them do whatever they're doing and you worry about yourself. And if you are, you're like, "Oh, I'm already the greatest one in my market."
[00:19:47] Fantastic. Then you got to keep going. So if you're the greatest one in your market like me and I was at 260 doors, don't stop at 260 doors. Don't be like, "oh, I already did it. Like look at me." Keep going. So at 260 doors, double that and then double it again And when you're really on this path, like that is how you become really great.
[00:20:10] Don't just say like, "Oh, I'm already the best in my market. So I'm there." You have not arrived yet.
[00:20:15] Jason: So I think those listening, I mean, you know, deep down whether your business is great or not. Whether you're really delivering the level of service and you know there's flaws. You know you're not at that great level yet.
[00:20:29] And to Sarah's credit, she was running a really effective business. I mean, you had 60 percent plus profit margin and you were part time. She's flexing here. So, but she fell in love with coaching clients at DoorGrow. She was like part time and she was like, "Hey," and she fell in love with something that she then really wanted to be great at.
[00:20:50] Here's the thing. You need to know who you are, ET talked about this. You need to know who you are and you need to become great. Not just the best in your market, if the bar is really low, but you need to become where, you know, deep down is great. And that level you know, Ben Hardy, who wrote the 10X is easier than 2X said the only person that knows your potential, that's between you and God and everyone else might say, "Oh, what you're doing is amazing. It's great." But you might know if there's more and no one else is going to be able to set that higher bar than yourself. You need to know what great is and decide what that looks like, and you need to become great. And what he said when you become great, the system that you need will come like Michael Jordan invested and became great. And then you're The right people were attracted to him. He found Phil Jackson, right? Michael Jackson found Quincy Jones, right? Then when you become great, you will, then the system will come.
[00:21:44] The system is out there. It's available and you will find the right system. And then once you have the system that you need, then you can leverage greatness. Then you can really leverage that greatness and truly showcase your greatness. And you don't have to be the most talented if you got the right system. You don't have to be the smartest
[00:22:04] if you have the right system, you don't need to be different, you just need be a better version of yourself and compete with yourself. And you know, that's it. You just really need the right system. And I got excited because at DoorGrow, we've built the system. We built the system for the best property managers.
[00:22:22] That was our intention. And I was really excited because I'm like, "we're the system! We've got the system." We just need to find those that really want to be great. And so I'm challenging everyone listening. I want you to want to be great, but you've got to want it. No one else is going to do it for you.
[00:22:35] And Sarah wants me to wrap up. You want me to wrap up? We'll wrap up. So only you can do the work, but doing it alone is a choice. That's what he said. So find he had this scripture. He said, find a man that's diligent at what he does. And he will stand before Kings. Nothing can stop you.
[00:22:51] Only you can stop you. You owe you. And then he said, he had people chanting, "I can, I will, I must." And so when you want to succeed as bad as you want to breathe, then you will be wildly successful. And we would love to be part of that journey. I'm a conductor with my pencil. All right. I'm just getting excited.
[00:23:12] I'm going to poke somebody in the eye here.
[00:23:13] Sarah: It's going to be me.
[00:23:16] Jason: "It's going to be me." All right. So anyway, reach out the DoorGrow. We would love to support you. And until next time to our mutual growth, bye everyone.
[00:23:25] 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!
[00:23:51] At DoorGrow, we solve your biggest challenge: getting deals and growing your business. Find out more at doorgrow.com. Find any show notes or links from today's episode on our blog doorgrow.com, and to get notified of future events and news subscribe to our newsletter at doorgrow.com/subscribe. Until next time, take what you learn and start DoorGrow Hacking your business and your life.
If you have ever gone to big, in-person coaching events, masterminds, or conferences, you’ve probably come back to your team with a TON of ideas you want to implement.
In this episode, property management growth experts Jason and Sarah Hull talk about how to bring new ideas back to your business and implement them without totally overwhelming your team.
[01:22] Why we invest in coaching ourselves
[05:47] New ideas take time to implement
[09:37] You need better hooks!
[10:39] How to avoid overwhelming your team with new ideas
[17:54] The best live event for property managers
“People give up long before they get results in anything.”
“If you quit before you get the results, it's never going to work.”
“You can guarantee failure if you stop.”
“We grossly underestimate the amount of work that people put into something to achieve success or to get a result.”
[00:00:00] Jason: It's difficult because we come back from an event and then we pull the pin on a grenade and throw it into the middle of the room with our team. We're like, "Hey, here's this really exciting thing!" And it's exciting for us. But for them, they're like, "I already have all this work that I'm expected to do, and you want to like change everything now?"
[00:00:19] 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. DoorGrow property managers love the opportunities, daily variety, unique challenges, and freedom that property management brings.
[00:00:44] 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.
[00:01:00] 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. All right. So we just got back from doing what?
[00:01:25] Sarah: We went to two events back to back, which is a little crazy, but we did it. So we went to a Mastermind right outside of Nashville, Tennessee. And right after that, we went to a big event down in Orlando. It's Funnel Hacking Live.
[00:01:41] So we were gone for like a whole week.
[00:01:45] Jason: Yeah, a whole week of travel and events and how'd you like it?
[00:01:50] Sarah: I loved it. So it was a lot in a short amount of time especially with the travel. So we did four cities in three days. So that was kind of crazy, but it was really great.
[00:02:02] And then it was funny because we did our mastermind event and right after that, then we went to Funnel Hacking Live, and on the way to, and like from both of these events, we were then watching like an online course from Alex Hormozi. So it was just like information overload.
[00:02:21] Jason: Yeah so much. We have a lot of ideas. We do. We took a lot of notes. We have a lot of notes, a lot of ideas, and it can be a bit overwhelming. A lot of you probably feel like that when you go to events. You get a lot of ideas, a lot of stuff. And so we talked about how we need, like when we have some space, because we're getting caught up in all the work that we missed and everybody needing us.
[00:02:45] We need to block out at least a day or two to really just digest all of the stuff that we got and to prioritize it and figure out where's this going to fit in with what we're doing. So for you, what are some of the key takeaways that you got that you feel like you are motivated to work on as a result of all the stuff that we just downloaded?
[00:03:07] Sarah: Well, there's so many things I think if I were to have to choose right now and prioritize, I think probably like building my own personal brand would be on the top of the list. And doing the thing that I hate the most, which is social media. Yay. I hate social media so much. I just hate it, but it's a thing that you've got to do, I guess.
[00:03:31] Jason: Yeah. So a lot of people I think make the mistake of trying to build up the business brand on social media. Which generally is a lot less effective because people want to interact with people and most of the people that you follow are not a business, they're a person, right? And so I think that's one of the things that took away too, is I need to really focus on building up my personal brand.
[00:03:54] You need to focus on building up your personal brand and those two personal brands combined, you know, if we're focused on a business brand can feed that, but really, people want to connect with people. And so I've been really putting a lot more effort into short form video, cranking out a lot more content so that I can build a bigger and bigger following.
[00:04:14] And the one thing that really stuck out to me related to that is the importance of consistency and doing a piece of content every single day, rain or shine and so this is something we're trying to get in place so that we can crank out something every single day.
[00:04:34] Sarah: Every day. So I'm going to go from not doing social media to doing social media every day. It sounds horrible.
[00:04:44] Jason: Yeah. And I mean, from the first event we went to, one of the things that I took away is I need to go live a lot more often I need to be really contributing and adding value to our free Facebook group, which if you're a property manager, make sure you're in it. DoorGrowClub.Com and just providing value and not being so worried about everything looking perfect.
[00:05:08] You know, one of our mentors, he's just like driving, he's in a t shirt, like he just goes live in that group all the time. But then also putting out like nicely branded content on short form videos, something that I took away from the Funnel Hacking Live event that we went to, and putting that out every single day.
[00:05:26] And they showed these examples, right, of, you know, women and men that had done something every single day for a year, and how things just started to explode. Yeah. Eventually, once the algorithm learned they were going to be there, and they had a topic, and they were consistent, and they started to build an audience, then they started to get featured, and then they started to explode.
[00:05:47] Sarah: And then also, the other thing, too, is there are a few examples of this, where I don't remember which girl it was, maybe it was Jodi, maybe Jodi, I don't remember, but she was saying "Well, my brother was going to start this business and then he started doing social media content and then he stopped and I had asked him like, 'Hey, how are things going?'
[00:06:04] And he's like, 'ah, yeah, I stopped doing that.'" And she said, "well, what do you mean you stopped?" And he's like, "no, I didn't, it didn't work. Nothing happened from it." And he had only done it for a very short period of time, so he gave up. And I think that's what happens is people give up long before they get results in anything.
[00:06:23] And it's not just social media it's oftentimes in anything, you know, they're, you know, trying to make relationships with investors or with other real estate agents or their neighbor property managers you know, and they're like, "well, it didn't work, you know, I called, you know, I sent 500 emails and I did, you know, 100 calls and it didn't work."
[00:06:40] Yeah. And then if you quit before you get the results, it's never going to work, right? So you can guarantee failure if you stop.
[00:06:48] Jason: Yeah. I think one of the things I realized is that we grossly underestimate the amount of work that people put into something to achieve success or to get a result. And so, like, we learned this watching one of the Hormozi videos.
[00:07:06] He was talking about the sample size sometimes is just too small. He was like, " I did 300 flyers and I didn't get any calls." and he said, how many, did the guy do a day? 5,000. He's like, "I do 5,000 a day." He did 3,000 one time, like in a month. And he was like, "oh. This is what I thought was required. It's actually this."
[00:07:27] Sarah: Think about it, like if you're doing 300, if you contact 300 people, yeah, did you tap out your market? And the answer to that is probably no. Are there more than 300 investors in your market? I bet there are.
[00:07:39] Are there more than 300 real estate agents where you are? Unless you're in a tiny little podunk town like I was, you probably are.
[00:07:47] Jason: Yeah, so that's something that really stood out to me is I'm not doing enough. And so the level of work and the level of commitment that some of these entrepreneurs had in their businesses.
[00:07:59] really created some contrast for me. I was like, "wow, I'm not doing that." So what did I do? Like we're back. It was Monday yesterday. And I was like, all right, I got up at like four in the morning 4:30 in the morning. And I just worked on connecting and reaching out to a hundred people. So I sent out like a hundred voice messages to Instagram followers.
[00:08:23] That's my goal is to just crank out connecting to a hundred people every day and just do this. And that will create some connection and that will start to build stuff up. And if I put in the reps doing that, and then maybe get some support, I also challenged my team, like, see if you can reach out to a hundred people each day.
