DGS 251: How to Connect With Agents and Investors to Get More Deals
Property Management Growth with DoorGrow
Analyzing Cash Flow, Deductions, and Financing for Property Investments
Learn how to evaluate property investments for negative cash flow and potential deductions, including insights on using forms to assess financial implications like interest payments and depreciation. Discover strategies for convincing cash buyers to consider financing and managing multiple properties for long-term success.
As a property manager, you are likely always looking for better ways to connect with real estate agents and investors to get more deals.
In today’s episode of the #DoorGrowShow, property management growth expert, Jason Hull sits down with DoorGrow client Galo Naranjo to talk about DoorGrow’s ROI Calculator tool and how it helps you talk to investors and agents.
You’ll Learn[06:46] What is the ROI Calculator?
[14:11] The power of being able to see the outcome
[25:35] How does this benefit realtors?
[30:31] Benefits to using this tool
[35:44] Other ways to use the calculator for growth
Tweetables“Sales take place at the speed of trust.”
“People only can trust you if they know that you have their best interests at heart.”
“You should be an advisor to investors. This is really where you set yourself head and shoulders above the competition.”
“If you want to target investors, go where investors hang out.”
Resources Transcript[00:00:00] Galo: I think paying for the calculator, I get 10x the rate of return on what I'm paying monthly to use the calculator. It's a no brainer for me to use it because 10 minutes of my time is worth however many deals I'm getting out of it. So it's great.
[00:00:16] 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 are 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.
[00:00:54] At DoorGrow, we are on a mission to transform property management business owners and their businesses. We want to transform the industry, eliminate the BS, build awareness, change perception, expand the market, and help the best property management entrepreneurs win. I'm your host, property management growth expert, Jason Hull, the founder and CEO of DoorGrow.
[00:01:12] Now let's get into the show.
[00:01:15] And today I'm hanging out with one of our clients, Galo Naranjo. Did I say your last name? Right?
[00:01:21] You got it right.
[00:01:22] All right. Awesome. And what's the name of your property management business?
[00:01:25] Galo: A property management business is Assurance Property Management. We're here in Columbia, South Carolina.
[00:01:30] Jason: So Galo appreciate you coming on the show. So you're doing some really cool things with the ROI calculator that we've built out for clients. And we wanted to showcase that. But before we get into that, why don't you give everyone a little bit of background? How did you get into real estate property management?
[00:01:48] How did all this start for you?
[00:01:50] Galo: Absolutely. So I was in the military. Actually, I just retired about four years ago And as I was in the process of retiring from the military, my background is in finance. I was a finance office, so I have a great affinity for numbers. I like numbers I managed large budgets when I was a resource manager in the army as an officer. And I had one of the folks that was my neighbor, who was a major guard.
[00:02:11] We used to ride almost 45 minutes to work. And he was in the process of moving to Tennessee. And he was like, " I think I really want to rent my property. Do you think you can help me out? Just, keeping an eye on it, and I give you a hundred dollars a month?" And I said, "sure, that doesn't seem like a bad deal."
[00:02:28] So, sure enough, he left. He will write some leases, he will place tenants, I will show the place. Every once in a while, we had to do some maintenance, and he will literally every month give me $100. And I said, "this is not a bad deal." So I started doing a little bit of research, and I found out what I needed to do to become a licensed property manager.
[00:02:46] I said, "I'm just going to do it and see what happens." And then from that point forward, I just started telling all of my fellow military folks there at the bases where I was at. Most of them, normally in the military, you expect it to be at a place for like two to three years, sometimes sooner than that.
[00:03:01] And then they'll PCS. So it was my job at that point to tell them that they can leave the properties with me, and I will keep an eye on them.
[00:03:09] Jason: What does PCS stand for?
[00:03:11] Galo: PCS stands for Permanent Change of Station. That is when you move from one location to another. In military terms, they call it PCS, Permanent Change of Station.
[00:03:20] So most of the time, they're transitioning period from one location to the next. And I started doing a lot of research on a lot of the benefits, especially here in the state of South Carolina, for military service members to keep properties, especially when it comes to property taxes. And so, as I started pretty much gathering my clientele, I went from 1 to then to 10 to 15, not really doing much.
[00:03:44] But I started getting that extra income and I said, "well, this is not a bad gig." At that point it was easy for me to do it by myself, although that I didn't really have all of the systems in place, but 15 properties wasn't really much that I needed to do. And as I was delving into real estate. My time for transitioning out of the military, I was close to my 20 years and I started looking into real estate just to see if that was something that I may want to do. And so I started listening to all the podcasts, reading all of the books. And then I said, you know what, this is something that I want to do.
[00:04:15] And with our business partner, we started to analyzing deals to basically do flips. So we started flipping back in 2018, 2019. And from that point, since we were very analytical and very driven by numbers, we started just acquiring properties and flipping properties. And we do so very successfully without losing any money on any of our deals.
[00:04:36] And that was also at the peak of COVID and everything else. So we were doing very well during that period of time. And so when I retired from the military, I just basically transitioned directly into doing real estate. And as I was positioning myself with other real estate investors here in Columbia, people started to get to know me and all I'm a true believer that I like to tell everybody what I do and what I know and little by little started just placing fillers that, "Hey, I'm a property manager in charge. I have a license. If you have some properties that maybe you want me to take a look at, I'm also a real estate investor. I understand numbers. I understand what you're going through as an investor, what you should be looking for in a property manager."
