How to Deal With Self-Managing Tenants

Has anyone ever told you that you need to implement more humor to grow and improve your property management business?

Well today, property management growth experts, Jason and Sarah Hull are going to share why humor is an important tool when getting prospects to trust you and choose you over other management companies. 

You’ll Learn…

[01:26] Why we use humor to create trust

[05:44] Mistakes happen… even in business

[10:26] How humor and teasing can build rapport

[13:45] How humor can be a sign of intelligence

Tweetables

“A lot of times, we take ourselves too seriously, and so we act too serious in our business, and when we're too serious, people are less likely to trust us.”

“You have to be willing to not always look perfect.”

“Even the best, smartest, fastest learning companies and people, they still make mistakes.”

“It's okay to make mistakes because it happens to everyone, and it's okay also to ask people for grace.”

Resources

DoorGrow and Scale Mastermind

DoorGrow Academy

DoorGrow on YouTube

DoorGrowClub

DoorGrowLive

TalkRoute Referral Link

[00:00:00] Jason: Humor really is a sign of intelligence. The more intelligent somebody is, the more they can think on their feet and be witty and create jokes and add humor into the conversation. So I've always viewed humor as a sign of intelligence. 

[00:00:16] All right. Welcome DoorGrow Hackers to the DoorGrowShow. If you are a property management entrepreneur that wants to add doors, make a difference, increase revenue, help others, impact lives, and you are interested in growing in business and life, and you're open to doing things a bit differently, then you are a DoorGrow Hacker. DoorGrow Hackers love the opportunities, daily variety, unique challenges, and freedom that property management brings. Many in real estate think you're crazy for doing it. You realize that they're the ones that are crazy because they're not, because you realize that property management is the ultimate high trusts, gateway to real estate deals, relationships, and residual income.

[00:00:56] At DoorGrow, we are on a mission to transform the property management industry. We want to change the industry. We want to transform property management business owners and their businesses. We want to eliminate the bs. We want to change the perception. We want to expand the market and help the best property management entrepreneurs win. I'm your host. Property management growth expert, Jason Hull, the founder, and CEO of DoorGrow. Now let's get into the show. All right, so I sort of adlibbed that a little bit. I kind of messed up my intro a little bit. 

[00:01:26] All right, everybody. So I want to talk about humor. I want to talk about being funny, and a lot of times we take ourselves too serious, too seriously, and so we act too serious in our business and the when we're too serious, people are less likely to trust us. So you have to be willing to not always look perfect. Like I've made mistakes in business and some of the best ways I can close people and convince people to trust us is I get transparent and real and raw and share some of the challenges I've had in business. That allows people to open up and share as well, and it builds this bridge and this relationship of trust. And you've heard me say before, sales and deals happen at the speed of trust, right? And if they trust you and they know you, and they like you, they're going to work with you. So what I want to talk about is humor.

[00:02:22] And so you may have noticed, if you're following us on YouTube, we've put out some funny videos. So, one of them is called Profit Martian and makes fun of the idea of maybe a property manager not having enough profitability in their business and you'll see Sarah, my wife and I, just being really silly around that and it's pretty funny. And then you may laugh, so I recommend you go search for Profit Martian. You can add DoorGrow and you should find it and have a good laugh. The other video we made recently is Not move in ready and you'll see me at the beginning yelling, "not move in ready!" Right? "This is not move ready." So check that out. Sarah and I made a humorous video showing a couple that decides to kind of manage the property themselves and all the stupid mistakes that we make. She's suggested I get a property manager and I was like, "ah, I don't need that. I can do it myself." Right? So check that out. That's funny as well. We actually just recorded our third video, which is going to be about all the reasons why you might not meet a property manager.

[00:03:27] And it shows me doing some really uncomfortable things and challenging things and pretending that I like doing the property management stuff, acting as an owner that's doing it myself instead of using a property manager. And I think the working title is 13 Reasons Why You Might Not Need a Property Manager cause we had like 13 different instances. So you'll see me running from a dog when I'm supposed to be doing an inspection and, stuff like this. So, they get pretty ridiculous. What it does is we've already gotten feedback from some clients that signed up because they saw some of these videos because they say it shows our personality, which is true. And it shows that we are real humans, which is true. We're real humans. And it shows that we understand the industry. Like, you can't make funny memes and humor and stuff related to property management unless you kind of understand it, right? And so it showcases a level of expertise just in that we understand it well enough to make some jokes about it.

