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Property Management Growth with DoorGrow

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Dec 9, 2022 • 47min

DGS 193: The Renter Experience In Property Management With Ben Doherty

Leasing is one of the hardest aspects of property management. What if you had a way to offload some or all of your tasks related to leasing? Today, property management growth expert Jason Hull chats with Ben from Sunroom. This service allows property managers to offload leasing to leasing professionals who care about property managers, owners, and tenants. You’ll Learn… [01:26] Offloading Leasing: What is Sunroom? [09:01] ShowMojo, Tenant Turner, vs. Sunroom, oh my! [016:35] Better ways to do Property Showings [020:23] How Sunroom Vets Tenants Better [24:21] Integrating with Other PM Software  [31:30] Net Promoter Scores for Property Management and Leasing [37:12] Learning to LET GO as a PM Entrepreneur Tweetables “Some of y'all entrepreneurs are control freaks. Let's be real, and you need to let go of some of this stuff and let somebody else do it a little bit better.” “We have a lot of egos as entrepreneurs. We think our way is the best way all the time, and we need to see that maybe somebody else could do this better.” “Property managers tend to do best if they just convince owners to do pets. You're going to get more tenants, you're going to get more money.” “One of the biggest time sucks for a property management company is dealing with prospective tenants.” Resources DoorGrow and Scale Mastermind DoorGrow Academy DoorGrow on YouTube DoorGrowClub DoorGrowLive TalkRoute Referral Link Transcript [00:00:00] Ben: So what we do is we partner with property management companies and become their leasing arm. So if you're a newer property management company, you're focused on growing doors and you just mainly want to focus on that, right? One of the most important things is you got to get leasing. If you don't get leasing, you're not going to lease the doors quickly, which then your owner investors are not going to be happy about that.   [00:00:22] Jason Hull: Welcome DoorGrow Hackers to the # DoorGrowShow. So 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 Hacker. DoorGrow Hackers love the opportunities, daily variety, unique challenges and freedom that property management brings. Many in real estate think you're crazy for doing it. You think they're crazy for not bebecause 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. I'm your host property management growth expert, Jason Hull, the founder and CEO of DoorGrow. Now let's get into the show.    [00:01:19] Jason Hull: All right. Ben, welcome to the #DoorGrowShow.    [00:01:24] Ben: Thanks for having me, Jason.    [00:01:26] Jason Hull: Good to have you. So Ben, why don't we start by you giving us a little bit of your background, qualify yourself. You've done some cool stuff and I'm in the market where you did some of this cool stuff. We just realized in the green room that we're practically neighbors in Austin, market downtown, and I'm up in Round Rock. Ben, tell us a little bit about your background and how you got into the, I guess technology space.   [00:01:49] Ben: Yeah, sure. Yeah, definitely. First of all, I mean we-- me and my co-founder Zach, we started working on Sunroom in right around 2017. And, the way that we had originally had the idea was, just being a renter for a decade and having a lot of interesting experiences trying to look for a place to lease. But prior to starting Sunroom, Zach and I had started a company called Favor Delivery, which is a small little delivery company here in Texas that grew to become the market leader in delivery. And we sold to H-E-B in early 2018.    [00:02:27] Jason Hull: And for people that aren't familiar with H-E-B, because I moved from California just before the pandemic because I wanted to get away from California and the taxes and it's poor political culture. But anyway, so I moved here, Austin and H-E-B was all over the place. I'm like, what a weird name. What is this place? But it's one of the, like America's top grocery chains. It's consistently rated as like one of the biggest and the best. So for those that are not in Texas, they are probably not familiar with H-E-B, but H-E-B is the, like one of the leading grocery stores, and it dominates everything.    [00:03:05] Jason Hull: Yeah.   [00:03:06] Jason Hull: I'm sure in grocery sales, it beats out Walmart, like it beats out any of the stuff that I'd heard about before and I'd never heard of H-E-B. And they offer delivery service.    [00:03:15] Ben: Yeah. H-E-B is an impressive company. And the crazy thing is they've been around for 115 years.   [00:03:21] Ben: Wow.    [00:03:21] Ben: They are the top employer in Texas. And when they acquired us, it was the only acquisition they've ever had in their history as a company. And even crazier than that, when we combined workforces at the time, we had the largest workforce of independent contractors. We grew to, now they're at a hundred thousand delivery drivers in Texas.    [00:03:44] Ben: Oh, wow.    [00:03:44] Ben: And H-E-B had a similar amount of employees. So when we combined workforces, it just became this really massive workforce supporting grocery and delivery of all foods. So yeah, it was a cool marriage that we had there.   [00:04:00] Jason Hull: Very cool. Yeah. Very cool. That's interesting history. So I've seen the Favor name when I'm doing delivery from H-E-B, so I was like what's this relationship?    [00:04:11] Ben: Yeah. So I can elaborate a little bit more too about, how we picked Sunroom. We had, like I said, I mean my co-founder Zach and I, we're actually best friends from high school and so we go way back. I think what you were saying about you wanting to support property manager entrepreneurs, I think that's a good mission because I just tip my hat off to any entrepreneurs who get any businesses working because we definitely know how hard that is. But anyways, our journey towards Sunroom was just having a lot of, I would call interesting experiences as a renter. And then we started calling-- once we were interested in the rental space-- we started making a lot of phone calls to, different rental listings. And we started asking the agents and property managers, "Hey, why are you doing this?" "why are you doing these leases?" And, we kept hearing the same thing, which was like, "oh, we don't-- I don't really want to be doing this lease. I'm just doing this lease. I'm helping this investor client buy more homes and so now I'm looped into to renting this place." And every once in a while you'd come across a property manager who really loved leasing, but a lot of the property managers we talked to too would be like, "yeah, I'm really focused on growing my door count. And these things are just something we have to do to get more properties in the door." And Zach and I saw that as an opportunity of: wow. No wonder why the experience is not that great for renters. A lot of the folks who are doing these leasing are not that excited about doing it. And so then that's how we started working on Sunroom.    [00:05:29] Jason Hull: Cool. So let's talk about then what-- you talked about the problem that you saw in the marketplace and experience wasn't super good, but a lot of owners and maybe even property managers aren't even super excited about taking care of the tenant experience. So it's not like their highest priority. Like, "I want to get more doors, I want to have more properties managed," so they're like, "what's my competitive advantage?" So when they're picking tools and software, they're usually-- they're trying to figure out: "how do I get some sort of leg up on the competition," so to speak, or "how can this lower my operational cost?" and these kind of things. One of the biggest time sucks for a property management company is dealing with prospective tenants.    [00:06:13] Jason Hull: Yeah.    [00:06:14] Jason Hull: These are not people that are paying them and they call them the most, and--   [00:06:17] Jason Hull: yeah.   [00:06:18] Jason Hull: --This is like the "garbage of phone calls," I've heard one of my guests call it.   [00:06:21] Jason Hull: Yeah.    [00:06:22] Jason Hull: So tell me about what does Sunroom do and how does it do it, and what's the benefit.    [00:06:27] Ben: Yeah, sure. So what we do is we partner with property management companies and become their leasing arm. So if you're a newer property management company, you're focused on growing doors and you just mainly want to focus on that, right? One of the most important things is you got to get leasing. If you don't get leasing, you're not going to lease the doors quickly, which then your owner investors are not going to be happy about that. And also I would argue equally as important is that renter does have a great experience because, that is really the beginning of your relationship with them, and what we've noticed of working with a lot of different property managers is that, when the renter goes into the home and they're really happy with their experience that led up to that point, they're a lot more-- how do I put this? They're a lot more quiet when they get into the home, right? They're just happy overall, which is going to reduce your maintenance requests and honestly going to make it more likely that they renew the next year, right? because that is just really first, and I would just say first impressions are, everything in life a lot of times.    [00:07:27] Ben: And so I think, leasing really is that first impression for that property manager. To come back around to what we do, yeah, we partner with the property management companies and make it so that they don't even need to have any leasing agents on staff. And we can really do the entire process of getting the home leased. But at the same time, we give the property manager the power over key decisions, right? Things like actually approving the applications, that's still going to be up to the property manager to make sure they choose the right applicant. And obviously if they want to use their lease that they prefer, there's all different ways that we allow them to customize what they want their leasing experience to be like. But at the end of the day, we're really doing the legwork for them and we have a combination of people and tech to do that.    [00:08:12] Ben: Got it. So    [00:08:14] Jason Hull: this combination of people and tech... are you able to do this in every market or is this like a local thing that needs to be done    [00:08:21] Ben: locally?    [00:08:23] Ben: Yeah, great question.   [00:08:24] Ben: So we started out just doing this in Austin and have partnered with several different property managers here. In town. But now we're expanding across the us. And I believe we're up to seven different markets at the moment. But pretty rapidly expanding to cover more markets.   [00:08:41] Ben: Got it. What's    [00:08:42] Jason Hull: the biggest limitation in expansion for those that you don't cover yet?    [00:08:46] Ben: We call ourselves a leasing only brokerage, so we're actually-- we're a real estate brokerage in each of these states. And so that's a blocker to getting set up in a lot of these places is actually establishing our brokerage in each one of these states.   [00:08:59] Ben: Got it.    [00:09:00] Jason Hull: Okay. Cool. I think a lot of property managers, they're aware of certain pools like ShowMojo and Tenant Turner and Rently and Knock Rentals and Turbo Tenant, so how does Sunroom differentiate from all these tools and these systems are already out there?   [00:09:20] Ben: Yeah, so some of those systems and tools you mentioned, I do think those-- they do improve the renter experience and at the same time. They do make it so that it's a little less work for the property manager to lease those properties. But at the end of the day, if you're a property management owner you're still going to need a leasing agent on your team. Or you're going to have to overextend the property manager that you have in order to use those, utilize those tools. Sunroom just takes it the next step where we have similar tools and systems. Obviously I'm biased, but I would argue they're better than those, but--   [00:09:55] Ben: You should argue that.    [00:09:57] Ben: We take it a step further. You don't even really need to have a leasing agent on staff in order to really execute everything you need to do for leasing. Whereas all these other tools or systems they're definitely completely reliant on still having somebody there behind the scenes catching the errors or all all the holes in those systems. And, if anybody has tried to. Integrate those different systems and tools, what they'll find is that they were built in a way that they had a focused goal. And there's a lot of different holes in that system. And I'm sure as operators see that, I think that's a big difference with what we're building, is that what we build, we actually use to operate. And so we're able to see all the different gaps and holes that those systems leave. And really between our systems and our team, we're able to fill in the gaps that those systems leave out.   [00:10:46] Jason Hull: All right. So I think people listening by now are like, "the wheels are turning a little bit," and they're like, "okay, how's this actually play out?" So could you walk us through step by step what-- how this process works with the property manager and the tenant from beginning to    [00:11:01] Ben: finish? Yeah, sure. So it usually starts within one of the property managers, property management softwares, right?   [00:11:09] Ben: We see commonly property managers are using App Folio or Buildium, so let's use App Folio for example. You have a property manager on your team that you have a home where the renter didn't renew. And it's a property that you're going to need to get leased. At that moment, if you were partnered with us, you would open up the Sunroom portal. We would already essentially have that home synced within our system. Because we're able to really pull data from App Folio and the Buildiums of the world. From there, they just really submit the property to us and say, "Hey, this home's coming up for lease." we would normally already have all of their settings. As a part of our onboarding, we're going to get them all set up in our system. So things like knowing what their tenant criteria is. Things like knowing when is this home actually available? When would you like us to touch the property? And then as soon as they submit the property to us, we actually will go out and touch the property. So we have boots on the ground. Those boots on the ground are going to get professional photography. They're going to set up a self showing lock system if that's what the property manager would like to. And then we're going to actually install a yard sign as well. And, we take pictures to really document everything that we do there. And then, we'll take it a step further, we'll get the marketing description written and then we'll get it listed online, and we do that entire process in an average about 48 hours.    [00:12:28] Ben: Nice.    [00:12:29] Jason Hull: Awesome. Yeah, that's very cool. So you actually have people come out-- swarm of people, and they get all this stuff done, right? In the description, getting it listed, doing all this stuff. Okay.    [00:12:39] Jason Hull: Yeah,    [00:12:40] Ben: and that's where our background in Favor obviously comes into play is that, I think if you think about Favor, there's a great consumer experience where the customer can order food, but then there's all these boots on the ground that actually go get the food and make sure that all happens in a timely manner. Leasing is similar in the sense that you need to have a great consumer experience for the renter to be able to see what they're shopping for and do the things they they need to do to see if they want to, lease that property. But then you're going to need boots on the ground to actually, handle the listing side of things.   [00:13:09] Ben: Very cool.    [00:13:10] Jason Hull: So is this totally Uber-like in that you're just pulling anybody in, or I'm sure you have criteria for the photographers and for all these different people that you're bringing in to do these    [00:13:22] Ben: little pieces.    [00:13:23] Ben: Yeah. Yeah. We don't just hire any random person. I'd say it's definitely not Uber-like in that I think, we use-- it's technology enabled so that we can do those things quickly and can measure how fast we do them, right? I think just the fact that we know we get those properties set up in an average of 48 hours, I think is...    [00:13:42] Ben: Yeah.   [00:13:42] Ben: ...more than your average property manager would know, but we know that the tasks we're doing are tech enabled, but no we care a lot about those people that we choose and we try to find folks that have a lot of experience with real estate photography and then we teach them the other aspects of what we're trying to get done at that property.   [00:14:00] Jason Hull: Awesome. Yeah. Very cool. When a property is going to become vacant, are they able to leverage a system or does it have to be totally empty and rent ready and everything    [00:14:11] Ben: else?    [00:14:12] Ben: No. So yeah, no, they're able to use the system. It sounds like you're asking about pre-leasing.    [00:14:19] Ben: Yeah.   [00:14:20] Ben: Okay. Yes, pre-leasing can be really important I think in some markets. Yeah, that's definitely something we support. And let's say it's tenant occupied and we need to act and do an escorted showing, we have different agents on the ground that we partner with that are some of the most active in the area touring homes and renters. And so we'll tap into that network to do some.   [00:14:40] Jason Hull: Got it. Okay. Now what if they want get the property listed, they want to get photos, but there's a bunch of ugly furniture in there and ugly stuff. Do you guys let maybe-- BoxBrownie I've had on the show before-- digital editors and they're like, removing all this    [00:14:55] Ben: stuff?   [00:14:55] Ben: Yeah.    [00:14:56] Ben: Take the photos.   [00:14:56] Ben: Yeah, we do have digital editing in that regard, but depending on the degree of how much that home is messed up. That's also something that we do is that if we go out to a home and we think it's not show ready we'll document that and share it back with the property manager. And I think we've seen property managers really love that aspect of what we do because oftentimes they have a tough time holding the make ready folks accountable or let's say they're doing a renovation on the property. In particular, I can't tell you how many times that a property manager said, "Oh yeah, this was supposed to be done. And then when we went out there we were able to collect evidence that it wasn't right. That's also part of our system is that if the home is not actually ready to be marketed, and then, we're going to gather that information, share it back with the property manager, and then essentially remind them until that's resolved and as soon as it's resolved, then we can make the listing active. But it's a pretty valuable system and checks and balances that we have in place there.    [00:15:55] Jason Hull: Got it. So you'll communicate with them. Then the property manager can send out maintenance, get things taken care of, dealt with, and then report back to you and you're checking in with them, "Hey, is this ready yet? Is this ready yet?" And then they're like, "we got it ready." And then...    [00:16:08] Jason Hull: exactly.    [00:16:08] Jason Hull: Proceed.    [00:16:10] Jason Hull: Exactly.    [00:16:10] Jason Hull: So you've sent up the people, you've got the photos, you got like maybe a lockbox on, you got the yard sign, you've got the description. It's posted online. It's probably pushed out to multiple channels.   [00:16:19] Jason Hull: That's right.    [00:16:20] Jason Hull: Then next come the showings, right? And scheduling and all this. So how does that work and are you doing one-off showings? Are you doing open house model? What would it be found to be the most efficient? What comes next?    [00:16:35] Ben: Yeah. Yeah. So what we do is we usually set these properties up with a self showing system, and then renters are able to go tour the properties seven days a week from 8:00 AM to 8:00 PM and, we also have, a support team available those same hours, so 84 hours, we're ready to quickly text back any renters or answer any phone calls if, folks are having a tough time actually, accessing the home for any particular reason. Our system is really good. I'd say renters have a really good experience touring homes. Like any system, we're dealing with real world stuff. Sometimes maybe it could be a really humid day and maybe the maybe the door frame swells a bit or something, right? So maybe the door gets a little stuck. So the renter needs a little help to understand how to get in. Those are all things that I think us, having support team there available to talk to them and actually pick up the phone. I think is a really important thing. So that's just one of the many ways that we support tours. But I'd say one of the most important pieces of tours is actually collecting that tour feedback and sharing it with the owner after the fact. And so we have a really great system in place for that as well where a lot of renters will leave feedback just right within the place that they tour. And then we're actually able to take that feedback and then give it to display it on a webpage where then the property manager is able to share that webpage directly with their owner so they can actually watch the tours that are coming in and the tour feedback in real time. And we white label that for them. So you can imagine as a property manager, you just share this white label page with your logo and the owner's able to get a bird's eye view of how their home is performing on the market.    [00:18:21] Ben: Got it.    [00:18:22] Jason Hull: So could this be a scenario that the owner says, "I don't need to do this," and like the property manager says, "you need to do this. Like it'll get you more rent. People will have an issue with this place if you don't fix this or change this," and the owner's like, "no." And then they say, "look at the page, here's the white label page. It's got our brand, our logo, XYZ property management, and it says like, consistently feedback. Like the floor is too gross, or whatever."   [00:18:47] Ben: Yeah, "I would rent this home, but does it come with a fridge?" Just one way I've seen owners trying to cut some costs is like not putting refrigerators in the home. And then they see, three out of the five renters that tour the home mentioned "Hey, there's no fridge."    [00:19:00] Ben: "have to buy a fridge and I'll go somewhere else."   [00:19:03] Ben: Yeah, exactly. And that page really helps the property manager make their case to the owner and also show to them like, "Hey, we really are showing this property and this really is what the renters are saying.   [00:19:14] Ben: Cool.    [00:19:15] Jason Hull: Yeah, that's really cool. I like the feedback loops. So then, what's the next steps? You're doing showings, you're doing tours. Then I guess people are being pushed to apply when they're doing these tours by the system?    [00:19:27] Ben: Yeah, so we have a system, both to pre-qualify renters and to actually have them apply. As soon as they apply we're able to display those applications to the property manager. And we use the same page that we use to display tour feedback and also tracking the tours and the leads and everything. We use that same page then to actually show the applications to the property managers and to their owners. Because I know every property manager seems to have a different deal with each owner, right? Some of 'em, they want to run the application past their owner beforehand, or sometimes they're just the ones reviewing it. But either way, we display that information there so that both the property manager and the owner, are able to review the application before they decide to approve or not.   [00:20:14] Ben: Got it. So    [00:20:14] Jason Hull: they can either show this white label page that has the list of all the applicants or could they just say, "here's the one we recommend," and show that person's information?   [00:20:22] Jason Hull: Yeah.    [00:20:23] Ben: Yeah. It's usually the latter. Because it's trying to make it simpler. Yeah. It's usually just showing the one that they recommend. And at that point, we would've already done all of the vetting for that application. Even the manual steps of doing a verification of rental history, for example or a verification of employment. And we've actually seen just our application processing service. We've seen that to be so popular that we actually broke that out as something that a property manager could partner with us just on application processing, and that's also cool because we have a lot of tech to catch fraudulent renters. I'm sure you've probably heard about how fraud is on the rise especially with us entering recession. And I think it's just more likely that renters are going to try to fake pay stubs. Even some go as far as trying to fake their identity in different ways to try to get approved for a home that really are beyond their means. And so we've really, we've invested a lot into our application processing system. Doing things like being able to get their pay stubs directly from their payroll provider instead of having a way for them to upload their pay stubs, which could be photoshopped or something like that.    [00:21:35] Ben: Yeah.    [00:21:35] Ben: And then let's say a renter doesn't even have a job, or let's say a renter's, a self-employed or something, we have a way of actually pulling bank statements directly from their bank, instead of just receiving those bank statements and getting it uploaded. All that tech helps to really reduce the amount of fraud. And as for property managers as well, it's less work to actually investigate all those documents.   [00:21:59] Jason Hull: That's just technology and stuff a property manager can't do directly. They don't have the ability to pull directly from the bank their pay stubs, and it's not going to say, "here, let me give you my login to my bank account," and to pull directly from the employer. They don't usually have that ability really effectively either. There needs to be technology involved.   [00:22:18] Ben: Yeah.    [00:22:19] Ben: So we--   [00:22:20] Ben: --so what    [00:22:20] Jason Hull: about--    [00:22:20] Ben: oh, go ahead.    [00:22:20] Ben: I was just going to say, yeah, we recognize that you know most of what we've been talking about here is called our full service leasing, right? Where we actually become the leasing arm. But let's say, you've got leasing agents on your team and you think they're rock stars. You're happy with what's going on with your leasing. We could plug in and just do the application processing. We call that service, we call that Sunscreen, is what we call it. The idea is the quirky tagline that I came up with is, "Don't get burned by bad renters."   [00:22:47] Jason Hull: I like it. Little bit of sunscreen.    [00:22:51] Ben: Yeah, exactly.   [00:22:52] Ben: Okay.    [00:22:53] Jason Hull: So one of the questions I think some people will be asking is, what about pets? It's like a whole nother beast. Outside, inside pets and running pets and having pets, all this kind of stuff. Property managers tend to do best if they just convince owners to do pets. You're going to get more tenants, you're going to get more money. How do you deal with the pet side of    [00:23:11] Ben: things?    [00:23:12] Ben: Yeah, so at this point I'm sure most property managers have heard of pet screening.com. I think they're a great company. And so we actually integrate their data into our system. So if you're already signed up for pet screening.com. You can provide the pet screening.com login, and then we're able to pull that information into the application packet. So it's something that the owner and the property manager can consider as a part of the overall application. And, obviously pet screening.com does a really good job verifying things like our emotional support animal documentation. Is that legit? There's fraud around ESA documents. And that's just one of the pieces that they do. But yeah, that's something that we recommend whenever anyone is accepting pets.   [00:23:57] Ben: Very    [00:23:58] Jason Hull: cool. I like pet screening.com that I've had them on the show. I had another company that may be interesting to integrate with too on the show called our pet policy.com and they take things a step further on the protection side of things after the screening. So they go step beyond. So that might be interesting for you to take a look at integrating with as well.    [00:24:20] Jason Hull: Yeah.   [00:24:20] Jason Hull: Ourpetpolicy.com, they seem like a good group of people over there as well. So real quick, going back, you had mentioned AppFolio, Buildium, do you integrate with Rent Manager? Do you integrate with I don't know, there's some other things and some of these tools    [00:24:35] that    [00:24:35] Ben: people are using?   [00:24:37] Ben: Yeah. Great question. So it's pretty easy for us to get key information plugged into these softwares. And the reason is when someone partners with us, if you think about it, we really need to touch that property management software right when the home is when the home's coming up for lease, right? It needs to be listed. And then once the home gets leased, that's when that information needs to get back in the property management software again. So usually the way that our structure is, it doesn't really matter too much, which property management software you're. The system would be the same, where you would essentially create a user for us.   [00:25:15] Ben: So then once the home is getting leased, we know who's signing the lease. We're going to get their information set up within whatever property management software you use and make sure that it's set up for ongoing rent payments and things like that. It essentially, if you're using a property management software, but then you're going to use someone for leasing. But then once the home gets leased, it's going to be as if you had leased it through those other systems. And it's seamless in that way.    [00:25:39] Ben: Yeah. Very cool. So    [00:25:40] Jason Hull: you're PM    [00:25:41] Ben: software agnostic.    [00:25:42] Ben: Exactly. Yes. That's a much more succinct way of saying it. Thanks.   [00:25:47] Jason Hull: So that just means I've been doing this probably a long time. All right. So you've, you mentioned your solution. You've got the sunscreen that can be, pulled out just separately or if they're using the full leasing service. You've done the pre-qualification, you've got the applicant they can send over the white label thing to the owner. If the owner's like, "I really need to see what info you got." And you've tested out their pay stubs and their bank--   [00:26:11] Jason Hull: right    [00:26:12] Jason Hull: --stuff, and you've maybe connected the pet screening.com. What happens next? You've got    [00:26:17] Ben: a good applic--    [00:26:18] Ben: Yes. Yeah, so the property manager, the owner accepts the application. And at that point, we're going to reach out to the renter, say, "congrats, you've been accepted. Please now pay the security deposit." And as soon as they pay security deposit, then the owner or the property manager is able to connect their bank account, and that money will just automatically get deposited in whatever account that you specify. And then from a lease perspective, from really from the beginning of the process, we would've asked that you provide the preferred lease that you would like for us to use. We're going to get that lease drafted up and we're going to send it over to both the renter and the property manager. For some property managers, they like to review one last time before it gets sent to the renter. So we can fulfill that ask. And then the lease is going to get signed. And as soon as the lease gets signed, we will then dispatch our people back out to the property, do one final walkthrough, and also remove our yard sign and remove any other things that we had, any lock boxes or things like that we got setup. But we do one thing where we will leave a combo lockbox out at the property so that we can facilitate the renter actually moving in. So that's really the final and last step for our system, is facilitating to the renter actually getting the keys so that they have a smooth move in. And then the last step after all of that is we're going to survey the renter and make sure they had a great experience through the whole the whole leasing process.   [00:27:51] Jason Hull: And what's-- before we move on, because I'm curious like what difference you're noticing with these surveys, but let's say they don't accept somebody. What's the process? What happens to the rejects, so to speak? The tenants that didn't pass because a lot of times they're following up and bugging the property manager, "Hey, did you accept me? What's going on?" This sort of thing. What do you do?    [00:28:11] Ben: Yeah. So first of all, we shield the property manager from having to deal with all of that stuff. And I think for the position we're in, I think the natural thing is I think we would do what any other good property manager would do. We'd see if there's any other listings within that property manager that the renter would qualify for. First and foremost, we're going to recommend that of " There are these other listings for the same property manager" or, " do you like that?" And if the renter is not interested in any of those homes, then I think we would look broader to other listings that that are amongst our partners and say, "Hey, renter, maybe it would be better if you lease this property."   [00:28:48] Jason Hull: Yeah. That helps get the other properties filled. That's great.    [00:28:53] Ben: Yeah.    [00:28:53] Ben: Okay.    [00:28:53] Ben: And the renter's really happy too, because they don't have to pay an application fee again, so they're able to reuse their application.    [00:29:00] Jason Hull: Nice. Now what if you have two property managers in the same market and you get an applicant for one, are they completely segregated from being able to apply it to the other, or if they're in the Sunroom system,    [00:29:13] Ben: they can...   [00:29:14] Ben: Great question. Yeah. So we don't want to restrict where renters can apply, right? because that just doesn't make sense. But we have come across the scenario, it's been rare where renters have applied to multiple properties. And so what's really cool about our system is that we have a little disclaimer for the property manager where they can see, "hey, this renter's actually applied for multiple properties," and that way it's clear to them of " Hey, look, this renter is serious about your property, they are, they're hedging their bets," which, that's a common scenario especially in a hot market is if property managers are collecting multiple applicants on a single property, you can bet that the renters-- they know that. And so they're also applying to multiple properties. So I think we do our best to try to mitigate those scenarios. And I think one of the best ways to mitigate those scenarios is really just processing applications quickly and then, and working to get the renter and answer quickly around if they're accepted or denied. And, in most cases, I think renters are willing to tell you which one's their first choice. And so if you're able to process the application really quickly and drive it to decision, it doesn't happen too often where the owner comes back and wants to accept the renter and they've already decided to go somewhere else. It does occasionally, we try to mitigate that.    [00:30:28] Ben: Got it.    [00:30:28] Jason Hull: Okay, cool. So going back to the other path, I'm actually drawing this all out. I've got like a flow    [00:30:34] Ben: chart going on here.    [00:30:36] Ben: Sounds good. Keep    [00:30:37] Jason Hull: track.    [00:30:38] Jason Hull: So you surveyed the renter at the end, like you've got somebody in the property.    [00:30:43] Jason Hull: Yeah.   [00:30:43] Jason Hull: They've got a lockbox there. I think that's very cool. They can just go and "Can I move in on this day?" "Yep, here's the lockbox. You've got a code or however it works." And they can go get in.    [00:30:52] Jason Hull: Yeah.   [00:30:52] Jason Hull: And you don't have to show up. They can be there with their new U-Haul when they need to be there. That's super annoying, I think for property managers sometimes. And then afterwards you survey the renter. So I'm curious about the results of this. What's been the shift that people have noticed in the experience? This is why you started this in the beginning. You weren't having a great experience. Some people probably were like, "Drive to our office and you might get a key." Some people are like, "we can meet you maybe this day." It was like a mess. So what sort of feedback are you seeing on these surveys and what sort of shift are property management companies that are working with you noticing with your process versus trying to do this on their    [00:31:30] Ben: own?   [00:31:30] Ben: Yeah, great question. We collect what I would I consider a very important metric and I'm curious if it's come up before in this podcast. It's something called a net promoter score. Yeah. Have you discussed that before? I'm happy to--   [00:31:44] Ben: we    [00:31:44] Jason Hull: haven't really focused on that. But yeah, I think a lot of people are familiar. So net promoter score is when it says "on a scale of maybe zero to 10 or one to 10, how likely are you to recommend this company?" So a lot of people see this, the quick survey on software, different things like this.    [00:32:00] Ben: Yeah, that's right. And so when the net promoter score rank actually comes out, the scale is actually a minus a hundred to a plus 100. You could Google about how that works, but you're right. As a renter, what we would be asking them is, "how likely are you to recommend leasing a property to a friend through Sunroom or through x property management company?" And what we found is we just have a really good net promoter score. So if you could google this around, but the average net promoter score amongst property managers is a seven. And that's not on the zero to 10 scale. That's on the minus a hundred to the plus 100 scale, and. For the renters who lease a property through us, we have a 52 net promoter score.    [00:32:42] Ben: Nice.    [00:32:43] Ben: Yeah. So it's like what I said at the very beginning these renters are just a lot happier when they get in the home. For the property managers, they're seeing less really noisy renters when they first move in. I think that's a common thing that property managers are used to is that when a renter first moves in, that can be when they're talking the most or they're the noisiest. And so I think just anecdotally, property managers have said that, "Hey, these renters are just happier. They're just not causing as much commotion when they first move. And some of that has to do with our process too, right? Allowing renters to even self tour homes, it's a no pressure thing where they're able to really understand what they're buying before they move in. So I believe that helps as well.    [00:33:24] Jason Hull: This is the nerd in me coming out. So there's this really book called _Innovating Analytics_. And they put out this idea, basically the idea of the next generation of net promoter. They have used a lot of data to showcase and it's a little dry, but there's a lot of data to showcase the fundamental flaws of net promoter score, which is, has advantages over doing nothing, right? But then they talk about a new sort of score, which is the word of mouth index. And so we've incorporated that a bit into our business. It basically asks a second question, "how likely are you to discourage others from utilizing that?" Because what they found, just because somebody is not a true promoter, as they categorize them on the high end, like they choose like maybe a seven, eight, or nine or something, does not mean they're actually going to go hurt your business. And so a lot of big companies, they found were spending a lot of money to try and mitigate the people and pay attention to people and help the people they thought were detractors or people that would hurt their business when most of them really wouldn't. Just because it was a two or a three. They found that does not necessarily mean they're actually going to go actively try and destroy your business or hurt you. They just aren't going to tell people about it, because some people just don't want to talk about other businesses. Right? . So then asking a secondary question, how likely are you to tell others not to use this business or whatever. Then it gives you the true people to focus on mitigating or solving challenges for. Really interesting idea, but then they talk about the challenge of mainlining, where if they answer one question one way, first question, they'll answer it the same way, but it's backwards. Because they're just in the mode of answering questions like a zombie and they'll do it the wrong way or read it the wrong way. We've even seen this, so you have to put some questions in between and so it just complicates. But it's a really interesting book. You and I can geek out sometime and show you how I built this out so that it would work effectively, but it helps us identify which people are actually detractors that we need to take care of and focus on, and which people, they never rate anything positively and they're just, but they're quiet, which is fine.    [00:35:25] Jason Hull: Oh that's    [00:35:25] Ben: fascinating. I'll have to check that out.   [00:35:28] Jason Hull: I know, it's pretty nerdy. So_ Innovating Analytics_ is by Larry Freed F R E E D which is an interesting book. Cool. We've asked a lot of questions. You've explained the process. I think we've covered how it works unless we missed anything. But what else do people, property managers coming to you, what other concerns or things could we address here on the podcast before we wrap that they might have? Or what are the big FAQ questions that they ask before they're willing to explore giving up the leasing arm their business?    [00:36:00] Ben: Yeah. Yeah. I think a lot of the questions just evolve around how they can still control the process. And so we've invested an incredible amount into giving them those controls, right? Like I think the key is, the way we look at it is look like we're going to be the best at doing this leasing legwork. It's all we do. And we've built technology to really hold ourselves accountable to really high standards. But at the end of the day, like we still want you to have control over who's the right tenant for this property? Or, "how would you like the that application process to go?" For example. And I think we've worked hard to streamline the areas and that, we just realized, hey, this is the best way to do this. But also we recognize that hey, these property managers, they have pride to process for a reason, right, for their particular market that might be the right thing to do. And so we've invested a lot in creating different settings and things like that, that can make it so that they get to use it the way they would like.    [00:37:03] Ben: Cool. So it's    [00:37:04] Jason Hull: really a lot of the big concerns are just about the flexibility. "Do I have to go all in and use everything that you offer?"   [00:37:10] Jason Hull: Right.   [00:37:11] Jason Hull: "Or can I do, some of this and maybe I'll give up pieces later--" because some of y'all entrepreneurs are control freaks. Let's be real.    [00:37:18] Jason Hull: Yes.    [00:37:18] Jason Hull: And you need to let go of some of this stuff and let somebody else do it a little bit better. We have a lot of egos, entrepreneurs. We think our way is the best way all the time and we need to see that maybe somebody else could do this    [00:37:31] Ben: better.    [00:37:31] Ben: But we've also, from    [00:37:32] Jason Hull: experience--   [00:37:33] Jason Hull: I'm guessing you're going to say that Sunroom probably does it better than what most property managers are doing.    [00:37:39] Ben: Better NPS scores?    [00:37:41] Ben: Yeah. I would just say that, some of the property managers that we've seen are the most excited to partner with us are definitely probably the ones listening to your podcast or it's the ones that want to grow. And, we have some great examples of that, right? There's one property manager that we started working with in Austin a couple years ago, and they started with 300 doors. And now I believe they're up to 800 doors. And so by them being able to just, focus on other things, they were able to grow pretty quickly. And because we recognize this and we're starting to set up in these new markets, we actually just this week launched a new program specifically for trying to find these property management companies that are really focused on growth. And so we actually launched this new growth program. That we just put on our website where property managers can apply for the program. And essentially this program if we accept them will actually give them-- and they partner with us-- we'll give them $10,000 to grow their business. And they can, they could use that money for-- or I'd say up to 10,000-- they can use that money for helping them grow. And really the only terms of it is that you're willing to partner with us on leasing to do that. And so we have different ideas of really how to use that money to grow. I know a lot of entrepreneurs already have those ideas and so that's why we yeah, we set up this new program.   [00:39:02] Jason Hull: Awesome. We should chat because we're really good at growing property management companies and yeah, I think there would be a good-- there. We'll chat later. We've also negotiated with most of the top vendors where we've got a hit list, but a lot of the top vendors we're negotiating best in class discounts just for our mastermind members.   [00:39:21] Ben: There you go.    [00:39:21] Jason Hull: So maybe that's something you and I can do with the Sunroom as well. So    [00:39:25] Jason Hull: Yeah .   [00:39:26] Jason Hull: If you're open, that's--   [00:39:27] Jason Hull: yeah. Cool.    [00:39:28] Jason Hull: We've got some big players on board already for some of these things, but I think it'd be really cool to see this is something new and I think it's innovative and it seems really exciting. So we'll we'll chat afterwards, cool. Is there anything else you want people to know before we go and if The last thing maybe is how do they find you? And how do they get in touch and how do they start working with Sunroom?    [00:39:49] Ben: Yeah. Just go to our website, Sunroomleasing.com. Fill out a little form. Be happy to have, someone from our sales team reach out and have a conversation and kind of explain more of these details about what we do. I'm an engineer at heart, so I think for some people, maybe I went into too much detail. But at the same time, knowing I've talked to a lot of property managers they love the details. If you want even more details yeah, go to our website, sunroomleasing.com. Reach out to us and someone from our sales team would love to dig into those details with you.    [00:40:18] Jason Hull: Perfect. I think the last big question everybody would have is be, is going to be what does it cost? Is this affordable? Can we do this? That sort of question. So--   [00:40:29] Jason Hull: yeah.   [00:40:29] Jason Hull: Anything to say about that?    [00:40:31] Ben: Yeah, so we're going to charge, similar to what I would say like other leasing agents would. So we're going to charge like a percentage of first month's rent. That percentage of first month's rent that we charge. It's going to be different depending on the market and depending on what kind of volume that you have. Normally, the way we are setting this up is that we usually make it so that the property manager can still make good money on leasing while still utilizing us for all of it. Property managers can charge a percentage of first month's rent to their owners. That could be different by market. We're usually going to charge, call it 10- 20% less than that so that they're able to still make money on the leasing, but still know that they have a best in class service for that happening. And so that's just for full service. For Sunscreen, that's actually free for property managers to use. And we just charge the renter an application fee. And so that's really the easiest way. If we said a lot of stuff today, people are like, "wow that's a little scary to adopt that big of a, have a company owning leasing." a great way to start to just build a relationship with us and start seeing what we could do would be to start utilizing our application processing system, which, really, it's going to be a really a low risk thing. Even if want to test out having us do one application on one listing or something, we'd be happy to do that.   [00:41:48] Ben: That's the    [00:41:49] Jason Hull: gateway drug. A little bit of Sunscreen, and then you're going to be like, "I want a whole room. I want the Sunroom now."   [00:41:54] Jason Hull: There you go. There you go.    [00:41:55] Jason Hull: "I don't want to deal with this anymore. I'm tired of putting the Sunscreen on. Yeah. Okay.    [00:41:59] Jason Hull: There you go.    [00:42:00] Jason Hull: Cool.    [00:42:01] Jason Hull: Yeah.    [00:42:01] Jason Hull: All right. Ben, it's been great having you on the show. Check out Sunroomleasing.com and then if you come up with some major developments or big shifts or changes, we'd love to have you back on the show. So thanks for being    [00:42:12] Ben: here.    [00:42:13] Ben: Thanks so much, Jason. And yeah, we'll have to meet up in Austin sometime.    [00:42:16] Ben: All right.    [00:42:18] Jason Hull: All right. Cool. Thanks, Ben.    [00:42:20] Jason Hull: Alright. Everybody, if you've been listening to this, we appreciate you listening to our podcast. We would really appreciate it if you left us a review in exchange. If you got value from this, that would mean a lot to us at DoorGrow and my team. We have been innovating and creating a lot of new stuff at DoorGrow. We've got some really cool stuff coming out. So if you have not been familiar with DoorGrow for a while, we've got some really cool things coming down that we are working on. You should get connected to do a sales call. Check us out at doorgrow.com. Reach out to us. You can reach out to us on any social media. And we would love to connect with you and share with you. We just released the DoorGrow Code, which is the first roadmap that really showcases how to go from zero to a thousand doors in as short of time period as possible. It shows you which things you need to do at which stage, at which door levels, and what questions you have, what major problems you have at each stage, and what you need to do in order to do things in the right order to get to the next level.   [00:43:22] Jason Hull: So if you've been at a similar door count for the last year or maybe two years or three years, maybe even kind feeling stuck or maybe even backsliding a little bit because of property selling off or whatever. We have clients that are adding a lot of doors. Andrew Rocha just chimed in on one of our mastermind calls. He's one of our clients. He added like 50 doors in the last month. We've got clients. One of our clients added 310 doors in a year. We've got another client that added a hundred in gosh, they've doubled their doors. Like we've got clients that are growing really rapidly and they're not spending any money on advertising. I want you to be clear, like our methods are not focused on SEO, pay per click, content marketing, pay-per-lead lead services, social media marketing. Our methods are what really work in the marketplace, and most of them are zero cost, like they cost nothing. It just costs time and effort, and it actually takes less time and less effort than doing cold lead marketing like seo, pay per click, content marketing, social media marketing, or pay per lead services that exist in the property management space. So I highly recommend you check this out if you're wanting to grow. And we are now helping really significantly. We've built out the best systems and processes and we've been stacking the best coaches in the industry. If you've heard of certain coaches in the industry, we might have them on as experts in our program. We'll be announcing more of that later, but we've got some of the best in the industry that we've brought on as coaches. So it's not the Jason Show. I've got an amazing team of people coaching and we have systems for operations. We have systems for process. We have systems for sales, and our clients are crushing it. Nobody in the marketplace is doing all that DoorGrow's doing or can compete with us. And so if you think you know DoorGrow and you've looked at us or judged us in the past, it might be time to take a new look because your competitors might be working with us or they might work with us, and you're going to wish that it had been you.   [00:45:33] Jason Hull: So until next time, to our mutual growth. Bye everyone.    [00:45:37] Jason Hull: You just listened to the #DoorGrowShow. We are building a community of the savviest property management entrepreneurs on the planet in the DoorGrowClub. Join your fellow DoorGrow Hackers at doorgrowclub.com. Listen, everyone is doing the same stuff. SEO, PPC, pay-per-lead content, social direct mail, and they still struggle to grow!    [00:46:05] Jason Hull: At DoorGrow, we solve your biggest challenge: getting deals and growing your business. Find out more at doorgrow.com. Find any show notes or links from today's episode on our blog doorgrow.com, and to get notified of future events and news subscribe to our newsletter at doorgrow.com/subscribe. Until next time, take what you learn and start DoorGrow Hacking your business and your life.
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Oct 27, 2022 • 24min