[00:08:43] So we'll see if we start to see some results. And I already started having conversations just from the initial outreach. So if I just do that every day, that should have a significant impact on the business and it compounds over time. And so then I'm also cranking out a lot more videos like this morning, you know, I'm took my daughter to school. On the way back where I'm not having to listen to Taylor Swift or I listen to her talk about Taylor Swift and tell me all the, like, theories and ideas about Taylor Swift. Like what's her cat's name. Right, like, all this stuff about Taylor Swift because she's like a Taylor Swift fanatic.
[00:09:17] Like, as soon as she's out of the car, I started recording videos while I'm driving. So then I have some, like, I've got my phone, I know how to get home, so, like, It's recording videos and I'm just talking about some different things. Hardest is sometimes just think, what should I talk about? So sometimes I'm asking chat GPT, like, "what should I talk about?"
[00:09:34] You know, And generating some prompts. And another thing that I learned about, or that really kind of sunk in a little more effectively was the idea of having hooks. A lot of people think they have a lead problem or a lead magnet problem or a lead gen problem. And really what Steven Larson, a friend of mine mentioned is you really just have a hook problem.
[00:10:03] You just don't have a good hook to capture people's attention in the first three to five seconds, that hook on a phone call matters on your marketing matters more than anything else. And so not having a good hook in the beginning can really cause you to lose a lot of money if you're spending money on advertising.
[00:10:21] So I'm now trying to be more conscious of the hook at the beginning of my videos that I'm creating and being more effective at creating hooks that capture attention or that are a pattern interrupt to get people to pay attention. Because if I don't do that. It doesn't matter how good the content is.
[00:10:39] Sarah: So I think one of the other things too is, and this happens every time we've seen it over and over again with our clients too, is they'll come, they'll go, especially one of our events because we jam pack stuff. So they'll come to one of the events and then they're like, "yeah, but I have so many great ideas. I don't know how to implement all of it." Or they're like, "yeah, but I don't know if my team will go for that. Like, I want to do that, but like, I just don't know if my team is going to go for that." And I think it's really common when someone goes to an event and they were there. So they had that experience. They saw everything they experienced at all. Like it sunk in, it hit them and they're like, "oh yeah, like it's super clear to me why we have to do this." And then they want to come back and they want to change things in the business and their team didn't have that same experience. Yeah, so the team wasn't at the event.
[00:11:27] The team is like, "hey, we're just holding down the fort while you're out, you know, doing this event," and then you come back like a crazy person and you're like "guys, we're going to change the whole business model! We're going to start doing things like this. We're going to do things like this instead and we're going to do all of this and I got all these great ideas and here's what we're going to do!" And the team was like, "what are you talking about? Why?" Like You come in hot like a crazy person. And I think there's kind of a better way to approach it. The one of the things I think that's really helpful. Is having some sort of strategic planning system like we use DoorGrow OS. That's our operating system. It's also available for you guys. If you're interested, it's like 97 bucks a month but it's a really great planning system so that instead of coming back with like 20,000 ideas and going, "yeah, I'm going to implement all of them."
[00:12:15] Realistically, you're not. Realistically, there are going to be things that are going to be priority and they take precedence and then there are going to be things that maybe you never do. And they're going to be things that you want to do, but they're going to be way down the line. And you need to really find a way to like organize all of this stuff and then prioritize.
[00:12:32] What are we actually going to do right now? Like, what would be the biggest thing that we could do right now to move the business forward? So something like that would help and having your team involved in that is a really great way to make sure that your team is actually bought in Instead of you coming back and coming like "hey, we're going to do this. We're going to do that this, and we're changing this and we're like going to hire these people and maybe we're going to fire, you know, John over there." Then the team is like "whoa!" like they feel like railroaded because they didn't have the same experience that you had.
[00:13:03] So having a meeting, we're going to do this to o, having a meeting with your team and just sharing the ideas. And you're not saying, "we're going to do this." All you're doing is just sharing the ideas that you learned. And that way it's like, "hey guys, I like, I learned this really cool thing and it kind of sparked an idea. I'd like to talk about that and see if it makes sense. Like, what do you guys think about this?" And that way you're involving your team in it instead of just saying, "we're going to do this." And they're like, "oh, I don't want to do that." We have to keep in mind that people don't like change. Change is scary.
[00:13:37] It's different. It's like you're getting them outside of their comfort zone and outside of their box. But if they're part of the conversation, and they feel like they have input, and like their opinion in the whole discussion actually matters and counts for something, they'll be a lot more bought in to whatever ideas you actually decide to implement and move forward with.
[00:13:59] Jason: Yeah, I think that's really important. It's difficult because we come back from an event and then we pull the pin on a grenade and throw it into the middle of the room with our team. We're like, "Hey, here's this really exciting thing!" And it's exciting for us. But for them, they're like, "I already have all this work that I'm expected to do, and you want to like change everything now?" And so our team members, they're not entrepreneurs for a reason, right? They want a job that gives them safety and security. They want peace. And we get a kick out of innovating, doing new things, changing stuff a lot of times. And we have this big picture vision and we're risk takers to start a business.
[00:14:38] We're cowboys and cowgirls. We're wild, right? And that can really be disruptive to the business if we don't get them gently to buy into the vision. And there's a way to do that, right? We do that through DoorGrow OS and through how we plan here at DoorGrow. You and I will probably talk about a bunch of ideas.
[00:14:57] We've already been talking a ton about all these different ideas that we got and all the things we could implement, all the things that we can do. And then we can figure out what we want to prioritize before we just go bombard the team with everything. And then we have a cadence of planning. So the things that do matter to us, we can start to mix into our cadence of planning, but there's a lot of things that we got from this that you and I can just take action on right away. Yeah. Without messing with the team at all. But it doesn't impact the team in any way, well, maybe inadvertently, but if I just start creating a whole bunch more videos, right? That's my time or I can spend..
[00:15:36] Sarah: Madi will hear this and be like, "really it doesn't affect the team?"
[00:15:39] Jason: Yeah, I know. My daughter who does the video editing and social media.
[00:15:43] Madi, I'm with you.
[00:15:44] She'll be editing this episode and saying "right, right"
[00:15:48] Sarah: Her face yesterday. Yeah. You're like, "I want to do a short form video every day," and she goes like, "every day? Like every...?" And she's like, "how soon are we going to do that?" And he's like, "as soon as possible."
[00:15:58] Jason: That was kind of a grenade. Yeah. And that may mean you, you need to build out the team a little bit. Maybe we need additional people, who knows, but.
[00:16:05] Sarah: So I think one of the things too that Aaron pointed out in the first part of our mastermind event that we went to is. Your team really needs consistency and your team needs to know that who they're working for is like, you're a safe bet because there's a lot of jobs out there.
[00:16:24] They can go work for just about anyone, and they're with you. They need to trust you to of course, change things and move things forward but do so in a way that doesn't completely disrupt, you know, their sense of safety. So doing things slower than probably we would want to do them is really important, right?
[00:16:48] Because then if you come back and you just. Yep it's a great analogy, just throwing the grenade in. It's, that is not safe. That is not steady. That is not slow. That's like, "hey, we went to this event, we were gone for a week, and in the week we decided to change everything about the business." The team's like, "what?"
[00:17:06] that means every time that you go to an event, your team is going to be panicked. Your team is going to panic. They're going to go, "oh god. They're going somewhere again. Oh crap. Now what?" And if we have this kind of sense of like impeding doom in the business then you can implement all of the ideas or none of the ideas or just one it won't even matter what you do because your team, they need to be bought in and they need to feel safe, so that they're on board with actually doing things However you're going to do them, it doesn't matter, but if you don't have the support of the team, and you aren't doing a good job at holding the, like, a good container for them, then you're not doing yourself any favors.
[00:17:51] Jason: Yeah, good stuff. Well, we have an event that's coming up in May. Which will be DoorGrow live. So people have plenty of time to get ready for this. So if you want to be part of An event where you get a bunch of ideas and you can get a grenade to throw at your team, I'm joking, then make sure you come to our DoorGrow live event It's it really is an awesome event.
[00:18:15] Okay, cool. Well, let's go ahead and wrap this up. So if you are a property management entrepreneur and you're wanting to add doors and you're wanting to grow your business and you're wanting to figure out operations because adding doors is starting to get uncomfortable for you, either of those issues, we can help you. Reach out to us at DoorGrow.
[00:18:33] And until next time to our mutual growth. Bye everyone.
[00:18:37] you just listened to the #DoorGrowShow. We are building a community of the savviest property management entrepreneurs on the planet in the DoorGrowClub. Join your fellow DoorGrow Hackers at doorgrowclub.com. Listen, everyone is doing the same stuff. SEO, PPC, pay-per-lead content, social direct mail, and they still struggle to grow!
[00:19:04] 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.
When you are creating a team in your property management business, the culture that you create will make or break your business and your ability to grow and scale.
In this episode, property management growth experts Jason and Sarah Hull sit down with property management entrepreneur and DoorGrow client Brian Mullins to talk about hiring, culture, and processes.
[05:33] Why culture is important in a business
[12:07] Importance of humility and showing gratitude as a business owner
[19:48] Having processes makes everything easier!
[24:18] Setting goals in your business
“If I could just clone myself, then all my hopes and dreams would come true because I would make that clone of me do all the stuff I don't want to do. Guess what? They wouldn't want to do it either.”
“People that can do everything do not make great team members. They make great business owners.”
“Don't be the property manager, be the property management business owner. Hire the property manager.”
“Whatever we focus on with our team and are grateful for, they get better at that.”
[00:00:00] Jason: They say pride cometh before the fall. So if you're not humble in business, usually you get your ass handed to you at some point, and then you are forced to be humbled. And so you either humble yourself or you get forced to be humbled.
[00:00:12] 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. 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. 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. We're your hosts, property management, growth experts, Jason Hull, the founder and CEO of DoorGrow, and Sarah Hull, co-owner and COO of DoorGrow. Now let's get into the show.
[00:01:19] And our guest today is Brian Mullins. Brian, welcome to the show.
[00:01:24] Brian: Thanks for having me.
[00:01:25] Jason: Cool. So Brian, give us a little bit of background on you for those listening, how you got into property management, why you decided to do that crazy thing, and yeah, share a little bit about your journey in entrepreneurism.
[00:01:39] Brian: Okay. Well, it goes back a long ways. I I'd always had an interest in real estate. I grew up in high school during the ramp up to the great recession and was fascinated by it, and graduated high school, wasn't sure exactly where I wanted to go. I was leaning towards technology or entrepreneurship, finance business, and started computer science, said, "Oh, hell no, I'm not doing this," and then switched over to finance. And in that time, I was also working for a collection law firm as my college job. So I switched to finance, fell in love with that, and then I got an opportunity to take some electives in finance, and real estate was actually one of the departments under finance.