[00:04:27] And so I recommend that you be sure or remember to add a little humor into your sales process. Add a little bit of humor into your interactions. Be willing to laugh and joke about yourself. Shows a lot of vulnerability and confidence to showcase that you don't always have to look perfect. If you're always trying to maintain this look of perfection cause you think that's going to make people feel safe. It actually does the opposite. There's no real secrets or hiding. People know if you're trying to create this perception that everything's amazing in your business when it's not. And so you can say, "look we're not always perfect. We don't get it right all the time, but we care and we will make sure that we make it right." That's the kind of conversation you need to have because then they're going to go, "I can trust a business like that more than the businesses "Well, we maintain a high level quality service and we blah, blah" and use a lot of business speak and try and look perfect all the time. They're going to go, "Hmm, I don't know this doesn't seem real to me. I don't know if we can really trust these people." Because it's not always about what you say. They can read body language. Some people are really intuitive. I think especially women, they're very intuitive about body language. They can pick up on things that you're not being honest on.

[00:05:41] I don't know. Anything else you wanted to add to that?

[00:05:44] Sarah: Oh now that I've been completely put on the spot, so I guess my take on that is I think just showing that you are human is really powerful. I think especially for me and other perfectionists out there, we want to present like this tidy, clean, perfect package, right? We're like, "oh, I do everything perfect, and I'm so wonderful all the time. And like, I never make mistakes. Some of it may be posturing for people, some of it may also just be like, you're afraid to fail. You're afraid to make a mistake. And I think, I had lived in this space for a very long time where I was scared to make a mistake because of the consequences. Right. 

[00:06:24] Here's a perfect example. If you misjudge a tenant, right? And now you put the wrong tenant in, because some people look really great on paper. Yeah. And everything seems wonderful and you've met with them and you can just kind of, judge to the best of your ability. Like, "Hey, I think they would be a great fit." And then you move them in and then it's like, It switches and you go, "oh, wow, I was way off on that and I clearly misjudged" and things like that.

[00:06:52] Sometimes it's unavoidable but I think just being able to say, "Hey, like I've done this, and then what did I learn from it?" Because you're going to make mistakes no matter what. Like, none of us are perfect. Some of us are really good at trying to be perfect all of the time, but even the best, smartest, fastest learning companies and people, they still make mistakes. And I think the thing about that is that you need to just realize, first of all, that it's okay to make mistakes because it happens to everyone. And it's okay also to ask people for grace. And I think that if you do ask, especially with clients or tenants or whatever it is, like, "hey, just understand, we're not perfect all of the time. We will try to make it right because occasionally we do mess up like we are human and we are humans that rely on technology. And technology is not perfect either." Right? So like when you automate things and you're like, "oh, this was supposed to happen and it didn't happen because something in the process broke somewhere." Yeah. Like it happens. But just asking for grace, realizing that you will make mistakes and that it's okay, and then the biggest thing you can do honestly, is just what did you learn from that? So things are going to break, things are going to go wrong. Somebody on your team or yourself, or a process or a software or something at some point... it's not going to work the way that you intended and things break down and mistakes will happen. 

[00:08:25] And then when that happens, then all you can really do is like, you have to pivot. You have to be able to figure out what are you going to do to like, correct that as quickly and as neatly, I'd say as possible without a lot of blow back. But then what did you learn from the experience? Because if you don't learn anything from that and you don't say, "Hey, Maybe we can look at this in a different way. What can we do? Is there some sort of check and balance that we can put in place? Like how do we make sure that doesn't continue to happen, then it doesn't happen again? What did we learn from this experience? And if you don't do that, then the whole point I think is learning. And if you don't do that, then you're like you're missing out. 

[00:09:05] Jason: Okay. So related to making mistakes and showcasing humor I didn't mention this, but what do we have at the end of each of our videos? 