DGS 192: The Framework Of Belief In Property Management

Entrepreneurship is difficult, and entrepreneurs tend to be very hard on themselves. Sometimes this stems from a lack of confidence or belief in themselves. Property management growth expert Jason Hull and Sarah Hall, COO of DoorGrow share some of the valuable nuggets of wisdom they learned from Jamie Kern Lima, the CEO of IT Cosmetics and the author of Believe It. You’ll Learn… [03:35] The Frameworks of Belief [07:35] How to Handle Rejection and “No”s [10:26] The Problem with Hiding in Plain Sight [14:32] Dealing with Criticism and Doubters [20:51] “God doesn’t call the qualified. He qualifies the called.” Tweetables “Just because it's a closed door, it's probably closed for a reason. It's not the right door. So just keep going until you find the right one because it will happen.” “So believe in yourself, believe that you're worthy.” “It's not until later in life that you realize you want to be different and you want to be weird and you don't want to fit in. You don't want to be the same as everybody else.” “Businesses go out of business. We fail as entrepreneurs, and if you're failing it's because you gave up.” Resources DoorGrow and Scale Mastermind DoorGrow Academy DoorGrow on YouTube DoorGrowClub DoorGrowLive TalkRoute Referral Link Transcript [00:00:00] Jason Hull: One of the biggest challenges for entrepreneurs really is just to be able to believe in yourself. Everybody says like, "You need to like, take action and hustle and do this and live the dream," but you have to believe in yourself because if you don't believe in yourself, you don't get it.    [00:00:12] Jason Hull: All right, we are live. Welcome DoorGrow Hackers to the #DoorGrowShow. So 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 Hacker. DoorGrow Hackers love the opportunities, daily variety, unique challenges and freedom that property management brings. Many in real estate think you're crazy for doing it. You 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. I'm your host property management growth expert, Jason Hull, the founder and CEO of DoorGrow. Now let's get into the show.    [00:01:11] Jason Hull: So I have a special guest with me today, one that I happen to be madly in love with. This is Sarah hall. H-A-L-L. Different last name.    [00:01:24] Sarah Hall: For now.    [00:01:24] Jason Hull: For now. I'm working on changing that y'all. I'm working on changing that one letter in her last name. So this is Sarah. So Sarah, why don't you tell everybody about yourself?    [00:01:34] Sarah Hall: Hmm. All right. So what do you want me to get into? So, uh...   [00:01:37] Jason Hull: Tell them what you do at DoorGrow and in your background.   [00:01:41] Sarah Hall: ...and my background. Okay. Well...   [00:01:42] Jason Hull: And then we'll get into our topic.    [00:01:43] Sarah Hall: Let's see. So currently, I am the COO here at DoorGrow. And so I'm kind of over all of the operations and the financials. I kind of make sure that the wheels are turning and that the business is moving forward, and I have my hands into a lot of the little nitty gritty details. That's kind of what I do at DoorGrow. I am also been a business owner and I've done that for about five years now. About five years I think. And I'm actually I've got a small team at this point. My real background I would say is sales. So I always say I haven't sold anything a day in my life. All I do is I give people the information that they need to make educated decisions. And I think if you believe, you know, that's what you're doing is just kind of educating people, then it's not really sales. You're not really pushing anything on them that, you know, they don't want or don't need. But I have an extensive sales background. I've been working since I was 14 years old, and my first like sales gig was probably when I was about 16 or 17. And I've been doing various forms of sales and now entrepreneur opportunities and all that good stuff ever since.    [00:02:58] Jason Hull: Okay. All right. Sarah's a badass. So I just want you to . , Sarah singlehandedly has cut some of our clients with hundreds of doors like operational and staffing costs in half from a single call. She's very efficient. It's why she's able to run you know, our company at DoorGrow as an operator and COO, while running an entire property management business with hundreds of doors, like as a part-time gig really with one person that's part-time boots on the ground and she's able to like systemize her business to that level. So, She's able to help our clients out a lot in the coaching. And we've got a really awesome team. So what we're going to talk about today, Sarah and I went to a conference recently. We went to Funnel Hacking Live, which is a big marketing conference full of entrepreneurs and they had some amazing speakers. So one of the speakers there was this gal named Jamie Kern Lima, and if you haven't heard of her, you can google her. She's kind of a big deal. But she has this book called _Believe It_, and she was talking about this framework of four steps related to belief. And I thought this would be really powerful to share with our audience. So we want to take you through this briefly and share. So where should we start?   [00:04:11] Sarah Hall: Why don't you go through some of the framework stuff, or should we go into her background? Let's do a little bit about--   [00:04:18] Jason Hull: you tell about the background...   [00:04:19] Sarah Hall: I'll do the background, then we'll do the framework. Then we'll get into the nuts and bolts and nitty gritty stuff. What I found really inspiring about Jamie, is she she saw an issue really she found, ended up relevant to thousands of women all across the globe. She was suffering from a skin issue called I think she had rosacea and she was using all these different makeup brands. She tried just about everything that there was to try concealers and primers, and she's tried it all, every single brand, every single product. Nothing really worked for her. And she was at really like what she thought was the height of her career as a TV news anchor. And she had her earpiece in her ear while she's live.    [00:05:01] Sarah Hall: And her producer is going, "Your makeup is running. You're on live tv and it's running." and she's, like trying to blot. And she had blotted and wiped off almost all of her makeup. And he's going, in her ear, "it's worse now. You made it worse. It's really bad now. You have to fix this." So she finds that. No product really is working for her. So she's after tried everything, she's thinking, Hey, you know what? I need to be the one to create the solution because I know I'm not the only woman who is struggling with this problem. So this is a little bit about her journey on, you know, how she kind of found the issue figured, "Hey, it's on me, right? Nobody else is doing it. It's on me to create this solution." and then how she did it. So I think that's a little bit of her background. Why don't you get into the framework that she had?    [00:05:51] Jason Hull: Yeah. So she shared a framework and she said, you know, one of the biggest challenges for entrepreneurs really is just to be able to believe in yourself. Everybody says like, "You need to like, take action and hustle and do this and live the dream," but the one fundamental defining factor between those that succeed and those that don't is they have this deep sort of driving motivator or why, but really underneath all that you have to believe in yourself because if you don't believe in yourself, you don't get it. So she has this framework and her framework was number one-- if you're taking notes, go for it. Write it down-- is clarity. Number two is action. Start taking action. Number three, you have to believe it's possible, this possibility, belief. And then number four, you have to believe you are worthy. You have this worthiness belief. And she quoted Joel Ostein and said, "Our setbacks are really setups for something greater," which I loved. And so she talked about finding the why beneath the why, and she says, "If you're not getting results, or you think you have some sort of wire motivator, it's not deep enough," because a lot of times we hit walls. Businesses go out of business. We fail as entrepreneurs, and if you're failing it's because you gave up.    [00:07:02] Jason Hull: And she said you have to use unattainable aspirations. Like we have these dreams that are so big sometimes, but one of my great quotes I wrote down from her was, "Never let others' doubt about you turn into doubt about yourself." Nobody around you is going to get the vision that you feel called to do or that motivator that you have deep down. They're not going to feel at the same level. So they're going to doubt you or they're going to try and protect you and they're going to like shoot it down. And so it's about having that belief that's so deep that you're in alignment with God, universe, your purpose, whatever that you are going to push past and through any objection. She had a lot of rejection and challenges, right?    [00:07:38] Sarah Hall: Hundreds upon hundreds upon hundreds of 'no's. So in, in my notes, it was her and her husband who created this product. And then it was her and her husband who were marketing it and trying to sell it and trying to just get it going. And they were like, "Okay, what can we do? Can we sell it ourselves? This isn't seeming to be working the way we want it to. We need to get another brand, like a larger brand to pick it up, right?" So like, sell it maybe like a L'Oreal or a Maybelline or somebody will buy it and then they can, you know, really market it to the masses. So they were doing this and they were just churning and churning and churning. Neither one of them took a paycheck for three years. So this wasn't something that was like this overnight success that just, you know, she woke up and like a rags to riches overnight story, right? This is a three year struggle. Over those three years, they heard hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of no's, and some of them were really brutal. The most brutal one. She got they-- she said it almost stopped her right then and there. But one of the notes that I wrote is that you can't listen to all of the no's, and you can only really do this as a side note, you can only not listen to the no's if you truly know your purpose and your mission.   [00:08:53] Sarah Hall: So if you don't have that really deep-seated why in you-- why do I even care enough to do this? The no's are going to affect you. But she says, "You cannot listen to the no's. When you get a 'no,' god gives you knowing. And if you end up listening to the no's, if you do succumb to that and you listen to those no's, then what you're doing is you're talking yourself out of your truth."   [00:09:19] Jason Hull: Mm. Yeah. Yeah, I wrote this down. She went to one of her heroes, one of her mentors. It was like a dream. She got an interview with them and the guy said, basically, "it's not going to work. Nobody wants to buy this product from somebody that looks like you," and this sort of thing. And it was like crushing to her. And eventually this guy was working for her, which I thought was just a great ending to her story. But she said, "he gave me a no, and it crushed me, but God gave me a knowing," and I was like, Ooh, I love that. Like you have, knowing like that this is going to work, but you're going to get rejections, you're going to get no's. And if you're not willing to take the no's, and not willing to keep going, you don't really have that knowing or a strong enough purpose, it's going carry you through that. You're going to get rejected. You're going to try and sell property management. You're trying to get clients and people are going to say "no." and you're going to feel friction and it's going to be uncomfortable.    [00:10:10] Jason Hull: And a lot of people avoid all that discomfort and have a fantasy business and they don't even get started. So, she asks this question and it's: "And I want to ask all of you listening, do you listen to the "no" or do you listen to the knowing? The no's will talk you out of your own truth," is what Sarah mentioned. She then talked about when you're hiding in plain sight, like you have big goals but at the expense of your soul, you're not raising your hand. And extroverts hide by entertaining everyone else. And introverts like hide in their own way. But are you hiding in plain sight? I thought was a really big thing. How have you been hiding in plain sight? One way is you're creating so much self doubt inside, or you're supporting others' dreams, but not your own. Or you're championing your kids, but not your own self. These kind of things. These are how we hide. What else do you remember about hiding in plain sight? I just, I thought that was really powerful.    [00:11:01] Sarah Hall: So this one, I actually have it on a different section. She spoke about it a little bit later. It was in the middle of telling her story before, like the real big kind of like turn around.   [00:11:11] Jason Hull: Mm.    [00:11:11] Sarah Hall: But her notes were: authenticity does not guarantee success.    [00:11:16] Jason Hull: Ooh, I have that written down. Authenticity may not guarantee success, but inauthenticity... oh, you were going to say it.    [00:11:23] Sarah Hall: No, you go ahead.    [00:11:24] Jason Hull: No, go ahead.    [00:11:25] Sarah Hall: You took it. Go ahead.    [00:11:27] Jason Hull: I have this... I wrote down "Authenticity may not guarantee success, but inauthenticity guarantees failure." Yeah. But I have that way later. We must have wrote in different orders. But yeah that's I don't know. How's that shown up for you in entrepreneurism? I think we've all hid.    [00:11:46] Sarah Hall: Not so much for me, I think. No.    [00:11:48] Jason Hull: I don't know for--   [00:11:49] Sarah Hall: I think for a very long time, I've just been very comfortable with, you know, who I am and how I do things, and I've always sort of known I'm a little different and I've always been okay with that. But I think that especially when you're young and you're going to school, right? And all the kids come home and they'll cry, "Oh, I don't fit in. Like, I'm not the same. I'm different and I'm weird." And you know, it's not until later in life that you realize you want to be different and you want to be weird and you don't want to fit in. You don't want to be the same as everybody else. And I think I've just always been really comfortable with that, and I've kind of always had the attitude like, "All right, well I am who I am, and there are going to be people who really enjoy that, and there are going to be people who cannot handle that, and that's okay because like if I were to come with a warning label, like I am not for everyone. I'm not, and I'm okay with that. I'm okay. I don't need to be liked by everyone. I don't need everyone to, you know, be like, "Oh, she's so great." It's okay because I know what I'm doing, and I know that I'm comfortable in who I am and in my mission and in my purpose.   [00:12:56] Jason Hull: Yeah, I think I've definitely hid in plain sight. I think I've always had, like I always felt really not confident. I had a lot of insecurity and I would overcompensate by really taking care of my clients and I really wanted to let them have success, but I didn't want to be seen, like I didn't want to do podcasts. I didn't want to be in the limelight. And tell one of my mentors or coaches like, "Jason, like if you want to see the change that you want to see in the industry, you have got to stop waiting on somebody else to do it or hoping somebody else picks up this cause and does it because you have that calling inside. You're the one that needs to do what you know and needs to be done." I had to kind of swallow that and stop because that's a lot easier, right? Sometimes it's just easy to be, stay in the background and that's self doubt. So, what else did you have on her framework or about this?    [00:13:42] Sarah Hall: Well, I think from her, my big takeaway, and it's something that we can all relate to, right? Like everyone I think has been in a situation where we really hope that, you know, we get something or we do something or something happens and then it doesn't. Right. Or, you know, we're chasing a client and we're like, "Oh man, I would love to land this client. I would love to close this deal. You know, I would love to get this promotion. I would love to, you know, have a great hire. I interviewed this person and oh wow. I really loved her. She was so perfect. She would be amazing. I really hope that she, you know, when we extend the offer, she takes it," and we've all heard "no." Right? And there's a little part of you that is so hurt by that. And instead of just taking that pain and kind of dwelling in that. Take it and hang onto it and keep on going.    [00:14:29] Jason Hull: Hmm.    [00:14:29] Sarah Hall: So one of the big turning points in her story was after hearing, you know, no paycheck for three years, hundreds of no's, no company at all would pick her up-- none-- had a really brutal you know from a company who said, "Hey, can I give you some honest feedback?" and she said, "Of course. I want the honest feedback. Tell me. Like if it's going to help me, tell me." And he said, "Well, we're just not confident that a woman that looks like is really going to be the best face for the business."   [00:15:01] Jason Hull: Mm.    [00:15:02] Sarah Hall: So, you know, she wasn't thin enough. She wasn't pretty enough. She had rosacea, which, you know, I may even have some rosacea myself, but, you know, I get very red in the face at times too. But that wasn't back then, like, A standard of beauty, right? It was you know, this one definitive thing and if you didn't fit in that mold, then you know, all these companies just didn't think that you were going to be successful. And that could have been absolutely crushing to so many of us, and she didn't let that stop her. She continued. She kept going, she kept trying. She went to, you know, trade shows and expos and the approach to the company that had already told her "no" multiple times, told her no at the trading show, when you're not supposed to leave your booth, because you can get kicked out of the trade show for leaving your booth. She went and approached, she's like, "Listen, can you watch my booth? I have got to run." She ran back over to that company and said, "I know you guys have told me 'no' before, but I just, I'm going to pitch it to you again," and she did it again, and they took a meeting with her.    [00:16:07] Sarah Hall: And then at this point, everything like all eggs in one basket. She had one shot and it was a 10 minute slot. And in that 10 minutes, like they had to create all of the products. They had to manufacture all of the products because they needed to have a certain amount. That was ready to sell just in case it sold. They also needed to ship it to this company so that if it sold, this company was ready to get it out to their consumers. So they had to spend their last like thousands of dollars just in case this would work. She went, she had about 10 minutes. 10, that was it. And there was a clock. It's not even a truly a 10 minutes because during that time there are certain intervals, and at these intervals you need to hit a certain sales goal. So if you're only two minutes in and you haven't hit sales goal yet, they pull you, you're done game over. So it was literally her last shot. They were about to close the doors and just be done because they couldn't afford to keep going. And she ended up doing it.    [00:17:11] Jason Hull: Mm-hmm.    [00:17:12] Sarah Hall: And not only did she do it, she sold it out-- completely, sold it out. She ended up then getting a buyout from one of the companies that originally told her 'no' a couple times and I believe, if I'm remembering the number correctly, it was a $1.2 billion buyout, billion with a B. That's right. The person that had originally told her 'no' and given her that awful feedback, she said, "I was so tempted to reach back out and say, 'Listen, I've got 1.2 billion reasons why you were wrong,' but instead of doing that, and instead of being like, 'Ha ha, I was right and you were wrong, and look at me, and I knew it all this whole time," she said, "You know, I had to be really thankful for all of the no's in the process."   [00:17:54] Jason Hull: Mm.    [00:17:55] Sarah Hall: Because at the time that she met with a person who just really like destroyed her, almost she, if he had offered her anything, she would've taken it. She would've given up anything.    [00:18:08] Jason Hull: Yeah. For a small amount of money.    [00:18:09] Sarah Hall: So she would've missed out on $1.2 billion because she was so desperate and you know, tired and just, it was such a long journey at that point that she was just ready. She said, "anybody could've come along and given me peanuts for this, and I would've been like, 'Great, thank you. Please take it."   [00:18:28] Jason Hull: So for her, when she went on that show, it was do or die. They were either going to declare bankruptcy because they had shelled out their last dime towards all this product, and if it didn't sell, they were like dead in the water. And so she took a risk. Everybody told her not to do this, but she got on camera and she wiped off her makeup, showed her skin, and showed how red it was and everything--   [00:18:51] Sarah Hall: which is exactly what they told her not to do.   [00:18:54] Jason Hull: Yeah. They told her, "Don't do this."   [00:18:55] Sarah Hall: "Do not do this."    [00:18:56] Jason Hull: She did it any way. And people were sold. She showcased the product and how it worked on herself. And people were amazed and that vulnerability was where she's like, "I am not going to hide in plain sight. I'm going to like do this in front of everybody. And so that's the message is how are you hiding in plain sight?"   [00:19:13] Jason Hull: What do you know deep down you should be doing, but you haven't really done it? You've just been kind of, you've got the facade, you've kind of not been doing it. She mentioned things like maybe you need to start that book you've been dreaming over. Maybe you need to take that leap that you've not done or whatever it might be. She said-- I have a couple great quotes-- one was, "The longest journey is the 18 inches from your head to your heart." I really like that one. And she also said-- I thought this was interesting because she had a lot of success afterwards. She said, "People cheer you on after you've made it" and "be so great they can't ignore you that they eventually have to pay you." So, and the guy that told her that really brutal "No, nobody wants to work with somebody that looks like you" and like this kind of thing. He eventually became on her board. He told her, "I was wrong. I was wrong." And he then was working for her and helping her build the business. And I thought that was a really powerful conversation.    [00:20:07] Jason Hull: So to recap the framework, first you need clarity. Figure out like what is it that you feel deep down that you should do and should be focused on. Take action, massive action. And number three, believe it's possible. You have to continue to believe it's possible, or you're going to give up. And then deeper than that, you have to believe you're worthy. No matter what anyone else says about you, no matter if they say you're not good looking enough or you're not smart enough, or you can't, you have to believe, because you know you have that calling deep down. You have to believe that-- one of the great quotes at the conference was, "God qualifies the call." okay. So if you feel that calling deep down, you're qualified.    [00:20:43] Sarah Hall: The best part--   [00:20:44] Jason Hull: oh, what did I miss?    [00:20:44] Sarah Hall: That's the best part.    [00:20:45] Jason Hull: Oh, then you say it. This is why I keep her around.    [00:20:47] Sarah Hall: Haha! I wrote it down because--   [00:20:49] Sarah Hall: She's got a way better memory than me.   [00:20:51] Sarah Hall: I know. But I heard it and then I heard it again a few times throughout the conference and I was like, "Oh," you know, I heard it the first time, but it didn't sink in the first time.   [00:20:58] Jason Hull: Oh.   [00:20:59] Sarah Hall: It was, "God doesn't call the qualified.    [00:21:02] Jason Hull: Yeah.   [00:21:03] Sarah Hall: "He qualifies called."   [00:21:05] Jason Hull: Mm-hmm. Yeah. He qualifies the called because if he gives you the call, you feel that deep, deep down or the universe or whatever you're into. If you feel that calling, you know deep down that it's the right thing for you to do, you're qualified. He will help you eventually get qualified. As long as you keep pushing towards it, you will become the person you need to become in order to do that. And Jamie Kern Lima, her thing reinforced us. So that's kind of our message for today.    [00:21:29] Sarah Hall: I've got two more great ones from her.    [00:21:30] Jason Hull: She's got two more quotes.    [00:21:31] Jason Hull: I like one liners from her that I just.   [00:21:33] Sarah Hall: My hand after this event was just done.   [00:21:36] Jason Hull: Yeah.    [00:21:36] Sarah Hall: It's still tight. That was weeks ago. So, in relation to when she had that opportunity and that-- well, she had what she thought was an opportunity, which ended up being another "No," right?    [00:21:47] Jason Hull: Mm-hmm.    [00:21:47] Sarah Hall: But if it had been an opportunity, she would've just sold it to get out of it and been like, "Yes, thank you. Please take it." And she would've missed out on the big deal, right. So she says, "You have to thank God for the open doors. But you also have to thank him for the closed ones." So just because it's a closed door, it's probably closed for a reason. It's not the right door. So just keep going until you find the right one because it will happen. Also, "when you change your relationship with rejection, you change your life."    [00:22:19] Jason Hull: That's a good one.    [00:22:20] Sarah Hall: So that is really big. So those are my two last little gems from her.    [00:22:23] Jason Hull: Yeah. Love it. So that's our message for today. So believe in yourself, believe that you're worthy. And if you don't have the right clarity, if you don't have know the right actions to take, but you feel deep down you should have a property management business, you feel like you should be able to grow this. We want to help you get that clarity. We want to help you take the right actions. So reach out to us. You can check us out at doorgrow.com. You can also go join our free Facebook group, DoorGrowclub.com, and we would love to get connected with you, have our team connect with you, and get you on that right journey and avoid all the sand traps, avoid the common mistakes, and get your business so that it's healthy as quickly as possible. And with that, we are out. So until next time, to our mutual growth. Anything you want to say before we close?   [00:23:12] Sarah Hall: I think that's it.    [00:23:14] Jason Hull: All right. Thanks everybody. Bye. 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!    [00:23:42] Jason Hull: At DoorGrow, we solve your biggest challenge: getting deals and growing your business. Find out more at doorgrow.com. Find any show notes or links from today's episode on our blog doorgrow.com, and to get notified of future events and news subscribe to our newsletter at doorgrow.com/subscribe. Until next time, take what you learn and start DoorGrow Hacking your business and your life.
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Oct 19, 2022 • 30min

DGS 191: Being Comfortable vs. Winning As A Property Management Entrepreneur

