Property Management Growth with DoorGrow DGS 280: Rebranding and Remotivating a Property Management Business and Business Owner with DoorGrow Client Kelly Rafuse
Many property management business owners out there struggle with having a bad brand, bad pricing, cheapo clients, a lack of confidence, and more.
In today’s episode of the #DoorGrowShow, property management growth experts Jason and Sarah Hull sit down in-person with property manager and DoorGrow client, Kelly Rafuse, to talk about her journey with property management.
You’ll Learn[04:53] How to Be Picky with the Clients You Bring on
[10:59] Overcoming the “Hustler” Mindset
[15:04] Choosing an Effective Brand
[21:07] Cheapos, Normals, and Premium Buyers
Tweetables”As you live and you grow in this business, you learn what makes money and what doesn't.”
“ The more confident you are, the more some of these… difficult personality types will kind of abdicate and allow you to lead them.”
“ It's better to be at the top than to be competing with the garbage at the bottom.”
“ Need is scarcity, need is starving, and need is survival.”
Resources Transcript[00:00:00] Kelly: You know, as you live and you grow in this business, you learn what makes money and what doesn't. And I learned how to manage property the hard way.
[00:00:07] Jason: But you learned it.
[00:00:08] Kelly: Yes.
[00:00:10] Jason: 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're 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.
[00:00:37] You think they're crazy for not because you realize that property management is the ultimate high trust gateway to real estate deals, relationships and residual income. At DoorGrow, we are on a mission to transform property management business owners and their businesses. We want to transform the industry, eliminate the BS, build awareness, change perception, expand the market, and help the best property management entrepreneurs win. We're your hosts, property management growth experts, Jason Hull, founder and CEO of DoorGrow, and Sarah Hull, the co owner and COO of DoorGrow. And now let's get into the show.
[00:01:13] So our guest today, we're hanging out with Kelly. Kelly, introduce yourself.
[00:01:17] Kelly: Hi there, my name is Kelly Rafuse with Crimson Cape Property Management in Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania.
[00:01:22] Jason: And you have a really nice logo. Where'd you get that really nice logo?
[00:01:25] Kelly: It's this little mastermind I joined called DoorGrow helped me with that.
[00:01:29] Jason: And it's, I was saying, I think it's cool because it's like you are flying right there.
[00:01:33] It's like, it like reminds me of you.
[00:01:37] Kelly: Well, yeah. I had this Marvel Comics stud fetish, so.
[00:01:41] Jason: Yes. Okay. You're the Marvel comic gal. All right. So really excited to be hanging out. We're actually in Pennsylvania because this is kind of the neck of the woods Sarah grew up in and managed properties nearby and you manage properties in a neighboring market and so.
[00:01:59] The same market. The same market. She, yeah. Exact same market.
[00:02:02] Sarah: I left and she has the market.
[00:02:05] Kelly: While you were here, I was just managing my own portfolio.
[00:02:08] Jason: Oh, okay.
[00:02:09] Kelly: And people were coming to me to manage theirs, and that's how I got into this mess.
[00:02:15] Jason: Yeah. Well, give us a little more background on you, Kelly.
[00:02:18] How'd you get into property management?
[00:02:20] Kelly: Oh, well, I started off as a real estate investor. You know, buying homes out here in Northeast PA. It's a very good place to invest in property. Cash flow is, I mean, I think cap rates were like 12 percent when I got in. So, I mean, it was huge, and honestly, I was trying to replace my income because I'd gotten as far as I could go in my former career, you know, hit a huge glass ceiling, and realized that, you know, real estate was probably my ticket to freedom.
[00:02:45] Jason: What was your former career?
[00:02:47] Kelly: I was on the radio.
[00:02:48] Jason: Yeah, okay, you've got a great voice for it, so.
[00:02:51] Thank you very much.
[00:02:53] Yeah, so you were doing the radio.
[00:02:54] Kelly: Yeah, so I actually got into this market, and I liked it here. I actually, I did my two years and then moved to a bigger market. I was in Hartford, Connecticut for a while.
[00:03:03] And then an opportunity to come back presented itself. And I came back because I genuinely like the area. And you know, the inexpensive real estate was an attraction. And then My husband and I got into investing in properties. We built up quite a portfolio. We had 25 units of our own at one point.
