Property Management Growth with DoorGrow DGS 296: Behind the Scenes Look at Our Current Sales Strategy for Property Managers
If you are still doing sales the old-fashioned way in your property management business, or selling the same way you sold 5-10 years ago, you are likely struggling to add doors right now
In this episode of the #DoorGrowShow, property management growth expert Jason Hull shares his current model of sales and the sales strategies working for him right now.
You’ll Learn[02:26] Generating and Nurturing Leads
[09:08] The Discovery Phase
[14:39] Creating a Sense of Urgency
[20:45] The Golden Bridge Formula
Quotables“You want to be careful about the type of leads that you're getting on because it actually can limit your growth and hurt your growth.”
“There's very few people searching for property management online and the biggest companies are already spending tons of money on that.”
“So I want them to be clear on the problem because if they're not clear on the problem, and I'm not clear on the problem, then there's no point.”
“There's always a motivator that's driven them to action.”
Resources Transcript[00:00:00] I've made millions and millions of dollars, right, doing sales. I've made millions of dollars and it's because I believe in what I do and I love being able to help people and being able to help people and get paid to do it almost feels like cheating, right?
[00:00:15] I'm Jason Hull, the founder and CEO of DoorGrow. We are the world's leading and most comprehensive coaching and consulting firm for long-term residential property management entrepreneurs. For over a decade and a half, we have brought innovative strategies and optimization to the property management industry.
[00:00:31] At DoorGrow, we have spoken to thousands of property management business owners, coached, consulted, and cleaned up hundreds of businesses, helping them add doors, improve pricing, increase profit, simplify operations, and build and replace entire teams. We are like Bar Rescue for property managers. In fact, we have cleaned up and rebranded over 300 businesses, built websites for hundreds more than that, and we run the leading property management Mastermind with more video testimonials and reviews than any other coach or consultant in the industry. At DoorGrow, we believe that good property managers can change the world, and that property management is the ultimate high trust gateway to real estate deals, relationships, and residual income.
[00:01:16] 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. Now, let's get into the show. Alright, so what are we talking about today?
[00:01:36] This is the first day in a while that I don't have a guest and I don't have Sarah to be on the show with me. So this is just me getting to talk about whatever I want to talk about. By myself. So Sarah is actually flying right now. She has a pilot's lesson. She's working on getting her pilot's license, which is just super awesome, very proud of her, and she's just a badass.
[00:01:57] Anyone that knows her, like she just achieves, achieves, achieves. All right, so. What I wanted to talk about today is I just got done with a sales call and I was thinking, what should I talk about on today's podcast that would be really interesting? And I thought maybe some of you would like to know how does Jason sell?
[00:02:17] How would he sell to me if I actually ended up getting on a call with him? How does sales go with Jason, like how does DoorGrow do sales? So let me tell you a bit about some of our processes. Okay? So sales includes the first three functions of business, which is lead generation, nurturing those leads, and converting those leads.
[00:02:39] So let's start at the beginning and I think you're going to hopefully get some really strong value out of this. And I'll tell you how I sell, some of the things I would say. What I would ask, I'm going to give you a little bit of a quick masterclass on how does DoorGrow do sales? How do we do this?
[00:02:55] Okay? All right, so let's talk about this. Very beginning, lead generation. So how are we getting leads? Well, at DoorGrow, we're getting leads from a lot of different channels, a lot of sources. We're doing everything from paid Facebook ads to I do this podcast, and some of these are more nurture tools, like this podcast is more nurture, that second stage, it kind of warms people up, gets people familiar. We're doing short form video. We're doing long form video. We're doing lots and lots of different stuff, right? YouTube... what else are we doing for lead gen? Also, I have three setters currently that they will do about a hundred dials a day, calling colder leads, leads that are in our system.
[00:03:40] Maybe you will get a call from them at some point. And they will probably have maybe only about 10 conversations out of all those a hundred in a day, maybe even less because there's a lot of voicemails, a lot of people don't answer, you know, whatever, receptionist. So they'll have like maybe 10 or less conversations, and out of those, they'll usually get one appointment booked a day.