Are you comfortable with the number of doors you have in your property management business right now? Are you comfortable with the amount of tasks you have on your to-do list? You can be comfortable, OR you can be winning.  In this week’s podcast episode, property management growth expert Jason Hull explores the concept of the comfortable PM entrepreneur and the winning PM entrepreneur. You’ll Learn… [01:20] What does it mean to be comfortable in your business? [03:31] Growing and moving toward the Four Reasons [06:37] How to become the WINNING property manager [14:04] Making big shifts and hitting big goals [16:44] The things you will gain from being a winning entrepreneur [21:44] How to step into being uncomfortable Tweetables “You are not meant to be mediocre. You're not meant to be the comfortable property manager. You're meant to be the winning property management entrepreneur.” “You're going to need to step into the pain, step into the fear, step into all the stuff you've been avoiding, the discomfort, and take a risk.” “A business should give you more freedom, but most business owners have less freedom than employees have often.” “If there's anything that's been on your to-do list for more than a month, it's because you're not the person that should be doing it.” Resources DoorGrow and Scale Mastermind DoorGrow Academy DoorGrow on YouTube DoorGrowClub DoorGrowLive TalkRoute Referral Link Transcript [00:00:00] You know, you're the comfortable pm, ironically, if you have a to-do list that just keeps getting bigger each month instead of smaller.I often say this: if there's anything that's been on your to-do list for more than a month, it's because you're not the person that should be doing it. [00:00:15] All right, we are live. Welcome everybody to the #DoorGrowShow. If you are a property management entrepreneur that wants to add doors, make a difference, increase revenue, help others, impact lives, and you're interested in growing in business and life, and you're open to doing things a bit differently, then you are a DoorGrow, hacker. DoorGrow Hackers love the opportunities, daily variety, unique challenges, and freedom that property management brings. Many in real estate think you're crazy for doing it. You 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. I'm your host, property management growth expert, Jason Hull, the founder and CEO of DoorGrow. Now let's get into the show. [00:01:20] So what are we going to talk about today? I think I want to talk a little bit today about the difference between being a comfortable property management entrepreneur and a winning property management entrepreneur. So, last week I talked a little bit-- and I recommend you go check that episode out-- I talked about the drifting versus the driven, so I want to expand a little bit on that and let's talk about... you might be that comfortable property manager or that comfortable property management business owner because really you might identify right now as a property manager. You think, "I'm a property manager," and I think that's a mistake if you are the business owner, if this is your business. You are a business owner. A property manager is the technician level worker in a property management business. They do the work. Right. You might be an owner of a bakery, but if you're the baker, you are the employee. You are the key technician in that business. [00:02:13] If you are a property manager in a property management business, you are the key technician in that business doing the technical work, meaning you're not the owner. An owner has a business and they hire a property manager, right? So right now you may identify as a property manager and you may also be somewhat comfortable, and really that might mean you're comfortable being uncomfortable. Like you're in a certain level of discomfort, right? Maybe you're not getting on doors quick enough. Maybe the lead gen is not working as well as you wanted to. Maybe you're not closing as many deals as you would like and bringing on new clients. Maybe you know behind the scenes that you're delivery and fulfillment stuff and operations, it's not really well dialed in. Like it's not as good as you are selling everybody on it being and maybe your financial stuff is just not really tight.  [00:03:04] You know, you've got financial issues, financial problems. You're not bringing in enough money. Maybe you're not clear. Cash flow is an issue. Maybe it's getting really expensive to pay out your team members. You're trying to figure it out. These are all solvable problems in the business, but you're kind of comfortable, which is why it's gotten to the point that it is, and you haven't changed it yet. And until it gets painful enough, uncomfortable enough, you're probably not going to change it, and my goal as a coach in working with my clients is to either help them get so much of what they want, that it becomes uncomfortable-- so we had one of our clients, really sharp client. He's doubled his doors in his business since starting with us, and it's gotten really uncomfortable for him. It's painful. And he was talking about the pain of that on the call, and I wanted to use him as an example to other people.  [00:03:59] Like, "Hey, we can get the growth going very easily and once we get it going, it'll be uncomfortable and that's the next problem, the new problem we want all of you to experience." And I was like, "How many of you by show of raise of hands, by show of hands would love to have the problem that he's having right now? That he's got so many doors coming on that it's getting painful," and everybody's hands went up, right? So, I want all of you to experience that kind of pain and that kind of problem as well. And that's really the crux of running a business, that a business is a eternal problem worth solving. No business is ever perfect. No business is ever done. You ramp up lead gen and you ramp up sales... delivery and fulfillment will experience constraints. You start to build out that backend. You hire a bunch of people, you are maybe kind of top heavy when it comes to staffing. You now need to feed that beast more and get more sales, right? [00:04:48] And so all these functions in the business are always in flux. There's always a juggle. Your business is never done. It's never perfect. It's never finished. And it should be fun, right? We've talked about this on multiple episodes- the four reasons: fulfillment, freedom, contribution, support, and then that fifth reason of safety and certainty, and this is what all of you want. This is why we think we want money is really, we want money because it can give us those things if we use it the right way, but a lot of you make more and more money and you just make your life harder and harder and harder. You just keep doing more and more of the stuff you don't really enjoy doing in your own business. So I'm going to ask you this. Like right now, if you know you're the comfortable pm instead of the winning pm-- you're the comfortable property management entrepreneur if you don't like accounting, but you're still doing accounting-- if you don't love it-- if you don't love doing the sales and you're still doing the sales, if you don't love the operations and the details and the nitty gritty, but you're the one that that sits on the shoulders of. You know, you're the comfortable pm, ironically, if you have a to-do list that just keeps getting bigger each month instead of smaller. [00:06:05] I often say this: if there's anything that's been on your to-do list for more than a month, it's because you're not the person that should be doing it. All the fun stuff, the stuff that gives you freedom and fulfillment and the sense of contribution and support, you have already gotten those things done. It wouldn't sit on your to-do list for that long typically, but that's the leftover stuff. The stuff you really don't want to do. You're avoiding. You're procrastinating until it becomes so painful, you have to focus on it. And then you "hi-ho" over. "Woo, I'm going to solve this problem."  [00:06:37] I want this to be your old identity, this comfortable pm and I want you to destroy this. Like it has to die if you want to be the winning pm. Let's talk about the winning property manager. The winning property manager is living according to those four reasons, and they have the fifth reason, but this means that they love their day to day. They have a sense of fulfillment. They enjoy getting to do what they're doing. They would do it-- what they're doing each day for free for fun. I would do what I do for free for fun. Coaching clients, helping clients win, this kind of stuff is fun for me. Learning... the stuff that I get to do in my business is fun for me. The first is fulfillment. The second thing is freedom. Like, you want to feel free rather than feeling damned or stuck or like uncomfortable... freedom, you want freedom. A business should give you more freedom, but most business owners have less freedom than employees have often. And then if you have freedom and fulfillment, you're going to get bored if you aren't making a difference in the world. You're going to want to go out and change some lives. You're going to want to give other people that you're going to want to benefit your team. You're going to start to care about other people because you've got your own needs taken care of. You want to make a difference in the world. [00:07:52] You want to benefit your clients, you want to benefit the tenants, you want to benefit your staff and your team, you want to benefit your family. That feels like winning, right? You've got those things and that means you've got great support. So you're building support around yourself and you're able to support those around you, and that is a winning property management entrepreneur. I want you to have that identity. I want you to feel what that feels like because it feels good to be winning. It feels good to be making a difference in the world. It feels good to be able to feel good about yourself. Come on, right? You know, I've been the comfortable business owner. I've been the comfortable business owner. You know, even fairly recently in my journey, I went back into that, like I went through a divorce, which was rough. I was the one that ended the relationship. There was a lot of stuff that caused me to feel I needed to do that, and that was really hard. You know, without going into the details, you know, I was put into situations that were really painful for me. And she probably felt similarly, right? And so I ended that relationship, and that was hard. It was hard. Getting back into dating, that was kind of tough, you know, at my age, you know, figuring it out. That was hard. And then in the business for a little while, I coasted. I was like, I've got so much going on. I'm trying to figure out how to take care of my kids. I got comfortable because I wanted to explore other things like dating and like figuring out relationships again, and like all this stuff. But eventually I got bored of all that. I got bored of the dating thing. I gave up on that. [00:09:22] And then I met Sarah. We're getting married in November. We've been dating for a lengthy while and she's my fiance and we're getting married in November. And those people tend to turn up right when we're kind of fed up, and we're done looking. And and, you know, that spark reignited in focusing on my business. I'm like, "I want to revamp and change everything. I want to start doing new programs. I'm getting into working with new coaches. I felt alive again. And that's our natural state. Our natural state is to be alive. I've always been this way. I've always been reinventing myself and learning new things and absorbing new information, and I'm sure a lot of you are like that. That's the entrepreneurial visionary sort of state. That's where we feel alive is when we're in that momentum. And we're, we feel like we're growing. We're growth minded individuals, but to step into that, there's always going to be some fear. Always.  [00:10:20] You are the hero in your own story. If you're life were a movie, you are the protagonist. You're the hero in your story. The people that are watching your story, you getting to watch your story at the end of your life, like you will know you're the hero in your story. And what would that hero do? Like if you were watching this movie, what would you want them to do? You get to write this story and you don't want to sit there and watch yourself just comfortable. That comfort is poison, and I hope it gets painful enough that you decide, "Hey, I want more than this. I want to take on my life. I want to make a difference. I want to do something with myself." And you're tired of the business being mediocre. You're tired of the business having the same problems year after year. You need to get fed up with the sameness. You need to get fed up with it because I'm calling you out onto this journey, just like I did on the previous episode. I'm calling you out, like, I want you to step into your greatness and step into this journey, and I want you to absorb this key idea that you need to step into this new identity. If you had the business of your dreams, that would mean you have become the person that could run that. And so what that means is this: one of my mentors said this. He said, if you don't have the business of your dreams, it's because you're not yet the person that can run it yet. You're not that person yet. So who would you have to become in order to have the business of your dreams?  [00:11:44] You would have to become a more powerful person, a more knowledgeable person, a person that knows acquisition strategies or how to get more doors. A person that knows how to sell a person that knows how to optimize your pricing in your business. A person that knows whether or not their branding is impacting their business or not and how to optimize that. A person that knows whether their website is effective or not. We're going to take you through-- in our program, that's what we do is we first clean up all those leaks in your sales pipeline, and then we stack the acquisition strategies, and then after that, we get you into the systems that you're going to need to build out for your business. You need at least six major systems in your business in order for this business to be scale. And here's the secret, I want you to understand this, a lot of you have gotten comfortable partially because you see future pain on the horizon. You see, like, "once I get to 250 doors," or "if I got to a thousand doors" or whatever, "I know how uncomfortable I am right now," because you're in a state of comfortable discomfort. You're comfortable being uncomfortable. It's the maximum amount of discomfort you are willing to tolerate and be comfortable with. That's where you're at right now.  [00:12:50] Your perception then unconsciously, is that growth would be even more painful. "If I added twice as many doors, it would be twice as painful as it is right now." and that doesn't have to be true. The more doors you add, the more resources you add, the easier it can get, the better your life can get, the less you have to do, the less you do in the business in your role. You get to do more of the few things that you really enjoy doing. And so as you grow and scale, believe me, property managers that have a thousand doors and they build their team in business the right way, their business, their day to day is calm. They love it. They enjoy what they get to do, but you could be at 50 doors or even a hundred doors and hate your life and be miserable and not be very profitable, and it to be very uncomfortable. So at any stage, it can be painful or it can be comfortable. And so my goal is sometimes I have to get people uncomfortable in order for them to go to that next level and chase comfort again and get to that next level where they are now at a higher level as an entrepreneur. So I want to turn you into the entrepreneur that can have the business of your dreams.  [00:14:04] So we've hit kind of a milestone consistently in our monthly revenue, which places us in the stage of being a multimillion dollar company, which is awesome. Like I'm really excited about that in our company, and of course we have a lot of expenses in our business at that stage. So, you know, a multimillion dollar company doesn't mean the business owner gets millions of dollars necessarily, right? Because there's costs, and all of you that are business owners get this. But a lot of times our team members or people watching entrepreneurs go, "Ooh, they have a million dollar company, man, it must be nice to be a millionaire," and I'm sure those of you listening are laughing. You're like, "Yeah, I used to think that way, but now that I run a business, I realize it's probably not the case. In fact, million dollar businesses usually, some of the business owners are making very little, a lot of times because their operational costs are really high, especially marketing agencies or some of the people that are in circles that I'm around. We've been blessed that I have a really effective team. We're very efficient and we've got some great systems in place. I have a great operator. Sarah is our operations person, our COO, and we have a profitable, healthy business, which is great. I appreciate that and I really value my team for that, and it allows me to spend the time doing the things I really enjoy doing. [00:15:15] So I want you to get out of this pain maybe out of some of these negative emotions and understand this truth of these four reasons, plus that fifth of safety and certainty. Safety and certainty comes when you have your processes documented. You have great team members... like you feel safe in your business. Eventually you'll get to other levels of that when you get to, maybe seven figure or higher business, or you're a million dollar business you know, multimillion dollar company or whatever, you're going to start doing things like asset protection and wealth building stuff, you know, different tax strategies. This is how the ultra wealthy don't pay taxes. There's going to be levels to the safety certainty that it creates around you, and that gives us even greater freedom to go out into the marketplace and take risks and do things when we have that behind us. [00:16:03] And so I want to help you shift and if you understand this framework of the four reasons, then you can be this empowered winning property management entrepreneur, you can be somebody that is consistently moving closer and closer to that goal of your unique version of these four reasons, and you're loving your day to day. You are making a difference in the world. You feel a sense of freedom. You're free to make choices. You're free to take vacations. You're free to buy your wife some sort of nice gift or your husband some sort of nice gift, right? You're not constantly limited by some sort of stress or worry or constraint in your life. And you will start to see tangible, measurable outcomes. You will see your team members start to align with those four reasons once you have. You can have team members that are experiencing those benefits as well. They will experience more freedom and fulfillment because you're finally in alignment, which means you're not building the wrong team around this fake person, the fake business owner, the fake person that pretends that they are a leader in the business, but they're spending most of their time doing stuff they don't enjoy. That's a fake leader. It's a real business owner, but a fake leader, and people don't want to follow that person. So you're not going to have great team members if you are not happy, They're not going to be happy, and I want you to be happy. Because if you're happy and your team's happy, your owners will be happy, tenants will be more happy, and if tenants are happy and owners are happy and you're happy and your team are happy, that's a great ripple effect that's going to make a difference in the world. [00:17:38] All right, so a lot of you are thinking, "Well, Jason, this all sounds so too good to be true. If it were that easy, everybody would be doing it. " And I think it's simple. It may not be easy to figure out, but it's simple. And once I explain some of these frameworks, once I showcase things to clients, once I help them understand the secrets to all these different areas or different blind spots or different leaks, then property managers, entrepreneurs, they can see these leaks, they can see these blind spots. And then when you can see these problems, you're going to want to solve them. That's what you do as an entrepreneur. When you can see a problem, it'll annoy you. It'll bother the heck out of you, and you will get that problem solved. And so we help you see the problem, and then we give you the roadmaps for how to solve these problems. And that's the fun of running a business, is knowing which problems need to be worked on, having that clarity, and being able to move it forward and seeing the business progress and seeing it grow, you have to grow as a result. Russell Brunson at the FunnelHacking Live conference, which I mentioned on the previous episode, said, "God tricks us into benefiting people by starting a business. On the journey to making more money, he tricks us into starting a business that benefits other human beings," because a real business solves real problems in the marketplace. At first, you're probably like, "I just want to make money," or "I just want to make ends meet, then I want to make money." [00:19:01] But eventually you're like, I want to make a difference. And eventually you realize to make money and to make a difference, you have to solve real problems in the marketplace. That's a real business. You're not going to get referrals. You're not going to get new clients. You're not going to get return clients unless you are making that difference and solving real problems in the marketplace. That's what a business does. Otherwise, you're snake oil, right? You're a thief. Right? You need to solve real problems. And I'll tell you this, like solving real problems is super rewarding. It feels really good to change people's lives, to benefit people. That's why we do what we do at DoorGrow. We love that feeling. I get to hear from people on calls every week sharing their wins, sharing how we change their life. One of the clients posted this in one of our groups and said, "Thanks for putting so much gold in front of us, that it's improbable to eat it in one bite," and he said, "Words from my wife 'I wish you would've found DoorGrow two years ago.' she speaks the truth," is what one of our clients, Will Frasier said. We hear that a lot, like, "I wish we'd found DoorGrow several years ago. I wish we had found DoorGrow before," and if you haven't really found us, which means you haven't come on board as a client, you haven't really talked to our sales team, you don't really know what we could do for you. [00:20:22] You're kind of thinking, "Well, maybe it's similar to where everybody else is doing," you really should check us out. And you'll probably be that person saying, "Man, I wish I had stepped into that earlier." I wanted to share kind of this sort of journey from the comfortable PM to the winning pm and that journey is, you're going to need to step into the pain, step into the fear, step into all the stuff you've been avoiding, the discomfort, and take a risk. It's a risk. And God or the universe may have to put you in a position that becomes so painful that you're like, "I'm finally willing to do something because I'm losing too many doors right now," or "I want to take this next level," or "I'm just fed up with eating, you know, pork and beans every night, or ramen," you know, whatever it is. Like you want to get to the next level. We want to help you get there. And I want you to be the winning property manager. You are not meant to be mediocre. You're not meant to be the comfortable property manager. You're meant to be the winning property management entrepreneur. You are meant to be that. You're meant to be getting positive outcomes. You're meant to be feeling and experiencing positive emotions. You're meant to be a leader. You're meant to have a amazing team. Anybody can have an amazing team. You just need to know what people that have amazing teams know. You just need to know those frameworks. And then you can have an amazing team that doesn't frustrate you and annoy you and you don't have high turnover.  [00:21:44] So I'm inviting you, I'm challenging you to step in and experience that. And to just quickly pitch our program and our offer: we have our DoorGrow and scale Mastermind. It's an amazing program. It's the culmination of lots of stuff that we've learned. We are bringing in all sorts of experts, the best in the industry. Just, there's a lot of value in the program. But some of our major programs: we have our Rapid Revamp. So if you have any lead flow in your business whatsoever, but you've never really had taken a harsh look at your branding, your pricing, your sales process, your website, this whole sales pipeline, this is something that we are going to take you through, usually in the first 90 days of working with us in the Mastermind, that will completely transform the front end of your business. If you've ever watched Bar Rescue with Jon Taffer or The Profit with Marcus Lemonis, that's me for the property management industry. That's what I do. We transform property management business owners and their businesses. We want to transform you, and we want to transform your business, and that's what we do. We rehab these companies or get them ready, just like you get a property rent ready. We remake, remodel, and revamp. So the Rapid Revamp is this rapid 90 day program that we take you through over the course of like 12 or so weeks, and we're tackling some major issues on a week or maybe a two week basis and getting these things really well dialed in just to clean up your sales pipeline. [00:23:14] After that, or for those who just want to add doors, we have our Growth Accelerator and right now, we have six major things we do. Each one takes about a month. These are six different acquisition vehicles you can build in your business, and none of these cost you advertising dollars. Isn't that amazing? It's not SEO. It's not pay per click like Google Ads. It's not content marketing. It's not social media marketing. It's not pay per lead services. These are all internet marketing. We're avoiding all of that because these people are at the end of the sales cycle and are the shittiest and worst clients. We're focusing on those that you can capture through word of mouth, where you can create warm leads, where you have a 90% close rate instead of a 10% close rate. It takes less time in the sales cycle and sales process, and it takes way less money, and these strategies are really brilliant. We've got our neighbor strategy, our partner strategy. We've got our group prospecting strategy and all these things are things that I've heard of people try to do, or that you may have tried to do, but you're not adding 300 doors in a year from just one strategy like some of our clients. You don't have these things dialed in the way that we psychologically dial these things in, so they're super effective. [00:24:24] And so we would love to have some of you join us in that Growth Accelerator that we're doing, and we have a monthly class where we're tackling a major growth engine in the business. And that'll be awesome. You get access to our live events. We're doing one here in October. It's already sold out. Totally sold out already. And we still have-- today's the fifth I'm recording this and it's on the 18th and 19th and it's already sold out. And usually we sell the most tickets, like just in the last week or two before an event. That's pretty typical. But we're already sold out. So we'll just have to plan for a bigger spot and bigger venue the next time. Our next one's going to be in May, people. So make sure you are ready for that and you get your tickets early for that. But we sold out. And so we've got the live in-person events. We also have organized our mastermind into tribes. These are like groups of friends where you get to connect with people. We have a monthly tribe meeting that you get in your, with your tribe and at the events you get to go out to lunch and hang out with your tribe. People love the tribes, and it's really cool. So we've got these small groups we call tribes and we named them all gemstones. We've got like tanzanite and sapphire and ruby and amethyst and whatever. We've got these different tribes for our roughly a hundred businesses. And we've divided them up into like five tribes. So we've got these tribes.  [00:25:38] Also, we have planning meetings where we're going through and doing better than EOS, DoorGrow OS-style planning, and we're building out the planning operating system cadence. We're doing your annual planning with you, quarterly planning, monthly planning, etc. and helping you to have strong momentum and clarity on your team. That alone helped me grow my business 300% in a year, people. 300% in a year, just adding that in. And I've worked with the best in the industry when it comes to that stuff, and I've built a system that I believe is the best on the market and we call it DoorGrow OS, which is a culmination of the stuff that I've learned around that. So that's just some of what we're doing. Then we have our Super System. So the Super System is for those that don't need to add doors anymore. You've built that. Like that's a very solvable and easy to solve problem, I really believe, and we can solve that for our clients and create that pain like our client I was telling you about earlier on today's call. He's had so much growth that it's painful. So the next thing is building out the systems and you need six major systems. [00:26:39] So this is our Super System. It's like the system of systems getting all these systems in place. And each system is probably going to be about a quarter, so about three months, 90 days, to build out a really solid system. We're talking a fully robust process, documentation system, a fully robust planning and accountability system in your business, and financial system in your business, etc. So we've got all these systems that we're going to be building out as part of that, and once you have these systems in place, you'll have a business that you can scale. And our goal is that over the next five years that we're building seven figure businesses that can do seven figure exits. We're building these businesses that can get seven figure exits if they want to, but hopefully because they're in alignment with their dream business and their dream role in the business, and the four reasons that they don't want to, but you have that freedom and that option because the path is the same. So this is kind of our Built to Sell or our DoorGrow and Scale Mastermind that we are focused on. So those are some of the cool things that are in the program. Hopefully that gets some of you pumped up and excited. And our program is really affordable. I mean, I'm not going to say it's cheap, but it's less than it would cost you a team member. On a monthly basis, and it's more value.  [00:27:54] So our goal is to be your cheapest team member that makes you the most money. And you don't just get me. You don't just get a brilliant operator, Sarah, COO and coach, or our client success manager, Ashlee, you're also getting access to other experts in the industry that we're bringing into this mastermind, and you get access to all of other clients that are playing a different game than most property managers. They're winning property managers and you need to be hanging out with winning property managers. You need them in your tribe. You need to be in like a tribe like the Tanzanite Tribe. You need to be winning with other winning property managers, so you are not that comfortable property manager. There's a lot of comfortable property managers, and you may not even be connected to any property managers, but you need to be connected to some winning ones, definitely not the comfortable ones. [00:28:39] So if any of this is interesting to you, reach out, send me a dm. If you're seeing this on my social media, just message me and say, "Hey, Jason." I might notice it because there's a lot of social media platforms I'm on that you may see this on send me a DM. You can send me a DM on Instagram @kingjasonhull. You can send us a DM on DoorGrow, which is @DoorGrow on Instagram, DoorGrow. And you can just go to DoorGrow.com and reach out to our team through the chat or schedule a call with us, whatever it takes. You know, get on a call with us and my team and we will help you figure out if we can help you grow and become a winning property management entrepreneur in your own business. [00:29:17] That's it for today. Until next time, to our mutual growth. Bye, everyone.  [00:29:21] 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!  [00:29:48] At DoorGrow, we solve your biggest challenge: getting deals and growing your business. Find out more at doorgrow.com. Find any show notes or links from today's episode on our blog doorgrow.com, and to get notified of future events and news subscribe to our newsletter at doorgrow.com/subscribe. Until next time, take what you learn and start DoorGrow Hacking your business and your life.
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Oct 5, 2022 • 15min