[00:03:20] We're down to 14 now. We sold a few off that, you know, really weren't moneymakers for us. But, you know, as you live and you grow in this business, you learn what makes money and what doesn't. And I learned how to manage property the hard way.
[00:03:33] Jason: But you learned it.
[00:03:34] Kelly: Yes. I made all the mistakes.
[00:03:37] Jason: Yeah. And that's sometimes learning through mistakes and pain.
[00:03:41] I sometimes joke that DoorGrow was built on thousands of mistakes.
[00:03:45] Kelly: You're telling me. And I will introduce My biggest pain point in just a second here. So what caused me to join DoorGrow is my husband's a real estate broker. And so people were banging on his door. "Can you manage my property? Can you manage my property?" It's like, "well, I don't do that, but my wife does."
[00:04:03] Jason: Yeah.
[00:04:04] Kelly: And I'm like, well, I can't manage their property. I don't have a real estate license. And so it was a whole year of, "come on! Just get the license. Just do it! Just do it. Come on!" So I got the license. And I took on one of his investor clients, and I joined DoorGrow, like all in the same day.
[00:04:23] And what I found out when I joined DoorGrow was I never should have taken on that client.
[00:04:27] Jason: That was the price of tuition. It's one of the key lessons that defines you in business, which is you learn those lessons and not take on bad clients. Well, I mean, for us, it's been really inspiring and exciting to see your journey as an entrepreneur and see you kind of get all this ready and get things developed and start to grow.
[00:04:46] And so, we were talking about it, like, what should we talk about on the podcast today with Kelly? And you had mentioned.
[00:04:53] Sarah: Yeah, I had said, I think for me, one of the biggest shifts that I've seen in Kelly again and again and again is shifts in mindset because it was just even a few weeks ago where maybe a month ago or something, was relatively recent, where you were saying like, "oh, I read this book and it changed my life I'm waking up at like 4:30 in the morning and structuring my day different" and it was just again and again. But you've had these little shifts that end up leading to these huge changes for you and how you run things and how you structure your day and like just even your, your energy levels seem to be more protected now.
[00:05:32] Kelly: Yeah, I'm not getting up at 4:30 in the morning anymore. Although I just learned yesterday I might have to start again because my daughter wants to join the swim team. Oh. And they practice it. 5 a. m. sometimes, but yeah, I mean, it's, it's been a struggle because I'm not only a real estate entrepreneur.
[00:05:48] I am also, you know, a wife of a whirlwind. I mean, my husband is a broker. He's into wholesaling. He's into flipping. And I go to manage him.
[00:05:58] Jason: The whirlwind broker.
[00:06:00] Kelly: Yeah, and,
[00:06:02] Jason: yeah.
[00:06:02] Kelly: No, we'll say no more about that.
[00:06:04] Sarah: There's a lot going on.
[00:06:05] Lots of moving pieces.
[00:06:06] Kelly: He's a genius. He's like a Bill Gates level genius.
[00:06:09] I'm just waiting for the ship to come in. Yeah, nice. It's been 30 years, but it's coming.
[00:06:13] Jason: So what do you feel like maybe was the first mindset thing that you noticed in Kelly, kind of overcoming? Or what do you feel like was your first?
[00:06:22] Sarah: I don't know if I can think of a first, but I know that there's been several that I'd like to highlight.
[00:06:27] Jason: Okay.
[00:06:27] Sarah: So I think one of the things is being much more picky with what clients you take on and what properties you take on and how you kind of screen and vet people.
[00:06:41] Jason: Maybe that first client helped you learn that lesson.
[00:06:44] Sarah: Yes.
[00:06:45] Jason: Yeah. So what, what was the lesson there? Like, what did you figure out?
[00:06:48] Kelly: Oh, wow. You know, the, the first thing is I have to see if our philosophies match.
[00:06:53] Jason: You and the client.
[00:06:54] Kelly: Yes. And when I got into real estate investing, I admit I'm a bit of an idealist. I know you're into personality types.
[00:07:01] Jason: Yeah.
[00:07:01] Kelly: And I test as an INFP.
[00:07:03] Jason: Okay.
[00:07:03] Kelly: So I probably have no business being in any business at all, but yet here I am. But I'm a dreamer. I'm a visionary. And so my first company was, and still is called Good People, Good Homes, LLC.