[00:05:19] And then the conversations basically started producing some fruit and therefore started getting more properties under management.
[00:05:27] Jason: Yeah. I love it. It sounds like a really good pitch. You're, you come from a military background, finance background, investment background. There's a lot of reasons I think people would trust you to be their property manager.
[00:05:38] Galo: And one thing led into another. And little by little, just through word of mouth from one investor to the next. That has been my niche. My niche has been 100 percent investor because investors tend to trust other investors, especially when you have conversations and that they know what they're talking about.
[00:05:55] And a lot of times they will run things by me. "What do you think? How much do you think I can get in rent or what do you think this and that?" So I will we'll do those favors here and there a little by little they'll start to giving me their property so I can manage them and lo and behold I started shifting my focus from the flipping business into kind of growing the property management business to what it is now.
[00:06:15] And I think ever since I started DoorGrow and a little before, I saw exponential growth implementing a lot of the things that I've learned. And also I think in my opinion the ROI calculator is a key to the success, to my success in adding doors as of late. 100%.
[00:06:32] Jason: Well, you like the numbers, you like finance, so it's no surprise. John Chin who helped me develop that ROI calculator also loves numbers and it's no surprise that you would resonate with it and find it really useful. So that's really cool. So you've been doing some of the stuff with us with DoorGrow, you've been working on this ROI calculator, explain to those that are not familiar with that tool. What is it?
[00:06:57] Galo: Okay. So the ROI calculator in layman's terms is basically allowing someone that is thinking about buying a property, what could be the rate of return and what will be the cashflow that they will receive on a monthly and yearly basis. So if I'm an investor thinking about buying a property, we'll basically run a pro forma of the potential how well that property could do.
[00:07:18] Jason: Yeah.
[00:07:19] Galo: And if I'm an investor and I have someone that's running the numbers with all of the expenses included, and I can have my rate of return after tax and before tax, and even if I buy cash, so me as an investor, like, "hey, it's a no brainer. Why wouldn't I buy a property?" And so, once again, it's just a pro forma of a property that displays in a very simple way: what could be the rate of return for a potential on a property? That in layman's terms, that's basically what it is.
[00:07:47] Jason: And I would add, it outputs a single page document for each property that you can give to agents.
[00:07:53] It's branded with your business, your property management business in the numbers calculated, the property management fees and they're your fees, it's already included in the investment. And this is something you can give to real estate agents so that they can showcase these properties and what they could do, but it has your branding on it.
[00:08:12] And so how are you leveraging this as a tool for growth?
[00:08:15] Galo: Well, I have used it in different ways. So I've used this tool as a tool for me to buy properties. So I run those properties for me if I'm thinking about buying because I still pay myself a property management fee.
[00:08:28] So that's an expense that I'm still going to take into account. I am also going to run this for realtors, which I think that's a really good target audience that will greatly benefit from this, especially in the state of South Carolina. And I will say that fiduciarily speaking realtors can not talk numbers. Realtors can talk about a listing amount and how much do you, do they think they should offer on a property, but they don't really get knee deep into the numbers. As a property manager, there is nothing in any law, at least here in South Carolina, that determines that you can't. I also like that on the bottom of that form, you have a disclosure that, "we are not tax experts or anything like that, but the numbers at the end of the day are pretty close. And if you want to get a very close estimate, this one page form is a no brainer." So once again, I use it potentially for me to buy properties. I use it for potential individual clients that a lot of times I also get as leads And I'll tell you what I do with this like something that Jason says is that sales take place at the speed of trust So I think that this calculator helps you establishing that trust because in my market there is no one that does that and it doesn't really take that long to, you know put the numbers together and have a conversation with a potential soul client as to what are the benefits of me running these numbers for you even if they already have the property, that's fine, because what we want at this place doesn't make sense for them to rent the property.
[00:09:58] And that's where the trust piece comes into play. Because I said, this is at least my pitch. I said, "look, Mr. Potential Client. My goal is not to simply manage your property. My goal is to establish a relationship with you. So that you can make the best decision with your property. If it doesn't make sense for me to manage your property because you're going lose money You need to know that. You need to know that and I am okay not managing your property if it doesn't make sense for you numbers wise," and then I stay quiet so they'll be like, "Oh, wow. I mean, what is there to lose?" There's nothing to lose because I'm basically telling you, look, "I want to manage your property if it makes sense, and I want to establish that relationship with you and I want to give you the peace of knowing that the numbers are going to work, or no, they are not going to work."
[00:10:46] Jason: Yeah, I love it. I love it so much because one of the things that I teach is "needy is creepy." And when you frame it like that, you're basically saying, it's not like, "Hey, I really want to get your business. Yeah. Like do this, like work with us." You're saying, "let's see if it even makes sense for you to even have this as a rental property," without even focusing on trying to get their business directly. You're just earning their business. They're going to then lean into you. And this is that customer satisfaction pyramid I talk about sometimes you're now immediately in at the top of that pyramid in customer service, it, which is advice. You're in that advice giving role, which puts you in a superior position to them to lean in and to trust you. And it also shows partnership was, which is that next level like, "Hey, let's figure this out together. Let's look at this. I'm here with you trying to help you figure out if this makes sense."
[00:11:38] People only can trust you if they know that you have their best interests at heart and if they know what you want and we talked about the golden bridge and whatnot, but I love this frame in selling is: "let's just see if the numbers even make sense for you. And if it does, then we can have a conversation about whether you should be a client or not."