[00:02:20] And so, like, well, I can get a minor and fulfill my electives in real estate, or in finance. And so I took my first real estate class, and that was the point which I decided that this is where I wanted to be, and this would have been in 07, 08, and I set myself as a goal to go through college, graduate college, work five years for somebody else, and then start essentially a investment brokerage, doing property management acquisitions, the whole nine yards. So I went all the way through school, graduated in 2010, which is a really crappy time to find a job and I said, "I'm not going to go do some of these jobs that are actually available," and I went and got my MBA instead, graduated in 2012, worked 5 years for a regional automotive group, and I was in charge of all their real properties, and so I was doing a lot of commercial real estate at that point, building buildings, and also managing the various assets that they owned. And then after one week, should I have my five year anniversary? I quit, made a little bit of a shift. In hindsight, probably wasn't the best idea. I went more towards retail brokerage, and ran with that, never had a ton of success, survived made a decent chunk of change, but I was never super satisfied with it, recruiting agents is not my jam.
[00:03:32] And so during COVID, I saw the handwriting on the wall, I knew that the market was going to collapse, you know, you can't live with interest rates as low as they were, and it's a pendulum that's going to swing the other way, and so we made the conscious shift at that point, and I took a few key members of my retail brokerage and said, we're going to go into property management, and this was in early 2021. So, at that point, I had, I owned like 17, 15, 17 doors, something like that myself. I managed a couple others, so we're at about 20 doors. And then we quickly expanded, we got up to our peak was about 150 doors that we got up to, and then that was about the time that we joined DoorGrow and we ended up firing our largest client.
[00:04:14] It was an apartment complex, but it was just an absolute nightmare, and then we've been rolling ever since. And then also during this. I actually had an investor reach out to me and say, we want to grow a real estate portfolio, and so we shifted from when we originally signed on with DoorGrow to really looking for clients to more, we need the process and the culture so we can grow this business because we've got essentially, you know, a big portfolio of properties coming on and we need to be able to scale it. So that's the short story of how I got into it. I've always loved it. All my work history has led up to this. Working collections for 10 years through high school and college is a really good transition into property management because it's the same thing.
[00:04:54] Yeah, it is. You're dealing with the people who don't pay their debts are a lot of mostly tenants, you know, to somebody. And so you have to deal with that type of clientele, and it's that balance. And I really appreciate my lawyer that I work for. He really taught me a lot of like, how do we balance being compassionate, but also being firm because that you can be a jerk, right? Or you can be a, you know, somebody just gets rolled over. It's like, you need to find that in between. So I learned a lot from that and working real estate from five years and then even doing, I learned a lot being on the retail brokerage side.
[00:05:27] Jason: Awesome. Yeah. So it sounds like you have a lot of experience that you really can leverage to benefit your clients. So the topic we are discussing today's how process and culture can make or break your organization. So what what have you learned about process or culture related to this? What conclusions have you been arriving at?
[00:05:47] Brian: So, yeah, so for me, I'm an only child. I was always raised, you know, very independent, and I can do it myself. The problem is I can't grow an organization like that. Yeah. The kind of my first real inclination of this was like when I read the book Good to Great, right? It's, you know, and then that's even on a big scale, but like, how can I be a leader to grow an organization because I can't do it all myself? I could, but I'm never going to be able to scale to where I want to. I'm always going to be capped out and I'm going to have a job and not a business. And so, you know, whenever this investor came on and we were really starting to grow, like we were at 150, we were feeling the growing pains and we noticed this like with the retail brokerage, like keeping people was harder. Like I could recruit, I'm a good salesperson. Whatever I want to do, I can get somebody in the door. But then keeping them long term because people are looking for something different than what I would be. That's one of the biggest lessons I've learned is that not everybody's like me. If I'm an employee, I don't care as much about culture. Even though I do in the background, but like, that's not my main thing. Like I'm very goal oriented enough. I'm going to get my job done, but that's not what the majority of people are looking for. And so we need to be able to set that culture.
[00:06:59] And so that was the first piece that we were noticing, but we didn't really realize it. And so like when we came to DoorGrow and especially when I got this investor, it was processes too, because I, like you said, I have so much experience and all of this, and I've done this for so long. I'm a hell of a property manager. I can manage all day long. I don't like doing it necessarily, but I can't grow, I could probably manage a hundred 150 doors on my own. But then I'm tapped out. And so how do I take what I'm doing and make it a process so I can replicate it? And once I replicate it, you know, even here in this market, how it should be something I can replicate in other markets as well.
[00:07:39] So that's where we've been going and we've been working really hard at getting those processes documented, getting as much automated as possible. So that way we don't have to worry about it. The system just runs on its own and, you know, and we're getting to that point now, and once we fully execute everything and we feel really confident in that, it's just going to be plug and play on grip.
[00:08:01] Jason: Yeah, yeah. I think it's a big mistake that entrepreneurs make early in their journey. And it's super common to assume that people are like them, right? We all start there. A lot of times that's our goal with hiring in the beginning, I call it the clone myth.
[00:08:15] It's this belief, maybe those of you listening right now are thinking this, "if I could just clone myself, then all my hopes and dreams would come true because I would make that clone of me do all the stuff I don't want to do." Guess what? They wouldn't want to do it either.
[00:08:27] And so they go out hunting for a clone. They're like, "I need to find somebody like me because I can do everything. If I just had somebody amazing like me, they could do everything..." and then leave and go start their own business is the reality, right? And so, but everybody thinks this and you can wear every hat in the business.
[00:08:44] Entrepreneurs generally can do that. We're very adaptable. But people that can do everything do not make great team members. They make great business owners and you don't love doing everything right? Like you just said, I don't like being a property manager, which for those listening could mean two different things, right? Your clients would probably not want to hear that, right? But when you say that, you like having a property management business. I like dealing with the owner. In which you're a property manager, but then for some, being the property manager means doing the actual property management work, which is the property manager you hire as a property management business owner.
[00:09:18] Yep. Well, those are two different statements, right? And so we encourage everybody listening, like don't be the property manager, be the property management business owner. Hire the property manager. So you've gone through this journey. You started working with us and defining your culture, getting your culture materials defined, and in the beginning, you're like most entrepreneurs. They're like, "what's this culture stuff? This sounds like fluffy woo woo BS. Like I don't need this. I just, I want results. Get the job done. I pay you. Just do the effing work." So, yeah. So what conclusions have you come to then with your team and with culture?
[00:09:52] How does this shift your team and, or how does this shift who you hire? Like, what have you realized?
[00:09:56] Brian: So, we've been working really hard on that hiring piece. And so whenever we're looking to hire, like we've got to make sure we hire the right person. And, you know, we've had like some team players that, you know, maybe aren't the best team players.
[00:10:10] And then you try to hire someone that can put up with them. Well, that's not a good option because you end up hiring somebody just like that. And then you've got two people that are like that. And you're like, we can't do this. You know, that doesn't really work in the organization and it's going to completely destroy stuff.
[00:10:23] So, you know, we have to look for people who are willing to be team players. And so there's a book that I read The Ideal Team Player by Patrick Lencioni, and he mentions in the book three virtues. And I think it's a really good summation of what we're looking for when we hire. And those three are humble, hungry, and smart. We'll start at the bottom. So smart is not intelligence. It's emotional intelligence, right? It's can you handle yourself with clients? Can you handle yourself with the coworkers? Do you know how to make a smart response to things? And hunger obviously drive. You know, we don't want people that are just here to get a paycheck and go home because that's not going to succeed.
[00:11:00] We're not an assembly line and this business is a 24/7 business. So I don't need someone at 5 o'clock that they fall off the face of the earth and maybe they're the only ones with an answer that we need to get ahold of. And then humble is the hardest thing to hire for and humble is where I struggle the most because naturally I am not a humble person my wife likes to make fun of me about that. But it's true. I'm not. I've always known that I'm decent at what I do and I walk and talk like it. So those three things is what we're looking for. And so we're very intentional when we're hiring now at looking for these aspects because you're right. When I first started hiring, I wanted to hire people like me, but all that would do is create tension, and they would eventually leave and start their own business and that's not a way to grow the business. I need people that fit in their role, who know their role, but also there's only so many people that can be the entrepreneurs only some people that can be the leader, right, of the organization. That's just the way the world turns. And so, like, we're hiring people on culture. We're also hiring people for the right position that fits their personality.
[00:12:07] Jason: So let's talk about humility. Let's talk about this. because I think this is a challenge and there's benefits to being humble. There's significant benefits to being humble.
[00:12:16] Humble means that you are teachable. It means that you are able to get new information. They say pride cometh before the fall. So if you're not humble in business, usually you get your ass handed to you at some point, and then you are forced to be humbled. And so you either humble yourself or you get forced to be humbled.
[00:12:34] And so the advantage, and a lot of people think humility is debasing yourself or putting yourself down or saying that you're not great. And I don't think that's what real humility is. That's like false humility maybe. I don't think that's what humility is. I think my definition or how I define humility is that you have the ability to recognize others hand in your own success, whether it's God, whether it's your team, whether it's your mentors, just being able to recognize that other people played a part in your success is the key to humility and it's also what opens the door to you being able to be more successful because if you think it's all you, you always are limiting your ability to have more success.
[00:13:20] Brian: Yeah. It's the people that are around you and that's why whenever I hire somebody, like if they think they're all that and that no one can touch them, they will never work because they lose their hunger too, right? Because they think it's all them and they lose their smart communication. They think they're all that and that they're always right with how they communicate. And that's not true. Everybody makes mistakes. I make mistakes. Everybody makes mistakes. And you have to be able to admit that humbly. And, you know, one of the things that we've always done, even from day one is I want to make sure the client's taken care of, and that is being willing to admit when we've effed up and take the hit, there have been real estate deals in retail time, there's been, you know, there was a tenant that we placed recently that just went completely downhill real fast and within like a month and we took the hit on that, but that's not my client's fault, right? Should we have done that? I don't know. It's a really good client but you know, we need to make it right to the client and we need to say, "hey, we shouldn't have placed this tenant in here," and I told the client that, and I told him "we'll make sure you're taken care of so and that's what we do.
[00:14:32] Jason: Being transparent. I think you know, I put a lot of research into this a long time ago because, you know, I grew up in this religious culture in which you were always taught to be humble. But I was like, how do you humble yourself? Like, how do you become humble? And eventually, I had this epiphany if humility is recognizing other's hand in your success, the secret key to unlock humility and all the juicy benefits that everybody talks about that humility gives you true humility is gratitude. And so just learning to be grateful. And the way I think we can facilitate that with our team is to recognize their hand and to be grateful. So one of the things we do in almost all of our team meetings, especially our daily huddle, we do 'caught being awesome' or gratitude and like, 'what are you grateful for?'
[00:15:16] And in our daily planning that we give the clients to do, we're like, what can you appreciate? And there's a double entendre there or meaning right of increasing in value, but also recognizing gratitude. And whatever we focus on with our team and are grateful for, they get better at that.