[00:04:04] Those are kind of their stats. If they're doing at least that, then we don't fire them. Right? That's the idea. So we've got three setters. They're really great right now. We're about to add a fourth and we may continue to just add setters because we have a lot of people that they could be reaching out to.
[00:04:19] So that's kind of the idea. So, they're just filling up my calendar right now. And in the past I've had sales teams, I've had closers, I've had people that would you know, do the calls, but right now I'm doing the sales calls, so if you know, pretty close to hearing this podcast, reach out.
[00:04:36] You may actually end up talking directly with me. I talk with basically every single client that joins our program, gets to talk with me and there's some filters. So what happens is the setters do these dials, they schedule these appointments. Some of these appointments end up being with themselves, not with me.
[00:04:51] The appointment is with the setter to qualify them, but if they're already qualified, and so this is the first stage is we do cold outreach. Then the next stage is qualification in sales. So the goal is for them to figure out: are these people that could maybe afford our program? There's the financial qualification.
[00:05:09] Are they people that maybe do they have a property management business? Is it a type of property management business that maybe we could help? because not every vertical or every type of business may need help growing. Or do they need help with systems and most any property management business, we could help with that side.
[00:05:24] So they're trying to figure out like are they qualified? Are they somebody that maybe could use us, that maybe we could help? And do they have enough revenue or just enough money set aside that they can maybe afford to do our program. Otherwise, I end up on a lot of calls with people that are broke, think our stuff's awesome, they can't afford to do anything, and they're starting a business or something like that.
[00:05:46] Right. So that's qualification. If they're qualified during that initial quick call that they'll do with one of my setters. And sometimes I call that a fit call or a qualification call or whatever it might be. If they do that call and things go well, then the goal during that call is to book them on a next call.
[00:06:06] If they just do that during their first cold interaction or cold call, they qualify the person and ask these questions. And then one of the qualifications that we do is we want to ask, what would lower your stress more as a business owner now? Would it be adding more doors? Another a hundred, 200 doors and more money? Or would it be getting your systems team and processes more dialed in so you felt comfortable adding more doors? What would help you out personally as a business owner. And so based on that answer, then my setters will send you a free training.
[00:06:38] They'll send you an email. "I would love to send you this free training," and it helps you understand something that is about lead generation or something that's about process, the process myth. Basically we're breaking down two myths people believe at these stages, the leads myth. "I just need more leads," which you might be thinking if you need to grow and it's not accurate. You might think you need more leads, but we'll explain that and we'll send you free training. Just say, "Hey team, give me the leads training" on any of my social media. I want to see it. And if you want to see that, you can just go to doorgrow.com/leads and you should be able to get to that training and watch that. And that explains why you don't just need more leads and not all leads are equal. And you want to be careful about the type of leads that you're getting on because it actually can limit your growth and hurt your growth. And some leads are really expensive and it's not worth it, or you're losing money, et cetera.
[00:07:28] Right. And I explain and break down why most marketing doesn't work, why you don't need to do SEO or pay per click or content marketing or paper lead or social media marketing or any of this kind of stuff to grow your property management business because there's very few people searching for property management online and the biggest companies are already spending tons of money on that.
[00:07:47] So I break that all down in that leads training. Otherwise, if it's systems and team, and that's usually more like 200 door plus companies. If you're growing fast, maybe you hit that a little prematurely, like around 150 or something like that, or you break a hundred. But this is where you need team, hiring, systems, processes.
[00:08:04] And most people when they get stuck in that stage of 200 to 400 doors, I call the second sand trap. The first sand trap is under a hundred doors. Right? You can't break that a hundred door barrier because you don't really know how to grow and you're taking on too many crappy doors and you get caught in the cycle of suck, et cetera. If you grow past, you get maybe into that 200 to 400 door range, usually then you're stuck because you've built a team around the business and not around yourself, which means you aren't supported. You are working harder the more people you add and the more doors you add. It takes more time and there's more questions and you're getting more stressed instead of less, which means you're doing it wrong.