[00:11:57] So I think that's a very powerful frame.
[00:11:59] Galo: Yes. And that has paid a lot of great dividends. And I even use the calculator as a way to show that I am giving you more than any property management company in Colombia is providing because we have had conversations in which is like, well, "I've already talked to somebody and they're going to charge 7%."
[00:12:18] So I listen. And once again, I think the education piece has to come into play. Yeah, and I will simply say, I said, "okay. And did they run the numbers for you? Do they know whether or not this property is going to make money for you or lose money for you? Do they even care if they go if this property loses money for you? Because at the end of the day, most people are going to care about getting the property management fee. I'm simply telling you that I'm going to give, from the get go, I am providing a service free of charge. That all it's going to do is going to bond us together in this tiny relationship that I want to produce for the long term."
[00:12:55] That's my position in this. And then I stay quiet. And I let them think, get a little uncomfortable, and then they start talking. It's like, "yeah, you know what? I didn't think about it that way." That's it. And then we start talking a little bit about the property and rental rates. And I like to really educate folks in understanding the numbers.
[00:13:13] This is the part where other property managers that are not investors that don't understand the numbers can get a little uncomfortable explaining the form, right? Because if you don't understand the numbers, and this is something that we used to say in the army, you're shooting from the hip and you're not taking, aimed shots, the client can potentially read and be like, "hold on a second, like, I'm more confused now that you're telling me about the numbers than before even I sent you this form." so I think that we need to have a really good understanding on how to navigate the form and how to explain the numbers of the form in a way that is easy for the client to understand.
[00:13:47] Jason: Yeah, I love it. I love your question. "Did they run the numbers?" It's such like, cause there's almost no chance that they did like it's super uncommon and this is what you should be.
[00:13:57] You should be an advisor to investors. This is really where you set yourself head and shoulders above the competition. "Did they run the numbers? Oh, they didn't. Oh, okay. Maybe we should take a look at this." Yeah. So I think that's really clever. So, I'm curious, when you are going through the ROI calculator, you're showcasing this, you're asking these questions how Do they still say they're talking to other companies? Most people that are prospects probably have talked to another property management company before they talk to you.
[00:14:29] Do you find that starts to change after you go through the numbers with them?
[00:14:33] Galo: I say yes, 100%. I have had clients that have already talked to other property management companies, but they have never gone through the process with me. That they have never gone through the process of going through the numbers.
[00:14:45] Commonly speaking, most property managers are going to talk about. " Okay, you can get this much in rent." I said, "well, that's fine. I can go in Zillow and find that out pretty closely on what the rental rate is going to be." I said, "but what about property taxes?" I tell you as an investor here in Columbia, the number one deal killer is property taxes.
[00:15:05] 100%. Because if you purchase a property that is going to be non owner occupied, that your taxes exponentially go up. Exponentially! But what happens is that when you buy a property, you're going to maintain the previous owner's tax rate, at least for the remaining of the year. Now New Year comes and that your property taxes went up through the roof and you're like, "whoa!" Yeah.
[00:15:32] "I am no longer cashflowing. I'm losing money! How did this happen?"
[00:15:36] Jason: "Well, why didn't anyone tell me this?"
[00:15:38] Galo: If I run the numbers for you, that is not going to happen because that is the number one thing that I check. And Jason, at least here for my clients, I said, when you send them the form for them to fill out, 10 out of 10 times, what property tax rate do they use? Owner occupied. So that is a place for me to say. See, if we had used your numbers, which right now is public record, you can go and public record and say, yep, property taxes is 1600, I'll say, but that is the wrong number because this property is a non owner occupied property. And now your taxes are going to go to 5600. So divide 4, 000 by 12. That is how much on a monthly basis you have to pay. So therefore your expenses are wrong from the get go. And then I just sit back. And let them think through it. Now, what I do also, I don't just talk. I like to either do it personally or I like to do it through Zoom or through Google Meet.
[00:16:35] And I like to show them. I said, "look, if you give me a second to educate you on property taxes, given the tax rate that you chose, because it's probably recognized as a very common mistake." I said, "let me show you." And I go in there on the county records and I show them, I say, "this is how you calculate it. This is how I got my number. And this is what you will be paying sooner rather than later."
[00:16:55] And I stay quiet. And I stay quiet and I let them absorb. And normally, you get the deer in the headlights look and you're like, "oh wow, like This is big like I did not know that." Nine out of ten are going to be like "I did not know that, and I said, "That right there is the number one deal killer here in the state of south carolina because taxes are high as a non owner occupier." So that's just the way that I educate and they automatically start seeing, "okay. Well, I start to see even more value now."
[00:17:23] Yeah, even more value So those two pieces of information are key.
[00:17:28] Jason: Property taxes, and what's the other?
[00:17:31] Galo: We talked about property taxes is one. The other one that I also like to focus a lot is on renovation. So I also since I flip houses, I have a pretty good understanding on renovation costs.
[00:17:43] So what I like to do with a lot of homeowners is if there is a possibility that I can meet you in the home and mind you that although they may already have the house or they will be in the process of buying a property, I can still give you a pretty good idea what your renovation costs could be.
[00:18:00] Because nine out of 10, someone's going to say, "well, yeah, I have a I don't know, 1600 square foot home and I'm going to put that maybe to paint this house is going to be 1, 000." And I'm like, "yeah, 1, 000 is not going to cover you painting the house." But that is also an avenue for me to introduce my other business to say, "look," And once again, it's an education piece.