[00:07:15] And I own property in that LLC. I'm not really doing business in it. It just holds property for me. But when I started it, it was supposed to be the company and it was: you buy these distressed properties in these neighborhoods and you fix them up and you put great people in them and it brings up the whole neighborhood and then everybody loves you and we hold hands and sing Kumbaya and that didn't really happen.
[00:07:36] Jason: Yeah.
[00:07:36] Kelly: But I did improve a lot of properties.
[00:07:39] Jason: Okay.
[00:07:39] Kelly: Right. Yeah.
[00:07:41] Sarah: I think arguably in this market, you are outdoing anything that I've ever seen because the befores and afters are just wild. And the rent rates before and after are wild. And this area, yes, you can absolutely get a great deal, a great bargain on real estate, and that doesn't come without its challenges and its problems.
[00:08:06] But one of the things that I think is just so great in this area that you do is you take these distressed properties and you make them beautiful and livable and safe. And you provide a wonderful home now on something before that was dilapidated.
[00:08:25] Kelly: And the market's full of C class properties. You know, I hear a lot of property managers say, "Why are you even bothering with those?"
[00:08:31] Well, honestly, there isn't anything else. Yeah, that's what we hear. You work with what you got. And I probably wouldn't be a real estate investor if the market wasn't like this. Because that's how I got in. I didn't make a ton of money in radio. I didn't. But I made enough to get in, you know, with a C class property.
[00:08:48] And now those C class properties are paying for my life, and my daughter's life, and it's beautiful. The property management company? That's just icing on the cake, but I think it might even eclipse what I've been able to do with my rentals.
[00:09:00] Jason: Oh, I'm sure.
[00:09:01] Kelly: And there's a need for it.
[00:09:02] Jason: Yeah. Big need.
[00:09:04] Kelly: Yeah. So the biggest thing I learned, back to your question about how to vet clients, does their philosophy match mine? Do they believe their C class property could be turned into a desirable place to live? And yes, you will be charging market rent for that, which is a lot more than maybe you thought you could charge. And you'll get a better class tenant that way. Or are they just happy not doing anything to the property, just letting it be what it is and getting whoever they can get into it and, you know, getting whatever money they can for it. I don't really want to work with those people.
[00:09:38] Jason: Do you find part of this though is just selling?
[00:09:41] It's like convincing them to align with your vision? Because it sounds like you have a better vision than a lot of the people that might come to you.
[00:09:48] Kelly: Sometimes when I show them the spreadsheet, of, you know, what I've done for some of my other clients, including the first one that I told you about. I mean, I really turned some of his properties around.
[00:09:59] And I've tried to fire him twice. Yeah.
[00:10:01] He won't go and, you know, he's also a third of my income, so I'm going to keep him on. And, but the thing is, he's kind of listening to me now. Kind of.
[00:10:11] Sarah: He's open. Well, I think. It's like a walnut shell. We've just cracked it open. Maybe some of the good ideas are seeping through.
[00:10:18] Jason: I've talked about this before, but I think also part of it is, as we've seen, you come into your own in more confidence in what you're doing and the more confident you are, the more some of these A personality types or these difficult personality types will kind of abdicate and allow you to lead them.
[00:10:36] And I talk about metaphorically punching people in the face sometimes. So you probably maybe punched them in the face metaphorically a couple of times since then. And so setting those healthier boundaries. Is something we naturally do when we start to believe in ourselves more. And so what other shifts do you feel like you've noticed in Kelly?
[00:10:55] Or what are some of the things that DoorGrow's helped you with? Are you making changes too?
[00:10:59] Kelly: Well, like Sarah said, a lot of the mindset stuff, I mean, a big revelation came to me when I was at DoorGrow live.
[00:11:05] Jason: Yeah, what was that?
[00:11:07] Kelly: Well, first of all, getting to DoorGrow Live was a challenge because I was in the midst of my survival mode.
[00:11:13] I'm a solopreneur still. I do everything myself. My husband's my broker of record, but, like, he's off doing his thing. Sure. So.
[00:11:21] Jason: You were doing everything, you're really busy, and you're like, how do I take a break to even just go to DoorGrow Live?
[00:11:26] Kelly: Yeah, and, you know, then I've got this mindset that, you know, how can I afford it?