[00:15:33] Brian: And for me, like it was, it's not my natural instinct to say, "Hey, you did a good job." I have forced myself to be like, "Hey, you've done a good job," and then I make sure my management team below me does the same thing with their people. We're not big enough that I don't see it, right? Like they're pulling around the office and I hear it and I will call the manager out and say, "Hey, you know, you should talk to your people and make sure they know that, you know, that they did a good job."
[00:16:01] Sarah: That's one of the things we do in our team review meetings. Well, I run them. But like, I talk about like, "hey, you know, what's going well. And then are there any challenges?" And then I always just leave space at the end. Like, "do you have just any ideas?" Because maybe every day you do this thing and you're like, "Oh, it would be so much better if we could do it like this," or "it would be easier if we could do it like this."
[00:16:23] Well, tell me that. And then I always want to make sure that I'm bringing out. Like, the opportunity just to be thankful for what they do. And especially because I don't have to do it. So if I didn't have you on my team, it would be me, it'd be me and Jason. So like I'm appreciative, you know, for the team members that we have and for the care that they really show our clients.
[00:16:45] And that to me is big. But our team members consistently, like they just go above and beyond like all of them and they'll be like, "oh no, I already handled this" or, "oh, well, hey, I found this problem, and then I figured this, and then I just took care of it" and we're like, " okay, we weren't even involved in that. Thank you for doing that." And I think that's a really good, like the daily huddles are great. And then that one on one too is also really really important for them to just to hear that because it's always nice to hear "thank you," and especially in an industry like property management, where your tenants are not calling you going, "Hey, Brian, I just wanted to tell you how amazing you are. Thank you so much for being so great. I really appreciate everything you do. I've never had a property manager that really cares like this." They're like, " why wasn't this done? And I'm angry about this and rah!" Right? Like this is what we deal with. And this is what our front end staff deals with. So having something to counterbalance the like ball of hatred that's presented to us every day is huge in this industry.
[00:17:46] Jason: Yeah. I think what's really cool when Sarah's running our meetings, what we'll see because we've led it by example, and Sarah's much better at this. She points out every team member that like, "thank you for doing this" and this sort of thing. The team now do it for each other. So when we have our little stage in our morning huddle that we do, it's, you know, caught being awesome or, you know, anyone do anything praiseworthy? Then, you know, team members now are calling out other team members.
[00:18:17] "Hey, thank you for Adam getting answers to me so quickly. He's always so responsive," things like this. And so the good in that in being grateful, you're magnifying all the good. And so all my team members want to do more. They're getting rewarded. And what I find most team members want more than money. Most team members want recognition more than money once their basic needs are met. And that's weird for us. That's weird for us because we like money, right? We like money probably more than recognition. We're like, "well, let's get paid. You know, cool. I have some accolades. Get me paid, right?" Salespeople may be like that. The rest of your team probably really would just like to be recognized, but everybody likes being recognized.
[00:18:58] So I'll recognize her. She runs our meetings and does an amazing job and I would not be nearly as good at this. And she facilitates this and gets everybody talking. Sometimes I don't even talk like the whole huddle was like, "Hey, everyone," you know, and I'm not as connected to a lot of the team sometimes.
[00:19:16] So I can't even think of things sometimes to call people out for being awesome because I'm probably mostly interacting only with my assistant or sometimes with Sarah. And so, you know, that's it. And so my team members calling each other out creates this sort of culture of gratitude and appreciation, which increases the positivity and the positive results and that work environment, it becomes this almost like a feedback loop, a positive feedback loop. It grows my team members' skill and ability.
[00:19:48] Brian: And I think with this, like, because yeah you have to have your team and you will retain your team more, but then that also goes ties into the process side of things, because if you do lose a team member, if you have your processes lined out.
[00:20:00] It's not as stressful if somebody were to leave because it's plug and play, right? Like, "okay, this is your job." And we've been working on recording videos of how you do certain things. And they're short. We try not to make them, you know, an hour long videos. And that way it's like, you know, you can go find that little piece that you need instead of having to like watch hour long video, but you find that and then now it's plug and play. And so that way you can easily hire somebody that maybe they're not, they don't have the perfect skill set, but they have the humility, they have the hunger, they have the smarts, they have the right culture for your organization.
[00:20:35] And then the process is there. Where if they have that culture piece, they can be trained pretty easily in the process if it's documented properly.
[00:20:44] Jason: Very cool. So what's next for you in systems, process, developing your culture? What do you see on the horizon for your team?
[00:20:52] Brian: So, right now, what we're working on is finalizing everything that we have been working on. I've got an intern who's been incredibly helpful and getting everything set up. And so here in the next month or so, I'm going to have him sit down and go over everything that he's built in the process. And we're going to tweak it. But we've got everything written down on paper, and we've gotten most of it into the computer systems.
[00:21:14] And then we're going to have a team meeting and make sure everything is running like it should. And then from there, we're going to make sure all those videos are up and going. And then we're going to work on expanding the team. So the thing is like with my investor who wants to really push this, like he wants to get in multiple markets.
[00:21:31] And so what we're going to be doing is expanding with him. And so what we're doing is we're going to be looking for acquisitions. So we're hopefully we'll start with an acquisition and somewhere in our market. Because that way it's a little easier. I don't care how huge it is, even if it's 30 to 50 doors.
[00:21:48] That would be stellar because it gives us an opportunity to learn the acquisitions piece. And then the next thing is we're going to go, because we're in Oklahoma City, next thing we're going to go up to Turnpike and start looking for acquisitions in Tulsa. And then we'll essentially set up a separate base in Tulsa.
[00:22:03] But once we have all of our systems here and our cultures here. You know, it's going to be pretty easy to set. It's a 90 minute drive up there. So it's not the end of the world to have to run up there. And then from there, we're going to be going into other markets out of state. And that becomes more of an issue because we have different brokerage laws and I don't sit for my broker's exam or someone who would in another state.
[00:22:23] So that's where we're continuing to grow is to go regional with this. And, you know, and the side that doesn't, isn't directly related to property management is like. We're tasked with bringing on doors. And so these things, the same pieces, the culture and the process follow with any business, it's not just property management.
[00:22:42] And so like me and Mallory, my operator, we are having a meeting this morning. It's like, "okay, we've got this ball rolling. We need to start looking at the next thing, which is how do we increase our acquisitions of properties?" Not of actual real estate acquisitions. And so we're taking these exact same pieces and say, "okay, we need to line out the process," and then we can hire people to do it because the two of us can do it.
[00:23:06] We don't have the time to do it. We need to get the processes lined out so we can put the right person in the seat and make it happen.
[00:23:12] Jason: Yeah. So we've touched on the three systems that are really needed to make the business infinitely scalable, as I say. So you need really good people. You need a good people system, need a good process system, and then the next big piece is a really good planning system. Sounds like you have a plan and getting that plan built out in DoorGrow OS so that it's no longer just your vision and you have the entire team helping you move this forward will take a lot of weight off your shoulders and allow your operator to make sure that this all happens.
[00:23:44] And then you have a predictable future, which is really amazing. It's like, you can see the future and you can see the future growth of the business and your team helped make it all a reality.
[00:23:54] Brian: So one of the things that I really took away from the regional automotive group that I worked for the founder of it he passed a few years ago, but I got to know him. He was essentially retired, but I got to know him. And one thing he always did, and this is obviously before computers, because this was in the 70s, or what we have today, he wrote, I think it was three to five goals, and he wrote it on a piece of paper, and those were his goals for the next year.
[00:24:18] And he would accomplish them and it's easier to accomplish what you have set. I had a teacher in junior high and she told me, and it's always stuck with me. You will get further if you set your goals high and don't reach them versus setting your goals low and easily reach them. And so that's the philosophy I've taken with my whole life.
[00:24:40] Like, I'm going to set these goals, and whether I get there or not, you know, I'm sure going to try, but I know I've made it further than if I set my goals really low.
[00:24:48] Jason: Yeah, it's like the old quote, it's better to aim for the stars and miss than a pile of manure and hit, right? I love this idea for entrepreneurs.
[00:24:58] The challenge though, a lot of times with team members, one of the things we coach on is that can sometimes demoralize the team because they have to be winning. And so I say entrepreneurs set your big hairy ass goal, keep it a private from your team. And then with your team set a goal that there's zero chance they can not hit by the end of the year, zero chance that they don't hit by the end of the quarter.
[00:25:19] And that they're very likely hit by the end of the month. And it's because you want to teach them to be winning constantly. And this gives them you the ability to recognize them. And they actually increase their results because they're winning. And if they learn to lose, teams get very comfortable with losing very quickly, right?
[00:25:38] They don't hit a sales goal that month. "Well, we'll get them next time," you know, and then they just get worse and worse. And so really big, I'm making sure like hit those goals, but back the goals down low enough that you'll hit it for sure by the end of the year and then see as a team, can you hit it sooner?
[00:25:55] Then. Winning bigger.
[00:25:56] Brian: Yeah, I think that comes to knowing your people too, because there's some people that are going to be more ambitious, right? And so you can maybe knock circles up a little bit more than you would somebody that needs that fulfillment that, "hey, I've accomplished my goal."
[00:26:08] And so that all comes with knowing your people and pushing that down the line as, you know, for me as entrepreneur and owner, pushing that down the line to the rest of my team members and my management team, and they push it down.
[00:26:20] Jason: Cool. Well, Brian, we appreciate you being in the program. Do you want anyone to reach out to you from this or get in touch with you or..?
[00:26:27] Brian: Yeah we're in Oklahoma City Metro. If you have anybody that is looking to expand their real estate portfolio, feel free to give us a holler. You can find us in 1907investments.com and, or you can find me online. I'm all over the place. And you know, we really take pride and take care of our tenants, treat our tenants as clients, because then you're going to have a more successful business.
[00:26:47] Because if you want your real clients, your owners should succeed. You got to make sure the tenants stay in and are happy.
[00:26:53] Jason: Awesome. Well, Brian, you're a sharp guy. We appreciate you being in the program. Thanks for coming on the DoorGrow show.
[00:26:58] Brian: Appreciate y'all.
[00:26:59] Sarah: Thanks, Brian.
[00:27:00] Jason: Thanks. See you. All right.
[00:27:01] So if you are a property management business owner, and you are at the place where you are stressed out, you're struggling, you're frustrated, maybe you're thinking like, "what's my business worth?" Keeps coming up in your head because you're like, "maybe I should exit this." You want to get out of it. Maybe in the next two to three years is your plan because you don't really see a light at the end of the tunnel, then reach out to us at DoorGrow. We can help you get out of that, out of a business that you don't enjoy and turn it into the business of your dreams, a business that you do enjoy. Help you get the right systems installed so that it becomes easy, comfortable, and maybe even fun, right? Let's have a little fun.