[00:18:20] So "look, I want to show you some comps in the area on how much they are charging for rents. I want you to physically see what those properties look like. And compare them to yours and then give me your opinion on which one looks better." So we will pick some houses that are similar in size and number of bedrooms and bathrooms And they'll pick and choose and say like "yeah, I see. Yep. Mine has carpet that one doesn't. Yep This one has this mine doesn't." I said so "The fact that those properties look better and have 'nicer things than yours,' it gives them the right to charge more. Now, the good thing is that we can use that property as a comp for rent because if you want to get your property at the same level, not saying that you have to, we can earn the right to charge more.
[00:19:08] So renovation costs this big, property management costs... this big
[00:19:13] Jason: Okay. Love that. I love that you're connecting them to reality because everybody's dealt with the property owner in property management that like thinks they should get way more rent than they probably should and they want you to list it at some high rent rate and then it's going to sit vacant for a long time.
[00:19:29] And so connecting them to reality, are you actually walking them through some other properties?
[00:19:34] Galo: I, well, if I get a chance, but a lot of times, I like to have a lot of face to face. If I can meet them at their house, at the properties, even better because I can welcome and I can show them, I said, "look, this is a property, although this is a property that I own."
[00:19:50] So one of the things that I do is try to connect with them. I said, "look, I am not your traditional property manager. I own properties. I am an investor. I know what it's like to how to pay for an HVAC unit out of pocket. I know, I understand that." And because of that, I try to once again, earn that trust that I've been there, done that before.
[00:20:09] And I understand that other property managers may not be investors, but what I'm trying to really to share is that we need to think alike investors to be able to connect with that, with our audience, 100%. You have to think like an investor. And for me, obviously, because I've been there, it comes out more naturally.
[00:20:27] That's all.
[00:20:28] Jason: Yeah. I love the idea in showcasing and connecting to reality. And then you can feed that into the ROI calculator. Like here's the actual cost.
[00:20:37] Galo: 100 percent I try to be as closely as possible to all of the numbers. And I like to start the conversation with saying, okay, he's like, "well, I want to make some money. I want to earn a few hundred dollars every month." And I said, "how much do you make? If you don't mind how much do you make a month?" They say, "okay, I make x." I said "Do you think that extra 100 or 200 dollars will make a huge difference in your income now?" Stay quiet. It's, " well, I don't know."
[00:21:02] I said, "well in this particular property and every property is going to be different with some properties. You're not going to cash flow with some others. You make cash flow. It all really depends on the numbers," I said, "but just because you don't cash flow doesn't mean that is a bad property. Because hold on a second you have this tax advantages that I think you're overlooking," and I said, "so do you rather make two hundred dollars or do you rather write off ten thousand dollars a year?"
[00:21:27] Right. I rather go with the latter So what i'm trying to do is i'm trying to identify whether this is someone that needs income Or whether this is someone that makes that needs deductions From their taxes.
[00:21:39] Jason: Yeah.
[00:21:40] Galo: Because my pitch is going to be slightly different But I need to know that from the get go is good that the form has both. There's very few folks that will buy cash.
[00:21:50] I always try to say, "Hey, but why are you going to buy cash? I think you need to finance it. It's just better in terms of return." I try to educate them with that, but most of my larger clients are looking for write offs. I need to write off. I need I don't need income. Income is bad. I need to write off and so if they think of a property that they want to purchase, they'll give it to me and I just write it.
[00:22:13] I say, "Hey, yeah, this is it." And same thing. Public record is when you look at the land value, you can see. "So look, this is where I'm getting this number right here. Right now your land is X. That is something that we cannot depreciate. But the house itself, you can depreciate it at 27.5 years, which in a year, you can deduct X amount of dollars just in depreciation alone."
[00:22:35] Right. And then, "oh, by the way, you also get the appreciation of the asset year after year." And so now they started the wheels start spinning like, "Hey, I didn't really think about that because non investors don't think that way. Investors do think that way.
[00:22:51] And I think it's key to understand who you're talking to from the beginning. So that you can tailor that conversation in the form more towards their end goal.
[00:23:02] Jason: Yeah, I love it. So, do they need deductions versus needing cash flow? What's your quick way of determining that as quick as possible for those listening?
[00:23:10] Galo: Well, when you run the form, the form is quickly going to tell you whether you're going to have a negative cash flow. So if negative cash flow, basically that means that you're basically coming out of pocket. After all expenses are taken into account. It's costing you a little bit of money for you to basically own this property, right?
[00:23:25] Or on the bottom of the form also, it'll tell you, "well, you can deduct X amount of dollars on year one." And then you can explain the fact that is taken into account that we're depreciating the asset 27. 5 years, right? Then not only that, on the bottom of the form, it will also take into account: how much are you paying in interest?
[00:23:45] And all of the other I guess debt that you have to pay for that you can also write off. So all that is very easy to explain on the bottom of the form. So I like to pretty much go on the form on the top, which are the inputs. Those are the knowns. And then I run down on the finance piece. And then the bottom part, when we're talking about the tax position, once again, cash, there's very few people that are willing to buy cash.
[00:24:09] So I haven't really used much of the bottom left quadrant is primarily the top L that I use.
[00:24:16] Jason: Got it. But if somebody comes to you and they're like, "Hey, we're going to buy all cash." You might talk them using this into a finance purchase.