DGS 190: Drifting vs. Being Driven Towards Growth In Property Management

I just got back from an awesome coaching conference at Funnel Hacking Live 2022! I’m armed with so much knowledge and want to share some of that new knowledge with you. In this episode, property management growth expert, Jason Hull, describes a concept introduced by Russell Brunson at Funnel Hacking Live: the Drifting vs. the Driven. You’ll Learn… [01:48] What it means to be drifting [04:31] How to escape being a Drifter [06:44] Shifting out of FEAR and moving toward FAITH [8:59] The importance of your effort matching your goals [11:17] How finding a coach or mentor can change your business and your life. Tweetables “A lot of you don't need more dollars. You need more freedom and fulfillment in your life. That's why we want the dollars.” “You can't build a multimillion-dollar company with a $2 'why.’” “You're probably feeling the call to do something more, do something greater, but you're avoiding it.” “You cannot have an extraordinary business with an ordinary goal in life.” Resources DoorGrow and Scale Mastermind DoorGrow Academy DoorGrow on YouTube DoorGrowClub DoorGrowLive TalkRoute Referral Link Transcript [00:00:00] You're the hero in this movie called Life. It's your movie. You are the hero, and I want you to recognize that for the hero to have a great story and have a great life, somebody needs to call you out. Somebody needs to give you a challenge, a call to come out of the ordinary world, out of the comfort zone, out of where you are into something extraordinary.    [00:00:18] All right. Welcome DoorGrow Hackers to the #DoorGrowShow. If you are a property management entrepreneur that wants to add doors, make a difference, increase revenue, help others, impact lives, and you are interested in growing in business and life, and you're open to doing things a bit differently then you are a DoorGrow Hacker. DoorGrow Hackers love the opportunities, daily variety, unique challenges, and freedom that property management brings. Many in real estate think you're crazy for doing it. You think they're crazy for not because you realize that property management is the ultimate, high trust gateway to real estate deals, relationships, and residual income.   [00:00:54] At DoorGrow, we are on a mission to transform property management, business owners and their businesses. We want to transform the industry, eliminate the bs, build awareness, change perception, expand the market, and help the best property management entrepreneurs win. I'm your host property management growth expert, Jason Hull, the founder and CEO of DoorGrow. Now, let's get into the show.   [00:01:17] All right, so today what we're going to be talking about is we're going to be talking about my experience at Funnel Hacking Live. So I just went to this big conference Funnel Hacking Live in Orlando, Florida with Sarah, my fiance and operation operator. And our intention goal and goal was like to, you know, have fun experience, learn some cool stuff, to be able to bring some cool stuff back to our clients and we get a lot of really cool stuff. And I want to share one of the first things that I got out of that conference with all of you. So. Today I'm going to be talking about this idea of the drifting versus the driven, and this was a talk by Russell Brunson. He's the founder of that event. He's the founder of the software ClickFunnels, and he's probably one of the greatest marketers on the planet, and he is avid student of all things marketing and direct response and copywriting and like what works and funnels. He is the person that put funnels on map. And so what Russell was talking about-- his topic was called The Drifting vs. The Driven. And the idea is that there's two types of people that are out there. There's those that are just drifting, and we've all been that person sometimes where we're just kind, coasting, moving along, just drifting. And then there's also those that are the driven, right? They're very driven, they're aggressive, they want to accomplish things. And when you are drifting, there's also just two substances in the universe. There's two sort of things that exist in the universe. There's things that act and there's things that are acted upon, right?   [00:02:54] There's basically creators, and there's those that are created upon, or that are victims, or that are impacted or influenced, and my goal is for all of you to be a creator, right? And entrepreneurs, we know we're driven, right? We're a little bit different than the rest of the world, and there's a lot of people drifting, but even sometimes as entrepreneurs, we get into a state. I was in this for a little while, like after I went through my divorce, that was hard. That was hard stuff, and I just wanted to date, you know, the business was coasting. It was doing well, but I wasn't really focused on growing or aggressively moving it forward or growing. I was drifting.    [00:03:30] And you know, when we're drifting as an entrepreneur, as the visionary, as the founder, as the leader of our organization, guess what? We attract drifters and our team members will drift. They'll just kind of coast. And they might be great team members, but I've noticed the more driven-- because I'm a driven guy naturally, and so the more driven I've gotten, the more I have my goals and the more I'm pushing towards my goals, the more my team steps it up. And one of my mentors, Alex Charfen, he said to me something like "the speed of the entrepreneur is the speed of the team," meaning you set the pace. You set the standard for the drive and how aggressive you are in your business for your entire team, and the drifter is just accepting life. Rather than having a goal, they fall into this hypnotic rhythm of life. I wake up, I eat, I work, I go to sleep, I wake up, I eat, sleep, go to work, etc. And it just becomes default.    [00:04:27] "What do you want to do tonight?"   [00:04:28] "I don't know."   [00:04:29] "Let's watch Netflix again."   [00:04:30] Right? You're just drifting. And so what I would love to do is I want to call out, everybody that's listening to this podcast or watching this on YouTube or wherever you hear about this, I want to call you out, and I want to pull you out of what you're in right now if you're drifting or whatever your experience is right now to something greater, right? Because where you're at right now in the hero's journey-- if you've ever heard of this concept of the hero's journey-- you're in the ordinary world right now, right? That's the ordinary world, and I want to bring you into the extraordinary world, or the supernatural world, right? And that means there's this call to adventure. So if you feel like you've been comfortable for a while, you feel like you've been coasting, I'm going to call you out. I'm going to invite you to do something crazy or risky or scary or adventurous, and that would be to step into something deeper, to find a mentor, a hero, or coach. Every great story where there's the hero and you're the hero in your story. You are the hero in your story, right? You're the hero in this movie called Life. It's your movie. You are the primary character in your universe, right? You're the protagonist. You are the hero, and I want you to recognize that for the hero to have a great story and have a great life, somebody needs to call you out. Somebody needs to give you a challenge, a call to come out of the ordinary world, out of the comfort zone, out of where you are into something extraordinary.    [00:05:55] You cannot have an extraordinary business with an ordinary goal in life. One of the people at Funnel Hacking Live said, "You cannot have like a million dollar company with a $2 'why'." You need a purpose that's bigger. Maybe it's because you want to show your kids and stop being a weakling or wimp for your kids or that you're not showing your kids that there's a greater life available to them and you're playing small and you know it. Maybe it's that your team needs you to step up and you've been kind of burned out on the business for a while. So I'm calling you out of that into something extraordinary, and the call, when it comes to us, we eventually, we start on this journey, but it's scary and most of us avoid the call. You're probably feeling the call to do something more, do something greater, but you're avoiding it. We all do it first. There's this fear and there's pain, but eventually we hear that voice deep down within that says, "Hey, there's something more. You should do this. You should step into this. You should get that mentor. You should get that coaching program. You should read that book. You should do something to move your business forward. You should have more of an impact. You should step up and be a better spouse or partner or you know, parent or whatever it is that's important to you. We feel that call and if we listen to that call and we do the work, we're operating in faith, right? So we're shifting out of fear and we're moving forward in faith.   [00:07:14] And we may still have that fear, but we move forward in faith, and you are the driven. You feel that call. You felt a call to start a business. You felt a call to do something new and you listened to it. It got you started, but then maybe you kind of gave up or maybe you kind of got comfortable. And so, you want to pay attention to these two sort of entities that exist in your body. One's fueled by fear and one's fueled by faith. And you want to pay attention to those because they're fed. The fear based entity is fed on your fears and doubts and uncertainty, and it keeps you where you're at. It holds you tethered, but then there's that faith that pulls you forward and it's fed by taking action. When you get that call, God gives you some little like idea or some little call, you feel some sort of drive, like, "I should be doing something. This feels right to me," and you listen to it and you operate with that little idea that you were given. You will get bigger ideas. The universe, God, whatever-- you will start to be gifted or given bigger ideas. You'll be a steward over something even greater, and this is why you see some people have great success because they may not be the most amazing person. Sometimes they're not even maybe the greatest person, but in that one little area, God or the universe could trust them with one thing and they did it. And so they were trusted with something bigger and something bigger, at least in that area, that they are achieving and benefiting people in.    [00:08:36] Russell said something interesting. He said that God tricks us into building a business that eventually helps others. Like if you want to be successful in business, eventually you get to the point where in order to have a business that functions well, it has to solve a real problem in the marketplace. You can't operate unethically and think that your business will continue to get bigger and continue to grow. We just hit a milestone in our business. We just in the last quarter did half a million. And for some of you that maybe that's a small thing, but for us that's like a, that's awesome. That shows that we are operating at a $2 million run rate. And if things continue we're a multimillion-dollar company. And you know, and there were several years when I went through divorce and like lots of changes in the business. I was comfortable and the business really wasn't scaling or growing. In fact, it'd even dip down like a little bit right? Dip down a little bit. And so, we're operating a multimillion-dollar company and I believe that that's true and I can see it, and we've been doing it, and if we continue, by the end of the year, we will have been a multimillion-dollar company, right? We can say we are a multimillion-dollar company. And that's a vanity metric. It's a vanity goal that I have. But all of you have vanity goals, right? You have things that you want. Maybe it's a door goal you want to hit, but the award or the goal or whatever it is, it needs to be big enough...   [00:09:57] the 'why' needs to be bigger than all the pain, all the challenges, all the friction that it takes to grow and scale a business. Your 'why' needs to be bigger. You can't build a multimillion-dollar company with a $2 'why,' right? The 'why' has to be bigger than all the challenges. So, you know, we go on this journey trying to scale and grow our business, and it's usually towards some sort of self-interest, right? You want to get more money, or maybe it's the four reasons, right? You want more fulfillment, more freedom, more contribution, more support. Because you don't use this is why we build businesses, right? Businesses are the vehicle to give us those things, and maybe you want that fifth reason of safety and certainty, but out of that self-interest, eventually, in order to get that to work and to achieve that and to make that possible, God uses that vehicle. It tricks us into building a business that helps others, right? And that serves the universe, that serves God's purpose, and then we are now a vehicle and our business is a vehicle to create positive change and impact here in the world. And so this is one of the greatest things that I think you can do as a human being. It's maybe one of the greatest things is to positively impact others' lives, right? So don't feel guilty. Don't pull your punches, don't hold back at all, like go all in. When you hear that call, go all in and go for it.    [00:11:17] Russell shared this story he shared about Michael Jordan and all of you know who Michael Jordan is, but Michael Jordan-- he took a risk on Nike and Nike took a risk on him. Neither of them were a big deal at the time, but they both grew together and Michael Jordan was so driven that he leveled up his entire team. The entire team had to step up and level up in order to move things forward. And he drove the business and drove everything else forward. So this is my challenge to you: I want you to play bigger. I want you to step into find that mentor, find that guru, find that person that is maybe a step ahead of you or maybe has a clue that you feel deep down you should work with. You need to find that. To go on that hero's journey, you have to find the mentor. I spend six figures annually just on coaches and mentors, mastermind programs, things that I'm a part of to learn so that I can come down from the mountain with the magic elixir or whatever, and share that with my people and share that with my tribe and share that with my clients you need to find somebody that can feed into you to help you get to that next level, and maybe it's not the next level of doors or the next level of money. Maybe it's the next level in your relationships. Maybe it's the next level in being a great father or mother. Maybe it's the next level in just you know, getting more fulfillment and freedom and contribution, making a difference in the world out of your business, and it's not just about more revenue.    [00:12:44] A lot of you don't need more dollars. You need more freedom and fulfillment in your life. That's why we want the dollars. Don't get the dollars and not get that, right? And so that's kind of my message today is are you the driven, Are you called? If you have a calling within you and you listen to it, you will be the driven. So listen to that voice deep down. And If you feel the call to work with DoorGrow-- some of you, I've heard it like, "I've been thinking about working with you for a long time." I hear that all the time. "I've been watching you on the sidelines for a while. I've been listening to your podcast." Now's the time. I'm calling you out. Step into doing it because you've heard that call and you're not listening to it, you're not going to get more if that call's there. And if you don't feel that call, then don't work with us. Like it's really obvious. Like you don't need to do anything with us. We don't need clients like that, but I know there's people out there that are meant to work with us that we can help. I know our stuff works. I know we can help you grow and scale your business. I know we can change your life. I know because I hear testimonials from clients every call that we do each week with our group coaching calls, I know that there's people out there that we could benefit, and that's what gets me excited.   [00:13:51] That's my calling. I want to change this industry. I want to help you grow your business. So if that's you, reach out to us. Check us out at doorgrow.com, and we're looking forward to helping you on your journey through this hero's journey. Bye everyone. Until next time, to our mutual growth.   [00:14:06] 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!    [00:14:33] At DoorGrow, we solve your biggest challenge: getting deals and growing your business. Find out more at doorgrow.com. Find any show notes or links from today's episode on our blog doorgrow.com, and to get notified of future events and news subscribe to our newsletter at doorgrow.com/subscribe. Until next time, take what you learn and start DoorGrow Hacking your business and your life.
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Sep 28, 2022 • 22min

DGS 189: How To Profitably Add Pest Control Coverage To Your Property Management Business With Nick Drzayich From Cover Pest