[00:08:42] And so I explain in that the process myth that everybody thinks, "I just need more processes, I just need more KPIs, I need more control, I need to squeeze more blood from the stone, and that will always keep you usually below four or 500 units. I don't see people break 500, 600 units unless they get good culture.
[00:09:01] They like go through a lot of pain in figuring out hiring and we can help you collapse time on all of that significantly. Okay, so after that, we will send you one of those trainings and then usually my goal or hope is that you watch one of these trainings, you understand. It disrupts your current thinking, helps you see what the real problems and issues are, and then you make better decisions and you don't go waste a bunch of money with a bunch of marketing companies that exist out there and advertisers that are targeting property managers that people spend a lot of money on, don't get a lot of ROI on, and then come to us a year or two later saying, man, I've spent a lot of money and I haven't added lot of doors from that. Where have you gotten most of your doors? Word of mouth or other warm channels, things we focus on with clients. So you watch those trainings, you get on a call then with me, they'll get you scheduled for a call with me. And then I usually will do, it's usually an hour call, spend an hour, and I spend probably 90% of it asking questions. The last call I was on the. This lady said she had been you know, following me for like six years. I'm like, okay, why now? And so I go through a series of asking questions.
[00:10:13] There's the beginning is like, you know, first I go through kind of connecting with them. I want to figure out what their current problem is. Why were they willing to get on a call? What's happened? I want to then figure out their current situation. What are you currently doing about whatever this problem is? Like about growth or adding doors, you know, in this particular case, she said, nothing.
[00:10:32] I haven't really focused on this. I've just been getting business these other ways. So I understand the situation. How's your business set up? Sometimes people have a bad split with a broker. Like I'm always digging in. I want to understand their whole business, how it's set up so that I can figure out if I can help them because I see a lot of different problems. So I'm pretty aware of a lot of problems that are pretty common with startups. I'm pretty clear on a lot of problems at all the various stages in property management. You know, first sand trap, second sand trap, and all the other little milestones of transition in between those and everything else.
[00:11:04] So. I want to figure out what their current situation is. Where are they? Can I maybe help them? And so then I need to get them aware of their own problems. So I ask questions to help them become aware of their problem. You know? Do you like your current process or what you're doing now? Sounds like things going pretty well.
[00:11:20] Is there anything you would maybe change? Or maybe in the results you're getting or how you could, or what do you mean by this? How long has this been a problem? What's causing this problem? What impact is this having? Right? So I get into all these questions. And then the next stage I usually get into what sort of ideal future? So now they're clear on the problem. I've helped them, maybe even I'll reflect back emotionally. Like it sounds like this is really stressful, or it sounds like this is affecting your marriage negatively, or it sounds like whatever. So I reflect back emotion. So I want them to be clear on the problem because if they're not clear on the problem, and I'm not clear on the problem, then there's no point. Right? I can't help them. But I need them to be clear on the problem, so I ask questions to help them get clarity on that. Then I'll ask questions to figure out what do they want? What's the ideal outcome?
[00:12:05] What's the ideal solution? If we were to work together for a year, where would they be hopefully? Like what do they want? And so I want to see if I can help them get out of the pain they're in now, and if they're aware of it, and then I want them to become aware of their desire or their goal, some positive future state that I can maybe help them get to.
[00:12:24] And then I want to figure out, get into commitment and urgency. So I want to figure out why are you reaching out now? If you've known about this for a while or why now, is this a priority? Sounds like you've had the business for many years. There's always a motivator that's driven them to action. So I want them to be conscious of why it matters to do this now, because that creates a sense of urgency.
[00:12:46] I found for a while when I wasn't doing this that I'd talk to people and they would love what we have, and they're like, this sounds amazing, and it would really help me grow, but they didn't connect in their brain why it needed to happen now, and they weren't aware of their pain and they weren't aware of what they wanted, and so there was no urgency.
[00:13:03] They're like, yeah, maybe I'll do that in a few months. Or someday. And so I was like, but this is so like helpful and you really need this. But they didn't see it. And I assumed everyone understood their problem. Everybody understood their positive future they wanted. because I usually have pretty strong clarity around this stuff, but most people don't.
