DGS 256: Mindset Hack: You Don't Have a Property Management Business

If you have a property management business, and you struggle in a particular area, you might benefit from a small mindset tweak.

In today’s episode of the #DoorGrowShow, property management growth expert Jason Hull talks briefly about figuring out what you need to focus on in your business.

[02:25] You might not actually have a PM business

[05:48] Getting clarity on the 6 core functions

[09:35] What should you be focused on in your business?

[12:18] Figure out what you have been neglecting

“If you're doing long-term management, I want you to ask yourself the question, "What business am I really in?"

“You have to do what the business needs most, regardless of the customer.”

“If you don't have a good planning system… you will always be focused somewhat on the wrong things.”

“If you understand the game of business, it's always changing.”

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[00:00:00] Jason: So you need to realize what business are you actually in right now? And a lot of times it's not the one you're focused on in this moment. 

[00:00:08] Welcome DoorGrow property managers to the DoorGrow show. If you are a property management entrepreneur that wants to add doors, make a difference, increase revenue, help others, impact lives, and you are interested in growing in business and life, and you're open to doing things a bit differently, then you are a DoorGrow property manager. DoorGrow property managers love the opportunities, daily variety, unique challenges, and freedom that property management brings. Many in real estate think you're crazy for doing it. You think they're crazy for not because you realize that property management is the ultimate, high trust gateway to real estate deals, relationships, and residual income. At DoorGrow, we are on a mission to transform property management business owners and their businesses.

[00:00:53] We want to transform the industry, eliminate the BS, build awareness, change perception, expand the market, and help the best property management entrepreneurs win. We're your hosts, property management growth experts, Jason and Sarah Hall, the owners of DoorGrow. Now let's get into the show. 

[00:01:12] So today you may notice in the background, I'm in a little bit different of a place. I am at an Airbnb. This is my Airbnb. So this is a rental property. And so we got an Airbnb at DoorGrow so that we could have client events. And bring clients in and do some little, small group things, masterminding things.

[00:01:33] And so I'm now experiencing what it's like to have a short term rental. And some of the challenges with that and the challenges with getting a management company to manage it and making sure our concerns are met. So i'm seeing all the different sides of this which is interesting. And some of you are old hats at this like you have way more experience than me at this stuff. So if you have tips, cool.

[00:01:56] Send me a DM and say, "here are the best tips about short term rentals." So what I've learned is it's primarily a cleaning game. Like this is one of the big things. It's about cleaning. It's about making sure you have a good cleaner. You have a good inventory. I want to point this out.

[00:02:13] So what I think is really interesting is that a lot of times we think we're in a particular business and we think that the goal of this business is a particular thing, but if we're smart, we eventually figure out we're in a different business. And shout out to Alex Hormozi. I watched one of his videos the other day and we were in mastermind together before, and he's a brilliant guy. Like I love learning from him. One of the things that that I learned recently that I thought it was really interesting is that a lot of times we think we're in a particular business, but we're actually, if we learn the game, we're in a different business. So he shared an example where there was a business owner that was focused on a particular business and they had plenty of sales, plenty of leads coming in. It was easy for them to get business. And he was like, "well, then what's your biggest challenge?"

[00:03:01] And he said, it's talent. It's like getting the right people. And I think this is very related to short term rentals. I think short term rentals are very much like this. I think the idea is most think that you're in a rental property business if you manage short term rentals, and you may need to get rental properties to manage for sure.

[00:03:20] That could be a little bit of a challenge, but I think there's a lot of short term rentals out there and a lot of them do not enjoy the high pace of turnover, doing all the laundry, having to get good cleaners. The challenge, really the biggest challenge I think from my perspective so far is this is really largely a cleaning business.

[00:03:43] It's about the cleaners and it's not just about cleaning or a cleaning business. It's largely about good talent and getting talent. So it's really a talent acquisition business. It's a hiring business. Being able to get really good team members and build out a cleaning business because you need control over it. When you're doing a third party, there's gonna be a lot of markup.