Wouldn’t it be nice if you could sleep at night knowing that you don’t have to worry about pests in the properties you manage? In this episode, property management growth expert, Jason Hull interviews Nick Drzayich from Cover Pests to learn about dealing with pests in property management. You’ll Learn… [02:00] Cover Pest… It’s like Insurance for Pest Control [03:59] Dealing with Pests as a Property Manager [07:48] Dealing with the Different Kinds of Pests [13:13] How Partnering with Something Like Cover Pest Works [16:02] Eliminating Having to Figure Out Who is Gonna Pay the Bill [17:15] Using Pest Coverage as a Selling Point for Property Management Tweetables “We want the tenants to feel good about where they live and have it clean. We also want the owners to understand that their property's being taken care of when it's needed.” “It's nice for the property manager to have someone else get some eyes on the property every once in a while.” “It's increasing the visibility. It's decreasing some of the potential costs for the owners. It's protecting the owners.” “We go out, and we take care of it.” Resources DoorGrow and Scale Mastermind DoorGrow Academy DoorGrow on YouTube DoorGrowClub DoorGrowLive TalkRoute Referral Link Transcript [00:00:00] Nick: We want the tenants to feel good about where they live and have it clean. We also want the owners to understand that their property's being taken care of when it's needed and then obviously the property management companies, they don't have to hassle with the back and forth and who's paying the bill.    [00:00:14] Jason: Welcome DoorGrow Hackers to the #DoorGrowShow. If you are a property management entrepreneur that wants to add doors, make a difference, increase revenue, help others impact lives, and you are interested in growing in business and life, and you're open to doing things a bit differently. Then you are a DoorGrow Hacker. DoorGrow hackers love the opportunities, daily variety, unique challenges, and freedom that property management brings. Many in real estate think you're crazy for doing it. You think they're crazy for not because you realize that property management is the ultimate, high trust gateway to real estate deals, relationships, and residual income.   [00:00:53] At DoorGrow, we are on a mission to transform property management business owners and their businesses. We want to transform the industry. Eliminate the BS, build awareness, change perception, expand the market, and help the best property management entrepreneurs win. I'm your host property management growth expert Jason Hull, the founder and CEO of DoorGrow.    [00:01:13] Now, let's get into the show and my guest today, I am hanging out here with Nick, and Nick, you got to tell me your last name. I should have asked you before the show.    [00:01:25] Nick: No, that's okay. I tell everybody to just say "does your eye itch?" And that'll about cover it. Okay. It's pronounced (dur zye ich) Drzayich. It's a Serbian name, and it's way too many consonants in a row.    [00:01:37] Jason: Nick Drzayich. All right. From Cover Pest. Cool. And is it Cover Pest or just "Cover?" Website says "cover."    [00:01:45] Nick: Yeah. Cover Pest. Yeah.   [00:01:47] Jason: Cover Pest. Okay, cool. Well Nick, glad to have you on the show. So tell me-- give us a little bit of background. How did you-- and I'll just say for those listening, it says, "pest control solution for property managers," like on your website. So tell me a little bit about Cover Pest, and how did you get into this?    [00:02:04] Nick: Come from an insurance background actually. 13 years or so ago, I started and grew a independent life insurance agency, and so that's kind of been my background. Right. And so within insurance, you're obviously taking a big cost in life insurance. There's a death benefit with other insurances. There's big expenses that come at some point throughout the life of a policy and you're taking the cost of that and you're spreading it out among all the policy owners.    [00:02:34] Jason: Mm-hmm.   [00:02:34] Nick: So kind of with that mindset. I was chatting with my business partner who lives north of me, and he actually runs a pest control company and has for several years. We kind of got to chatting about this combination of life insurance and kind of sharing this cost, spreading the cost out and how you could potentially do that with pest control. And that's how we kind of landed on this idea of using that model to help property management companies take care of their pest control issues, which we know are just a hassle whenever they happen. Yeah. And solve that issue for them and allow them to take that off their plate and add a little bit of revenue in the meantime. Got it. And what areas do you guys cover? Is this a national business? Or is this local? How does this work? Yep. So this is a national business.   [00:03:21] We obviously have the ability to go anywhere in the country. We have, we started it here in our home state of Idaho, which is where we have the bulk of our clients. But ultimately, yeah, we we work with vendors across the country to be able to help take care of the issues that, that property managers are seeing.   [00:03:37] Jason: Cool. So help me understand how this works. Like why would a property manager decide, Hey, I should work with Cover Pest instead of just use some pest control vendors locally and connect with and have these people in as a feather in my cap. What advantages do they have with working with Cover Pest and why would a property manager choose? Or why do they choose to work with you?    [00:03:59] Nick: Yeah. Great question. So. As soon as you mention pest control to a property manager, you're probably going to get just a lot of heartache right there. Whenever an issue comes up, it's technically it's a tenant responsibility. Yeah, but ultimately it's going to come back to the maintenance manager. It's going to come back to the property management company or owner every once in a while. And so they're having to deal with finding a vendor. Vendors got to contact the tenant, get the service done, and then you got to figure out where you're sending the bill, and there's always going to be a fight there. The tenant's not going to want to pay it, the owner doesn't want to pay it, and you, as the property manager, you don't want to pay it either. And the benefit here is that, we work best with companies that have some kind of resident benefit package. So what our service does is it kind of slides right into that resident benefit package, and for a very nominal fee compared to what you would normally pay for pest control, your tenants are able to have all their pest issues covered, and when they need service, they put the request in online-- goes to call. We send a technician out and take care of it. There's no additional cost on top of what that monthly fee is.   [00:05:03] So like I mentioned, we kind of slide in the benefit packages. We also work as a standalone amenity for those that either don't want to put us in a benefit package or don't offer a benefit package.    [00:05:13] Jason: Got it. So what are what are property managers typically bundling in along with Cover Pest in, you know, in addition to Cover Pest in their resident benefits packages that you're seeing?   [00:05:26] Nick: Yeah, so oftentimes we'll see-- a big one is filter service, so furnace filters that are shipped--   [00:05:31] Jason: mm-hmm    [00:05:32] Nick: --every few months. There's a lot of times some kind of a credit building aspect to the benefit package. There's usually some kind of a maintenance, a 24 or seven maintenance benefit that's inside of that package. And then a lot of times there'll be some kind of perks. You get a free maintenance request once a year on something that would normally be charged to you, or you have late fee, late payment protection. Once per year, you can make a late payment and not have to worry about any kind of fees. So those are just some of the things that we're seeing inside of benefit packages along with our service.    [00:06:03] Jason: Got it. And what are you typically seeing property managers charge for this resident benefit package? And I would assume this is something that they're convincing the tenants to buy as a product.   [00:06:15] Nick: Yeah, so ultimately, what we've seen is that the benefit package just rolls right along with the lease agreement. There's not an option there for the tenant to either pay for or not. It just is what it is and you get it. Yep. And they range across the board, right? From, you know, 20 bucks all the way up to 75 plus dollars per month, depending on what's in the package.   [00:06:41] So when we were designing our service to be able to slide into a benefit package, we wanted to be super conscious of increasing that at all right because any increase in a benefit package cost is going to come with some kickback initially. And so there's got to be some good value there. So we had that in mind for sure, but they definitely range. They kind of run the gamut of, you know, pretty cheap all the way up to some pretty expensive packages, depending on what's offered.    [00:07:08] Jason: Got it. Now you said kickback, but I think you mean push back, right?    [00:07:13] Nick: Yeah.   [00:07:13] Jason: Okay. All right. Just making sure. People are like, "is there an affiliate thing going on here?" right. Okay. Yeah. Right. The tenants are going to be a little frustrated if it's too expensive and they're going to say, "Well, why am I being forced to do this? I don't know that I need all that stuff." Okay. So then, can you give us an idea of what this would cost? How do you price this with companies? Is this like on a per unit basis that you work out a deal with the property managers? Are there certain rates? Is this something that they just can do on certain properties that they can convince the owners to buy into? How does that typically work?    [00:07:48] Nick: Yeah. So when we onboard a company. It's pretty much an all or nothing deal. Right. We want to make sure we cover all of their properties regardless of where they're at and if they have current pest issues. We do work individually on a customized basis with each property management company to decide: "all right, what are you seeing typically pest issue wise? What package makes the most sense, and do we need to customize a package to best fit?" So, at a broad level, we have a couple of different packages. One of 'them is more of a basic package that covers the things that don't typically happen a lot, but when they do happen, it's a real hassle.   [00:08:25] So a good example of that would be bed bugs, for example. They don't happen a ton, but when they do, it's a pretty severe cost.   [00:08:32] Jason: Right.   [00:08:33] Nick: Yep. And and then going up from there, our upper package is a little bit more of the common stuff that people call on a regular basis. Your spiders, your ants, wasps, bees, that sort of thing. And so we do have a couple of packages that we work off of, but we do customize with each company and make sure that we're covering what they want and making it specific to them.    [00:08:56] Jason: Got it. I'm sure it differs. Like here in Texas, we have some big bugs and a lot of mosquitoes here in Austin, but yeah, in some markets, I would imagine you've got certain issues that are just typical to that market and then other markets you don't, and it might also have to do with sometimes-- unfortunately might have to do with the class of the property or the area of the property that it's in, how well it's maintained, stuff like that.   [00:09:21] Nick: Yeah, for sure. And I mean, ultimately we don't want the tenants to hesitate to call because that's what normally happens, right? They know that they're responsible for it.    [00:09:30] Jason: Yeah.    [00:09:30] Nick: And so, they don't call and they just kind of sweep it under the rug either literally or figuratively and the pest issue goes untreated and it can get out of hand, and so we want to eliminate that from happening. We want the tenants to feel good about where they live and have it clean. We also want the owners to understand that their property's being taken care of when it's needed and then obviously the property management companies, they don't have to hassle with the back and forth and who's paying the bill.   [00:09:57] Jason: So let's make this a little bit real. So let's say you've got a tenant. They've got some pests. I don't know what kind of pests would be a serious issue, but they decide not to call. Give me an example you've heard of, and then it's incurring additional damages that then the owner's going to have to pay for. Can you think of something like that?    [00:10:17] Nick: Well, I can tell you that, for example, like an average bed bug cost to remediate is going to be anywhere between 800 and a thousand bucks.    [00:10:25] Jason: Okay.    [00:10:25] Nick: So right there, you know, our average package is probably around 10 to 12 bucks a month. So if a tenant is paying 10 to 12 bucks a month, they have a bed bug issue, they're paying substantially less than what they would have to pay to have that remediated through just a general pest control company. Those obviously become much bigger issues when you're looking at multi-family situations where units are connected and those bugs can travel. So I've seen that stuff get pretty out of hand, but ultimately we want to get it controlled as, as quickly as we can so that doesn't happen.    [00:11:00] Jason: Yeah. I hate roaches. Really don't like those things like yeah. I remember being in some houses, like some just not really nice areas, like visiting some houses and stuff in upstate New York and high humidity, and there were some units that I went in that had some really nasty infestations with cockroaches and some of them are really freaking tiny. They're just running around all over, so. Yeah, I hate those things.    [00:11:27] Nick: It's rough. It is nice. Yeah. It's nice for the property manager to have someone else get some eyes on the property every once in a while because typically if you're seeing a lot of bugs, there's a reason. The bugs want to eat. And so there's some cleanliness issues there. So it's nice to be able for us to be able to report on what we're seeing and if we're seeing multiple calls on the same property that's a little bit of a red flag to maybe send someone out there to take a look at the property and have a chat with the tenant.   [00:11:52] Jason: Got it. Yeah. So one of the key benefits then is it's giving you greater visibility into some of the problem properties as to what's going on.    [00:12:02] Nick: Yeah, absolutely because we're going to track every time we get a service call, and you're going to see that report as well. So we can both kind of keep eyes on it.   [00:12:09] Jason: Got it. Okay, cool. So this is something they can build into, you know, along with their leases as part of their resident benefit package. It's not going to increase their costs. Does this become a profit center in any way for property managers or is this just mitigating costs?    [00:12:26] Nick: Yeah, we've had property managers use it just to kind of mitigate those costs. No additional revenue.    [00:12:32] Jason: Mm-hmm.    [00:12:32] Nick: Most of the companies we work with as with everything in their benefit package, they're going to add some kind of a mark up there or an admin fee just for them for kind of doing the work and yeah and setting up the relationship. So it makes perfect sense, so that's what most of them will do. And it's kind of up to them, how much they mark it up, but yeah, there's definitely an additional kind of profit stream there that can be created through using Cover.    [00:12:54] Jason: Got it. And certainly some advantages to taking greater care of the property. Cool. So what are the big questions besides the ones you've already touched on that when people come to you, they're really curious to know because I'm sure some of our listeners are probably thinking, "Hey, maybe this is a good idea."    [00:13:13] Nick: Yeah. Yeah. So one of the main questions I get is how do we roll it out? Yeah. And a couple different ways. Typically what we'll do is it's a kind of a slow rollout and it's upon lease renewal or a new lease creation. So as you're working with a property management company, they have new leases come up. They'll send us that batch for the month. That's renewing and we'll get them added into the service catalog. We have had companies that have gone in and asked their tenants, "Hey, do you want to opt into this right now in the middle of your lease?" and that option is there as well.    [00:13:44] Jason: Have you seen much success with that, with them doing that? What percentage do you see typically? I don't know if you have that data, but...   [00:13:52] Nick: that are opting in?   [00:13:54] Jason: Yeah. If they put it out to all of their residents for opt in, I'm just curious what the typical response rate is that people are like, "yeah. I'll go ahead and do that." Maybe 10%?   [00:14:05] Nick: Yeah. It's not high. Not high--   [00:14:07] Jason: yeah   [00:14:07] Nick: because--    [00:14:08] Jason: I would imagine it's like, "Hey spend more money. Do you want to?" And they're like, " yeah."    [00:14:11] Nick: exactly. Yep.    [00:14:13] Jason: Okay.    [00:14:13] Nick: So most frequently, most commonly, it'll be rolled out as leases are renewed and as new properties or leases are assigned, that's the most common way that it's done.    [00:14:23] Jason: Okay. Got it. So they sign up with you. You've worked out the pricing based on what sort of package they need, you implement, consult them and help them figure out how they're going to roll this out, and they're probably building this into their lease with some verbiage. You typically provide some verbiage for them to add to their lease as part of this.    [00:14:41] Nick: Yep, absolutely. We have some stuff that you can throw in.    [00:14:44] Jason: And then they get this rolled out. So then they've got this new maybe profit center, but at least it's being paid for by somebody. It's increasing the visibility. It's decreasing some of the potential costs for the owners. It's protecting the owners. If something gets really bad it could cause a lot of damage. And I'm curious, like, you've mentioned bed bugs, and I mentioned roaches, but what else are you typically seeing causes a lot of damage? I mean, termites, we hear a lot about. Is this something that is checked for or like relevant?   [00:15:13] Nick: Yeah. wood destroying bugs like termites are a completely different animal.    [00:15:18] Jason: Yeah.   [00:15:18] Nick: That's not honestly a part of what we do. It's another specialty altogether. As far as damage is concerned, mice and rats are another one that are--   [00:15:28] Jason: oh yeah.   [00:15:28] Nick: --they're out there, and we hear about them and we treat for those. Those ones will come in and cause some real issues. If nothing else, just scaring the crap out of people.   [00:15:37] Jason: Yeah, that's true. Yeah. And then, you know, safely doing the cleanup because--   [00:15:42] Nick: right.    [00:15:43] Jason: --You know, some issues with some of that stuff, so yeah.    [00:15:46] Nick: Yeah.    [00:15:47] Jason: And so no on termites, but yes, on bed bugs, roaches and mice and and rats. Okay. Got it. Any other questions that property managers might ask that would be curious about your service or that you'd like them to understand or know?   [00:16:02] Nick: Yeah, maybe just to, again point out that sometimes when we go out to do a service the property management company will expect another bill from us or think that there'll be another bill coming, but it's all taken care of. Just in that monthly subscription that's paid for by the tenant. There's no additional fee, no additional cost. We go out and we take care of it. And so that's a common question, common concern. One other one that comes to mind is sometimes they'll be rehabbing a property or making some significant changes to one of their properties and they'll want to stop the service or pause the service. We're definitely open to doing that and have done that. So pausing service during a rehab or big remodel is definitely something we can do. That's one question that has come up in the past as well.    [00:16:44] Jason: Unless they potentially could uncover something in the walls during that room.   [00:16:49] Nick: Right. Right. Yeah. And that's another thing to mention. Yeah. Another thing to mention is the service kind of runs with the address, not necessarily the tenant, so--    [00:16:59] Jason: okay.   [00:16:59] Nick: --if you have a property that maybe sat vacant for a couple months, and you had a maintenance manager out there to check on something and he notice a pest issue. He can just give us a call and we'll go take care of it. Even though there's not a tenant in there, because it kind of runs with the address.    [00:17:15] Jason: Got it. And that justifies including it as part of the rent as well. So if you're saying, "Hey, this. This property, in some instances like in California, like you have to usually pay for lawn care if you want the lawn to be maintained because some people just won't do it sometimes, right? So there's certain things you would include. So this would be included. You could then-- that could be a selling point to the tenants. Like this comes with a resident benefit package where it includes this and this, you won't have to worry about pest control. You won't, and these other things.   [00:17:46] Nick: Yep, exactly.   [00:17:47] Jason: Okay. So potentially as the benefit of helping, sweeten the deal a little bit on a potential rental property for a potential resident, so.   [00:17:55] Nick: For sure. Yeah.    [00:17:57] Jason: Cool. Well, I think we've covered most of the highlights. This sounds like-- it sounds like a no brainer. It sounds like a good service. Let's tell everybody how to get in touch with you and how to find you.   [00:18:10] Nick: Yeah, super easy. Our website is CoverPest.com and you can call me anytime. My number's (208) 477-1330. That's my cell. And you can go on to CoverPest.com, submit a form, and we're happy to chat about creating kind of a custom pricing model for your property management company.    [00:18:29] Jason: Cool. So I want to ask one more question. So when they hear you say, "you'll call my cell" and "here's my number," they might be thinking, is this a scalable business? What if somebody has 10,000 doors or they're a big conglomerate, you know, or they're a small property manager. Is this a scalable model for you? Can you handle different size property management companies?   [00:18:50] Nick: Yeah, what's nice is that our portal, our backend portal that's a part of our website makes it really easy for property management companies to go in and add their properties to their list. So every time they have a backed upload of lease renewals. They go to the service portal, they put it in there and they're added and they can see exactly which properties are covered in that month. And then, yeah, we work with a network of pest control companies that we use as vendors to service accounts that we get with property management companies in different states, if that makes.    [00:19:23] Jason: Got it. So you've got this all figured out really well. I appreciate you coming the show, Nick, and it's been great hearing about Cover Pest. So thanks. Thanks for coming on.    [00:19:33] Nick: Yeah, thanks so much for having me. I appreciate it.    [00:19:36] Jason: All right. Cool. So check them out at coverpest.com sounds like a good service. And as always give me your feedback. I want to hear... those of you that work with Cover Pest, let me know how it goes. And those of you that are tuning in for the first time, and you got some value from this episode, or if you're not tuning in for the first time, give us some feedback. If you find us on YouTube, The Google play store, or you find us on Spotify or iTunes, give us some feedback. We'd love to hear what you think of the show. And we may even give you a shout out on a future episode. So we appreciate that. And if you're interested in growing your business, check us out at doorgrow.com, and if you want to join our free community of property management entrepreneurs, you can go to doorgrowclub.com and that will get you to our Facebook group.    [00:20:23] Join that community. We've got some great people in there and you know, a rising tide raises all ships, as they say this will allow you to connect with some other property managers and have a resource you can go to to ask questions. And we'd love to hear from any of you inside there, so make sure you join. And until next time, to our mutual growth. Bye everyone.   [00:20:49] 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!    [00:21:16] At DoorGrow, we solve your biggest challenge: getting deals and growing your business. Find out more at doorgrow.com. Find any show notes or links from today's episode on our blog doorgrow.com, and to get notified of future events and news subscribe to our newsletter at doorgrow.com/subscribe. Until next time, take what you learn and start DoorGrow Hacking your business and your life.
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Sep 20, 2022 • 17min