[00:13:20] So I'm going to ask you, and I'm going to help you get clear. I'm not really trying to sell you, I'm trying to help you figure out what you want and then see if maybe you want what I can maybe help you with. So I get them clear on their ideal outcomes and solution, and I create this positive alternate future with them.
[00:13:40] Then I go back to commitment urgency. Why now? You don't have to do this now, so why not put it off? And then they'll tell me they find a reason why it matters to do it now. Well, it's like, what's the main reason for doing this now? Like, you've been aware of us for a long time, six years, you know, or you've been listening to my podcast for a year.
[00:13:59] Why now are you doing this? And when I ask why now? It's a powerful sales question. I get some crazy answers. I had one client say, "my fiance passed away a month ago. He would want me to do this," right? Or I've had somebody say, "I have cancer and I need to get this business ready so my wife can take over it because I'm not going to be around much longer." I mean, serious stuff comes out that I never would've known. And I'm like, what's motivating you to do this now? Why does this matter now? And if I'm aware of that, then I can be even more empathetic. I can, you know, understand where they're coming from. And once I get clear on that, then I want to get into consequence.
[00:14:39] We've already built up positive alternate reality. Right? Now I want to get into the negative current path they're on, like what's the consequence? Because the consequence is going to be that they don't get this positive future that they're hoping for, right? If they just keep doing this on their own, they'll have more of what they've had in the past.
[00:14:58] So usually I get into questions like, what happens if you don't achieve this goal? You said you wanted to achieve X in the next 12 months. What happens if you don't make that? Or what happens if this continues? You don't end up working with us or any other coach or anyone else. And it just continues.
[00:15:14] Because if they're not willing to explore failure or a negative future, they're not going to be motivated to take action now. I asked one gentleman this on a sales call after going through all of this, he was really stressed, but he didn't see it. He probably would've continued doing it forever.
[00:15:29] You know, he was really stressed and I said, well, after getting clear on his stress and all this, I said, how much longer do you think you could deal with this? He's like, honestly, now that I'm thinking about it, I think I can handle another 30 days and then I'm going to just quit this business and I'm out.
[00:15:45] I was like, whoa, that's, that sounds really serious. He's like, yeah, I'm just burnt out. And when you help people get clarity, they can't tolerate it anymore. They're like, I'm done. I don't want this anymore. I want out now. I want to solve this now. Right? Amazon now, give me Amazon things right now, like people get impatient when they recognize there is an alternate, there is a path, there is something else, or they're clear, oh, I am dealing with a problem.
[00:16:08] I've just been so comfortable in it. It's kind of like that frog in the water that's warming up a little bit, but you could boil the frog and it won't jump out because it just gets so comfortable that eventually it's cooked, right? You've been in your business so long, you don't even maybe see it until somebody asks you or creates contrast.
[00:16:24] Says, well, where are you at now? Where will you be in the future positively if you get help? And where will you be negatively in the future? So this is where we get into the consequence, and then once they're clear on that, then I get into the presentation. Right? And so this is like 90% of the call. The last call I was on like the majority of the whole hour with like maybe the last 13 minutes or something, I got into what some would call the pitch, right? The presentation. I'm like, well, based on what you've told me so far and what challenges that you're having, what we're doing might be a good fit for you. And here's how our program works. Here's what it costs. I usually go over pricing first.
[00:17:03] I don't hold that out. I don't try and keep the price a secret. And so let me give you all the value first and then spring the price on you and hope you like it. I'm like, here's what we cost. Here's the pricing, we've got these levels. I think this would make the most sense. This level would make the most sense for you.
[00:17:18] Here's what it costs. And based on what you've told me you know, how you're dealing with this particular issue you had mentioned this problem that's stressing you out. Well, we would do this thing and this would be relevant. And so I usually pick three things. And the other thing that I will do is before I go into pricing or anything, I just throw the tug of war rope. This is not a competition where I'm trying to get something from them and they're trying to not do the sale and do the deal with me. Like most salespeople think it's like an adversarial, I got to manipulate them. I throw them the entire tug of war rope. I'm like, here's everything.