[00:04:05] You can't control the outcomes or the output, then you're like having to switch companies all the time I talked to a guy the other day with 50 short term rentals and they said they've got one company. It's really good. They do everything well, and the other company sucks and they said they have gone through five different companies already just to find the one that's okay and somewhat mediocre and they have one good one.

[00:04:27] And so I said, "you have that many rentals and that much cleaning going on. You really need to start your own cleaning company." And so one, they don't realize they think they're a property management company, but really what they need to become, what's holding them back in progress right now is because they feel they could get more rentals. Like that's not an issue. It's cleaning. They really are in the cleaning business. And then once you build this cleaning business, you realize, "well, I'm not really in the cleaning business." Once you have a cleaning business, "what business I'm really in is talent acquisition. I'm in the talent acquisition business."

[00:05:02] I have to find the right talent or the right people, so I'm really a hiring or an HR organization is the bigger challenge. And so that's really the business that you're in. Right. And so we need to pay attention. So if you're doing long term management, I want you to ask yourself the question, "what business am I really in?"

[00:05:20] And it might be the thing that is the most difficult for you right now. It might be your team. You think you're in the property management business, but you're lacking leads. That's the weakest area of your business right now is getting more leads. So that means your business really, if you really get honest, your business needs to be a lead generation business. That's really what your business is. It's all about lead generation and you're distracted by keeping it a property management business. So if you imagine these six core functions I've talked about before search six core functions and DoorGrow on YouTube, you can find one of my podcast episodes about it.

[00:05:57] If you look at these and the six core functions real quick are lead gen, nurture, conversion, delivery, lifetime value, and financials. What I see a lot is people will be like, "man, I need more leads, I need more leads." And if we were to rank all these different functions on a scale of one to five, then usually what they'll see is that delivery and fulfillment is a four or a five. You're like really focused on property management, like doing delivery, making sure you're doing leasing and maintenance and inspections, all this, and you're doing a great job. But lead gen, then you would rate as a one like being worst, right? And you're not getting leads.

[00:06:34] I see this a lot. And so you're so focused, "I have a property management business, so I always need to be perfect in property management, but I'm starving and I'm not getting more business because lead generation really is weak." I want you to imagine each of these functions as if it's one of your children, and what you're doing is stupidly feeding and keeping this one child super fat while your other one is emaciated and like starving and looks like a skeleton and is begging for food from you.

[00:07:05] And you're like, "well, I gotta keep giving this one the food, because they're my favorite. They're the one I'm focused on right now." That's not healthy decision making is a business owner. You have to do what the business needs most, regardless of the customer. You have to do what the business needs most.

[00:07:21] And if you do a better job at doing what the business needs most, yes, the delivery may slip down to a four, maybe even to a three temporarily, but that's better than having a one in the business, where things are terrible because you need all six of these functions. If your financials are really weak, right?

[00:07:41] Your sixth function, then maybe you need to work more on generating revenue, or you need to increase the lifetime value, which is one of the functions and charge your customers more. Like you've got to figure out what does the business need most right now? And you need to focus on that. So if right now you think you have a property management business, you might really have a lead generation business and you're avoiding that fact.

[00:08:04] And so you need to pay attention to lead generation. If you have plenty of leads and business coming in, but delivery and fulfillment's maybe like a three and you're not doing a great job there. So you don't really have integrity and you feel like you're like trying to sell something that deep down is not great.

[00:08:20] Then really, you have a delivery and fulfillment business. You need to focus on the property management aspect. So if financials are not healthy and you're not clear on your financials and you don't look at your bookkeeping and you don't look at your P and L and you don't even know what a P and L is, or you don't look at your balance sheet or you don't understand how you're doing financially in your business, then maybe that's what's holding you back. It's the thing that you are not focused on. That's holding the business back. And so you really have a financial and accounting business. That's really the business you are in. And until you wake up and realize that you will always have financial and accounting problems constantly. You'll be taken advantage of. You'll have people embezzle funds maybe even. You will like lose money. Like you will not be clear on your financials unless you really own up to the fact that this is a financial business. What do people pay you for? They pay you for an owner statement.