[00:11:30] But the thing is, I did have the money to go. That's another thing. I've got a poverty mindset I need to get past. And when I went to DoorGrow Live, that was really thrown in my face. Because I was talking about the challenges of being a solopreneur. And one of the pieces of advice that I was given by one of the speakers is, "What's your time worth?"
[00:11:49] You know, you can't be doing all of these things when you pay somebody. Yeah, and I thought, well, what's my time worth? And then this little voice in the back of my head said, well, not a whole heck of a lot.
[00:12:00] Jason: You told everybody that. You said, "not a whole heck of a lot."
[00:12:04] Kelly: Yeah.
[00:12:04] Jason: And we're like, "oh, okay."
[00:12:06] Kelly: Yeah.
[00:12:07] Jason: Yeah.
[00:12:07] Kelly: Well, I mean, that comes from, you know, my background. I grew up without a lot.
[00:12:11] Jason: Yeah. You know,
[00:12:12] Kelly: I saw my parents struggle. They're working class people. You know, I got into an industry that was on its, you know, downslide when I, I started on the radio in you know, the early nineties, you know, probably right after it started to slide down and, you know, there've been multiple layoffs and, you know, voice tracking and automation and, you know, I survived, but I think one of the reasons I survived was I was willing to work really hard for not a whole lot of compensation.
[00:12:40] Jason: Sure.
[00:12:40] Kelly: \You know, as people were let go and reductions in force, I was given more duties, but not more money.
[00:12:47] Jason: Sure.
[00:12:48] Kelly: And, you know, you do that long enough, you start getting the message that, oh, well, your time really isn't worth a whole heck of a lot.
[00:12:54] Jason: Yeah.
[00:12:55] Kelly: Yeah.
[00:12:56] Jason: Who decides what your time's worth?
[00:12:57] Kelly: I do.
[00:12:58] Jason: Yeah. I do.
[00:12:59] Yes.
[00:12:59] Kelly: I do.
[00:13:00] Yeah!
[00:13:01] And, you know, that's...
[00:13:02] you do now. Yes.
[00:13:03] Jason: How has that shifted for you then? What's your perception of your time and the value of it? of your time now?
[00:13:09] Kelly: My perception of my time is, you know, first of all, I don't need to be tied to the Henry Ford 40 hour work week or even the 50-60-70-80 hour work week that I hear people say you "should" do when you're running a business because, you know, it's impractical.
[00:13:24] I have a daughter. She's a teenager. She's just started high school this year. She's a field hockey athlete and now she wants to be on the swim team and she's got needs. Mhm. Right? I've got a husband who does not have a cushy job I can fall back on while I do my entrepreneurial thing.
[00:13:40] Jason: Right. Right.
[00:13:41] Kelly: He's also an entrepreneur.
[00:13:43] We are living off self employment income. So it is a constant, you know, point of stress. So, you know, I need to find out my key productivity time, and that's when I work. And sometimes I get four or five hours a day, and that's it, of key productivity time. But then I find myself, you know, when I'm walking the dog, having all these great ideas.
[00:14:06] You know, I do things like I listen to your podcast you know, some great audio books that have been recommended to me. I devoured The One Thing by Gary Keller, the Profit First book. And I'm starting to implement these ideas. And it's just sort of like they're ladder steps.
[00:14:23] Jason: So basically, little by little, you've been investing in yourself by leveraging reading, getting coaching, doing this stuff.
[00:14:31] And that's translated into you valuing yourself a little bit more.
[00:14:35] Yeah.
[00:14:35] Awesome.
[00:14:36] Kelly: Absolutely. And I've learned to turn things over, like maintenance, you know, I hired one of the vendors that you recommended, Vendoroo and they're, you know, the tenants still text me with maintenance issues.
[00:14:47] Sure. And I text back, "put it in the portal." Right. "If you can't put it in the portal, call this number and they'll teach you how to put it in the portal."
[00:14:55] Jason: But yeah, probably less willing to take phone calls than you were before.
[00:14:58] Kelly: Yeah, I've never really taken phone calls.
[00:15:00] Jason: That's good, that's good.
[00:15:02] Kelly: Thanks me. Get it all in writing.