[00:27:39] And if you would like that, reach out to us at doorgrow, you can check us out at doorgrow.com. Bye everyone.
[00:27:44] you just listened to the #DoorGrowShow. We are building a community of the savviest property management entrepreneurs on the planet in the DoorGrowClub. Join your fellow DoorGrow Hackers at doorgrowclub.com. Listen, everyone is doing the same stuff. SEO, PPC, pay-per-lead content, social direct mail, and they still struggle to grow!
[00:28:11] 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.
Owning a property management company can be expensive, risky, and stressful. Property management business owners often surround themselves with the wrong team members.
Today, property management growth experts Jason and Sarah Hull sit down with Pete Neubig with VPM to talk about building effective and efficient property management teams.
[01:58] Having a business in “Chaos Mode”
[09:02] The importance of core values
[14:45] How VAs help your business thrive
[23:18] Accountability, KPIs, and training
[30:06] Creating company culture with VAs
[37:07] Getting the right people in the right roles
[41:30] VAs for property management companies
“When you're in high growth, you seem to be in chaos mode, and when you're in chaos mode, you don't make any money.”
“When you're not proactive in your business and you're reactive, you're losing trust and churn goes up.”
“If you don't have your org structure correct, it doesn't matter how many whistles and bells you have.”
“I think every business owner needs to build the business around themselves.”
[00:00:00] Pete: If you don't have your org structure correct, it doesn't matter how many whistles and bells you have. If your org structure is not correct, It all goes to hell in a handbasket.
[00:00:09] Jason: 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.
[00:00:28] 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. 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.
[00:01:03] I'm your host, property management expert, Jason Hull, the founder and CEO of DoorGrow, along with Sarah Hull, my wife. Co-owner of DoorGrow and the COO of DoorGrow. Now let's get into the show.
[00:01:16] So our guest today, we've got Pete Neubig back on the show with VPM Solutions. Welcome Pete.
[00:01:23] Pete: Welcome Jason, sarah. Thanks for having me.
[00:01:25] Jason: Yeah, good to have you. So now Pete, you were an operator of a property management company.
[00:01:31] Pete: That's correct.
[00:01:32] Jason: With Steve Rosenberg and you really helped to dial in the operations there and build that up. And now you're helping people do this in their property management business with your VA company. So we're going to be chatting about today is the number one way to increase productivity and profitability, so this should be interesting. So Pete, what is the number one way to increase productivity and profitability? Let's get into the subject.
[00:01:57] Pete: Sure. So before I jump right in, I'll talk about just a little brief history of Empire Industries, which was the company that we owned. So, we came from the investor side, Steve and I, we partnered up, we owned about 31 homes. Bought too many, didn't know how to manage it.
[00:02:12] We love the idea of buying the deal. We hated the idea of managing it. So we went out looking for management firms and then realized we felt we could build a better mousetrap, which we ended up doing. Our original vision, I know you talk a lot about vision in your coaching, our original vision was we were going to own 500 homes and manage them ourselves, and within a year, that vision went to crap and we ended up managing 60 homes and I owned 37 of them. I'm like, "Steve, how are we managing these other homes?" And we were third-party managing all of a sudden. Because he felt that everybody needed help. And so we started third-party managing. So that's how we got into it, and we ended up building a better mousetrap and we created a third-party management firm and we took it from those 31 doors that we had all class D minus stuff, which is a whole other podcast. And I think you've actually listened to one of yours recently about something like that. So we ended up taking it to about 980 single-family homes and nothing more than four units in Texas, single families, one to four units and we went to three markets. We were in Houston, Dallas, and Fort Worth. And what happened was with us, our vision was no longer aligned. Steve wanted to take the property manager firm national. I wanted to literally just stay in Houston and get like 1500 homes. And so that fractured the partnership to the point where we decided to sell the business. Long story short, I couldn't afford to buy him out and he didn't want to buy me out. So we ended up selling to My Management, took a job with them for a couple of years, and realized I was no longer employable and that's when I started VPM Solutions. So that's the short version of it, but we were in chaos mode for many years at Empire.
[00:03:43] When you're in high growth, I don't know if you've seen this with your clients, but we were in high growth and when you're in high growth, you seem to be in chaos mode. And when you're in chaos mode, you don't make any money. We didn't anyway. And so what we had found was our number one challenge was payroll costs. So the number one challenge that I've seen, and I've talked to a lot of people across the country, your number one challenge is either growth or payroll costs. The interesting thing about property management because it's a service-based industry and because it's so service-based that you almost have to stress your team out to make money.
[00:04:16] Right? So you're on this kind of seesaw where I don't really have that many doors, but I need the people. But so the salary cost is so high that there's no money for me. As I grow the doors. Right. Now I don't hire anybody, but now I'm making money, but my team is now completely stressed out. They work in weekends, they work at nights, they're taking phone calls. They don't give the great customer service. And so payroll costs, what we saw was with us, our payroll costs are about 56%. Which is really high. A business should be around 30 to 36% is what I was taught by my business coach. I don't know if you've seen anything different in the service space, but that's what I've heard. So I had to figure out how to get my payroll cost down from 56% all the way down to about 30%. And I'll tell you how I did it with virtual assistants, so I'll let the cat out of the bag, right? We got it down to about 34%. So from 56 to 34%, and every percentage that you save in payroll costs is a dollar in your pocket.
[00:05:11] But then you'd be like, "Well, Pete, if you have less people or, you have less payroll, typically you have less people. And if you have less people, your team is stressed," and I get all that. But let's talk a little bit about what happens when you have a stressed team. Okay. So when you have a stressed team, the little things go out the window, right?
[00:05:27] All of a sudden, you're not making those calls to get those online reviews. All of a sudden, you're not making the calls and your communication goes downhill. And when a landlord owner or an owner client calls you to find out what's going on with the problem, whether it's maintenance, lease, you know, lease renewal, whatever it is, they feel like they're managing you.
[00:05:43] So when you're not proactive in your business and you're reactive, you're losing trust and churn goes up. At Empire, our churn was around 34%, which is insane, right? The average churn in the business, my understanding is like 18 to 20%. Right.
[00:06:00] Jason: And that's his annual churn.
[00:06:02] Pete: Yeah. So it's high, right?
[00:06:03] 34%. And I can tell you that the majority of it was people were unhappy with our service. Yeah. Right. So it wasn't good churn, right? Because you have good, neutral, bad, however you want to define it. We had mainly bad churn. People weren't selling houses and like, "all right, we're out of here, we sold." No, they were taking them because they were not getting the love, the communication really from us. So by having these payroll costs so high, I couldn't afford it. I couldn't afford people. So what happened, especially after 2020 with that pandemic is that the cost of hiring people got incredibly high, right?
[00:06:34] So I call them low-level, low enjoyment jobs. Let's take a maintenance coordinator, for example, right? That's the number one job that is posted on VPM solutions today. Is the maintenance coordinator. So that's the first thing people look for typically. Well, a maintenance coordinator in Houston, Texas, back in 2018, 2019, was about a $35,000 a year job. Well, after 2020, people that want to do a job, they want like about $50-55,000, right? And the company just can't absorb that. They can't afford to hire people. On top of that, the type of people that we were getting were GEDs or high school, diplomas, no longer college-educated people wanted that job. Most of those people have challenges in their life and they bring them into your business. So, this all came to a head. I had a lady named Sharon, and Sharon was my front office coordinator. This is back in a day when we had these things called offices and office space.
[00:07:22] Jason: Yeah.
[00:07:23] Pete: So I remember those days. In 2019 and before so people would walk into our office, drop off, rant or whatever. Right. And Sharon was this, she was like this angry lady. And I'm like this tells you what my hiring process was back then it was not very good. And some of the things that you teach, I'm like, man, I wish I would have known that back in 18, 17 and 19. So she's the wrong person. She was the wrong person and she was the wrong fit. But in my mind, I'm like, "Well, she's mean." I'm like, "She'd be great for a maintenance coordinator, right? She can tell people no all the time." So I decided instead of firing her, I decided to promote her, right. Which was a terrible mistake. So I promote Sharon to maintenance coordinator. Now, unfortunately for Sharon, she was my maintenance coordinator. I was actually managing properties back then at the time. And so just for that, she probably should've got some hazard pay. So I get that. I'm not the easiest guy to work for, especially when I'm managing properties. So Sharon comes and within one week, Now I gave Sharon a raise, so I moved her from front office to the maintenance coordinator. She was making about $35, I gave her like $ 40,000.
[00:08:20] She's making what I think is decent money. That's not great money. I get that, but it was good money at the time. Within one week, she comes to my office. She tells me she needs more money. I'm already just scraping by as the business. Just scraping by, single-digit profit margin. So that's when I realized that I could eliminate her position. I can hire three people that are overseas for the same cost as one Sharon. But here's the big difference. Those three people, they're obviously bilingual, right? And here I'm in Houston and Dallas and Fort Worth at the time, Spanish is like, a lot of our tenants, about a third of them didn't really speak English. A lot of our vendors, Spanish was their first language. So I can get bilingual people, I can get college-educated people, I can get people that are ready or knowing that they want to work from home. And here's the most important thing though. I can get people that were not just a J-O-B to them, but a career and they were excited about the opportunity to work with us and for us. And so the attitude and all of a sudden I can find people that align with our core values.
[00:09:18] Jason: Yeah. That's significant to be able to find people that align with your core values. Yup.
[00:09:22] Pete: A hundred percent. But now I have three people doing the work. So now what happened is I had a little hesitation from my property managers, right? Because property managers are designed to be taskers. Right. So I had to take my property managers and I had to lift them up. And we actually changed the name. We said, you're no longer considered a property manager. You're a client relations specialist. Or an asset manager. I like asset manager better, but that was one of the fights I lost with Rosenberg. If anybody knows Steve, he's 6'4 full of muscles. So we arm wrestled and I lost on that one. We call them client relations specialists.
[00:09:55] Jason: But you wanted to call them what? Asset managers?
[00:09:58] Pete: Asset managers. I think an asset manager just has a little bit more cachet. And if you really think about it, right? How many clients do you have, like you're listening, that call you up and tell you how to manage their property, even though you're the expert? I felt the property manager, I call them gophers. I felt the property manager, they had to take these calls from these owners all the time and say, "Hey, go to my property, make sure the water in the pool is being filled up. Go to my property. Gas man's going to come there. I want to know about this $12 expense." meaningless and small conversations. You would never have those conversations with the guy managing your money, right? Imagine calling your Smith Barney guy and say, "I don't like the way you made this trade. Like you should make this trade different." no, you just let the guy do his thing. So how do you let us do our thing? Well, words are powerful and property manager to me has lost its luster. And it just reminds me of a gopher.
[00:10:45] Jason: I think also the phrase property manager in the property management space has become like saying " miscellaneous role" and that like it doesn't have meaning a lot of times there runs into this a lot with coaching our clients.