[00:17:53] And the way I do that is like we use offer documents. So I give them an offer document that has all the details of our program, it has everything. It has a video explaining the offer doc at the top. It has a commercial talking about the benefits of video on that. It has a list of all of the problems that people are dealing with related to this, so it really stings and connects with their problem. It then talks about all the benefits and it lists out all the benefits of people doing that particular level of our program, which usually is exactly what they're hoping for.
[00:18:26] Then it gets into our DoorGrow code roadmap and our testimonial videos. It has a link to that. We have more than any other coach or consultant in the industry. And then it has our DoorGrow code roadmap I mentioned, which shows the path and shows where they're at. And it shows, it's like a magic cold read where they can see where their problems are now and what they're dealing with at the door level and revenue level they're at.
[00:18:47] And so we have that DoorGrow code roadmap. Then it has a list of everything included in the program. Here's what you get. Three weekly group coaching calls, one related to our rapid revamp where we rebrand, do your website, clean up your business, change your pricing, optimize, put you into a three tier hybrid pricing model.
[00:19:04] Like we just, we clean up the whole business, like bar rescue for property managers, right? And then it goes into how we do a call and you get a website and like all the stuff that we do. Our jumpstart session where you meet with us in person at the beginning all of that. I usually start though by saying, here's the offer document, scroll to the bottom where it says investment, and this is where it has the pricing.
[00:19:27] And let me go over that real quick with you. So I go over that first, then I go through the offer document and I say, and it lists everything included in the program. There's a lot. Let me make this really simple. because anything other than what you need is a distraction. You don't need everything, especially not right now.
[00:19:45] Let's keep it simple on three things. And I focus on the three things that I think they need most to move the needle and solve whatever current challenge they're dealing with. Whether it's getting more business, more leads or getting their systems or team or doing some hiring or whatever, depending on the offer doc, depending on the challenge.
[00:20:04] So I go over three things. I'm like, these are the three things. Does that sound like what you're looking for? And do you think that might help? Right? So this is where I'm getting commitment. Does everything make sense? Do you feel like this could help you get from point A to point B where you're wanting to go? And they're like, yeah, this sounds great.
[00:20:22] If they say, well, I think so. I say, cool, what would make you a hundred percent? Like what? What do you need? What else do you need? Or what questions do you have? And so then they might bring up some objections. They might bring up some objections or some challenges. But usually at this point, because I've done all of this, there's very few objections.
[00:20:42] There's almost nothing. because the main objection is trust. One of the things that I try to do, by the way, that I teach clients to do during the sales process is what I call the Golden Bridge Formula. I explain to them why I do what I do. So my Golden Bridge formula is my personal why. I connect it to my business why. I connect that then to their why. And there's a little more detail to it than that. But in interest of time, I'm helping them understand my motive. And my motive isn't just to get their money. That's the default assumption in sales. I let them know there's a lot of ways I can make money a lot faster off property managers just selling them what they think they need, but instead.
[00:21:21] I really want to help people, and my motive is the reason I have DoorGrow. The reason I exist and live my life is I want to inspire others to love true principles. That's my personal why statement, and what that means is I love figuring out what works, sharing it with others. I would do that for free, for fun.
[00:21:38] I'm sharing with all of you for free for fun right now because I love doing this and I've made, you know, millions and millions of dollars, right, doing sales. I've made millions of dollars and it's because I believe in what I do and I love being able to help people and being able to help people and get paid to do it almost feels like cheating, right?
[00:21:59] Like, I get to benefit people and love what I get to do, and they pay me for that? But that's the way business should always work, right? So I love getting to do what I get to do and our why statement of DoorGrow is to transform property management business owners and their businesses. And so we legitimately, everyone on my team, we believe in helping our clients.
[00:22:18] We want to see them win and succeed. Like you don't see it behind the scenes, but we are celebrating. A client sends us like a telegram message saying their wins. Then we're like, yay, look at this. And we share it with each other and we're like, yay, we love that. And we're like, cool. Get a testimony video from that person.