[00:15:04] Jason: So you went through our whole rapid revamp process as well, like with the branding and like getting everything kind of dialed in, pricing. You've implemented a lot of things. And so, has that impacted your confidence level as well?
[00:15:20] Kelly: Oh, absolutely. I really feel like, you know, I'm marketing a real brand now with Crimson Cape.
[00:15:25] Jason: Yeah. What, what was it before that?
[00:15:26] Kelly: GPGH Management Company.
[00:15:29] Jason: Oh, the acronym.
[00:15:30] Kelly: Yep. Good People, Good Homes.
[00:15:32] Jason: Yeah.
[00:15:32] Kelly: You know, just to take off of that and, you know, everything was GPGH. My husband was GPGH Realty.
[00:15:38] Jason: It sounds like some sort of drug or something. What do you take in GPGH?
[00:15:42] Kelly: Well, it's the right market.
[00:15:44] Jason: Okay. Well, then there's that GLP 1 joke too that you could put in there. GLP 1. Yeah. But my husband actually reprinted his real estate company because of, you know, he was inspired by what I did.
[00:15:54] Yeah. Yeah. Okay. What's his brand?
[00:15:56] Kelly: He's Gorilla Real Estate. That's the little stuffed gorilla you saw on the way in.
[00:16:00] Jason: Okay, yeah. Yeah, and they're different, which is nice. They're not like, you know, kind of mixed together.
[00:16:06] Kelly: Right, right. And I don't want, you know, people to really associate us together, even though we do share an office.
[00:16:11] Jason: Yeah.
[00:16:12] For now.
[00:16:13] So you've gone through the branding, your pricing is different than anyone else in the market.
[00:16:19] Kelly: Yeah. It's higher than anyone else in the market too. And that keeps a lot of the riffraff away.
[00:16:24] Jason: Yeah. It's better to be at the top than to be competing with the garbage at the bottom. For sure. Yeah. Especially in a difficult or lower end market. Yeah. Yeah. So awesome. What other changes?
[00:16:36] Sarah: I think, well, how many, we've gone through the rapid revamp a couple of times, so she's done the mindset piece a few times, and I think every time you go through it, you kind of get, like, an extra layer out of it, like almost like the next, like we're stacking like, levels and levels and levels of different like mindset tips and tricks, and then the perception piece, which once we're done with the little pieces on the website, we can get that launched for you.
[00:17:04] I think that will make a huge difference. And recently. I mean, for the whole entirety of the time that you were in our program, you had always said "there is no way I can add more units. There is no way I can do more work. There is no way I can even focus on growth." And you are now adding new doors.
[00:17:24] Kelly: Yep, I added three last week. I added another two Sunday night from a current client. I didn't know she had another double block. You know how I got those doors? She called me from you know, her poor husband is at the Cleveland Clinic. So she called me from Cleveland and she's like "I got a no heat call from this one building that you're not managing And I can't deal with it. Can you please take these units?"
[00:17:47] Jason: Nice.
[00:17:48] Kelly: So I just got two more doors.
[00:17:49] Jason: Okay.
[00:17:50] Kelly: And I'm hopefully closing on another five by the end of the week.
[00:17:53] Yes!
[00:17:55] Jason: So doors are just starting to flow and you're able to dedicate time now towards growth which before you're kind of
[00:18:01] Kelly: yeah
[00:18:01] Jason: Chicken with head cut off running around and dealing with stuff.
[00:18:04] Kelly: It's going to get a little iffy again now that I've added these doors, you know, okay. Now I have to onboard all these tenants. And there's a couple that come with the vacant units that they want me to rent in January?
[00:18:16] Jason: Yeah.
[00:18:17] Sarah: The best time of year here.
[00:18:21] Jason: Right. Lots of activity.
[00:18:23] Sarah: Speaking of vacant units, You have none now in the portfolio that you're Managing?
[00:18:28] My current portfolio, I filled them all.
[00:18:31] Yeah, and how many did you have? Because I feel like all throughout the year I was getting updates and it was like 20 something and down a little bit, down a little bit, and now you're at zero.
[00:18:41] Kelly: Yeah, I filled I think 17 units over the course of the last year.
[00:18:45] Amazing.
[00:18:46] 10 of them were filled between September and now.
[00:18:50] Jason: Nice. Wow.