[00:10:58] Sarah: Like, "what does your property manager do?" And they're like, "they pretty much do everything." "Okay..."
[00:11:02] Pete: And that's a problem And the reason why they do everything is because they can't afford more people because the margin is so slim. Right, so we got to the point where our property managers got elevated, made them client relations specialists. And what does that mean? It means that they had to learn a new skill. They had to manage by reports. They had to manage people because now all of the low level property management tasks were being done by my team in the virtual assistant world. And when I mean everything, but by the time Empire was done now, granted, we're almost a thousand units. But at that point we can hire some people. Everybody had one hat, which was a beautiful thing because now you can have your job description really set. You can have your KPIs really set. You can have your DISC profile really set. And you know who to hire.
[00:11:43] And they have one or two numbers and they end up doing a much better job than the manager who's doing all of it. So over the course of your growth, you have to change your infrastructure, right? You go from portfolio to hybrid, hybrid to departmental to pod and all that good stuff. I got to departmental, we never got to pod and then we sold. That was probably going to be the next move for us.
[00:12:05] If you don't have your org structure correct, it doesn't matter how many whistles and bells you have. I could have property meld and I can have Zapier and I can have lead simple. I can have all these things. I can have a bunch of VAs, but if your org structure is not correct, It all goes to hell in a handbasket, just even quicker, right?
[00:12:22] Cause now you have all this stuff happening even faster and it just gets crazier. And so with us, what we did is we had the structure, right? So now the managers, they're not taking those first phone calls. what was happening, Jason, is that when people would call, right? An owner client would call, my manager would pick up the phone. And as they're talking to this person, they're literally online and doing 14 tasks, responding to 18 emails. And people can hear that, they can see that and they can feel it over the phone. And so what do they do? Well, you don't really have enough time for me, I'm going to go take my property elsewhere. Or if you mess up, you know what, not only do you not have time for me, you mess up, right? So now what we do is we have everything happening on a low level.
[00:13:01] My managers told me, and I've talked to other managers since, my managers told me that maintenance took 80% of their time, right? And so I've heard that time and time again. So that was the first thing. So everybody always asks " okay, if I do hire a virtual assistant what's the first thing I should hire?" And the answer is, it depends for me. I knew my churn rate was directly related to the way we handle me.. I knew it. I didn't have to have a consultant come in and tell me that, right?
[00:13:27] I just getting beat up every day by it. So I ended up hiring I was going to hire one remote team member, I ended up hiring four, right? And I trained them, figuring that somebody is going to drop off, but I wanted to train them all together. Now I did the training. Training is like literally the most tedious thing ever. And nobody wants to train. Everybody wants to hire somebody that they know exactly how to do it and they know exactly how to do it your way. It doesn't work that way. You have to take one step back to two steps forward. What people don't realize is the time you spend training your people, you get back in perpetuity forever. Because if you train your people correctly and you have good core values and you have a great culture, they ain't going to leave, right? People are so worried. I'm going to transfer, isn't going to leave. Yeah. If you're running a crappy company. Right. If you're running a crappy company and yeah, I'd be freaking worried too.
[00:14:11] Right. Yeah. Make sure you're running a great company. You train the people. And then here's the great thing. As people moved on, whether they moved on and got another job or they moved on because I promoted them, guess who did the training for the next batch? My team did the training for the next batch. By the way, my churn rate for my remote team was way less than my churn rate in my US team. Right. Right. Incredibly different.
[00:14:32] Jason: Churn rate of retaining clients, of team members?
[00:14:36] Pete: Team members. Retaining team members. Churn rate of clients and you have churn rate of team members, right?
[00:14:39] Jason: Yeah. Their loyalty is just a lot stronger because they don't get these kinds of opportunities as often.
[00:14:45] Pete: Correct. Correct. So once my maintenance team was on board, now my manager, I literally saved with the narrow minds 80%, but here's the funny thing, right? So as I'm training. I had a director of operations. Her name was Margo and I still talk to Margo today. I love Margo. She would come to my office every day for 90 days. She came to my office with her cup of coffee every morning and said, "I don't think these VAs are going to work. I don't think these virtual assistants are going to work." Okay. Because when I was training right now, I did the training, not Margo.
[00:15:12] I was training them, but when I was training them. What we had to do is every work order had to go to the property manager, then to the virtual assistant, then the virtual assistant would talk to the resident, the owner, bring it back to the property manager because they were getting, they were training, right? So they had to learn what to do in each situation, which caused my property managers more time, right? So that 80 percent went to 90 percent or even a hundred percent or 110. Now they're working extra hours. So they hated it. On day 91 I don't know if I'm allowed to say this, but I shit you not, day 91, she comes into my office and she has our same cup of coffee and I'm getting ready to listen to the spiel and she goes, " do we have maintenance anymore?"
[00:15:47] Yeah. And I laughed and it took 90 days, but I got it. Yeah. The point where, so all of the work orders were being done by the remote team that nothing was getting escalated anymore. Only very little things right? So my managers do say, what do they do? Well, they take on all the escalations. Now imagine. What brain power, right? My team in United States, they were the ones that were the experts, right? So, but imagine if they only are dealing with high level escalations, not all the other little, because how many times did I have all these little things get done, but then we missed the big thing.
[00:16:18] And then all of a sudden what happens is I call them taps, two by fours, and mack trucks, right? A tap is basically a maintenance request. That's going unanswered for, let's call it 15 days. Okay. That's a tap. The two by four is now the resident bypass you calls the owner. Now the owner knows that it hadn't happened or the resident blasts you on social. And then the mack truck is the lawsuit that gets across your desk, the tech, the report the complaint to the the real estate commission. Right. Or you're just getting, or you lose a client, right? Yeah. Those are two of those. So my team was so busy that they were missing the taps that they were becoming two by fours. And these are called fires. All right. And all we're doing is trying to deal with this fire. And then of course, every once in a while you get a mack truck, right? And it's what the heck? So now that my managers are not doing the day to day stuff, they're able to be proactive. So they're looking at reports. They're literally looking for taps. And now they're solving those taps. What that means is now the owner clients not calling you to find out what's going on. You're calling them, you're reaching out to them, you're letting them know, or you're taking care of it before they even, before it even becomes an issue.
[00:17:18] And so by, by having your high dollar people that are licensed and they have experience by allowing them to not do the low level, low enjoyment stuff they actually became not only do they take all the escalation, but they actually became internal salespeople. All of a sudden, and this is stuff that we didn't anticipate, all of a sudden, though, like my company's name was empire property management in realty. That 90 percent of my customers had no idea that we could buy and sell homes for them. We're called realty and no idea. But once I got my property managers to be client relations specialist, guess what's happening. All of a sudden people are going to buy houses and they're buying them through us.
[00:17:54] All of a sudden people want to sell. They want to sell through us. So all of a sudden our revenue goes up, right? Then all of a sudden they're like, who do investors hang out with? They hang out with other investors, right? You're the, you're like the five most, what is it? It's the old saying that you hear you're the average of the five people you hang out the most. All of a sudden they're getting, we're getting referrals. We never got referrals. So now we're getting a bunch of sales. We're getting a bunch of referrals. We're getting people to buy stuff where the agent, right? And when you're the agent, you get, you build that, that relationship.
[00:18:18] And so now all of a sudden our churn rate dips down to, I think it was 22 percent from 34%. Right. So the interesting thing is I told you when I first started, right, I went from 54 percent to 34 percent in payroll costs. My payroll actually stayed the same. It was the churn rate that went down, increased my revenue.
[00:18:36] It was the other clients, right? And retaining people and getting more clients. That's what, that's where the difference was. And now my managers. We're incredibly happy. They're no longer working nights and weekends. They're no longer stressed. Right now. And so now they are they're having the best life ever.
[00:18:53] And my VA team, my remote team, they're making more money than they've ever made before. And it was easy to, and then they all had KPIs and they were all like. People want to inherently do a good job. They do. Right. And so, but they don't know how to do a good job unless you tell them what that looks like. And that's the job description. And they want to report card and that's KPIs. And my team down there, we had them in Mexico cause they're the Spanish speaking. But what happened was again, another thing that we didn't realize was not only the team do the work, they hit the KPIs, they exceeded the KPIs and we create a bonus structure around the KPIs.
[00:19:26] So if you hit the KPI, you got a firm handshake. Thank you. Right. But if you exceeded the KPI, you got a bonus. And if you were part of a team, everybody in team added the KPI or you didn't get the bonus. And what I like about with the virtual team is the bonus was a hundred dollars a month. If you hit a certain level, you got a hundred dollars for us wasn't a lot of money, a hundred dollars to somebody in the US. Like literally would get mad at me. That's a little, that's too little of a bonus. It doesn't even fill up my car. Right. And they throw it at you. Somebody in the Philippines or Mexico or Costa Rica it's an extra couple of days of work per month.
[00:19:58] So they were really appreciative of that, of the opportunity to make more money. What happened was everybody started exceeding their KPIs to the point where I couldn't make the KPI any more difficult. Like it just is what it is. And they were just doing it. And then here's the magic.
[00:20:11] What happened next? was they ended up updating or changing the process. So my deal as the business owner was, I am the policy maker, I make the policy, but you own the process. And when somebody comes in and says, "Hey, I changed the process." And I use this example a lot. I had Jessica who was running all my lease renewals.
[00:20:30] So we had about a thousand units and I have one person doing all lease renewals, inspections and lease renewals. Our policy was that you could not do a lease renewal unless an inspection was done, an annual inspection was complete. And we used to start the process 60 days out. Jessica moved it to 90 days out. And when I was talking to them, I'm like, Jessica, I'm just curious what made you, and I don't, I try not to ask why questions because why questions put people blame, excuse, denial below the line and they get defensive. I asked, what made you decide to move it from 60 to 90 days? And she goes, "well, with 90 days, I can do X and Y. Like I can get to the owners faster. I know if the, if the residents do it" and she laid it all out. I'm like, amazing. She was doing a better job than I could have done because that's what her core focus was. Yeah. She was just on that. So then what people will say to me is Pete.
[00:21:13] Okay. Well, how do you know she's just not doing the lease renewals and not the inspections because she wants to hit our number. Right. That's the first question I get all the time. And I say, "well, we hire people based on our core values. And one of our core values was integrity. And so if you hire people with integrity, they're not going to do the loop around."
[00:21:30] I was able to run reports very quickly that determined all the lease renewals and if they had an inspection done so I've been reporting it. It was very simple to, to make sure that I was, I hold them accountable. Yeah, that's another core value of that we had is we hope people get, we run our business by numbers.
[00:21:48] We hold people accountable. And so that's so, so because we did all of that, we were able to solve our challenge of no profit or single digit profit margin to, double digit and eventually get to about that 20 percent profit margin, even though we, even while we were still investing in a lot of money, growing the business.