[00:22:33] Like, we, your wins are our wins. We want you to win. Our interests are in alignment. This is our why at DoorGrow. And so DoorGrow basically is this golden bridge. That allows you, as a client of ours to get what you want and allows me as a business owner and my team members that love the role that they're in to get what they want out of life.
[00:22:53] So there's strong alignment for desires. It's a win-win, win for everybody and that you can trust. That's motive. And so we teach our clients to do that as well. So at some point, I usually share that. You'll see me share it in the leads training. You'll see it shared in our process, myth training and all the other trainings that we have.
[00:23:11] Every webinar I do, every podcast I go on, I am relating my Golden Bridge formula typically. And so, that's basically it. There won't be very many objections at that point. They're like, yes, this could help me, but I'll deal with whatever objections there are. And then I say, cool. What do you think the next steps might be? Are you ready to get going on this now? Would that be appropriate? And then I send them a quote with a payment agreement. They sign that. That authorizes payment, then they make the payment, initiate that it. Takes a few days to go through, which is why we do a payment agreement.
[00:23:46] There's no contract, no term limit. We don't make people stay for a year or commit to a year. We like clients that want to work with us forever, and our goal is to help support you through every stage of growth forever. But we do not force clients to stay with us.
[00:24:00] We make money If you are making money. We want it to be a win-win, and so we have people sign to authorize a payment agreement, get them started, and then we get them right away into DoorGrow Academy. And then we have an amazing onboarding process. We have them come out and hang out with us for a day in Austin doing what we call jumpstart session.
[00:24:18] Go deep in their business and usually, if they have enough doors, it's easy, we can optimize or add a maybe sometimes $10 a unit or reduce expenses by a handful of dollars per unit. And we can usually pay for the program on a monthly basis residually. It's already paid for. So we work that magic from the beginning.
[00:24:38] So that's basically our sales process. And if they don't sign the agreement right away or they're not ready during that call and they're like, I got to get funds together, then my setters will work that deal. because they set it up, they're responsible to help me move that deal forward and they get a piece of that sales commission.
[00:24:59] We'll pay them. So they're incentivized. So they're following up and doing the follow up and getting them on another follow up call with me to deal with things or meet with their spouse or their business partner or whatever it takes to move, help them feel safe, comfortable, and move the deal forward.
[00:25:12] Maybe give them trainings to watch so they know what we're all about or how we do what we do and stuff like that. So, and that's it. And we just move them forward. So that's our current process for doing what we do. We basically do coaching calls. That's really what I'm doing is I'm just asking a lot of questions to help them get clarity, which is what coaching is.
[00:25:32] And they get to experience that we care. They get to experience empathy. They get to experience clarity. We give them trainings so they get to experience some education, some learning, which poisons the well against most alternatives and most of our competitors' strategies that they're trying to sell.
[00:25:48] Because our stuff's better. And that's basically what we do. So hopefully you learn something valuable from this that you can apply to your process for sales. And if you really want to learn to get great at selling, I have training material on all of these things. We have training material on how to identify your golden bridge, how to get clarity on your personal why, how to create the right pitch.
[00:26:12] I talk about my four phases of selling. I talk about the different stages of questions to take them through during that pitch stage and like all of this stuff in detail and we have pricing secrets and branding secrets and website secrets and all these different training material in DoorGrow Academy.
[00:26:30] And so if you found this helpful or interesting and would like to just really get your business growing and are tired of doing it all on your own. Reach out to us at doorgrow.com. So if you felt stuck stagnant, you want to take your business to the next level, that's reach out to us.
[00:26:49] Also, you can join our free Facebook community. It's just for property management business owners. Everybody helps each other out in there. You know, so it's an easy place to ask questions and feel supported. It's just for business owners. We reject 60, 70% of the applicants that try to join. You have to be a property management business owner or starting one.
[00:27:07] And that's at doorgrowclub.com. And if you found this even a little bit helpful, don't forget to subscribe. Leave us a review. Make my day. I'd appreciate it. Reciprocate. Like give something back and we would love that. Thank you so much. And until next time remember, the slowest path to growth is to do it alone, so let's grow together.
[00:27:30] Bye everyone.