[00:09:17] That's accounting. They want to look at the numbers. And if you can't do that in your own business, then you're going to have problems with all of your clients financially, maybe as well. They're not going to want to stick around. So you need to realize what business are you actually in right now? And a lot of times it's not the one you're focused on in this moment.

[00:09:35] So I hope this has maybe created an epiphany for you. So for example, for me right now, we've got a decent amount of leads coming in and I've been heavily focused on sales. But the big frog that I've not been wanting to eat is really focusing on lead generation. Like we've done really great on social media.

[00:09:53] I've made millions off of social media. We've done really great in our little conferences we've done recently, but really we are a lead generation business. I need to really learn lead generation and learning ads and probably turn around and start learning how to do ads and that for my customers.

[00:10:17] It would be another growth channel that a growth engine besides all the organic stuff that we do that's really effective. And so I really right now DoorGrow is a lead generation business and I need to focus on lead generation, right? That's where my focus needs to be. We spent the last several years focused on delivery and fulfillment and being a coaching business because before that we didn't really realize we were a coaching business.

[00:10:43] We were doing website projects and cleaning up branding. And so we thought we are a branding business or a website business, but we are a coaching business and so we put a lot of energy and effort into really developing that side of the business that was not as strong. And so now we are a phenomenal coaching business.

[00:11:03] We're great. We have more client results than any other coach or consultant in the industry. We need to now feed that more. We need, now we're shifting and the business is not coaching business, at least not to me. It is a lead generation business. I need to focus on generating leads to get more businesses, more property managers into our programs so they can experience the awesome results.

[00:11:26] Once we have enough leads, then we'll be a sales business. It'll be all about sales. So that's also been a focus of onboarding a new sales person right now. And we just had a new sales person that came in. There was a great culture fit, but they weren't the right personality fit.

[00:11:39] They're like, I don't really like doing this. And I was like, "Dang it." We thought you'd be great. And so we had two that we're onboarding. Now we're onboarding one. Now I need to go back to hiring. Okay, so this is the game of business. And if you understand the game of business, it's always changing and you can't keep feeding the one fat child that is already fed. You need to feed the starving ones in the business. And you always focus "where's the biggest constraint?" It's the hungriest child in those six core functions. Lead gen, Nurture, follow up, nurture, conversion, closing the deals, right? Sales, delivery, and fulfillment, lifetime value, and then financials, right?

[00:12:18] So figure out where your attention needs to be. What business are you actually in? What have you been avoiding and ignoring, thinking mistakenly that you're a property management business? Or that you're in an owner pleasing business or that you're in a tenant pleasing business. What business are you actually in?

[00:12:37] And until you figure that out, your business will stay stuck indefinitely and it will be a grind and it will be difficult. This is why at DoorGrow, we are constantly innovating. We are constantly doing our core functions. We do this every quarter in depth, in detail. This is part of our planning system. If you don't have a good planning system like this, you will always be focused somewhat on the wrong things.

[00:13:01] And so that's why the business isn't progressing and moving forward. So hopefully this gives you a different lens at which to look at where you're putting your time, energy, and focus in your business. And if you would like some help with this, and you would like to go a lot faster, and you would like to collapse time, and you would like to feel like a success, And you would like to like, make your business fun to be in for you and enjoy your life.

[00:13:26] Then reach out to me and my team at DoorGrow. Let us assess your business and figure out where the leaks right now, where are you at on all this? And can we help you? And we'll show you a roadmap to paradise, like to a better place. I just got off a call with a client that I worked with eight years ago.

[00:13:46] And he said, "I want to thank you because you've changed like everything in my business. I still think about like the things that you taught me and all this." And I said, "man, we've done so much since then." And hopefully he'll become reengaged as an active client. But we helped him with his brand and he's like gotten a good team now.