[00:24:23] Galo: Right. And once again, all that does is like, "Oh man, I didn't really think about that."
[00:24:27] It's like trust. Right? Boom. It's like, "Hey, I didn't really think about this. Hey, don't buy cash. Buy three properties instead. Just put down payments and buy three properties. And we will include all of the expenses and everything. I will be glad to manage three instead of one."
[00:24:40] Jason: Yeah. This really helps investors see that because a lot of them just think it's so simple. "I just need to make sure I have more cash I'm collecting than when I'm paying on the mortgage. And then I'm set." But they're not taking into all the other benefits that could exist and they could be building equity. They could be like being able to get into more properties, maybe that cash flow better if they were looking at the other benefits, tax depreciation, their equity, all these different things that come into play. So, cool. And I love that it has real simply, like, here's your ROI. There's like a percent sign next to it.
[00:25:15] Galo: That is very impactful. It's very easy to read.
[00:25:19] It's right there. So, there is no way when you see that double digit rate of return or even something that exceeds the traditional, I don't know, S& P 500 return.
[00:25:30] Jason: Yeah.
[00:25:31] Galo: Automatically, you realize, "wow, this is great."
[00:25:33] Jason: I'm going to put my money in a mutual fund.
[00:25:35] Galo: Exactly. And is good once it is the education piece. Something that I haven't really touched much on in which this calculator is primarily geared towards, you talking to real estate with realtors to connect with them and get some benefit from them.
[00:25:50] I've had pretty good success. Now, what I like doing when I call it recruiting realtors is, "all right, let me run you through the process." And I said, "do you own a house?" He's like, "yeah, I own my house." I said, "well, let's run the numbers on your house," and I explain it to them and they see automatically, they see value automatically.
[00:26:11] Jason: Like, "Oh, I can now I'm educated in a way I wasn't before. I can see something I couldn't see before. I can see how you would be able to benefit my clients in a way that I just couldn't." Yeah.
[00:26:20] Galo: And what I like to say is I said, "look, all I'm trying to do is I am trying to create to increase trust between you and your client." And I always say it's like, "look, that client is yours. All I'm doing, I am the super glue that will help you stay very close with that client." And I say, "it will always be your client. If they want to sell, I'm calling you. If they have more friends that want to buy properties, I'm calling you. They are your clients." I said, "but let's also set something straight, although I don't have a fiduciary responsibility with them. If they send me properties that you're helping them look," I said, "I am going to be very honest. I am not going to say, 'Hey, yeah, buy everything.'" I'm like, "no," I said, "that's not who I am." So we need to ensure that we see each other eye to eye, but once again, are going to learn to trust us more as a team. Because I'm saying the numbers don't work.
[00:27:15] Jason: And if the numbers don't work, some agents that don't get like the long game might think you're a deal killer, but the agents that get it, if the numbers don't work, you can make changes to the numbers.
[00:27:26] Like, "Hey, if you bring your like down payment up, then the numbers magically work, so this property could work." So now people get to make better educated decisions instead of mistakes.
[00:27:35] Galo: 100 percent and that is something that we've done in the past and I salute the only way that this numbers will work is if you put 50, 000 down now all of a sudden you're good and then if you're okay with that, then yeah, numbers will work, but when you fill out the form and you put "this is how much I want to put down," if the numbers don't work, I'm going to be the first one that raises the red flag and say, "yeah. It's not going to work." so long as there's a mutual understanding with the realtor that I am not a deal killer. I am a deal enabler, but we just need to understand that a lot of the leads are not going to give you instant gratification. Some of them, you're going to have to work them until they buy the right property.
[00:28:15] But the key thing is that when they buy that property, and everything seemed to work as planned, they're going to feel more comfortable to buy more, and that's when the magic happens. We just need to be disciplined enough to be patient and wait for the right deal. I mean as an investor I'm not just going to go and buy everything. Numbers have to make sense.
[00:28:34] Jason: Yeah, got it. We got a couple questions. One question was posted: "how do you reach out to agents?" So this is something that we talk a lot about at DoorGrow. We've got our referral secrets training and we get into that on our growth accelerator call each Wednesday. But how are you reaching out to real estate agents to create these connections and showcasing this?
[00:28:54] Galo: So I belong to a lot of real estate investor groups here in Columbia, mostly on Facebook. I have been a speaker in a lot of them as well. I think it's about putting your face out there so people know what you do. So if you want to target investors, go where investors hang out because more than likely you're going to have a lot of realtors that attend those events.
[00:29:14] Why? Because they want to serve investors and while they're there, I will always pass on my information. I will get cards from them and then I will simply send a simple email or text and say, "Hey, this is Galo. I just provided a pitch last week or whatever about X, Y, or Z, and I would like to meet with you just so I can tell you a little bit about what I do for realtors so you can increase your chances of selling more properties to investors. Let's grab a coffee next week at X time." A lot of them will reply. Some of them won't. And that's okay. That's just like anything else. You just got to place feelers out there, but the key is going to be getting that realtor to see with you and for them to be able to see.
[00:29:57] So bring in a ROI calculator as an example and say, "look, this is what I'm doing right here. Hey, I want to establish a relationship with you. What's in it for you? We all want to know what's the pay pro quo, right? What's in it for me? I want to know what's in it for me. And I'll be very clear. So this is 100 percent what's in it for you."