[00:09:15] Sarah: Oh, we have all the bloopers and I think the bloopers are so funny. I love them, but we, I mean, we all make mistakes, right? Yeah. Like, sometimes you forget, especially when you're like we've been recording these videos and. You forget your lines sometimes, or like, yeah, Jason in the last one, he's like, "oh, the camera has been rolling the whole time. I'm like, "UGH!" It's been just recording me, like moving things in the kitchen and like I'm standing there waiting for him to hit the record button. He's like, "oh, it's already recording." So I think if you can laugh at yourself, don't take yourself too seriously. And that for me has been huge because I am an INTJ. I am a perfectionist. I am the like, I need things to be the right way all the time and I don't have very much grace with myself and I don't have very much grace with other people. And that's something that I've been really working on I'd say over the last year or so is it can't always be perfect as much as I would love it to be, it's not realistic. It's not realistic to have a 100% success rate 100% of the time in 100% of the things that you do. 

[00:10:24] Jason: Yeah. It's good stuff. It's been proven that when you tease other people or joke with other people, It assumes rapport. Is that right? You can't like tease somebody that you don't have a good relationship with because they'll just not like you, and it seems really harsh, but, we can tease each other a bit, which we do. But it's an intimate form of communication and that's a form of joking. So you can add some humor into your conversations. Lightly, maybe teasing or something that potential client, "oh what You must really be a glutton for punishment, you know that you are doing all this property management stuff," you could say to them, and I know because I do a lot of it, or something like that. But you can make jokes and that assumes rapport and actually creates rapport with people. It creates the perception of that being willing to joke and play around. 

[00:11:13] Sarah: So, It's funny that you say that. I actually do that on my sales calls and I didn't even realize I did that until you just said it, so I'll do that, like when I'm talking with them and I'm, especially when they're self-managing or when they have somebody else managing, which is like 99% of the conversations we have, but yeah. Right. Like. I always ask like, "and how has that been going?" And it doesn't matter either if they already have a manager and they're looking for another one, it obviously isn't going well. If they're self-managing, it definitely isn't going well. Yeah, I don't really need a lot of information when they're self-managing. I already know they're in pain and I know they're probably not enjoying what they're doing. Very few people are like, I love all of this stuff. And that was the last video that we just did. But. I kind of will, as soon as they say something that really is like their pain point, right?

[00:12:02] They're like, "oh yeah, like the, the tenants call me all the time, or, like, this tenant is late every single month. And like it's been going on too long and now they're behind three months and now I feel like I need to either get them to pay or evict them. And that's like painful for me. I don't want to be the bad guy or I don't know how to handle this legally. Like if I have to evict them, like I'm at that stage now and I have to evict them, but I don't know what I'm doing," and they don't say it exactly like that. But that's the, that's like the read between the lines message that you're getting. I'll kind of joke with them at that point. And they'll say, "oh yeah, sometimes like, tenants suck." And I just laugh and I'm like, "yeah, sometimes you're right. Sometimes tenants suck." And I know that is painful because we too have seen that and we too have dealt with that. And that's exactly why we have systems and processes in place. And sometimes it's not even that the tenant sucks, sometimes it's the tenant is amazing and then something changes in their life and now they suck. So, and that happens, right? It's called life. Like people lose their jobs, they lose their spouses relationships end. Hardships... they're just part of life. And sometimes that carries over into how they behave as a tenant. But I will, I'll kind of laugh like on the call and they'll say, "oh the building is completely vacant now because we had all these tenants in it and they didn't pay, so we got them all out." and I'm like, okay. So it's like all, it's all vacant. Yeah. And I'm like, "and I bet that's fun for you, right?" Like, and they're like, "oh yeah. It's like, it's horrible." But I didn't notice that I really did that until just now.