[00:14:06] And he's been focused on a lot of things based on conversations that we had a long time ago. And we've gotten even better since then. So I'm really excited for them, but this is the impact that you can have with your clients if you are doing the right things in your business and you're focused on what the business needs most and at DoorGrow, we are constantly innovating because we're not always staying stuck focused on one thing.

[00:14:28] We have multiple things that we're like shifting towards based on what we as a team can see the business needs based on those core functions. And so we're a different business every quarter like and so our focus shifts every quarter towards what the business needs most and then we're different business, right?

[00:14:48] Then we're going to be in the lead gen business. Then we'll be in the sales business and then maybe we'll be back into the coaching and delivery business and that will be the focus. So what business are you in right now? Figure that out. And if you would like some help, reach out to us at DoorGrow, we can help you go faster by putting systems in place that make that your entire team work in the right way.

[00:15:08] And hopefully that's motivation enough. Reach out to us doorgrow.Com, join our free Facebook group. If you want to get around and get a little bit more nurture from DoorGrow, get a little bit more familiar with us, see a little bit more of our podcasts episodes, see join that free community.

[00:15:23] You can get to that by going to DoorGrowClub.Com. And you can throw up questions there. You can get support from other property managers. We have somewhere between two to three thousand members. I can't remember the last time I looked. On our Facebook group, we reject like 60 to 70 percent of the people that apply to join it. And so we only want to let business owners in. It says 2. 9k members right now. That's what it says on the Facebook group. We're almost 3k. So we're going to hit 3k eventually. These are business owners.

[00:15:55] These are property management business owners and maybe a few vendors. Like we try to filter everybody else out. We're really careful about who we let in. And so we want to make sure that the right people come in so that you can get support. You can talk about the challenges with your team. You can't do that in other groups.

[00:16:10] Your team members will see it, right? So we just want the business owners in there. And so join our free Facebook group, go to doorgrowclub.Com and get nurtured by us until you're ready. Listen to more podcast episodes until you're ready to finally work with us and get the results. And the constant thing that I hear, the consistent feedback I hear is, "I wish, I've been listening to you for a year, Jason.

[00:16:33] I wish I had reached out sooner." Like once we start working with you, you start getting the results, you start getting into our content, you're going to feel the same way. You're going to be like, "I wish I had just not been stubborn or whatever. I wish I just done this sooner and worked with you guys sooner so I could get these results."

[00:16:51] And so if you are somebody that's sitting on the fence right now, you've been listening to DoorGrow for a while and you're like, "man, it sounds really nice. It must be nice to have all this magic and like to be able to grow the business and I've heard about these business owners. I've seen some of their testimonials. It would be nice." You can have this too. There's nothing magical or amazing about any of the clients that I have worked with that you've seen in any of our case studies or testimonials. If they can do it, you can do it too. We are looking for the right people though. And if you're the right person, you're the person that you will join a program and you will make sure it works.

[00:17:27] You won't be looking for the finding fault. You won't be trying to destroy it, trying to figure out why isn't this going to work. Those are different types of people, right? Those are different types of people. They are not the people that should be working with coaches. They're too skeptical.

[00:17:41] They're too negative and they will always have confirmation bias and they will always be right. They will find a way to be right. They will see the problems, but clients that come in that are optimistic, that are positive, that believe in what we have to offer, they get amazing results, because they're committed and they believe in themselves.

[00:17:57] And so if you believe in yourself, I can help you really go the distance. If you don't believe in yourself, then this is not a program for you. I might be able to help you believe in yourself a little bit more. That's something we want to inject into all of our clients, but we're looking for the property managers that want to have impact.

[00:18:14] They believe that they can have a great business. They believe that they can do great things. I believe if you believe that it's going to be true, it's going to happen. And I can help you go faster. So reach out to us at DoorGrow. All right. Until next time, everybody to our mutual growth.

[00:18:28] 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! 

[00:18:55] 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.