[00:30:14] And I said, "wouldn't you agree that if you establish that trust with that investor, that potential client, wouldn't you agree that they will be more inclined to use your services are as the realtor? Why? Because no other realtors are doing that. I'm just that link. Let me get a link."
[00:30:30] Jason: Yeah, I love it.
[00:30:31] As you use this tool, what's also cool about it is we built it on a database system, so it stores each property as you run it, you can duplicate them if you need to, like you can have multiple of the same property with some different numbers, but then you have this database of examples. So you can print out a few of the sheets and like take them to a presentation with a real estate agent. You're like, "here's some examples of some deals that we worked on," or "here's your property," and so then you have a bunch of things to refer back to, and now you can connect stories. And when you start sharing stories of how you've helped investors, how you help prevent them from making a financial mistake and show them this there, they might not even understand everything you're explaining to them, but what they will understand is that they feel a lot safer with you and they trust you and that you understand this.
[00:31:21] Galo: Yes. 100%. 100%. And that's why when the first meeting happened, even running them through the properties, taxes, even running them through some key information that they may overlook maybe they know but that's fine, at least they know that you're looking and that you're thinking about it is there is no risk involved. Yeah, there's always going to be risk involved in real estate transactions, but the risk is always much lower when you're taking into account all of the things that you should be taking into account so running them through the whole process running them through the sheet helping them understand because If they start thinking in terms of the form, now that also gives some ammunition to be able to reach out to potential investors and say, "Hey, I know you're a high earner."
[00:32:06] Have you thought about what real estate can do to minimize your tax exposure? Hey, I think I have some ideas for you. Let's meet. And I think I even have some properties that may work for you." Just like that. And it, it doesn't take very long to run the calculator. It doesn't, it takes me maybe 10 minutes to look at the numbers, plug in the numbers and have the form ready.
[00:32:26] It doesn't take time. I think paying for the calculator, I get 10x the rate of return on what I'm paying monthly to use the calculator. It's a no brainer for me to use it because 10 minutes of my time is worth however many deals I'm getting out of it. So it's great.
[00:32:43] And the fact that it's very easy to use is just a form. You send it to them. Yeah. They plug it in. It doesn't take very long for them to plug it in. Immediately you get a message, an email saying, "hey, someone filled out the form." Great. If you get that form filled out, you just got to make sure that you close the deal at that point.
[00:32:59] You just got to close the deal because they're already thinking like, "man, I've never seen anyone doing this form thing. Like, what am I doing? But I'm interested to know." And when you deliver the content of the form, that's when you're like, yeah...
[00:33:12] Jason: it's at peak right then.
[00:33:14] Galo: It's a peak it's 100 percent at peak.
[00:33:16] And I do this with all of them. Now I don't do it with investors. Once again, I do it with even leads that say, "Hey I belong to the Facebook page here where I live." And people will say, "Hey, I heard that you're a property manager." I say, yes. Why don't you send me your address? So they send me the address.
[00:33:31] And then I just replied to them. "Hey, how about we grab a coffee here at the local coffee shop?" They said "sure." So we grab a coffee and then I just start talking a little bit about the form and I talk a little bit about what I bring to the table. I said, "would it be okay if I just send you the form, fill that out and that way you have nothing to lose? Let me just see whether or not this property is right to keep it as a rental. Let's start there." Once they fill out the form, that's like you've already hooked them. Yeah. Now you just got to deliver.
[00:33:58] Jason: Yeah, you're showing the value of them completing the form and what you're going to give them as a lead magnet And that's the bait Right and yeah, they're going to then give you the info and then you have all their info And I have never not expertise.
[00:34:14] Galo: I have never not have Anyone not fill out the form. Let's put it that way. Every form that I've sent is being filled out. Every single time. Never, because what's there to lose? It doesn't cost you anything. You're not putting social security numbers or anything on there. It's just public record information.
[00:34:31] There's nothing for you to lose. The only thing that I would say, Jason, that is important for people to understand is that the way that I use the form, especially with someone that's already, well, that already bought the house, you need to make sure that you do a little bit of math, understanding that, okay... hey, they bought the house in 2019, we're in 2024, so five years have already elapsed.
[00:34:52] So you need to correct the numbers in terms of years that they put, because yeah, I had a 30 year note. No, right now you have a, 24 year note because six years have already elapsed because if you don't do that, the numbers are going to be out of whack.
[00:35:05] Jason: Sure. Yeah. Yeah. Because when you fill out the numbers, it's as if it just happened.
[00:35:10] Galo: As if it just happens. You have to adjust that for sure. You have to adjust that. But for someone that is thinking about buying, then yes, 100%, 30 year note, whatever it is, but someone that already has the house, you just have to adjust that. And then for me to validate the number say, "okay, what is your payment interest taxes? Just send that to me so I can compress it. Yep. We're pretty good there. We're within dollars," so I said "hey, we're good But we got to make that check because otherwise just like this can help you it can hurt you If your numbers are totally out of whack, so that's something that we need to keep in mind when we're talking to someone that already has a house.
[00:35:44] Jason: Ooh, yeah. So, yeah, this is really good stuff. The other thing, some of our clients have done, I don't know if you've done this yet, but they've been providing these sheets to agents listings so that they can add these as a PDF or as an image to the listing in MLS so that people can see how this could also be an investment.