[00:18:50] Kelly: And I've got a few that are coming up. I've got, you know, two of my tenants are moving into senior housing. So, you know, that means I'm probably going to have to redo their apartments because they've been living there since like 1965 or whatever.
[00:19:04] I'm sure they're going to need to be some updates.
[00:19:07] Jason: So in getting this business started, if you hadn't heard about DoorGrow, or say, DoorGrow didn't exist. Where would you be you think right now?
[00:19:15] Kelly: Oh my gosh.
[00:19:16] Jason: What'd be going on?
[00:19:17] Kelly: I'm not sure I'd still be doing it.
[00:19:19] Jason: You think you would have quit?
[00:19:20] Kelly: With this client that I took on from the beginning, if I didn't know any better, I would think this is what property management is.
[00:19:27] Jason: And you'd be like, yeah, right, so talking with us saying you should probably fire this client was probably enough to go, "okay, this may not be everybody."
[00:19:35] Kelly: Right.
[00:19:36] Jason: Okay.
[00:19:36] Kelly: Right, right. And you know, and you also helped me work with this client. So he's still my client, and he could be a very good client now that his buildings are cash flowing. But that remains to be seen because I got a little pushback on a repair last night that I wasn't real happy with, but we'll see.
[00:19:53] Jason: You're going to set some strong boundaries with this guy.
[00:19:56] Kelly: I might have to punch him in the face a third time.
[00:19:58] Jason: Metaphorically. Right, right. Metaphorically, we're not advocating violence. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Okay. All right. Well anything else that we should chat about or cover? I mean, it's really been, like I said at the beginning, it's been inspiring and exciting to see you grow.
[00:20:13] We're really excited to see where you take this and we've seen just it and that's why we do what we do. It's great to see clients just grow like you've come so far. Your whole energy is just different. Just how you are from when we saw you at DoorGrow live and you're like, well, what's your time worth?
[00:20:29] And you're, you've spouted off, "well, not very much," you know, or whatever you've come a long way. And I'm really excited to see where you go with this because this could be a really great residual income business. I think absolutely it will overshadow what you're making off your rental properties, but then it also feed you some more real estate deals in the future.
[00:20:47] For sure as you, as you work this. And so, yeah, I think it'll be interesting. And how does the, the king of Gorilla Real Estate feel about everything that you're doing?
[00:20:56] Kelly: Oh, he's incredibly supportive. Yeah. I think he misses when I used to just, you know, clean up his bookkeeping for him. We now have to hire someone to do that.
[00:21:05] Jason: Mm-hmm. Yes. Those wealthy problems. Yeah.
[00:21:07] Kelly: And yeah, and that's another mindset thing I need to get over. And you cover this in the rapid revamp when you're talking about, you know, the three types of clients you got, your, your normals, which you're, you're aiming for.
[00:21:18] Jason: Yeah.
[00:21:18] Kelly: But then you've got, you know, your cheapos and your premiums.
[00:21:21] Sure.
[00:21:21] Jason: Yeah.
[00:21:21] Kelly: And and, and one of the things you talked about, the cheapos is. Are you a cheapo?
[00:21:27] Jason: Oh. Yeah.
[00:21:27] Kelly: And I realize that, yeah, I kind of am a cheapo.
[00:21:30] Jason: You get what you attract. Huh. And so, yeah, we're blind, we have a blind spot towards which category we are showing up as, and so stretching yourself to not be a cheapo.
[00:21:41] Kelly: I grew up with nothing. You know, I grew up with nothing, so, yeah, that's why I'm a cheapo.
[00:21:47] Sarah: Yeah. And I get it, because I too was in that mindset, especially when I lived here.
[00:21:52] This area is in that mindset.
[00:21:54] Yes, the whole area is very, and when you find someone who kind of breaks through that bubble, It's odd here, right?
[00:22:03] And it's different. And it's weird. And it's like, what are they doing? What is this all about? This is just weird. Like, why are you not, you know, normal like us? And when that was something that I had struggled with for a very, very long time, too, because back when I had lived here, I thought, "okay, well, I want to make more money. And like, I need to make more money. And the only way I can do that is I can either work more hours and maybe get some overtime or maybe I can find a job that's going to pay me more and or ask for a raise, or and this is my go to strategy, was let's just work two jobs, three jobs, four jobs." I was working four jobs at a time.