[00:22:07] Jason: Yeah, so we've, I love all the stuff you've been talking about. I think we've had some phenomenal results getting clients to improve their profit margin. And we've got clients easily getting up to 40%. Sarah ran her business over 60 and I think the three biggest profit levers are building a really solid process system, a really solid people system, and a really solid planning system and the planning system we call DoorGrow OS.
[00:22:33] But that was really where we started to motivate the team to think in terms of outcomes and get them to think more strategically like business owners. And so that strategic work is what moves businesses forward. That's where they're innovating. That's where they're improving a process and so those kind of goals, if we give a team member an outcome and we say, "figure out however you can best do this, within our values with integrity. Figure out a better way," then I'm not concerned about micromanaging them. I we're less involved in managing the team. They're now managing themselves because they're trying to achieve the outcome. And a lot of team members in a lot of business don't even have job descriptions. So they don't even know what outcomes they're expecting.
[00:23:15] Pete: If you're not sure what they're supposed to do. How do they know what they're supposed to do?
[00:23:18] Jason: Right. And if you ask anyone listening to this, if you ask your team members. This would be a curious and interesting experience for you or experiment. Ask your team members, "what are the outcomes that you think are most important for your role?" and compare that with what you think they are. I think you might be surprised. These should be agreed upon and defined, right? That should be in the job descriptions. Pete, I really appreciate all your transparency and sharing, because a lot of times everybody wants to, especially with like coaches in the industry, I see a lot of people coaching mentoring, but you don't get to see how the sausage is made and you don't really hear the challenges they have, but they might be really charismatic. They might really be good at speaking, but there's a lot of stuff going on behind the scenes. And then what a lot of coaches in the industry do is they try to get people to build the business the way they did, which may not even be working. And so I think what's important, I think every business owner needs to build the business around themselves. It needs to be built to allow them the maximum level of fulfillment and freedom and contribution and support in their own business and that fifth reason of safety and certainty.
[00:24:25] And that means every business is going to be unique because every business owner is unique. If you started a property management business right now, it would be run very differently than some others, because you're very operationally minded and you would build your team very differently than somebody that's very visionary sales oriented, right?
[00:24:41] And I think it's important to get the right team built around you. And a lot of times I think the foundational challenges, a lot of business owners aren't clear on themselves. And then they start building a team and they're miserable. They have an entire team and they're still miserable. They've built the wrong team.
[00:24:55] Pete: Well, I think every new business owner does that, right? They don't feel like they deserve good people. So they self sabotage sometimes. Right.
[00:25:04] Jason: They don't believe the good people are out there. A lot of times they just don't even believe there's good people. They're like, "Oh, everybody's terrible." so guess what they attract? Right. And what's surprising the truth is just like you had mentioned, when you find good people, they will exceed you doing that role. Especially if it's one of your minus signs, it's not one of the hats you enjoy wearing, they will be better at it than you, if they enjoy doing it. A hundred percent. And that's super humbling for these early stage entrepreneurs, because they think they're the best at everything initially.
[00:25:33] Pete: There's two thoughts, right? So when you hire somebody, there's the whole abdication of it. And then there's a delegation and then there's the micromanagement. And so, what I find is that when people hire people in the United States, they abdicate a lot of times when they hire people that are remote, they want to micromanage for whatever reason, even though they've invested a lot more money in the person in the United States. Right. And then there's people that just, they just abdicate regardless.
[00:25:58] And what I mean by abdication is, I'm a property manager. I'm doing a whole bunch of stuff myself. I hire an assistant and I just throw up on them and say, here's all the things that I'm doing. Go ahead and do it. There's no direction. There's no accountability. There's no management.
[00:26:11] Right. And then they get excited. " Oh yeah, I'm a great delegator." No, you're an abdicator. You're not a delegator because you're not giving them the tools and the guidance that's needed. And then what happens is the VA or the person leaves and " well, I don't understand. I can't find any good people, so I'm just going to keep doing it myself." the first thing is when you hire somebody, you have to understand, you just can't just abdicate. You have to make time for them, especially in the first couple of months, right? They're learning you and your culture. At the end of the day, if you are the sole operator and the business owner each one of us have core values, right? We have our personal core values. Most of those are going to be embedded into the company that we built. They should be anyway. You shouldn't change your core values for your company. If I'm full of integrity, I'm not going to create a company that's not, that doesn't have a lot of integrity, right?
[00:26:55] So these people are going to learn by you training them or your team training them, right? Core values always get pushed down. If you're listening to this and you do not have core values in your company, you have core values in your company they're just not yours. The team created core values. They push them up and they may or may not be the ones that you want. Right. But when you hire somebody, it's important that you spend a lot of time with them to train them properly so that they understand what they're doing. What I have found is that most jobs can be trained within two to three weeks. Especially if you're wearing one hat. The more, what I call decision points or if then else's, and the biggest one that I've found is in maintenance coordination has a lot of decision points. What if it's over the threshold? What if it's a home warranty? What if it's an emergency? What if it's cosmetic?
[00:27:39] Right? You go on and on. That's why it took me 90 days. Because we had to go through every one of those scenarios and I had to train on. And it's just a little bit more in depth. My least renewable person, I was able to train her in two to three weeks. And you're right. And so by the training and by creating the KPIs and then by having a weekly meeting with structure.
[00:27:57] Right. So nothing gets me more fired up than having a meeting, just to have a meeting. And then we sit there and we sit there for an hour and I literally just wasted not just my time, but everybody else's time all because we don't have any structure. So I'm a big fan of EOS. I'm sure that you have something that's very similar to a meeting structure.
[00:28:15] Jason: We call it DoorGrow OS.
[00:28:16] Pete: DoorGrow OS. So DoorGrow OS. So if you're not part of DoorGrow, join DoorGrow and get on the OS. That's like number one, right? Because if you just get your meetings in order, you will see an increase in productivity just like that. So by the way, the maintenance team that I built, they always reported to me, even when I sold, until the day I sold the company. I just had a soft spot for them. I like maintenance. I know I'm weird that way, but I really did. And so they reported to me. My other team, I had other supervisors. I actually had supervisors in Mexico that were managing the other team members in Mexico. And that supervisor report to somebody in the U. S. or to report directly to me. But I still had my weekly meeting with my team every week. And we had our OS and one of the questions I asked every week, there's two questions that were always number one was always. "What can I do as the business owner to make your job easier?" I think there's a, I think there's a sphere, a circle, right? My job is to take care of my team. My team's job is to take care of the client. The client's job is to take care of the business and the business job is to take care of me. That's the circle right? So no the client is not always right. And let's do what we have to do to make sure that if we did mess up, we want to make it right. And I get all that. But how can I make my team's job easier? And that could be, I need to go talk to Sandy in accounting because she's not doing something or it means, "Hey, can you create this report for me?" I need a whatever it is. What can I do? Then the last question I asked on every meeting was what is your stress level on a scale of one to 10? And this was really important because it does two things. Number one, if somebody is a 10 plus for three weeks in a row, they are ready to punch out. Yeah. No one wants to work in a stressful environment for more than if we can see that Hey, it's summer, we're a little short staffed, you're going to be stressed for next, six to eight weeks, but there's a, but we're going to do X, Y, and Z to get out of it, I get it and people will handle stress for a short period of time.
[00:30:05] The second thing is, believe it or not, sometimes people are stressed out and has nothing to do with you or your company. I know we all think it's about us and our company, but personal stuff. So one time I actually. And so if anybody's 10 plus and I want to talk to them, I do it off the meet. Like we have a one on one say, "Hey, stay on everybody else. Get off the meeting, whatever." Yeah. And I had this one lady 10 plus and I said, "Hey you're usually a two what's going on. My brother got hit by a car right now." What this does is everybody's always asking me how how can I, how can I bring my team, my remote team into our culture. This is a great way, right? Because at the end of the day, just like you, you want to give time to your owner clients and you want to build relationships, you want to build relationships with your remote team. And so by, by taking an interest in them as human beings.
[00:30:52] Right. It doesn't mean you have to give them, I'm not going to, I didn't fly down and give them a whole bunch of money. I just listened and I cared that her brother was doing okay. I would ask, and it was just an emotional human thing. My team, if your team, if your remote team know that you actually do care about them. So if your remote team knows that you care about them, they're not going to leave you for a 50 cents more or a dollar more an hour. They're just not. Because most of the time, if you're paying them a fair wage. They are making more than enough money to cover their, what I call their nut, just to cover their living expenses. So they're not going to leave because the grass isn't always greener and they are freaking happy.
[00:31:28] If you make your team happy by asking them, how can I help? How can I make your job easier? And letting them know that you care about them as people. That's the, that's like a number three question I get, right? Number one is how do I train them? Number two is where do I find them?
[00:31:41] Number three is how do I make a part of the team? This is how you make a part of the team, right? By, by advocating and just throwing a bunch of throwing a bunch of stuff on them and letting them go. That's not how you do it. And by micromanaging, I'm saying, I want to see all the screenshots. I want you to write down everything you did from this time to this time.
[00:31:57] And if you take a 15 minute break, I need you to punch out and punch in. Right. You said it earlier. You manage by results. That's what I do. Do I care if you put 40 hours a weekend? I really don't. I'll pay you for 40. But if you get if if you're available and I need you, right. So I have managed on availability first, it had to be available.
[00:32:16] So we have policy. We use Slack. If I Slack you, you Slack me back within 30 minutes. If I email you, you email me back within four hours. If we have a meeting, you're on video and you're in your home office. None of this Starbucks crap, none of this on the beach crap, like you're in your home office, you're working, right?
[00:32:30] So availability is number one. Then number two is KPIs. Are you meeting or exceeding your KPIs? Number three, and if I have the right KPIs, I can just look and if it's green, I know that position is doing well. And then number three is escalations. Am I getting calls from our clients or from internal members of the company saying that you're not, that you can't, that you're not doing your job or you're not getting back to them or whatever.
[00:32:53] Those are the three things I need to know. I don't need to know that you're moving your mouse every 30 seconds. I could care less on that. If I got those three things, I know, and again, I know I have the right people because I hired them based on my core values or the company's core values.
[00:33:06] Jason: Yeah, totally. We do a lot of the similar things at DoorGrow. Like one of my mentors would say, cadence is culture. And I really believe that the cadence of your meetings creates the culture. It really does. And this is where you're able to set the culture with your team. And we ask questions like, where are you stuck? How can we support you? We do caught being awesome. We, and I think what team members really want more than money, a lot of entrepreneurs, we like money, right? We don't hate money. And so we assume mistakenly that's the highest priority for all of our team members. Well, I'll just give them bonuses or I'll pay them more. The reality is most team members. With the exception of maybe entrepreneurs and salespeople, most everybody else on the planet would prefer once their basic needs are met, financially would prefer to be recognized rather than get a bonus. And so creating the right cadence and creating a system like DoorGrow OS allows the team to be seen and recognized for their accomplishments strategically and moving the business forward.