[00:36:03] And so investors, they can be lazy. They can look at this property and go, "Oh, this could cashflow. I would get this return. Look at my tax benefits. Like, wow, this is amazing. I'm going to talk to this agent and it has your branding on it, not the agent's."
[00:36:17] Galo: No, huge. I'll tell you something that I did that is similar, but I use it to my advantage to get financing for it.
[00:36:24] So what I did is I just sent the proforma to the banker that I work with. I said, "look, there it is."
[00:36:28] Jason: The bank loves this. Yeah.
[00:36:29] Galo: It's like, "Oh shoot. Hey, good. Let's do it." It was simple. They know numbers. So it's like, yep. Look, hey, numbers work. Let's go. So that's also something that you can use, but yeah, I don't see why you couldn't, I don't know if there would be anything legally speaking that will prevent them from post that. But I think at the request of potential buyers, I say, "Hey, look, we have a pro forma for you to review.
[00:36:50] I
[00:36:51] Jason: think that should be a legal disclaimer at the bottom. That's like past performance is no guarantee future results. Rental properties are subject to financial risk, including the possible.
[00:37:00] So there's a disclaimer there so that anywhere you post this, like you're not going to be legally liable. And it says, "please seek legal counsel from a tax professional." Or something like this, right? So it has all that at the bottom. So agents can throw that out there and not worry about risk.
[00:37:16] So, John Chin, who I worked with for like a year, him and I worked on getting this thing just to works as well as it does and getting it put together. He's going to be presenting at DoorGrowLive for those that are watching the show. I highly recommend you get your tickets right now to DoorGrowLive.
[00:37:33] John's going to be talking about how when people are bringing properties to you, and you may be able to even leverage this tool, but how to turn them into, instead of property management clients, to get them to give you their properties.
[00:37:48] And how to do a seller financing deal without doing subject twos, which break the loan, but how to leverage a trust and to keep that owner in the trust and how he helps people set this up.
[00:37:59] Galo: That's cool. That's very cool.
[00:38:00] Jason: He's getting properties. He's getting more investments, which is a much better prize than getting a property management contract.
[00:38:07] Yeah, 100%. Right. So if you want, if you're a property manager and you believe in investing, come to DoorGrowLive and learn how to turn these potential clients into investment properties for you and make even more money and amass your own real estate. We've got one of our clients Ed Kirch, he got rid of all of his third party contracts that he didn't have ownership stake in. He has hundreds and hundreds now of properties that are just, he has ownership stake in and he's making way more money.
[00:38:40] So he now uses his whole property management business just as bait to get more investments. People call him up and say, "Hey, I was thinking, could you manage our property?" He's like, "well, let's get together and crunch the numbers." And then he scares the shit out of them. Okay. When it comes time to sell it, what the tax liability would be.
[00:38:56] And then he's like, "well, there is a way to maybe get around this. Let me think." Right. And so there's deals that could be happening. And I think a lot of property managers are leaving a lot of money on the table. When sometimes the best thing you could do is not take on a property. Sometimes the best thing you could do is to take on that property management.
[00:39:14] And sometimes the best thing you could be doing is to take over that property and own that property. And a lot of investors, property managers that should be investors are not eating their own dog food. They're not believing in that. So.
[00:39:29] Galo: And along those lines to Jason once you start building a pool of investors and you have potential leads that, hey, you know what?
[00:39:36] I know someone that if a numbers don't work for whatever reason, I can definitely connect you with someone that will buy the property and you can get an assignment fee out of that. And that assignment fee will more than likely be a year's worth or more of property management fees without doing anything besides spending. 30 to 40 minutes with a potential client that is 100 percent valuable. One of the things that I would like to say, because I understand the pitch for this calculator can be a little daunting for some folks, but one of the things that I did when I went to Austin and I watched John I watched it just to see the deliver, but then I had to add what we call in Spanish Sazon. I had to add my little, I need to sprinkle a little bit of my flavor to make it mine. Because if you sound robotic, you feel like, man, this is 100 percent rehearsed, but it did help me watch John deliver.
[00:40:26] So I'm a little bit more structure on how I can be structured and organized on how I deliver that. So 100% if John is going to DoorGrow live, which I can't, unfortunately, because of other commitments. But otherwise, I think that you will get your money's worth and then some from that experience and just learning from John and how he delivers and how much he knows because he's a real estate investor too.
[00:40:46] So he'll give you a lot of nuggets for you to own how to deliver this ROI calculator for sure.
[00:40:52] Jason: John's super smart. And so in building the calculator, we added a lot of notes and things on the form and things to clarify stuff. I, that took days to go through and just pull things out of John's brain and then ask him to rephrase it for a, like, As if he's talking to somebody that doesn't know that was like, you could see it because he uses really big words. He's very sophisticated in his language. And I'm like, "how can you say that, like to grandma or to an eight year old, so they understand it," but we were rewrote everything. So there's a lot of energy went into just making this understandable to the property manager and understandable to the agents or to the investors that are filling out the forms.
[00:41:32] And so that it makes sense. And it's still a little bit, challenging, to understand some of this stuff, but it's a lot easier because there's explanations to create some clarity on all of that stuff otherwise, and so some of y'all will learn just by running the numbers, putting some stuff in, figuring out where to get the numbers on a property and plugging this in, you're going to learn to be a better assessment of an investment.