DGS 188: Eliminating The Biggest Time Suck In Property Management Sales

Wouldn’t it be nice if you could eliminate the majority of all sales follow-up and get a higher close rate? There is a way to almost completely eliminate the need for following up in sales. In this episode, property management growth expert, Jason Hull, the founder and CEO of DoorGrow, spills the secrets to eliminating follow-up in property management. You’ll Learn… [01:12] Eliminating the Biggest Time Suck in Sales [02:41] Always Schedule the Next Interaction [07:23] What to do When You Get Resistance [09:30] Getting Follow-Up Permission [11:54] Giving Leads an “Out” [13:00] Collapsing Time in Sales Tweetables “Wouldn't it be great if you could eliminate the majority of all that follow-up and get a higher close rate.” “The only reason you need to follow up with people is because you failed to schedule the next interaction.” “The way to eliminate follow-up altogether is to not have to not have to follow up. It's scheduled already.” “Eliminate the need for follow-up by always, always, always schedule the next interaction if you can.” Resources DoorGrow and Scale Mastermind DoorGrow Academy DoorGrow on YouTube DoorGrowClub DoorGrowLive TalkRoute Referral Link Transcript [00:00:00] Eliminate the need for follow-up by always, always, always schedule the next interaction if you can.   [00:00:05] All right. Welcome, DoorGrow Hackers to the #DoorGrowShow. If you are a property management entrepreneur that wants to add doors, make a difference, increase revenue, help others, impact lives, and you're interested in growing your business and in life, and you're open to doing things a bit differently, then you are a DoorGrow Hacker. DoorGrow Hackers love the opportunities, the daily variety, the unique challenges, and freedom that property management brings. Many in real estate think you're crazy for doing it. You think they're crazy for not because you realize that property management is the ultimate, high-trust gateway to real estate deals, relationships and residual income.   [00:00:42] At DoorGrow, we are on a mission to transform property management, business owners and their businesses. We want to transform the industry, eliminate the BS, build awareness, change perception, expand the market, and help the best property management entrepreneurs win. I'm your host, property management growth expert Jason Hull, the founder and CEO of DoorGrow. Now, let's get into the show.    [00:01:05] So today's topic. I started late today because I was like, "What do I want to talk about?" And I was thinking about what I wanted to talk about, and the topic that I decided on is eliminating the biggest time suck in sales to close more property management deals.You want to close more property management deals? One quick way is to eliminate the biggest time suck that happens during sales. You want to know what one of the most important things it is to do, but also one of the biggest time sucks in sales. It's follow-up, right? We know that if we don't follow up, you're way less likely to get the deal. If you don't have a good sales CRM, you don't have good follow-up mechanisms in place, you're less likely to get the deal sometimes just following up, gets you the deal. However, if you're spending the majority of your time following up all the time, wouldn't it be great if you could eliminate the majority of all that follow-up and get a higher close rate-- higher close rate than if you were spending most of your time following up-- by eliminating it. I know that sounds crazy. Right. "How could I do that?" I'm going to share with you a secret that I've taught my clients over the years. That's been very effective, something I use in my own business, something I train my sales team on, and this is how to eliminate the need for follow-up.    [00:02:22] So what is follow up? So if you do a cold call or cold interaction with somebody and maybe schedule a call, and you get on a call with them, and you talk with them and maybe it goes pretty well. Then, you need to follow up afterwards-- is what people think, but the only reason you need to follow up with people is because you failed to schedule the next interaction. So, I'm just telling you this secret. It's really simple. The easiest way to eliminate follow up and increase your close rate so you collapse time on the sales cycle, so it takes less time to close deals and you get a higher close rate you're making more money, and the way to eliminate follow-up altogether is to not have to not have to follow up. It's scheduled already. Schedule the next interaction. This is the big secret. It's one of my major key principles I teach in my Sales Secrets training in DoorGrow Academy to our mastermind clients. Eliminate the need for follow-up by always, always, always schedule the next interaction if you can. So what does that mean? What does that look like?   [00:03:30] So let's say you do a cold interaction with somebody and they're like, "Yeah, maybe I'll listen to you. Let's set up a call," and you schedule a call. Well, odds are because it's scheduled, you're going to show up, they're going to show up. You don't need to keep like reaching out, following up, right? Well, during that call, one of your main goals at the end of that call might be to close the deal, but likely you're not going to close the deal on just two interactions, right? A cold one and then one where you kind of pitch your third interaction-- maybe. Maybe it's going to take multiple interactions. So during each interaction, if you always make it a goal to schedule the next interaction-- So you're talking to somebody you're like, "Hey Susie, it's been great getting to know you and your property management needs, really excited where this conversation's going. I think you might be a good fit for our portfolio of properties that we manage. I'd love to set up the next call and go to that next step and share a little bit more detail about what we do," or if they say, "I needed my spouse or business partner," like, "Cool. Let's set a time and bring them to that call. I'll send you some material to check out between now and then. Let's set up a time. When do you think would be a good time where we could all three get together.    [00:04:37] So you want to schedule the next interaction, and the way to do that is you just want to ask them like," how's Thursday at two?" give them a time so they can say yes or no. Don't say, "_When _is a good time," I will ask, "When would be a good time? How's Thursday at two?" So I ask the question, and then I give them an answer. So ask the question, like, "When would be a great time for us to get back together?" And "How's Thursday at two?" then it's a yes or no, it's not like, oh, they start thinking about all the 10 things they have in their week. If they can think of three things, they have to do that week or three things they have to do in a day, they feel overwhelmed and they think, "I'm totally busy that day. I'm so busy this week. I've got my kids starting school. I've got a dentist appointment, and I gotta get my dog groomed." so they're like, "My week... I'm thinking of these things..." and our brain usually can't hold onto more than like three things a lot of times.    [00:05:34] This is why everybody uses lists of three. And so they're going to go, "Oh my gosh. It's not a good week. I've got like three significant things," when they have like maybe 40 hours in a week, maybe more, you know, available that's being spent towards different things throughout the day, work, etc. Maybe they have plenty of time after hours, but there might be a time, right? So if you say, "Well, how's Thursday at two?" If it's a no, they're going to say, "Well, that doesn't work for me," and you're like, "Okay. How's Friday, like maybe at 10:00 AM?" So you can just start trying different times if you have your schedule up while you do this. So get your schedule ready before you end a call or conversation and schedule the next interaction. Always, always, always schedule the next interaction. This is the big secret.   [00:06:20] So if they don't, if they don't take a time, if they give you like some excuse, they might not be interested. That might be the case. But usually what'll happen is they'll say something like, "You know what, Thursday at two's not good. Actually, this week's crazy. Why don't I reach out to you?" That sort of thing. So that puts the ball in their court and now you're going to have to follow up.    [00:06:41] I don't like following up because following up makes you appear needy, and needy is creepy in sales. I want you to be high value. I want people to be wanting to work with you because you're so great. I want people to think of you as the sexy guy or girl at the bar, right? The sexy guy or girl at the bar does not get with everybody. That doesn't make them attractive, right? They're picky about who they work with or who they get with or whatever we're talking about. So you want to be that attractive person at the bar. You want to be that attractive person that says, "You know what? I'm not sure if you're a good fit for our portfolio. I'm not sure if I want to work with you."   [00:07:19] That's another. Hack or tip or secret. So if they resist and they're like, "You know what, I don't know what a time is," I usually just then do the takeaway. The takeaway in sales is just, "Hey, you know, if this isn't interesting to you, Susie, it's totally cool. Just let me know and I'll take you off my follow-up list." usually, if they're not interested, they might say, "Yeah, you know what? I'll reach back out when/ if I'm ready, whatever," they're basically saying in a nice way: "I don't care about what you offer and I'm not really interested, but it'll continue to be nice and waste your time and you can follow] up endlessly with me, keep chasing me, and eventually someday you might figure it out, but I'm not just going to come out and tell you, so just let them off the hook. "Hey, if this isn't interesting to you, if there's other companies you really would rather work with for some crazy reason, then just let me know and I'll take you off my follow-up list.    [00:08:07] Otherwise, I know how busy you are..." this is where it's going to continue unless they do take the out-- "I know how busy you are, so I will continue to follow up until you either tell me, no, you're not interested or I get you on as a client, just letting you know." So then you're letting him know, like the only way out of this loop of follow-up or of appointments or out of your sales process. The only way they can get out is if they're honest with you and they tell you, "No thanks." That's it. They take the out, or they sign up as a client. There's no excuses or like, well, maybe later or, you know, this sort of thing. So go for the next action, like get the next interaction scheduled. If you can't get that, try doing a takeaway. If you feel resistance at all, try doing a takeaway, and what they usually will do though, is not that what they'll usually do is they'll lean back into you because now you're saying, "Well, if this isn't interesting, I'm happy to just take this away." and that's the takeaway in sales. So they're going to lean back into you and go, "No, no, no. I am interested. It's just really a crazy week," and you say, "No problem. I totally understand. When would be a good time for us to get back together? How's next week, maybe on Tuesday? Do you have your calendar ready?"    [00:09:27] and so then they're like, "Yeah, next week would be good." Now, if you can't get the next scheduled interaction, the booby prize is to get follow-up permission. So if they're like, "Well, I don't know my schedule next week." You're like, "Ugh, I'm trying so hard." They're like, "I don't know my schedule next week." and you're like, "Curses!" So then what you're going to do is you're going to say, "Hey, no problem. Why don't I send you my schedule link? I have a calendly.com link. I'll send you my Calendly link. You can pick whatever time works for you. If I don't see something come through by Monday, would it be fair for me to reach out? Would it be okay for me to reach out and see if we could get something scheduled?" and they'll say, "Yeah, sure. So now it's in their court. They can use your schedule link, but it's their choice. And if they don't do it, you're going to follow up. So then you just put a note in your CRM, 'follow up on Monday if nothing's scheduled,' and you check on Monday, you're looking at your list of things to do, and you're like, "Oh, they didn't schedule. I don't see a Calendly or a calendar event scheduled. I'm going to follow up with them."    [00:10:29] So you reach out and you call them up and you don't do a typical follow-up where you sound needy or creepy. You say, "Hey Susie, um, I had down in my notes here to reach out to you if I didn't see something come through, as far as scheduling a time, see if we could get back together. You'd wanted me to reach out and get a time scheduled, so here I am. I'm calling. When is a good time?" And then, if she gives you more resistance, do the takeaway again, and you continue this cycle and they stay in this loop with you permanently forever until they give you a no. Now I generally have kind of a three-strikes rule. So if I feel deep down intuitively that I'm just chasing somebody and they're wasting my time, I just completely take it away legitimately. I'm like, "Alright." I just send them an email or note or if they're ghosting me or I'll just tell them on the phone, "look. I've been following up with you or trying to reach out for several weeks now. It doesn't sound like this is really something that might actually happen. You know, if I'm wrong, let me know but you may just being nice. Yeah. I don't know, but I don't want to waste your time or waste mine, so when you're ready to get it serious about this, or you're ready to move forward, or you want to work with the best property manager in Tucson, Arizona, (or wherever you're at) feel free to reach out, and we can have a conversation and see if we're going to be a good fit for each other. Sound fair?"   [00:11:48] And they'll say, "Yeah, yeah, that sounds fair." "Cool. You know, I'll let you go." Right. So that's kind of what I would do. Sometimes, you need to just completely pull out and take it off at the table and let them know. I've even gone so far with some clients that were like wishy-washy, ghosting us that I know are not going to be good coaching clients... I just take it away from them because they've unqualified themselves. Sometimes I'll take it. I'll let them know, "Hey look, our sales team has had a really difficult time following up with you. You're difficult to reach. You don't respond to our texts or our emails. We can only work with clients that are communicative. We only want to work with clients that do this, that this..." because it's about what you want too, right? "We only want to work with clients that we can help get results that communicate with our team, that aren't difficult, they don't ghost us, they like communicate. And so far, you've proven that you're not that client. So if in the future, you are interested in doing this, which you've told me multiple times that you are, we'll need to have a conversation to see if you're ready to become serious about this and kind of go to the next level and be reliable n communicating with us. Sound fair?" "Yeah. Okay." "All right, cool. You know, good luck, and when you're ready to reach out, we can have that conversation."   [00:13:00] So hopefully this is helpful. So really simple, put them into a loop, a cyclical loop that you're going to continue of more effective follow-up by always scheduling the next interaction, and if you can't, schedule follow-up permission. You basically get permission to follow up. "Cool. Would it be okay if I follow up on Monday or early next week if I don't see something come through and reach out? Would that be cool? And they'll say, yeah, that sounds fair. That sounds cool, and you just keep doing this, so eventually they're either going to have to tell you "no" to get rid of you and be honest and let you go, or they're going to work with you, and they're going to appreciate if they are interested. Eventually, if they're not, they'll let you know. But if they are interested, they will be impressed by your commitment, your follow-up, and your follow-through in doing what you say you're going to do and being your word and keeping your commitments. You reach out on Monday. "I'll follow up on Monday with you, or I'll follow up with you early next week,: and you reach out then. "Cool. Do you still want to do this? If you're not interested? It's cool. Just let me know. I'm a big boy. I won't cry. Just let me know, and I'll take you off our list. I don't want to waste your time or mine. It's totally cool."   [00:14:08] And then they give you some sort of additional excuse that's them saying " yes." And if they don't, then you're gold. You just keep doing it. And you're going to get way more deals and you're going to waste a lot less time following up. So I hope this has been helpful, and for those of you that want to be in a community-- that's free-- of property management entrepreneurs that are supportive, that want to make a difference that want to help other people, people that resonate with, me and my message and DoorGrow and our show, then join our free community on Facebook. It's the DoorGrow club. The DoorGrow club you can get to by going to DoorGrowclub.com. So check us out there and we would love to have you join our group and a community. Really, I do these episodes for free. And my team pushed me to do it. Like I love coaching clients, but sitting here just talking and hearing myself talk isn't super exciting to me.   [00:15:00] The only thing is exciting about doing these podcast episodes is I know that it's going to help someone. Some of you and I, you know, I like making money, so I know it's going to feed some of you coming to us. We get a lot of business from the podcast, but really, I do this just to serve, I do this and make a difference, and I'm hoping this benefits you. If this did benefit you in any way, if our episodes do, please leave us some feedback. Like we want to hear what you think about the show. We want some reviews on iTunes. We want some reviews on YouTube. Comment on YouTube. Where are we at? Where else are we now? We're on Spotify now. Wherever you see us-- I think on the Google play store or some other place-- so wherever you're listening to this at, make sure you comment or leave us some feedback or review and we're going to start giving some shoutouts. We monitor these reviews and I'm going to try and get my team to pay attention to those of you that are doing reviews.   [00:15:49] Make sure your name is in it or on it. And we'll give you some shoutouts if you give us some feedback or anything, we'll acknowledge what you're talking about most likely, so. Give us a good review, and we'll start doing some shout-outs on some of these shows. So we'd really appreciate that.   [00:16:03] So, and that is it for today. So that's it. Bye, everyone.   [00:16:08] You just listened to the #DoorGrowShow. We are building a community of the savviest property management entrepreneurs on the planet in the DoorGrowClub. Join your fellow DoorGrow Hackers at doorgrowclub.com. Listen, everyone is doing the same stuff. SEO, PPC, pay-per-lead content, social direct mail, and they still struggle to grow!    [00:16:35] At DoorGrow, we solve your biggest challenge: getting deals and growing your business. Find out more at doorgrow.com. Find any show notes or links from today's episode on our blog doorgrow.com, and to get notified of future events and news subscribe to our newsletter at doorgrow.com/subscribe. Until next time, take what you learn and start DoorGrow Hacking your business and your life.
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Sep 13, 2022 • 10min

DGS 187: The Myth Of Not Having Enough Time In Property Management

Everyone on Earth has the same amount of time… the same 24 hours in a day, the same 7 days in a week, the same 365 days in a year. I hear the excuse of not having enough time from property management entrepreneurs all the time. The truth is… this is just a myth. Join property management growth expert, Jason Hull as he debunks the myth of not having enough time in your property management business. Learn how to take the time you have and utilize it effectively in this short episode. You’ll Learn… [01:14] The Excuse of Not Having Enough Time [02:41] You Have the Same Amount of Time as Everyone Else… Take Control of it [05:37] Entrepreneurs Want MORE Than just More Money [06:48] Figure out: What are Your True Priorities? Tweetables “Supporting others and contributing to others is its own reward in life.” “If you're not getting the results that you want, that's evidence that you're not spending your currencies-- probably especially time and focus-- on the right things.” “Time is, I think the most valuable, but focus is the most important when it comes to growing a business.” “When you say you don't have time, you put yourself in a position in which you are a victim of circumstance. You have no control.” Resources DoorGrow and Scale Mastermind DoorGrow Academy DoorGrow on YouTube DoorGrowClub DoorGrowLive TalkRoute Referral Link Transcript [00:00:00] Is it really true you don't have time? Does anybody else on the planet have time to do something similar? Yes. So it's not whether or not the time exists to do certain things, really the honest thing to take a look at is priorities.    [00:00:13] All right. Welcome, DoorGrow Hackers to the #DoorGrowShow. If you are a property management entrepreneur that wants to add doors, make a difference, increase revenue, help others, impact lives, and you're interested in growing your business and in life, and you're open to doing things a bit differently, then you are a DoorGrow Hacker. DoorGrow Hackers love the opportunities, the daily variety, the 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. We want to transform the industry, eliminate the BS, build awareness, change perception, expand the market, and help the best property management entrepreneurs win. I'm your host, property management growth expert Jason Hull, the founder and CEO of DoorGrow. Now, let's get into the show.    [00:01:12] So today's topic-- what I wanted to touch on is something that I shared with some of my clients several weeks back, and I want to talk about the lie or the myth of time as an excuse. So this is something we hear at DoorGrow all the time. We give property managers all these cool ideas and ways to grow their business, and we give them very clear strategies. We even give them scripts, and we often will hear the excuse: "I don't have enough time," and so we have a whole training we built around time to eliminate all of the time that they're spending, but I want to talk about this lie of time. When somebody says, "I don't have time to do this. I don't have enough time," it's not really true. Is it really true you don't have time? Does anybody else on the planet have time to do something similar? Yes. So it's not whether or not the time exists to do certain things, really the honest thing to take a look at is priorities. It's prioritization. Right? So if you say, "I don't have time to do some outreach to investors to add doors, for example," what you're really saying is: "I am prioritizing other things in my business. I'm prioritizing doing maintenance coordination right now. That's my priority. I'm prioritizing handling leasing stuff right now. That's my priority." You may say like, "I don't have time to go to your event," or "I don't have time to do this thing," or "I don't have time for that," but what you're really saying is: "I'm choosing something else."    [00:02:41] See, when you say you don't have time, you put yourself in a position in which you are a victim of circumstance. You have no control, and when you use victim language and victim circumstance and stuff like that, that rewires your brain in a negative way. It rewires your unconscious mind and your subconscious in a negative way. You, my friend, are not a victim. You are at choice. There's two things in the universe. This is a universal thing that probably existed since time began, however, it began, is the law of cause and the law of effect. And so there's two things that exist in the universe: things that act and things that are acted upon. And you don't want to be the thing that's acted upon. You want to be the thing that acts, you want to be the thing that's at choice. You want to be the thing that's in control. Victims are having to be reactive. They're being acted upon. You're not a victim. You're a choice. You chose your life. You are choosing your results right now that you're getting in your business, whether you like them or not, it's your choice. You are choosing whether or not you get support or help you're choosing whether or not you're vulnerable and ask people for support or help. And so you are also choosing how you spend your time. It's your choice. You're prioritizing things, you're just not maybe very good at prioritizing things if you don't have enough time if you find yourself saying that a lot. So you don't generally hear me say, like, "I don't have time for that," or "I don't have enough time," and if I do, what I mean is: "that's not a priority for me. I don't have time to do it because I would rather do this." That's more honest, right? " This is not really a priority. My highest priority right now is coaching clients," or "my highest priority right now is this event that I have coming up," or whatever it might be, or "my highest priority right now is spending time with my kids in this moment," right?    [00:04:29] So I want you to start eliminating the excuse or the lie of saying, "I don't have enough time." You have as much time in a day as everybody else-- Elon Musk, Steve jobs back when he was alive, right? They all had 24 hours in a day. You have the same amount of time as everybody else on the planet. You don't know how much time you have in your life. It is the scarcest resource. I think it's the most important resource out of all the five currencies: time, energy, focus, cash, and effort. Time is, I think the most valuable, but focus is the most important when it comes to growing a business. And so if you don't have enough time, it's because you're choosing to focus on probably the wrong things based on results. Like, if you're not getting the results that you want, that's evidence that you're not spending your currencies-- probably especially time and focus-- on the right things to get the business forward or to get what you want, and I want you to have what you want, because    [00:05:37] I believe what entrepreneurs really want isn't just more money, it isn't to hurt people, it's to get what I call the four reasons-- which I've talked about in a previous episode-- but those reasons are you want more fulfillment in life. You deserve that your kids and your family and your spouse, they all deserve to see somebody that is alive and loves doing what they're doing. That's the best version of you. Fulfillment. Second is freedom. You should have more and more freedom. This is why we think we want money, and I like money. It's great, but it's because I want to have more of these things and you can have more money and not give yourself more of these things, right? Like you have less fulfillment and less freedom in your business right now. So I want to make sure that you have more freedom, more fulfillment, more contribution, and more support in your business. Once you have those first two you just now want to make a difference. That's contribution, and then after that, you're going to want to make sure you have support because it means you don't want to do everything in the business. You don't want to wear every hat. You need a team, you need support, and you want to support others. Supporting others and contributing to others is its own reward in life. I get to do that every day. It's really rewarding, and these are what I want out of life. This is what I want out of my business. And so I want you to give up the excuse of time.   [00:06:48] And I hope this really short episode was helpful for you. I hope it helps you take a look at where you've been a little bit dishonest with yourself and others and you start figuring out: 'what really matters to me? What are my priorities? Is it a priority for me to grow this business? Is it a priority for me to take care of my family, leveraging this business? Is it a priority for me to just get money or do I have four priorities that are more important? Fulfillment, freedom, contribution, and support?' If you do that introspection, I hope you get some really good insights. If this is helpful and you'd like some more ideas and tips, or you'd like to work with us, reach out to us at DoorGrow. We would love to support and help you. We've got some cool stuff going on. We innovate so rapidly now. We have so many new things that we're doing. We spend over six figures annually on coaches and mentors, high-level masterminds, people that have scaled and built businesses up to a billion dollars, and these are the people that we are learning and growing from in our organization so that we can turn around and support our clients, so check out our new Built to Sell program if you want to build a business that you could exit from and then decide you don't want to sell it, but you still might want to exit from it. Right? But that's the ultimate freedom. So our Built to Sell program is really awesome. Over the next three to five years, we're going to be taking business owners through this program.   [00:08:07] So if you would like to get in on and build your business to sell so you can exit it in the next three to five years for a seven-figure exit, or just have the ultimate level of those four reasons and do something every day that you love. Either way, we want to help support you towards that goal, so reach out to us and ask us about our new first 90-day onboarding period during this it's called the Rapid Revamp, and we are revamping your entire business in 90 days, including branding, website, sales. I just did a previous episode on this, so you can check that out. It's a really cool program. We're actually restructuring the order of the weeks based on what we're learning in our first class. So we're taking clients through right now. So class two's going to be even more awesome than what you heard about on the previous episode.   [00:08:48] So, that's it for today. So until next time, to our mutual growth. Bye, everyone.   [00:08:52] 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!    [00:09:19] At DoorGrow, we solve your biggest challenge: getting deals and growing your business. Find out more at doorgrow.com. Find any show notes or links from today's episode on our blog doorgrow.com, and to get notified of future events and news subscribe to our newsletter at doorgrow.com/subscribe. Until next time, take what you learn and start DoorGrow Hacking your business and your life.
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Sep 6, 2022 • 19min

DGS 186: Playing The Game When Growing Your Property Management Business

Almost everyone loves a good game with high risk and high rewards. Owning a business is the ULTIMATE high-risk, high-reward game. If you are currently avoiding taking risks, you are avoiding playing the game… this means also avoiding the rewards! Today, property management growth expert, Jason Hull explores the idea of “playing the game,” finding hope and faith to play the game, taking risks, and finding rewards.  You’ll Learn… [01:11] Business is a Game + Why Change is Necessary [07:12] Feel the Fear and Do it Anyway [10:21] How and Why YOU are in Control of the Game [11:30] Why we Ask our Clients to Do Uncomfortable Things [13:40] Lessons Learned from Our Live Events [16:17] A Program Designed to Help You WIN the Game Tweetables “If your goals don't scare you a little bit, they're not big enough.” “It actually gets easier the bigger you get and the more doors you have if you do it the right way.” “Business is the ultimate game.” “Every good thing that's ever come to you in your entire life came as a result of change.” Resources DoorGrow and Scale Mastermind DoorGrow Academy DoorGrow on YouTube DoorGrowClub DoorGrowLive TalkRoute Referral Link Transcript [00:00:00] Life is a high-risk, high-reward type of game, and if you're not playing the game, you're avoiding playing the game, then you're avoiding risk, which means you're also avoiding getting the rewards, and if you want to grow your business, you need to be willing to take those risks.   [00:00:12] All right, welcome DoorGrow Hackers to the #DoorGrowShow. If you are a property management entrepreneur that wants to add doors, make a difference, increase revenue, help others, impact lives, and you're interested in growing in business and life, and you're open to doing things a bit differently, then you are a DoorGrow Hacker. DoorGrow Hackers love the opportunities, daily variety, unique challenges, and freedom that property management brings. Many in real estate think you're crazy for doing it. You think they're crazy for not because you realize that property management is the ultimate, high trust gateway to real estate deals, relationships, and residual income.   [00:00:48] At DoorGrow, we are on a mission to transform property management business owners and their businesses. We want to transform the industry, eliminate the BS, build awareness, change perception, expand the market, and help the best property management entrepreneurs win. I'm your host, property management growth expert, Jason Hull, the founder and CEO of DoorGrow. Now, let's get into the show.    [00:01:11] All right. So what we're gonna be talking about today is: play the game. This is the conversation topic that I talked with my coaching clients today. When we're kids, we enjoy playing games, right? Maybe you played video games. Maybe you played board games. There's games like Monopoly that have been around forever, and why are these games popular? Monopoly is a popular game because it's a game that has high risk and high reward. You can land on one square and lose almost everything, right? And you can build up a square in which somebody can land on something and you can gain everything, right? So high risk, high reward. That is how the game of life is played. Life is a high risk, high reward type of game, and if you're not playing the game, you're you're avoiding playing the game, then you're avoiding risk, which means you're also avoiding getting the rewards, and if you want to grow your business, you need to be willing to take those risks because that's what kind of makes entrepreneurs stand out as different. That's what makes you different. Most people on the planet want safety certainty. That's a higher priority. You cannot have a maximum level of safety certainty and run a business.   [00:02:26] You have to be willing to step into some risk. You have to be willing to try stuff. You have to be willing to fail sometimes. Now one of my favorite mantras that I love to say when I'm experiencing what feels like failure is I love to say and tell myself that I'm either going to win or I'm going to learn. There's no failure, right? You either win or you learn. The only way I fail is if I quit, if I give up. That's the only way I fail. If I'm unwilling to quit, I can't fail. I will eventually figure it out. It might be hard. It might take me a while, but if I'm unwilling to give up, if I'm unwilling to quit, I can't fail. I'm just going to keep learning. Right. The reason I talked about this with clients today is because, in entrepreneurism, in growing your business, you have to make changes. And so I asked my clients today. I said, "Hey, what is your perception of change? What phrases and things do you think are associated with the word change? What do other people think about the word change? And I said, "Comment in the chat," and we got words like 'uncertain' and, you know, ' fear' and 'uncomfortable' and 'necessary' and stuff like that. And so I wanted to reframe that and I said, "What I would like you to do is to reframe change and realize that every single good thing that's come to you in your life, every single good thing came as result of some sort of change. So a lot of times our brain wants to focus that change can be uncomfortable, painful, all these difficult things, but all of the good things that you've had, maybe you found your ultimate life, partner, spouse, whatever, maybe you had kids and that was a big deal to you and you love them. Like maybe you accomplished and earned a degree, or maybe you had some big goal that you hit, or maybe you've built an empire or a business, right? These things are things that took risk, but they also, they had a reward and they involved change. Every good thing that's ever come to you in your entire life came as a result of change.   [00:04:34] And so there's levels to this game that we play in life and in business, and business is the ultimate game. It's the game that has endless levels. Like you just keep leveling up, and in property management, there are specific levels-- I talked about at the conference that we just put on-- specific levels that you go through at certain door ranges and certain challenges that exist at those door ranges, and I've talked about this a bit on previous episodes going through each of the major stages that I notice. And at each of these stages, there's these milestones, these challenges, these things that you have to overcome, these things you have to stop doing and give up and things that you have to start doing and adopt. It's always change, and if you are unwilling to change, if you put a cap on future growth right now in your mind, which means right now, you say, "I only want to get to 200 doors," or, "I only want to get to 300 doors," and you're doing that because of fear, because of fear of pain, you are telling your unconscious mind, "You better avoid getting to that because that is my pain threshold. That's where pain will exist." So your unconscious mind or your subconscious will sabotage and make your life more challenging and help you make bad decisions so that you do not get to that point because that's your maximum level of discomfort or pain is what you're thinking in the back of your mind.   [00:05:54] I want you to recognize and realize that on the other side of pain, fear, discomfort is all of the good stuff. If you grow a business to, say, a thousand doors or greater, and you do it in a healthy way, you can have the ultimate business. You can have the ultimate level of freedom. You can have the ultimate level of fulfillment in life. You can have the ultimate level of contribution and feel like you're making a difference. You can have the ultimate level of support. It actually gets easier the bigger you get and the more doors you have if you do it the right way because you have more resources, you have more finances, you have more money available to hire team members, get systems, to offload. You don't have to be doing anything in your business that you don't want to be doing at that level. And so business actually gets better. It gets better, but yes, there's some painful spots that people give up on. I see a lot of people get stuck at 50, 60 units. I see a lot of people not be able to break that a hundred or barrier, and I see a lot get stuck in that 200 to 400 door category, and they're just maxed out on discomfort. They don't know how to get out of that. And so what I want you to understand is anything you're going to do ever is going to involve some change and you're going to feel afraid to do it because we all start at level one.   [00:07:10] We all start at 'level suck.' That's where we all start, and you're going to start with fear. What I want you to recognize with fear is that when you feel fear but you know it's the right thing that you should be doing, you do it anyway. You feel the fear and do it anyway. You don't wait until the fear goes away. You don't try and kill all the fear. That's what courage is. That's what bravery is. You just do it. And so if you are in a state of fear, all you need to have is hope. You need to transmute that to hope. You need to focus on the goal that you want, the outcome that you want, something positive that you want and create some hope. And then you're going to take action. And if you take action, you'll move towards that next stage out of fear to faith, the opposite and the way that we get to faith, the way that we have faith in something is evidence. This is where we know, like I have faith that this light switch right here on the wall back here, if I go and turn on the one on the right, it will turn on the light above me. I have knowledge that that will happen. I already know. I already have evidence. Faith in your self, faith in your business, these are created through evidence. You need evidence. If you don't have the evidence, you need to create the evidence, and how do you do that? By having hope and by taking action. So you move from fear to faith through hope. You just got to hope for better things and take massive action.    [00:08:30] Taking action alone is what kills that doubt and fear monster, so it kills it, and once you have enough evidence, the doubt and fear die. They can't exist at the same time. You cannot know that you are a closer and know that you can manage a rental property and know that you're really great at what you do and know that you can get people results and know that you can solve their problem and also fear that you won't be able to, or be afraid that it's not going to work out, right? Once you have enough evidence, you know and so the fear's gone. So if you wanna kill the fear, you have to be willing to feel it though. If you're not willing to feel the fear and do it anyway, you won't progress. And so some of us, we kind of lost our edge, like we're a little bit numb. We're a little bit bored. And if you're playing monopoly, and it's a hard game, you don't want to play right away. It's a long game. You need recovery, you need to rest a bit, but if you really enjoy the game because there's high risk and high reward, it's a lot of fun, surprises happen, adventure. These positive pre-frames for change that my clients came up with today were things like, you know, 'adventure' and learning and growth and all these positive things. Those are all things that come with change, and I really believe in our soul, who we are, the things that we learn, the wisdom that we adopt, the knowledge we take in that stays with us, I think forever.   [00:10:04] That stays with us, regardless of whatever your beliefs are, I believe it stays with us forever, me personally, and it changes who you are. You become a new person with new ideas and new beliefs. because at your core, that's who I believe you are. You know, you are the observer that carries these beliefs. You're not your body. You're the person that is in the body, utilizing the body. That's a vehicle. You're not your feelings. You're not fear. These are vehicles. These are things that you can experience, but they're not you, you're not fear. These are things you can experience. You can experience things through your physical body. You can experience things through your emotional body. You can experience things through your mental body, right? Through ideas, mental-- you're also not your thoughts. You might have great thoughts. You might have horrible thoughts. You're not your thoughts necessarily. You're the person behind, the observer. You're the person in control, the creator. You're the person that thinks the thoughts, feels the feelings, and experiences the body. Right? You also, aren't your intuition. These flashes of insight and intuition, that's maybe higher than your mental body. You experience intuition. You leverage and utilize intuition. You connect to the universe or source or God or whatever you're into, right, through your intuition.    [00:11:20] And so I want you to recognize that, if you want to move through fear, you move through it through exposure. You just got to do it. Feel the fear. Do it anyway. And we ask our clients to do uncomfortable things. Like we're just saying, "Hey, your branding sucks. You need to change it. Like you look like a real estate company and that's costing you probably half the deals and leads you could be getting. We could probably double you really quickly, you know, the amount of deals and leads, you're getting just by getting real estate out of your branding. You have a leaky website. You need to change that."   [00:11:49] "Oh, but I like it. We just paid money for it. We did this like--"   [00:11:53] "Yeah, but it's costing you money, right now Right? You need to change that. Maybe you need to change your sales process. Maybe you need to change your pricing." almost everybody needs to change their pricing that comes to us.   [00:12:04] "You need to clean up your pricing. Stop just being that 10% or 8% company or that flat fee of $99 company. There's better pricing, right? There's better models. You're leaving money on the table. It's not just about charging, more it's about having a better, psychologically more effective pricing model. So you can close more deals at a higher price point more easily," which is what one of our clients said just happened to him as he went through our pricing secrets training. So we want to clean up all these leaks. There's lots of other leaks, but it takes you being willing to step off the cliff. It takes you being willing to take that leap of faith, to jump, not knowing if it's going to work out. You have to try stuff and you need to take risk. The good news is we have lots of clients that have tried this stuff. It's proven. We know it works. So we're asking you to take risks that deep down, you know, is the right thing to do, and there's evidence already to help your faith.   [00:12:57] You don't know personally, but there's others that'll say, "Hey, this worked for me. This works. Try it out. Do it. It's scary, but I did it and it worked out." And so be willing to feel the fear, be willing to take action and make sure that you have a good support system around you to help you out. And we would love to be that support system for you here at DoorGrow. You can reach out to us. You can check us out at doorgrow.com. So if you take a look at your business and you feel like you've been stuck for a while, maybe you just need to set a bigger goal. You lack hope. You're not excited anymore. If your goals don't scare you a little bit, they're not big enough. You need to look at your goals and go, "Man, who would I have to become in order to have that? I'm gonna have to change."   [00:13:40] I went to a friend's conference a week or so ago, and he had 1200 people at this event. He coaches auto repair shop owners, and he coaches a niche industry similar to what I do, and he's ahead of, of where I'm at in the game. He's at a higher level in the game, but me seeing that helped my faith. It helped me know, 'Hey, that's possible.' he said from stage, he said, "Five years earlier I had 19 people at my first event." He had 1200 at that event. It was massive. He had 19 people at his first event five years ago. Well, we just did our first event in a while in quite a while. My very first event was in 2018 DoorGrow Live we did in 2018. I was totally scared to do it. It was a big, audacious, crazy thing, and we bit off more than we could chew honestly. I call it my $2 million mistake. You can go back and listen to my previous podcast episode where I talk about that, but we had 150 attendees. This conference we did just for mainly our clients. It was pretty much all just our clients, and we had like 45 there. It was awesome. A lot more conservative, a lot lower budget. We didn't spend $150,000 like we did on the previous event. We spent... I don't know what we spent yet. The numbers aren't all in, but it's way less. And hopefully my team stuck to their budget, so we'll see, but yeah, it went great.   [00:14:57] It was a lot more comfortable and we're going to grow. So we weren't at 19. What my buddy, Aaron told me at his first event, he said he had 19, but he delayed the event because he was embarrassed about how many registrants he got. It was too few. Delayed the event, still only got 19 that showed up. So we're ahead of where Aaron was then, so I will see where we're at in five years, but it helped my faith. And is it scary to start doing these events and to commit to doing these events? And, you know, COVID could hit again, or monkeypox or avian flu or, you know, stuff could come up, right? Stuff could happen, but I hope. I have hope that we will do great things. I have hope that we can change this industry. I have hope that we can make a difference in a lot of business owners' lives, and being at that conference, the one I just put on, our DoorGrow Live that we just did, helped my faith because we heard from lots of clients, we got feedback, we got testimonials, people got value, and I now have evidence. I now have evidence that this is a good thing that this can be good and that we can make a difference. I have more evidence and I want all of you to experience the maximum level of fulfillment in your business, freedom in your business, contribution in your business, and support.   [00:16:17] And so go back and listen to my previous podcast episode if you haven't. That one I talked about our Rapid Revamp program and Built to Sell. Built to sell your business in three to five years, for a seven figure exit. It's totally possible. I actually had somebody speak at my conference that sold his business that he built in three to five years from the ground up, and he sold it for seven figure exit. He's still running the company as part of the buyout that he just sold and he's got like 1300 units, something like that as well. So, really awesome because I didn't tell him what to speak about. I didn't tell him what to share, and he got up and said, "This is what it takes, and these are the levels," and it mimicked all the stuff that I teach, and there was so much synergy and my clients were just like, "Jason's actually telling the truth. Some of the ones that were a little skeptical, some of the ones that are like," Does Jason know what he's doing?" It was really a beautiful thing to see. So that helped our clients' faith, seeing somebody that had done it. So I brought him in like, "I'm not gonna tell you what to talk about. Just share your journey, share what it takes," and he talked about, ironically, he talked about branding, he talked about culture, he talked about all these leaks that we solve in our Rapid Revamp program, which was really exciting.    [00:17:31] So, we have an event coming up in October. We highly recommend that you come and be part of that. If you're debating whether or not DoorGrow's legit, or you should work with DoorGrow, highly recommend you check out our event. It's going to be in Vegas. You can check out the details at doorgrowlive.com and we hope to see there. So, that's it for today. Feel the fear, do it anyway, get out there, create some goals, have some hope, and get the evidence that you need to prove to yourself that it's true. And until next time, to our mutual growth. Bye, everyone.   [00:18:03] 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!    [00:18:29] At DoorGrow, we solve your biggest challenge: getting deals and growing your business. Find out more at doorgrow.com. Find any show notes or links from today's episode on our blog doorgrow.com, and to get notified of future events and news subscribe to our newsletter at doorgrow.com/subscribe. Until next time, take what you learn and start DoorGrow Hacking your business and your life.
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Aug 30, 2022 • 29min