[00:22:44] I was working seven days a week and I did that for years and years and years just because, well, this job I maxed out on and I can't get any more money out of here, but I need more money, so, oh, let me just add on another job. Yeah, so I understand that completely and it was just, it was with time that that started to just crack and shift a little bit.
[00:23:02] Jason: Kind of the trap of time for dollars. As if that's the only way.
[00:23:07] Sarah: Absolutely. Absolutely.
[00:23:09] Jason: So yeah, so being exposed just to other people that are not of that mindset probably is cracks that glass ceiling you spoke of a little bit before maybe.
[00:23:19] Kelly: Right. Yeah. And what I'm noticing is that I'm attracting people, local people, that have a similar mindset and they exist.
[00:23:28] You know, there's a lot of entrepreneurs in this area. Chris Jones started Pepper Jam, and he decided to keep his company here.
[00:23:34] Sarah: Oh, wow.
[00:23:34] Kelly: Yeah, I mean, there's, there's a few. Tech company, you might have heard of them. But yeah, there's, there's a few.
[00:23:39] Jason: So, you are no longer a cheapo.
[00:23:42] Kelly: No. I, well, I'm working on it.
[00:23:45] I'm working on it. I catch myself.
[00:23:46] Jason: You say...
[00:23:47] Kelly: I am no longer a cheapo.
[00:23:49] Jason: I am more normal.
[00:23:51] Kelly: I am more normal.
[00:23:52] Jason: Graduating towards premium.
[00:23:53] Kelly: And I'm graduating towards premium.
[00:23:55] Jason: It's good to be premium. We get to decide this, right? We get to decide this.
[00:24:00] And so as you stretch yourself into more premium experience and recognizing, like, money is not the painful thing to be focused on, there's, and there's better things to be focused on that are more valuable and more important, like your time. And as you put a greater and greater premium on your time, you shift out of that currency of cash being the, you know, the God of your life controlling you and then you can start to be grateful.
[00:24:26] And I think one of the key things for everybody listening is when we start to celebrate all of the things that we used to complain about related to money, I think this is how we shift out of that poverty mindset is, oh, we got to pay this bill. Thank you God that I have lights and power that I'm able to afford to do this.
[00:24:44] Or thank you that I'm able to do this. And when we start to be grateful instead of projecting pain every time we see or hear money, And we start to project gratitude, then we start to attract more money. Like we start to be open to that. And as we shift into normal, yeah, we attract more normals. As we shift into premium, we attract more premium clients.
[00:25:05] And they recognize you. It's like, there's a knowing between you and them, like, yeah, this is how it works. You come to us and we take care of everything and we take care of you and you get a premium service and product and they're like, "yeah, that's what I want." because premium buyers, when they see people that are cheapos.
[00:25:20] They can like kind of smell it on you, right? So then they're like, "I don't want to work with this person. They're not going to take care of my property the way that I would want or do things or take care of me the way that I want." And so investing in ourselves. Sometimes for me, one of my coaches said, "go get a massage, you know, go do things to invest or take care of yourself to where you feel like..." you know, anything where we say, I think the poverty mindset is we hear this voice that says, " I don't need that nicer car. You don't need to go get a massage. Why do you need that?" Normal and premium is about shifting beyond need, right? Need is scarcity, need is starving, and need is survival, and so, and then what happens is we have to create drama or problems in our life in order to justify taking time off, so we have to get sick, or we have to justify it.
[00:26:09] Doing something and so when we shift out of that then we shift into a healthier state where we can decide I am going to take a vacation or I am going to take time off. I'm going to go to DoorGrow live. You should all go to DoorGrow live, so.
[00:26:20] Sarah: I highly recommend coming up in May!
[00:26:23] Jason: It's coming up in May. Go to doorgrowlive.Com. So, all right anything else we should touch on?
[00:26:28] Sarah: One thing and I don't know if I've ever said this on the coach a call where you've been on but for me, it was actually Roya Mattis. She, at the time, was in Mary Kay like, and I was in cosmetic sales for Mary Kay, and It was very early in my Mary Kay career and I was kind of learning how to be entrepreneur ish, right?
