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.
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