DGS 185: The DoorGrow Rapid Revamp Program for Transforming your Property Management Business

Do you enjoy your day-to-day in your property management business? At DoorGrow, we want to help our clients build a business that you COULD sell for a seven-figure exit… but you won’t want to. This is the goal of our newest program, Built to Sell. In this episode, property management growth expert, Jason Hull shares the 90-day Rapid Revamp program as part of our new Built to Sell program. Learn how you can completely transform your business from sales and prospecting to branding and websites in just 90 days. You’ll Learn… [01:16] The First DoorGrowLive Event in 4 years [02:28] Building a Business you Could Sell but Won’t Want to [07:13] An Opportunity to Coach other Property Managers [10:38] Week by Week Overview of the Rapid Revamp Program [26:26] What Does the New Program Cost? How Does it Work? Tweetables “Sales and deals happen at the speed of trust.” “Culture dictates how you hire and who you hire and who you're able to attract. Culture dictates how you sell and it dictates your sales pitch and how you close deals.” “I really think this industry is in its infancy and has massive potential, and I am really optimistic about the future.” “If you don't have the business of your dreams, it's because you don't know what you're doing to some degree. You're doing some of the wrong things. You're doing things that are minus signs for you in your day-to-day.” Resources DoorGrow and Scale Mastermind DoorGrow Academy DoorGrow on YouTube DoorGrowClub DoorGrowLive TalkRoute Referral Link Transcript [00:00:00] I love being in my business. I love getting to do what I get to do. I don't have to wear hats or do things in my business anymore that I don't like doing, and that's our goal for our clients is to help them build that business that is built to sell, but that you don't want to. That's the ultimate freedom in business    [00:00:16] Welcome DoorGrow Hackers to the #DoorGrowShow. If you are a property management entrepreneur that wants to add doors, make a difference, increase revenue, help others, impact lives, and you are interested in growing in business and in life, and you're open to doing things a bit differently, then you are a DoorGrow Hacker. DoorGrow Hackers love the opportunities, daily variety, unique challenges, and freedom that property management brings. Many in real estate think you're crazy for doing it. You 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. I'm your host, property management growth expert Jason Hull, the founder and CEO of DoorGrow. Now, let's get into the show.   [00:01:16] All right. So, today's topic: we are doing this really cool event it's happening this week. So by the time you see this, it may have already happened. If some of you are following us on iTunes or podcast apps or whatever, this may have already happened, but we're doing a live in-person event. DoorGrowLive, the first event we've done in a long time, and it's gonna be here in Austin and it's gonna be awesome. So we've got this event that we're doing in person. It's mostly gonna be just our clients. I think we have a few attendees or small handful of attendees that are not our clients that are gonna be in attendance, but this is going to be mainly for our clients. It's open to other people. If you're watching this live and you want to be there, you can get a ticket. You can go to doorgrowlive.com and get a ticket, and we have other events. We're gonna be doing an event-- not annually-- we're gonna be doing an event with our clients once a quarter because we have almost a hundred clients in our mastermind and we want to get together in person and meet, and this is going to be awesome. This gives us an opportunity to get together, have speakers. And in our mastermind group, we've got so many people now we're organizing them into tribes, and so they get to create friends and connections. It's super cool.    [00:02:28] So what our current program is it's called Built to Sell, and so the idea is to build a property management business in the next three to five years. That you have the option of selling. It doesn't mean you'll take that option, doesn't mean that you will exit your business for seven figures, which is the goal. You might keep it, right? And that's probably the goal. The ultimate goal is to have the freedom to exit your business, but not want to because you've built it to be fun and you've built it to give you maximum levels of fulfillment in life and freedom, and it's a source for you to contribute and make a difference. And you feel like it's feeding you life. Like you love being in your business. That's the business I have. I love being in my business. I love getting to do what I get to do. I don't have to wear hats or do things in my business anymore that I don't like doing, and that's our goal for our clients is to help them build that business that is built to sell, but that you don't want to. That's the ultimate freedom in business. And so, this Built to Sell program-- built to sell in three to five years to get a seven-figure exit if you want to-- is very doable. It's very doable.    [00:03:37] It's something we know we can help clients do, and the first portion of that, the first 90 days is the Rapid Revamp, and so this is where we are cleaning house on these businesses. This is like _Bar Rescue_ or _The Profit_ or any of these shows where you see them revamp businesses, we are helping them revamp their business. We're cleaning up everything, and I could go over the entire roadmap if some of you are interested in that, but that is the goal is you want to build a business that gives you the ultimate level of fulfillment, the ultimate level of freedom, the ultimate level of contribution, the ultimate level of support. That's why we build a business. It's why we have a team, so we don't have to wear every hat. We don't have to do the things we don't enjoy. We don't have to live in the minus signs in our day, our day's all plus signs. So if you're a property management business owner right now, and you're like, "I know that this is not how it's supposed to work," you might be in that first sand trap as a solopreneur and you're stuck and you're struggling. I've seen hundreds of clients like this and companies and we help them solve this. Like it's an uncomfortable place.    [00:04:41] They call it the solopreneur sand trap. There's lots of people that are in that second sand trap, which is that team sand trap. This is 200 to 400 units usually, and they're like really struggling to figure out: "Why can't my team just be great. Why can't I find great people? Why do they have to keep coming to me and asking me questions all the time for everything? And I feel like I'm taking crazy pills because I'm just constantly inundated with interruptions and having to micromanage my team and approve every major decision, and I'm not even doing the things in the business that I think are the most fun, that feel like the most fulfillment and the most freedom and contribution. I don't feel supported. I feel like I'm having to support everybody else." You've built the wrong team in the wrong business, around the wrong person. That's the problem is you are showing up as the wrong person in your own business, and so this is the idea: Built to Sell. We are helping build the entrepreneurs and businesses and the goal with the entrepreneur is we just need to build you up to be the business owner that can have the business of your dreams. If you don't have the business of your dreams, it's because you don't know what you're doing to some degree. You're doing some of the wrong things. You're doing things that are minus signs for you in your day-to-day.    [00:05:51] You only need maybe about 200 plus doors and about five team members to probably max out on those four reasons if you do it the right way, and then you can have the business of your dreams, be taking vacations. You could be doing the things you want to do. You could have plenty of profit. A member of my team has a property management business, and they have somewhere around, I think, 200 doors and they have 60 to 70% profit margin, and these are C-class properties. And they are not doing really much in the business. They're working basically full-time in my business and they have one part-time person boots on the ground that does the stuff that they need done. That's how efficient property management businesses can run even with C-class properties.   [00:06:36] Right. And so, we're really good at helping you cut your staffing costs in half, reduce the phone calls, reduce interruptions, build the business of your dreams, and that is the goal of the Built to Sell program. That's the goal of this program that we have over the next three to five years that we want to do with you in your business. So, we're really excited. Our next event's going to be in October. So if you want to be at that and come see what we do and come see the momentum that people are creating, come hear from people and see what's going on at DoorGrow. We're creating magic in this industry. I don't think anybody else is doing anything like this, and if you are somebody that wants to coach other property managers, you're like, "Hey, I've had some success, and I want to give back. I want to be in that state of contribution," we will pay you to do that. You can come join DoorGrow. It could be a part-time gig while you run your own company and you can come be part of our coaching team and dedicate a small amount of time out of your month and feel that momentum because I feel like you learn the best. So we will be taking applications for the coaches and we want to bring in the best coaches in the industry. We're already courting and talking to some really amazing people. Some of these people have built up and sold 2000 door+ companies some have coached and consulted multiple companies and helped them grow.   [00:08:01] And so, DoorGrow, we will be the world leaders in property management growth. That's our goal. I invest a lot myself in coaches and mentors-- over six figures a year-- just on my own masterminds and programs that I'm in so that I can learn so that I can give value to my clients, and we are adding all sorts of cool stuff and we're making changes rapidly in our business. We're really excited. So today's podcast is just all about you know, what's going on at DoorGrow, Built to Sell, Rapid Revamp, Scale Program Mastermind... This is the stuff that we're doing that's really, I think, gonna change the industry, and I really think this industry is in its infancy and has massive potential, and I am really optimistic about the future.    [00:08:48] A lot of people are talking about the real estate market crashing, and maybe there's gonna be a crash in all of this. It's inevitable, maybe, or maybe it's not... property management does great during crashes. Property management does great during recessions. There will probably be another pandemic. Like people are saying that that's coming, who knows if it's gonna be monkeypox or whatever. Property managers can handle this stuff. And I think property management's gonna become more and more relevant. It's gonna become more and more critical. And all of these things are gonna drive it. A lot of people that are self-managing were down 50% in rent during the pandemic, but property managers were down very little, like if at all. Smart ones that played their cards right and didn't like expect people to have issues paying and put out messages saying, "Hey, if you're gonna have problems paying..." didn't have problems with people paying in general property managers that made that mistake, maybe went down maybe five, 10%, 15% revenue.   [00:09:44] So I know some of you that made that mistake, right? You preemptively reached out to everybody and you're like, "Hey, if you're having a problem paying rent..." and then they're like, "You know what? I do have problems paying rent. Thank you for like, presenting that option to me." but property management like became more necessary because it became more of an emotional issue. I see that even if tough stuff comes at us in this industry, it's gonna grow. It's gonna get better. We've only been at maybe like 30% market share, right? Between self-managing and managing professionally, and so there's like 70% available room to grow, or at least double, right. If you get to the level of Australia, they're like at 80%, roughly. And we're at 30%, right? So we could double in size and still not be at Australia's level of market penetration in professional management versus self-management. So I think there's lots of opportunity.   [00:10:38] So let me tell you about the Rapid Revamp. Some of you are interested. You're like, "Jason, what do you guys do at DoorGrow how are you gonna help me? Like, what are you gonna do? Let me explain to you the first 90 days, this is week by week. I'm gonna take you through week by week. What we're going to do:   [00:10:51] Week zero: basically, if you come on board, we start these classes once a quarter. So our next class is in October. So get in now because we have limited spots that we're allowing into this class. We are only planning on allowing 30. Our first class though, we took our current clients through it. We have two-thirds of our clients that are in our mastermind go through it, so we have about 60 businesses going through it right now. That's a lot-- more than the class size that we want to have. We want to probably have a class size of maybe half that. So we're gonna probably be allowing about 10 a month into this class because we're building this up over the next quarter until October starts. We've already sold several into the program. They're getting free coaching leading up to it. So if you want to get in, get in now and you get some free coaching, some additional free coaching leading up to it starting in October, and then we're going to start every 90 days after that each quarter we have a class starting. So if you want to be part of this quarter, that's gonna be awesome.    [00:11:51] It's going to be leading into October. This is the winter months where business owners want to work on their businesses. You have some bandwidth. You have some downtime. Property management cools down. This is a great time to focus on making changes in your business, growing your business. And leveling up in your business. And so that zero, we call 'Prepare.' All the weeks start with a 'P.' So that zero week is Prepare, so that zero week probably could last a month or two, depending on when you join leading up to the beginning of the next class. So you're going to be starting on just getting some quick clarity, some quick wins. We'll be coaching you. You'll get a kickoff call, one on one with me. You can do some calls with some of my team members that can coach you on operational challenges, in acquisition challenges and getting doors, growth, so then we're gonna get into week one, and week one is amazing.    [00:12:39] Week one is Prioritize. In this training, we are cutting some companies' staffing costs in half. It doesn't matter how big or how small you are we are able to collapse your time in half. We're sharing with you the secrets, and this week is called Prioritize. It's all about time, and the biggest secret-- I'm just gonna tell you-- is about eliminating phone calls, and we're gonna teach you how to eliminate all the phone calls in your business except the ones you really want to have, which are from prospective clients. You don't need to be talking to anybody else, and so we're going to teach you the secrets of how to systematize your business to eliminate those phone calls, decrease staffing costs without hurting customer service levels, without getting bad reviews, without any of those challenges you think might happen, and so we're also going to get you started on a two-week time study, which is one of my greatest secrets and hacks in figuring out how do we build the business around your "plus signs," where you're going to identify those plus and minus signs, and we're going to start to reduce those interruptions and dramatically change your business.   [00:13:37] So week number two is Purpose. We're going to get into Purpose Secrets and figuring out your personal "why," your business "why," your client-centric mission statement of focusing on clients, and all these things that create culture that also allow you to close more deals, more easily, at a higher price point. So purpose is the most significant thing we've ever taught clients, like when clients-- when we asked them like, "What's the biggest benefit you got by working with DoorGrow? What was the best thing that you learned? They always say it was this stuff." and I know it sounds like fluffy, woo woo bullshit right on the surface, but thousand door companies-- people that have thousand door companies or greater-- they know how critical culture is, and we're going to help you lay the cultural foundation. You know you need this week if you've had bad hires, or you have team members that you feel like are not motivated, or you've been struggling to get people to like take action and do things on your team or business, or you're frustrated, or you're having difficulty closing deals, or you're losing business to other companies. Those are all culture problems. Those are culture problems. They're not sales problems. They're not like hiring problems necessarily. It comes before that. You have to have good culture. Culture dictates how you hire and who you hire and who you're able to attract. Culture dictates how you sell and it dictates your sales pitch and how you close deals.   [00:15:03] People don't close deals because you have better features or benefits or pricing. Those are the bad clients. People close with you and become clients with you-- the great clients-- because they trust you. Sales and deals happen at the speed of trust. And so this is how we create trust. It's how we build out our golden bridge sales script with you. It's how we get into four-phase selling. It's how we get into "the three dominoes." All of that stems from your purpose and getting this stuff really clearly defined. It's how you authentically create trust with clients is to let them know what really motivates you. And if you don't help them see that it's something besides just money. Their assumption will be that your goal is just to squeeze as much money out of them as unethically as possible. That's the default assumption when people are selling unless you counter that. And we're going teach how to do that in a powerful way. So that's Purpose.    [00:15:58] Week three, we're getting into Pricing. So this is where we're getting into unique pricing models and methods that are different than what everybody else does. Everybody else does a flat fee or they do a percentage, and so we're getting into the science psychology of pricing strategy and helping you develop three-tier hybrid pricing models and teaching you then how to leverage that to be able to close more deals, more easily, at a higher price point than your competition and how to create incentive structure so that you're getting on more of the higher end properties and the higher rent properties and decentivizing the cheap owners that are difficult to deal with. And so that is a game changer week, and in a single week, you're going to have new pricing because we give you hybrid pricing spreadsheets, we give you different sheets to map stuff out, we give you all the stuff so that you can figure this out.    [00:16:52] Then week four, we get into Positioning. This is all about branding. We are the world's leading property management branding agency. We've rebranded hundreds of companies. Some of the best brands that exist out there in the property management space, we had a hand in coaching them, supporting them, or helping them come up with those names. We do logo design, we help with business cards, print collateral, all of that kind of stuff. So we're gonna help you, and you'll go through our training material, and you'll learn about branding.   [00:17:18] The next week after that is Product. So we are then getting into our first acquisition strategy. We call this the "Trojan horse to selling" or the "side door to closing deals," and we're teaching you a secret strategy on how you can get investors to become clients, doing a thing called product research interviews. And so it's really brilliant. We had a client that just showed up the week after that call, and he said, "I did one of those interviews, and I closed 10 doors on doing one interview," and this is the, like, it's super easy to close deals because the secret is: most investors are not looking for you and they don't think they need you. They're not looking online. That's why Google ads, SEO, these kind of things really are probably a waste of money in a lot of situations for most businesses, so we're teaching you how at no cost, you can go and acquire business more easily. The next week, after product-- and product is a great week. If you are under a hundred doors, you're in that startup stage. This is going to help you learn the secrets that you need to know to have the knowledge to close deals the way a 10-year-old company would know. They know all the problems, they know all the pains. You're gonna learn all of this by using that strategy, and we give you scripts like how to do it, everything. We train you.   [00:18:34] Week six: we're teaching you how to sell because you need to know how to pitch. If you get opportunities with investors to sell, we're gonna teach you how to sell the Pitch week is all about our four-phase selling strategy in which we go through the four phases that make any sales pitch amazing no matter what you're selling. We're going to get into how phase two of this four-phase selling, we're going to teach you the golden bridge script and the golden bridge formula, which is stacked on Purpose week that we went through and we're gonna get into the ultimate pitch, how to build the ultimate pitch based on the Three Dominoes that you need to knock over and how to handle all of their objections during your sales pitch very effectively so that by the end of these three dominoes being knocked down, the only logical conclusion they have is to work with you, with your company, because nothing else would be better or more effective. And so this is really effective for increasing your close rate and helping you sell more.   [00:19:33] After we get through that, then we get into Partners. So week seven, we're getting into Partners and this is how to now, stacking on the previous acquisition strategy of Product, we're now getting into: how do you get more connections through potential partners that can connect you and introduce you to investors so that you can get warm leads and more referrals. One of our clients using this strategy added 310 doors over the last year from just five or six agents and they were able to do this because they implemented this strategy. Now, most referral relationships will give you maybe a referral once or twice maybe a month. Like, and it doesn't work super effectively because they're waiting for people to come to them saying they want property management, which almost never happens, so our strategy is way more effective than that. So we're teaching how to build this outbound partner relationship system in which you are able to grow your business dramatically faster through warm leads and dramatically increased referrals. We're also getting into another strategy called the neighbor strategy, which is also super effective in getting other property management companies to send you business. Really effective. We've got clients just adding sometimes five, 10 doors a month just by getting referrals from property management companies that are in their market sometimes or outside their market. So we'll get in that.   [00:21:00] Week eight: we're getting into Power. We are going to be creating confidence, making sure you have a healthy mindset, making sure that you have the right appearance. You'd be surprised, but we get a lot of clients that struggle with this stuff. They're not confident in their pitch. They say, "um" and "and" too much. They're not polished. They don't smell confident, they don't sound confident, they don't look confident, and that destroys trust. And so even if they're a great property manager, they're artificially destroying trust and killing deals and not getting on business. So we get into that.    [00:21:31] And then week nine: we're getting into Presence. So this is the online presence, website, and making sure that your website content is dialed in so that our team can start building you a really effective website with your new pricing, with your new branding, with your new pitch, with all your new stuff, we're going now help you build out the website. I don't think anybody does this better than us. Our biggest competitors, even if they do more sites than us, they're still copying us and trying to do what we do. Our clients' close rates and their websites are a lot more effective. And you can test your website right now if you want to see if this is a leak by going to doorgrow.com/quiz. That's doorgrow.com/quiz. And test your website and see what kind of grade you get. My guess is you're getting, at very most, maybe a, B, maybe a C. Maybe you're getting a D or an F. We see a lot of Fs come through from some of our competitors.   [00:22:24] Then after website, we're getting into week 10, we're getting into Perception. So this is all about online reviews, how to create a system of warm outreach that allows you to get consistently the majority of your tenants and owners to give you positive reviews and feedback online, leveraging the law of reciprocity. So we give you these scripts. We give you the language. And if you build this system out in your business, you will never have a bad-reviewed company. You'll have great reviews online and you'll be outpacing all of your competition because they mistakenly think that reviews happen by default or if you just ask for reviews, you'll get them. And that doesn't work very well. And you know it! Like you've struggled to get reviews I'm sure. So we're gonna teach you the secret systems in Reputation Secrets, how you're going to crush it and get consistently good reviews. And this has helped some of our clients, this strategy alone has helped some of our clients add a hundred to 200 doors in a year, just this strategy. And it's warm leads. Close rate's easy, it's a high, high close rate. And most property management companies suck and most get bad reviews. You're not going to suck and you're not going to get bad reviews working with us.    [00:23:28] The next week, we're getting into week 11, we're getting into Prospecting. We're going to teach you how to leverage groups because you're going to have some group opportunities come up by doing the Partners and by doing the Product week challenges that we're gonna give you. You're going to have some opportunities come up to pitch to a group, and most people will go do some sort of group presentation to a bunch of realtors, or they'll do a group presentation to a bunch of investors and they walk away with very few deals. We're gonna teach you how to walk away with a lot of relationships and a lot of deals and actual appointments from that event. And so we're going to teach you strategies to do that. And that strategy alone has helped some-- one of my clients went from being at 50, 60 doors to 300 doors in just six months, right. Just using this strategy alone can be super effective, so we're going to stack that strategy on Prospecting, which is groups.   [00:24:25] And then week 12, we're getting into Planning, so then we're going to take a look at: what's the six month roadmap moving forward? You're at the end of this program, like what's coming next? What do you need next? We're gonna help you get super strong clarity, show you the roadmap of what comes next, which is the next six month program, which is Scale as part of this mastermind, and we're gonna show you what we're gonna do next to get you to that next level. This is building out all the systems that you need to have in your business, hiring system, planning systems, et cetera. So we're going to roadmap and do planning.    [00:24:56] And then, week 13 is all about Progress, so we're going to be sharing wins. Everybody's gonna be celebrating, and week 15, which really is starting into the next cycle-- that's where we're doing our next in-person event. So that's where you graduate and that's where we're going to celebrate. You're going to be hanging out with your class, with your buddies, with the people in your tribe, you're going to get your diploma. This is graduation, and you'll get to see the newbies that are coming through the next class. And share your stories with them. It's going to be awesome. So, and in October, our kickoff for the class-- those that joined the October class-- in October 18th and 19th, I believe it is, we are doing our event in Vegas at the signature hotel at the MGM grand. It's going to be awesome. So you will get to see the clients that are going through our Rapid Revamp right now that are going to be graduating and hear from them, and you'll get to be around people that are crushing it, adding doors, you will know you're at the right place, and it's going to be super awesome. And you're gonna be connected to other people that are playing a similar game and investing in themselves. These are rare people. These are business owners and property management business owners and property management business owners that invest in themselves. You're going to get to hang around with some of the coolest people I think that exist in the industry. These are people that are contribution focused. These are people that are game changers. These are people that are making a difference. Some of these people have thousands of doors. Some of them are startups, but they're all growing and they're growing rapidly and they're focused on investing in themselves and growing.   [00:26:26] So that is a quick overview of the rapid revamp program. And if you're curious, "Jason, what does this cost?" Our program is way less than buying into a franchise. It's way less than making a bad hire or spending money on a team member. It's way less than all those things. So it's 10 grand for the program, which is less than you would spend on a year with a marketing firm or some other firm, and you get way less doors and way less results, so this is an absolute no-brainer, and you can break it up into payments and stuff like that if you need to. But anyway, that's it. So that's our Rapid Revamp is the first 90 days, first three months in our Built to Sell program, and then you're going to move into our six-month Scale program and then you'll move into our continuity, our annual program that renews yearly, and that's your next level then. It's going to be awesome. So, reach out to our team, check us out at doorgrow.com. And we would love to set up a call with you and see if you'd be a good fit, see if you are a candidate, somebody that we can work with over the next three to five years to help you have either a seven-figure exit, or just a seven-figure business that you don't want to exit, which is the goal. My hope is that you'll want to keep it because it's the main vehicle for fulfillment and freedom in your life, and you love getting to do what you get to do. So with that, I'm out. Until next time, to our mutual growth. Bye everyone.    [00:27:49] 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!    [00:28:16] At DoorGrow, we solve your biggest challenge: getting deals and growing your business. Find out more at doorgrow.com. Find any show notes or links from today's episode on our blog doorgrow.com, and to get notified of future events and news subscribe to our newsletter at doorgrow.com/subscribe. Until next time, take what you learn and start DoorGrow Hacking your business and your life.
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Aug 23, 2022 • 35min