[00:34:03] And that prioritizes that we find that if you can get those three systems in place. The planning system, that's DoorGrow OS here at DoorGrow. The people system, we've got DoorGrow Hiring, Applicant Tracking System, etc. And the process system, we've got DoorGrow Flow and some other stuff. If you have these three systems in place, these are three of the biggest profit levers you can get in place.
[00:34:23] And a lot of times people try to skip those three and jump right into profitability and micromanage through just more severe actions, more severe KPIs, and trying to control more. Thinking they can squeeze more blood from the stone when if they did these three profit levers, we've got clients that are hitting amazing profit margins.
[00:34:42] They don't even have KPIs because they don't even need them because they trust their team members so much and their team members are really great culture fits and really motivated. And so focus on those three profit levers first, and you're going to make a lot more money. And really what happens is you get three times the output from good team members.
[00:34:59] Easily and they can be anywhere. And what's, what I love about being able to have a remote team, we've got team members all over the place. Some of the U S Canada, Mexico, one's in London now, Philippines. I'm able to hire the best. I'm able to hire the best, no matter where they are. And I'm able to also for certain roles, get, make sure it's really affordable for the business.
[00:35:20] And so we're not, I'm not too particular about where they're at or what they're doing. It just needs to be a price point that we can afford. And I need a really good outcome. And if we can get that, then that's the ideal. And it's easier for me to run things remotely than if everybody were interrupting me coming into my office all day long, it's a lot quieter.
[00:35:42] And I feel like everybody's able to get more done, but we're able to create that connection in our daily huddles. We check in with everybody, ask where they're stuck. We do one on ones like you were talking about. All these things to figure out where everybody are at. The one thing that we do that I think is really impactful is we have our team members do time studies, not as a punitive measure, as a way to support them and figure out how to get them additional support and help.
[00:36:05] And this is where we figure out which, what are their plus and minus signs. So Adam, who's been on my team for almost, I think almost a decade now. Yeah. I'm like nine years. And he started as a content writer and he's done multiple time studies and every time he gets really honest with me, he's these are the things I don't enjoy doing anymore.
[00:36:21] I'm not enjoying doing all this writing. I'm, what do you enjoy? I enjoy interacting with the clients. He now manages our entire department for websites, branding, all this. He's got a whole team under him. Whereas nobody initially would have thought, Hey, Adam is a manager, but he by default naturally became one because we just got him the support he needed.
[00:36:40] And so he's been, he, and that's how we've been able to retain Adam. And the cool thing about retaining team members is they're like wine. They get better with time. Better and better. And so Adam knows lots of ins and outs in the business. He's super adaptable and versatile, and we're able to use them for billing related stuff and website stuff.
[00:36:58] And there's so many things over time that he's developed and absorbed and learned. He can run significant pieces of the business for me if necessary.
[00:37:07] Pete: Well, I'll give you a funny story because, here I am teaching and telling you, oh, here's how hire people. Right? So when I first started VPM Leon, who is our onboarding guy now came over and he was with me at mind and he was with me at empire.
[00:37:20] So I've known Leon and I knew he had our core values, right? And so we're like, maybe eight months in and I go to one of my business partners and I go, "Hey man, I don't think Leon's working out," and he's like, "really?" he did the, I called the Mongolian reversal, right? Because he basically takes my words and he puts them right back at me.
[00:37:34] He goes "let me ask you what's his job description?" And it's crickets. So I'm like, "yeah, he don't really have a job description." He's " what's his KPIs?" I'm like, "yeah, we haven't really got to that." So he's like, "how much have you trained him?" And I'm like, "all right, enough."
[00:37:45] Basically, Leon was the right guy. I just didn't know what he's supposed to do. So how did he know what he's supposed to do? So then I got serious about the job description. And then what we realized is Leon was running about two hats, maybe three hats. It's really like he, he was good at one of them.
[00:38:01] So we ended up hiring another guy, Angelino, and gave that hat away. And now Leon just runs and now he is. Thriving and exceeding all of the metrics that we put in his place. And he's the happiest he's ever been. And even though, this stuff, sometimes you have to continuously, make sure that you're doing it.
[00:38:20] Jason: Oh yeah. We had a conversation last night about a team member that we realized they weren't doing some things right. And Sarah put it back in my face. She's well, did you train them on this? And I was like, No, I didn't. I made a mistake in training. I thought they would understand it in my superficial explanation.
[00:38:38] And yeah,
[00:38:39] Pete: it's shortcuts, right? Those three things that you put out there, the hiring and the process, it sounds so easy, right? But we know it's tedious. And there's, that's a, that's the reason. Why most entrepreneurs who are most of 'em, are visionaries, right? A lot of guys start business with visionaries.
[00:38:53] They're not in the details. They don't like doing that. It's not natural, right? I need an integrator. They need a, they need an integrator. I'm guessing Sarah's the integrator. I'm the integrator. I'm guessing you're the visionary, right? So they need an integrator to, to literally do that stuff and you get, like I said you, when you do it you get it back in perpetuity, like it just, once the system is complete, it's just tweaking. It's not rebuilding, once, and and but a lot of visionaries, they skip that part because they don't like that part.
[00:39:18] Yeah. I agree. It's from hire a consultant or hire the, hire somebody that, that likes that stuff.
[00:39:23] Jason: Yeah.
[00:39:24] Sarah: And I love that you just keep like, thank you for continuously driving home the point. Like you have to train people. You have to. And a lot of times what we see is we see doesn't matter your location.
[00:39:34] Doesn't matter your size. Doesn't even matter what industry you're in. People hire out of pain, which makes sense, but they're in so much pain that they're like, Oh, they think as soon as they hire somebody, they're like, Oh, like I'm, it's solved. It's not solved yet because you haven't trained them.
[00:39:48] It's still your problem until they are properly trained. And it does take time. So for a period of time, when you hire somebody, your life is going to get worse. You're going to be taking on more if you want them to do a good job That is what has to happen because if you hire somebody and you're like, "here just have it like baptism by fire figure it out go ahead and do it."
[00:40:09] It's not going to work out. You're going to be frustrated They're going to be frustrated and it looks bad for both people and then you guys are both frustrated at each other and you're like Why are they not working out? And this person is like I didn't even get training. I don't like you're mad at me all the time.
[00:40:22] And I just I don't even know what to do, but you didn't tell me what to do. Help me.
[00:40:25] Pete: I'm not going to hire people because I just, there's no good people out there. Right. It's just, when I was telling you that story about training the maintenance team, I was trained about two hours a day on the maintenance, which is a little too much, probably an hour and a half is probably the maximum we can take.
[00:40:37] But I was doing two hours. That didn't mean that my 10 hour day. was still a 10 hour day. It became a 12 hour day because I still had 10 hours of work. I had to do, I just took on more, two hours of training. And a lot of times they ask more, a lot of times it's even more than that because as you're training, what I have found, and maybe you guys see the same thing is as I'm training, I actually learned a lot more about my processes and about my company, and then I realized, oh.
[00:41:00] There's no policy here. Oh, there's no field for that. Oh, that's just in my head. However, I feel that day I'm going to, I'm going to judge on that. And so I, there was a lot of work that I ended up having to do as I'm creating the, to training, oh man, this process is not exactly at all what I thought.
[00:41:16] Jason: Yeah. Yeah. Cool. Well, Pete, this has been an awesome conversation. We appreciate you coming on the show. Why don't you tell everybody just a little bit about VPM solutions. Do a quick plug and how they can reach out and connect with you.
[00:41:30] Pete: Yeah. So, thanks for that. So VPM solutions is an online platform that connects property management companies with remote team members.
[00:41:38] It's a direct hire, so they don't work for VPM. They work directly for you. You negotiate the hourly rate. There is no upfront cost and there's no fee to use the site. So it's all free for the company managers. The way VPM makes money is the virtual assistant. Pays 10%. So when they apply to a job, they have a breakdown of this is how much hourly rate that I'm applying for.
[00:41:59] It is how much that BPM charges a platform fee. And this is how much that I'll get. We also have about 20, I think 23 free training. So, there's training on the site from fair housing to marketing, social media, to pro we have a flagship property manager, one on one courses. It's about nine 12, 12 courses, nine hours of content.
[00:42:20] Wow. And it's there just to teach folks the basics of property management. No, you're not going to hire them and they're going to be able to run and be a property manager for you, but they're going to know the ins and outs of the verbiage of just the life cycle, like high level stuff. But it's our attempt to get people trained up so that when you, so that when you get them, they're not like that, at least they're crawling.
[00:42:44] Right. Yeah. They have a little bit of deal, a little bit of information. And then we also have we also have some free resources that are on the side as well. Like we have I think we have 50 job descriptions with this profiles that we assume, assume assumptive this profiles.
[00:43:00] We also have like org charts, like what you should, or chart should be as you grow your business. And then we also have just a list of all the vendors and resources and all the different Facebook groups and all of the conferences that are out there for profit management.
[00:43:13] Matter of fact, you're actually on that site by the way, as a vendor. So, yeah. So. That's what we do. And then we also offer what we call the white glove service. It's a free service that helps you go through the hiring process. Because we, what we realized early on, it's a do it yourself platform, but what we realize is most people don't have a hiring process and no idea what to do.
[00:43:34] So we guide them. Now your team your clients probably have a good hiring process, but we'll offer, like we'll offer that free white glove service to them as well, if they want to come in and just. Need a little bit of help. What should they ask before they interview? There's some red tape.
[00:43:47] Like we say, you get a disc profile, and then the, we have these courses that they take, they get certifications, you can search based on those certifications. So it's really the only platform literally built for property management.
[00:43:57] Jason: Love it. Yeah. Very cool. We'll check it out. So everybody make sure you check out Pete Neubig's VPM solutions.
[00:44:04] Take a look at that. And Pete, thanks for being on the show today. It's good conversation.
[00:44:08] Pete: Yeah. Thanks guys. Thanks Jason. Thanks Sarah. Appreciate you.
[00:44:11] Jason: All right. So if you are a property management entrepreneur, you're wanting to grow or add more doors or you're struggling with dealing with your team, reach out to us at DoorGrow.
[00:44:19] We can help you with this. We do this all the time. We would love to support you. We have clients that are easily going from, we can help you scale anywhere from zero to a thousand plus, and anybody can do this in the next three to five years. We would love to support you, help you scale your business and help you save collapse a lot of time and not have to go through a make.
[00:44:37] So many mistakes in your business. And so until next time to our mutual growth. Bye everyone.
[00:44:42] 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!
[00:45:09] 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.