[00:42:00] Galo: I had someone from the DoorGrow group. I forgot his name from Tennessee. I'll remember his name, but I had a pretty long conversation with him about this very thing. So Sarah put me in contact with him. And it was the same thing. I said, "look, I'm going to run it like I run it. If you're ready one day to pitch it to me, I can listen to you and I can maybe give you some feedback." But I think that's what the DoorGrow community brings to the table.
[00:42:23] You will connect with other folks that are willing to help you. And then he was like, "hey, what do you need help with?" And I said, "well, I am way behind on all my DoorGrow stuff. So let me look at your website. Let me see what you have, cause I may have to copy some of it," but it is good to know that you can get support from like minded folks.
[00:42:39] And one day is about me. Next day is about you and you can help each other. So I'm all about it, yeah. Yeah.
[00:42:45] Jason: That's why it's a mastermind. And so those of you that can attend DoorGrowLive, come experience some of our clients. Like just the caliber of the people that we attract at DoorGrow is next level.
[00:42:55] I think in this industry, they're growth minded people. You could tell just by looking at Galo, military disciplined, intelligent, like we attract really amazing people. And if you want to be more amazing, you are the sum of the five People that you hang out with the most so for your business come hang out with at least five property managers that are badasses like Galo, so And we'll have them in DoorGrow live.
[00:43:17] So Galo can't make it this year. But fortunately, but we've got some really cool people there. And we've got some really cool speakers. So make sure you attend well Galo, I appreciate coming on anything else you want to add about the roi calculator or maybe to share your experience of what it's like being in DoorGrow before we wrap up?
[00:43:35] Galo: I really think that everything that DoorGrow offers is phenomenal.
[00:43:40] And I think that you definitely have to prioritize doing the things that you need to do to make sure that you implement to grow your business. And in a short period of well, during the time that I've been with DoorGrow, just the ROI calculator some of the things that I've used and abused because I immediately saw great value.
[00:43:57] But there are so many other things that you would just apply yourself and take the time to apply. There is no reason why you cannot have your property management business succeed. The blueprint is there. Six years ago when I started learning this, I had no blueprint and it took me a while to grow.
[00:44:12] Had I had then what I have now? I could have exponentially grown much, much faster. It's a little hard, but you just got to put yourself out there with all of the sales calls and the revamp and everything else that the DoorGrow provides. You just got to be part of it and you just got to get after it.
[00:44:28] You have to let people know what you do. 100%. The ROI calculator is nothing if people don't know that you have it, if people don't know, there's like, "man, Galo has this very neat thing." you need to have people talking about it. There's a lot of engagements here in Columbia from different real estate investors.
[00:44:46] And next thing that I'm going to pitch is going to be this. I say, "Hey, let me explain this to a forum of investors from Columbia and other places." Because what that does is, all it does is just project your image out to the world so they know that you exist. The moment that you exist, even if you get two, three people, those three people will connect you with people.
[00:45:05] Some other people you just need to put yourself out there. You can go and do call calls, but calls are not really that good. When you get referred by people, your chances to close that deal are much higher than then kind of rolling the dice and hoping that they'll pick up a phone call.
[00:45:19] Now just start with people that you know, and let those folks bring you warm leads.
[00:45:23] Jason: Awesome. Well, Galo, appreciate you coming on the show. Thanks for hanging out with us and appreciate you as a client. And I can hear in your voice, you're like, "man, I haven't done all the DoorGrow stuff. I've gotten these benefits," and I think all of our clients feel that way. Like there's a lot in the program and as entrepreneurs, we never feel like anything's fast enough. And so some of y'all listening are probably like, "well, man, I haven't done all the DoorGrow stuff," if they're clients, or I'm working on this, or "I've struggled to be on a call" or whatever. It's progress over perfection and you're making progress and that's what matters and it never feels fast enough for us as entrepreneurs.
[00:45:58] Like we're in the fast lane, wishing everybody would get out of our way. But you're making progress, you're moving stuff forward and I'm excited to see what you do.
[00:46:05] Galo: 100%. I was excited to be here and look forward to being part of their growth.
[00:46:09] Jason: All right. All right, cool. We'll let you go. So if you are a property management entrepreneur and you're wanting to finally experience some success, you're wanting to grow significantly over what you grew the last year or the year before that, maybe you've been stagnant for years, you just know that if you had more doors secretly, it's going to make your life worse personally as a business owner, because you have more questions from your team, more people bothering you, more problems, more drama, that means your business isn't scalable and we can help with that as well. So make sure that you reach out to us at DoorGrow and we can help you out.
[00:46:46] And if you have questions, Galo posted his email address. We'll include that if you want to reach out to Galo. And we appreciate him coming on the show. So reach out to us at DoorGrow. We would love to help you grow your business and get to be part of a community where you're hanging out with people that are doing some awesome things like Galo.
[00:47:03] So we we wish you all success until next time, to our mutual growth. Bye everyone.
[00:47:08] you just listened to the #DoorGrowShow. We are building a community of the savviest property management entrepreneurs on the planet in the DoorGrowClub. Join your fellow DoorGrow Hackers at doorgrowclub.com. Listen, everyone is doing the same stuff. SEO, PPC, pay-per-lead content, social direct mail, and they still struggle to grow!
[00:47:35] At DoorGrow, we solve your biggest challenge: getting deals and growing your business. Find out more at doorgrow.com. Find any show notes or links from today's episode on our blog doorgrow.com, and to get notified of future events and news subscribe to our newsletter at doorgrow.com/subscribe. Until next time, take what you learn and start DoorGrow Hacking your business and your life.
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