[00:13:32] Jason: I think women do a lot of things intuitively. And I think there's a lot of things that people pick up when you do sales enough. Like you start to intuitively pick up things that work, especially once you're really comfortable doing it. So I think one of the things that I've noticed is that humor really is a sign of intelligence. The more intelligent somebody is, the more they can think on their feet and be witty and create jokes and add humor into the conversation. So I've always viewed humor as a sign of intelligence, and I've always viewed people having a sense of humor as a sign of, maybe intelligence or being more of a light in humanity. People that have no sense of humor, they're not willing to take jokes, they're not willing to joke. They're not super fun people to be around. And I think it shows us that when somebody knows the fine line of whether it's funny to somebody else or not, shows that you have that emotional quotient, you have that EQ intelligence and there's some emotional intelligence. And I think if you're able to be witty, it shows that iq, like you're able to piece ideas together and do something unexpected which is what humor's kind of based on. And people will see, okay, there's some intelligence behind this person. So, and I think that circles back to us making the videos, us being able to formulate an idea, know that we show that we know the industry. There's intelligence that goes into us putting together our scripts and what we're going to do in our videos and making it funny. And comedians I think are some of the most intelligent people out there. I love the observational humor. I love when they can see truth and things that don't make sense and it's ironic. So comedians really are able to showcase a high level of intelligence. They're able to piece things together and do things that people can't see coming.

[00:15:16] And that's why punchlines are so funny. They're unexpected. Our brains get excited about that because it's different. It's unique and it's something we hadn't expected or heard of. And that's where humor becomes so funny to us and exciting because we didn't expect it. And it takes intelligence to be able to catch people off guard like that. So add a little bit of humor into your day and your day's just going to be a little bit more fun if you're laughing at some stuff and laughing with some people and laughing with people creates connection as well. Like if they laugh and you're laughing and like you, you can make jokes together. There's some bonding, I think that happens and really that creates more trust with clients. So, Anything else we should add? 

[00:15:56] Sarah: Yeah I don't know what you started out with, but I feel good about that. 

[00:16:00] Jason: Okay, cool. I'm glad you came and joined me. 

[00:16:03] Sarah: That was a mistake. Wasn't planning on being on the podcast.

[00:16:07] Jason: She just walks into my office. Making noise. She could see I'm on the video.

[00:16:10] Sarah: I couldn't see you were on the video. No. His desk is against the wall and I can hear him. And he does a lot of voice message, so I always just assume he's either on a call or some sort of voice message on telegram.

[00:16:21] Jason: All right. If any of you are struggling with growing your business, you're having trouble figuring out how to scale your operations, you're having difficulty with your team. We have rolled out what we call the DoorGrow Super System. It's the system of systems we put together the ultimate sort of package of operational stuff, planning stuff process stuff, hiring stuff, and we brought in expert coaches to facilitate all of this as well, because you know it's not the Jason show at DoorGrow anymore. We've got experts like Sarah and Clint Collins and Phil Mazer and Roya Mattis and Stacy Pittman, and like we've got the Avengers team of coaches, so if you really want to take your business to the next level and you want to grow faster and be less frustrated with your team, be able to have more jokes and have more fun and stop wearing all the hats you don't really enjoy wearing because you're the one screwing up your own business if you're wearing the hats you don't enjoy wearing and start just getting those all offloaded, we're really good at that. 

[00:17:23] Like we can turn your business into something you love being in and you enjoy being in each day, and it will actually run better without you doing all that stuff. And so we can help you get to that next level, especially if you're 200 doors or higher. This is where all of this becomes really magical. And if you're below 200 doors and you're struggling to break even that a hundred door barrier, we can help you do that very easily. Adding doors is super easy. We can help you do it without spending any money on advertising. I know this sounds crazy, but we can actually help you grow faster without doing ads. And ads are expensive. And so if this is interesting to you and you're curious on our guerilla marketing strategies and how we can help you grow your business and get more leads, and get more doors and get better operations, reach out to DoorGrow and learn about our Mastermind. It's pretty awesome. And that's it. Check us out doorgrow.com and until next time, to our mutual growth. Bye everyone. 

[00:18:21] Jason Hull: You just listened to the #DoorGrowShow. We are building a community of the savviest property management entrepreneurs on the planet in the DoorGrowClub. Join your fellow DoorGrow Hackers at doorgrowclub.com. Listen, everyone is doing the same stuff. SEO, PPC, pay-per-lead content, social direct mail, and they still struggle to grow! 

[00:18:48] At DoorGrow, we solve your biggest challenge: getting deals and growing your business. Find out more at doorgrow.com. Find any show notes or links from today's episode on our blog doorgrow.com, and to get notified of future events and news subscribe to our newsletter at doorgrow.com/subscribe. Until next time, take what you learn and start DoorGrow Hacking your business and your life.