[00:26:53] Like, "Oh, I can write these things off and I can do things differently" and, "Oh, this is an expense, but it's a good expense." And it was a lot of new things for me. And one of the things that she had said is and I'll never forget because it just stuck with me and I went, "Oh, okay." Yeah, I need to stop thinking like that right now.
[00:27:11] Is " come tax time, there are people who can't wait for tax time because they're waiting. They're depending on that refund and they're like, 'Oh, thank God I get this refund.' Right?"
[00:27:21] A lot of rent gets caught up in it.
[00:27:23] It sure does. Yeah. Funny. All of a sudden they have money. So. Once you start really making money, though, you don't get refunds anymore.
[00:27:33] What ends up happening is you pay money. And not only do you pay money into it, but you now are, like, quarterly paying money. But you don't have to do that if you're, like, barely scraping by, if you're not making money. So, what she said to me is, " when you're, like, rich and you're making money You're excited to pay this money because you're making so much money that now, not only are not going to get a refund, but you don't, you don't worry about the refund, you're making money and now you're paying the taxes and you are going to hit a point where you want to be paying taxes more often than just once a year because that means you've reached a certain level and now you're making a certain amount of money and your goal at that point is then going to be, 'well, how can I increase this?'"
[00:28:24] And that for me, it just stuck in my head forever. And I went, "Oh. Oh, geez. I didn't even realize that." And at that time I was, I was. Like, "well, I'm going to get a couple thousand dollars back, like on my tax refund." I haven't gotten a refund in years. And it's true though. It's just a different way of thinking about things.
[00:28:40] It's like, well, you know, if you make this tiny little bit of money and then I can get, you know, a couple thousand dollars back at the end of the year, or I can make a whole lot more money. And then, yes, I have to make some quarterly tax payments. Man, I'd rather make a lot more money and I'll just give the government some of it.
[00:28:54] And then what you have to do is just figure out how can we reduce that as much as possible.
[00:28:59] Jason: I would love to see taxes just be reduced dramatically. So, we'll see.
[00:29:04] Kelly: But, who knows what they're going to do.
[00:29:05] Jason: I don't get super excited about paying taxes, but I do get excited. I would rather, like, see more income on my tax return.
[00:29:13] You know taxes every time so.
[00:29:14] Sarah: Would you rather make the big amount of money so that you have to pay the taxes in or would you make a really small amount of money so that you get a refund?
[00:29:22] Kelly: Yeah, just a really good accountant that can help you zig when the government zags
[00:29:26] Sarah: So that that was something that she said to me and I went oh, okay, that is a very different way of thinking about it.
[00:29:33] And it just, just stuck with me.
[00:29:35] Jason: Yeah. Always looking through the lens of 'why is this positive?' it's a healthy mindset for sure. Yeah. Why are taxes positive? All right. Everybody listening is like, "they're not."
[00:29:45] Sarah: I know. Right. Cool. My brother wants a shout out. So shout out to Jason.
[00:29:50] Jason: What's up, Jason?
[00:29:51] Sarah: He's like, "you never shout me out!" Here, here you are. The three of us are waving to you now. So, what's up, Jason?
[00:29:58] Jason: No, he's got the same name as me. Everybody's like, what's that all about?
[00:30:01] He's dating a Sarah.
[00:30:03] Kelly: Oh!
[00:30:04] Jason: Which is funny. And you have a stepsister, that's Sarah, so he's got two, three Sarahs in his life right now.
[00:30:13] Three Sarahs, two Jasons, and a partridge in a pear tree. All right. Cool. Well, Kelly, it's been great coming to hang out in your office and to meet you in person like here in Pennsylvania. Thanks for hosting the DoorGrow show and having us hang out with you and we're excited to see where you go and how you progress in the program and all the things you're going to do as you add doors.
[00:30:36] And I think the future is really bright for Crimson Property Management, Crimson Cape. Hey, I missed the Cape. It's like superhero stuff here. Yes. I am. I love it. All right. And that's it. So if you are tuning in, make sure to check us out at DoorGrow. com. And if you are wanting to grow your property management business, or you are getting burnt out on it, or you are one of the many sucky property management companies that exist, you don't have to be.
[00:31:04] It could be good. It could be better. Then reach out to us. We would love to help you scale and grow your business. We help people from startup all the way to breaking the thousand door barrier. Whatever your goal is reach out to us. Check us out at DoorGrow. com. Bye everyone.
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