DGS 184: Real Estate with Intelligence: The Secret to Chambers Theory’s Success in Property Management with Tommy Chambers

At DoorGrow, we aim to expand the property management industry and help the best property management entrepreneurs win. We love gathering new strategies and ideas to help savvy property managers grow their businesses. In this episode, property management growth expert Jason Hull interviews Tommy Chambers from Chambers Theory about the secret to his success. You’ll Learn… [02:08] The Secret Power of Trust Equity for Improving Churn Rate [08:59] Keeping on Clients… Even When they Don’t Really Need You Anymore [15:09] Benefitting Homeowners and Investors with Ongoing Management [21:02] Why Recognizing Your Team Matters [26:07] Systems Every Business Should Have [31:23] The Importance of Establishing Company Culture Tweetables “It's not just about growth. It's also about keeping the ones you have and the clients you have satisfied. So our strategy has been to take care of our people.” “If your churn rate is high, that means you then have to replace all the doors you are losing every single month. If you're replacing every door that you're losing constantly, then you have stagnation.” “It's far easier to keep a client than to go acquire new ones... and far cheaper.” “Hiring is hard. One of the hardest transitions I see entrepreneurs go through is solopreneur to having a team.” Resources DoorGrow and Scale Mastermind DoorGrow Academy DoorGrow on YouTube DoorGrowClub DoorGrowLive TalkRoute Referral Link Transcript [00:00:00] Tommy: We said, "Hey, your services don't have to stop when you come back to live in your own home. We can still be your property manager even if we're not collecting rent.   [00:00:08] Jason: All right. Welcome, DoorGrow Hackers to the #DoorGrowShow. If you are a property management entrepreneur that wants to add doors, make a difference, increase revenue, help others, impact lives, and you are interested in growing in business and life, and you're open to doing things a bit differently. Then you are a DoorGrow Hacker. DoorGrow Hackers love the opportunities, daily variety, unique challenges, and freedom that property management brings. Many in real estate think you're crazy for doing it. You think they're crazy for not because you realize that property management is the ultimate, high-trust gateway to real estate deals, relationships, and residual income.   [00:00:46] 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 the perception, expand the market, and help the best property management entrepreneurs win. I'm your host property management growth expert, Jason Hull, the founder and CEO of DoorGrow. Now let's get into the show.    [00:01:11] Welcome to the #DoorGrowShow.    [00:01:13] Tommy: Yeah, thanks for having me. It's a pleasure to be on.    [00:01:15] Jason: Yeah. Glad to have you. So you've been doing property management for how long?    [00:01:20] Tommy: 21 years now.    [00:01:22] Jason: And how long ago did you start your business?   [00:01:25] Tommy: We started Chambers Theory in 2018. This was on the heels of my former company selling to a bigger broker and saw the opportunity to start fresh and bring my theory to the market of what property management should and could look like.    [00:01:42] Jason: Cool. Well, welcome to the show. So you guys reached out and wanted to be on the show, I guess you had been listening to the podcast for a while. We've never worked together, right?   [00:01:52] Tommy: Not yet.   [00:01:52] Jason: Not yet. Not yet. Right. So cool. Well, I'd love to hear how many doors do you guys have right now.   [00:01:58] Tommy: 717.    [00:02:01] Jason: All right. That's a nice number since 2018. So what's your biggest strategy to add doors? How have you grown the business so far?    [00:02:08] Tommy: You know, there's a lot of different ways we've approached that. There's a growth strategy just from organic growth. All of those doors have been organic growth. Of course, we look at acquisitions as well. And then, there's also the client retention. It's not just about growth. It's also about keeping the ones you have and the clients you have satisfied. So our strategy has been to take care of our people, use and try new tech, be early adapters with some new tech, and when we take care of our people and lean into some cool new products and leading-edge technology, the word gets out and when we're effective and take care of our people, people like to follow that. Clients like to follow companies where they have consistency of people they're dealing with and especially if they're happy with their jobs, it really works out well.    [00:02:55] Jason: I love what you said. One of the big things that a lot of businesses fail to look at is churn, you know, and retention. And your churn ratio or churn rate is basically the number of clients you had at the beginning of the month. And then, you divide that by the number of clients you have at the end of the month, basically is how you calculate churn. And so if your churn rate is high, that means you then have to replace all the doors you are losing every single month, if you're replacing every door that you're losing constantly, then you have stagnation, and a lot of business owners try to increase growth, increase lead then, and they don't focus on churn at all or retention at all. And they wonder why they're not making any progress. And it's kind of like trying to run uphill while somebody's pulling you backwards. So what are some things you've done to kind of decrease the churn rate and prevent clients from leaving? And one of the clients that tends to leave the most are accidental investors. Do you avoid those or are you good at convincing them to stay longer?    [00:03:56] Tommy: I love the analogy too. We actually use the analogy of pushing a rope uphill is when you have a high churn rate. Just doesn't make a lot of sense in that it takes a lot of energy to both reintroduce a new client to what your program's like and set expectations and agreements on that, but also to find them, so keeping the ones we have and keeping the ones we have happy is critical for us. And we actually have a high churn, natural high churn type of client base. A lot of our clients are military and US foreign service, which means typically we know when they sign on with us, they're gonna be back to their house in three years, which makes a really interesting... Mm, I'll call it calling or genre of residential property management. When you know your client's gonna be back in three years. You know, you have to plan for that replacement, and you also have this higher calling of care where: geez, this is not just somebody's investment property. This is their home they're going to come back to and the judgment is often a lot more meticulous when they come back and say, "How did you do taking care of my house?" not just, "How much rent did you earn me?"    [00:05:08] So some of the things we do are really to increase the level of care and communication the client feels during the period of time that we know we have them, and we call it building or losing trust equity in every interaction. So the way we describe trust equity is like having gas in your tank and you're going on a trip. You're only gonna go as far as you keep fueling up that gas in that tank. And for us, that gas in that tank with that client is trust equity. So in every interaction, we either see ourselves as building rapport, building trust equity or losing it, or losing the opportunity to build it. So a lot of our practices are focused on: how do we build up trust equity all the way through their journey and make it the full three years? And the positive side of the community that we're working with is: even though there's a high natural churn, there's also a high referral rate from one landlord client to another to utilize our services if we've done a good job for them.    [00:06:11] Jason: Yeah. I like that. Yeah. You know, refueling the tank or recharging the cell phone or, you know, anything. Like nothing just continually runs forever. Right? And I love the idea of trust equity. I've said many times on the show like I really believe sales and deals happen at the speed of trust.   [00:06:29] Tommy: Hmm.    [00:06:30] Jason: And, you know, retaining clients also happens related to trust. Like you're gonna keep clients if they trust you, and that trust is everything that you do in your business, everything that your business puts out there is either creating trust or taking it away to some degree with your clients. And so, one of the main things we focus on at DoorGrow with clients is taking all the major leaks that exist in their sales pipeline related to trust and helping short those leaks and that's always the language we've used around that is to try to make sure they're reducing the leaks. And there's lots of things in the sales pipeline that can destroy trust. It could be the brand. It could be maybe they're not destroying, but they're leaks in trust. Like they might trust a property management company over a real estate company when it comes to branding more.    [00:07:21] And so that could be a leak just at the branding stage there's leaks when it comes to your sales process, there's leaks when it comes to your website, there's leaks when it comes to your pricing, and all of these different things that exist throughout their experience in the sales pipeline can either add value and add trust and build it, or it can take it away. And this is why when we talk about cold leads versus warm leads, or going from a cold interaction or lead to close, the difference between cold and warm is trust, right? We're trying to nurture them through this sales process and through follow-up. And eventually, they get warm enough, they trust enough that we can close the deal, right? And then the trust cycle continues. You have to then onboard them effectively. You have to then make them feel safe because everybody has buyer's remorse after they purchase something. There's an initial dopamine high. When we make a purchase. And after that purchase, after we spend money, there is natural lull. Like it comes back down and that's where people kind of freak out and they look for the problem, and if they see one they're like, "Oh crap, did I make the wrong choice?" So making sure there's this smooth experience through the sales pipeline and then bridging over into onboarding and into their client experience.   [00:08:39] And if you onboard them well, and they have a good experience, you're gonna have a much higher retention rate. So now you've got people that are leaving most likely after about three years. So you've got like this three-year cycle. How do you deal with that? Because every three years you help that churn rate and that's better than some that are taking on accidental investors that are only gonna hang out for a year.    [00:08:59] Tommy: Yeah. So one of the ways we deal with it is-- which I think is unique, is we said, "Hey, your services don't have to stop when you come back to live in your own home. We can still be your property manager even if we're not collecting rent. Often, we were getting calls from clients that came back anyway saying, "Hey, you know, I was your client last year or two years ago. I need a recommendation on an HVAC company," or, "I need a recommendation on a plumber for Thanksgiving before my family comes to visit," or whatever it is. And it was like, well, oftentimes we were getting these calls back from clients anyway, saying, "I just need a contract recommendation," or "I'm going to be away from my house for three weeks on vacation. Can you just check on it once for me if there's a storm?"    [00:09:46] And what we decided to do is instead of treating it like a clumsy process to make it a formal process and organize that thing that was happening anyway, and we said, "Hey, when you come back, you don't have to close out your account. And you can continue to use us for anything related to your house and you can run your expenses through your escrow operating account in property management, and we'd be happy to be part of that for you and give you contractors when you need them." And we made the expense for that minimal, and it's not a profitable activity, yet it kept the connection and it also told these clients, "Hey, you know, we can trust this company even when they're not really making money from us, right, they're truly in it to serve us."    [00:10:32] And what happened is when they got their next assignment, whether they're military or foreign service, but they already had their account open with us, they didn't have to decide, "Oh, who do I want to interview?" Or "Who do I wanna start with this time in property management?" we made it easy for them to just keep going with us and recommend other people to start with us. So that's one of our nuances and I welcome other property managers to do it too. You don't stop serving them when they stop becoming a client, especially if they could become a client again or refer somebody else, you know, continue to offer them some kind of value even after you think that they're done.   [00:11:07] Jason: Yeah. That's fascinating. That makes a lot of sense in a military market. Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. Do you find that it is more of a loss leader or are you doing this at cost at least?   [00:11:18] Tommy: So I guess you could call it a loss leader if you tried to start a business that way. I mean, once you have a certain scale... our scale of our business, right, is we keep close track of how many property management hours per property we're spending throughout the year, and, you know, we have it down to a science exactly. You know, how many doors to our staff, not just per property management lead, but overall support staff. How many hours are dedicated to these properties? And what we find was keeping these accounts on wasn't costing us a lot of time, but it was giving us a really good return on trust equity. So we were building more trust equity when the client closed out their account, their normal rent collection account, and kept going with us from what we call a heat account or a home escrow account and the home escrow account, you know, we're charging $360 a year, a dollar a day, less than that, really. And oftentimes it was not profitable for us in terms of the hours we spent, but we'd spend, you know, five or six hours a year on those accounts, making recommendations, handling their expenses through their property account. So it wasn't like a money maker, but it really had a return in terms of these clients came back to us and they recommended other people to us because we were building trust in the process, not just cash.    [00:12:45] Jason: So this three-year cycle that you mentioned where they will go off for maybe about three years, and then they want to move back into the property. Do you know how long they're typically staying before they go off again?    [00:12:57] Tommy: Yeah. I mean, it depends on which government agency or department they work for. There's different requirements for each, which we've come to learn quite well. Sometimes they'll come back for, you know, let's say they work for the U.S. state department. They'll come back for one-year language training. So they're, you know, they're coming back from Bangkok and they're gonna be transferred to Nairobi, Kenya 12 months from now. So they know they're coming back just to learn the language of the next place they're going and all the more reason to just keep their account active, right?    [00:13:31] Jason: Yeah.   [00:13:31] Tommy: Often--   [00:13:32] Jason: So they're only back for a year and then they're probably out for maybe another three years?    [00:13:37] Tommy: Exactly. Yeah. So, you know, it tends to be a one or two-year return depending on the nature of their return assignment, domestic assignment. And then, another three years out tends to be.    [00:13:49] Jason: Wow. Okay. So, I mean, so the ratio skewed so that they're gone more than they're back. So by maintaining that relationship, you have built-in future clients.    [00:14:00] Tommy: Nailed it, yeah. Oh, and that maintaining the relationship is where the secret is, as we said. Not doing that turns growth into pushing a rope uphill. If you maintain that relationship, it makes it really easy for that business relationship to continue and that trust equity to grow.    [00:14:18] Jason: Yeah, it's far easier to keep a client than to go acquire new ones... and far cheaper. And it takes a lot less work and if they have a good experience with you, they already know you, trust you, like you, so like it's super easy. Next time they need it, they're gonna go with you as long as they had a good experience, and if that relationship has been maintained, they're still a client. Yeah, no-brainer. It's like, "Hey, we're going out again." "Cool." So pre-framing that from the beginning when you onboard a new client and letting them know, "Look, you're probably gonna go in some cycles. We're used to this. This is how we handle it. This is what we do," they'll just plan on staying with you forever.    [00:14:54] Tommy: Yeah, I'll tell you at first, it's an awkward value proposition, right? It's like, "Well, I'm back. Why do I need to keep a property manager?" And the answer is: you don't. You don't need to. You don't need us nearly as much as you did when you were on the other side of the world and we had a tenant.    [00:15:09] Jason: Yeah.    [00:15:09] Tommy: However, this is why every connection and communication is an opportunity to build trust is when they start to see, "Oh, I'd much rather call my property manager and have them deal with the contractor," or "call my property manager, see if they can check on this after a storm," or, "call my property manager..." whatever it is. The more that they see there's value in the process in the chain, then the more likely they are to say, "Wow, I actually wanted this. I didn't realize you guys even offer when I came back, I could just keep using you at a lower price." So, it's awkward at first because you're used to saying, "Well, these are the reasons we are worth property management: rent collection, and dealing with tenants," and you just have to change that and recognize that actually, we're valuable for a lot of things that the clients trust us on and including, you know, managing, making it easy for them to manage their home escrow account or their expenses related to their property, or we make it a lot easier for them to not call some contractor out of the yellow pages or Google somebody and get lucky. They already know that we have a tried and true stable of contractors.    [00:16:17] Jason: Yeah. Yeah. It's frustrating trying to find contractors and having to do the research, so I think that's a great selling proposition and property managers don't like giving out their vendors generally. So if they're a client and you're like, "Hey, let us handle this." If they come back to you... so what do you do in the situations where they're like, "Nope, I don't need you. And I don't want to do this. We're back. I got it handled. But then they call you up and they're like, "Hey who you got for me? You got a contractor that could do this or this?" Do you say, "Well, we have this great program," and you try and get them on the program?    [00:16:50] Tommy: Yeah. We try to reintroduce them to the program, and the reason why is because when you're out of the system, everything it's that much harder to translate the information to what needs to happen, right? Like, okay, you have something that needs to be done, but we don't have all the information in our system and as close anymore, and also our contractors, they like to know that if they bill a property manager, they're gonna get paid in two weeks. We build trust equity with the vendors too, not just the clients. So these contractors would rather get a call from us and say, "Okay, yeah, I'll be happy to do that job tomorrow or Monday, whatever it is because I know you're gonna pay me in two weeks when I send you the invoice," versus, "Oh, I've gotta deal with some homeowner that's calling me. Maybe it's good. Maybe it's not. I don't know if they're gonna pay me on time or if I am going to have to do an accounts receivable issue."   [00:17:43] It's just all smoother through our network when we have the account open. So yes when they call us back, we say, "Hey, of course we can give you the contractor's name and number, happy to do that. We're not gonna block you from that. However, the contractor's gonna prefer to hear from us anyway. So, you know, we're happy to set your account back up." we really put their account on pause if we think they're gonna be going back overseas in a couple of years, but yeah. I mean, we do reintroduce the concept, even if they closed out thinking they didn't need it.    [00:18:13] Jason: Hmm. Got it. So I'm trying to figure out how could this apply to non-military markets if at all possible. So I'm just spitballing here, but I'm wondering if property managers could present this as an actual product or service to just typical homeowners, like, "Hey, we'll handle the vendors, we'll handle maintenance, whatever," and they charge them for that, but they just, they charge some sort of fee and, "We'll take care of all this stuff and handle vendors, and we have the best contractors and we're organized and sort this out. I don't know if people would go for it, but...   [00:18:43] Tommy: Actually, I think it's a growing market and it is happening. A good friend of mine, Lisa Wise, who owns Flock DC, she's trying to build almost a franchise concept, but a series of this very thing where all they do is home management for primary homeowners. She's pursuing this market in high urban markets with really busy professionals who just don't know how or don't want to take the time to take care of their own house. And she's got a great program set up for that. Again, we're not doing it on the scale she's pursuing it. We're offering the service as. Let's build the relationship with the client that we have for rental management before they need us.    [00:19:24] Jason: Sure. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. But yeah, I think there's an opportunity there for the people in the non-military markets to make that maybe a profit center or something. You cut out the whole tenant side of things, but there's the whole maintenance coordination piece and home management piece, lawn care, grounds, pools.   [00:19:44] Tommy: I'll tell you, I actually think investors would love this, and it might be something we pursue more as we work with investors that'll appreciate this that is to be able to do not just, oh, any expenses related to your personal residents, but to do an analysis like, "Hey, typically for a house your size you're spending two X the amount of water on your water bill that you should be. When you can start to do some financial analysis within their expenses, instead of just saying, "Oh yeah, like you can pass through your expenses through your account. So it's all in one place," but to add value by saying, "This is out of our standard deviation for this expense," or-- and again, you can always add value by saying, "You can call five contractors if you want, but we're buying in bulk as a property manager and we can get you either better pricing or better value of service."   [00:20:33] Jason: Yeah, very cool. So what else would you like to share with people about your business that might be beneficial to property managers listening? You've grown fairly quickly. I think you have the advantage that you're in that military market where you've got people leaving, which is great as long as they have awareness, you're going to be adding doors, which I think is really powerful. You focus on trust equity, which I really like that phrase, and what else do you think really kind of sets you apart, makes your company unique from the competitors in your market?    [00:21:02] Tommy: Yeah, thanks for the question. That trust equity is a strong theme at our company. And what I do is, it's not just with the contractors or with the clients, we're also building trust with one another on the team, and we call it the Camelot principle. So yeah, after you've done battle enough on our team as a property manager, you've been through a couple of tough summers. Summers tend to be the hardest time of the year in our market. Then we award that person with a sword, a sword with etching on it for chambers theory, and we welcome them as a knight of the round table. And what we really want to do is we want to build this interdependence of trust with one another as a team, and part of my promise as the employer and the business owner is to keep the job manageable for them, right?    [00:21:53] Like most of the time as the entrepreneur, like we're trying to get the most out of our teams so we can get more profits and grow and it's healthier. And sometimes it's great. Some of us are, "Hey, we'll pay our people more," which is a wonderful way to look at it, yet sometimes people want their job to be more manageable. Like we can call them to a higher standard, yet we also shouldn't overwhelm or burn out our employees, and it was really telling when we saw right after it was the end of 2020-2021 market, they call it the great resignation. There's a lot of people saying, "Hey I'm done working," seems a lot of it had to do with burnout. People are like, "Life's short, why am I burning myself out for this or for that?" And to really lean in on how do we build trust with one another?    [00:22:37] How do I serve my team by making them part of that round table of strategic decision making, making them part of that process where we say, "Hey, we're serving one another as a team, and then we serve our clients and we build trust with our clients and our contractors after we build it with one another. I have a high respect for these different elite teams in the world, in any industry. I love the new movie Top Gun Maverick. They take the top 1% of 1% of pilots in the Navy and they build this elite team, and yet still the part of the theme of the movie was: how do you take these elite individuals and turn them into a gelled team to accomplish a mission? And that's part of what we're trying to do is it's about believing in one another to accomplish the mission, not just going for the mission at all costs and burning each other out.    [00:23:30] Jason: Yeah, there's a lot of truth to that. I think one of the big mistakes I've seen, having been able to see inside of probably thousands of property management companies and work with lots and lots of entrepreneurs is I think it's a common misconception and a common belief that entrepreneurs carry that their team members want more compensation and that compensation will increase output. And the reason for this is entrepreneurs, we're money motivated, but most people are not. Entrepreneurs and salespeople typically are the two categories of people that are money motivated. But what I find is most of our employees, most of our team members, most of the people on the planet are not actually money motivated in that if you give them bonuses, commissions, incentives, financial incentive, performance doesn't really get better.    [00:24:24] And you can see this if you give team members a disc assessment. The more advanced disc assessments have what's called values index. And one of those values is the economic score. If the economic score is low, they're not money motivated. And if the economic score's high they're very money motivated, but entrepreneurs usually are money motivated, so they by default think, 'That's what would motivate me, so I'm gonna try and inspire them by offering money to get better output, and it backfires because if they're economic score is low and say, for example, their charitable scores high. Some of them have guilt related to money. So you pay them more, the performance actually goes downhill and they get worse. And so if their economic score's low, here's what you do instead, you give them recognition, they're recognition motivated. So I love the idea that you're giving 'em a full sword. You're probably like in front of the team. Recognition, generally, even the people that are money motivated is appreciated, so.   [00:25:28] Tommy: Yeah. I learned that one the hard way, just hearing you talk about it. I was like, oh yeah. I took me right through the past scenario where it's like, "Why am I not getting more? I'm paying this person more," and what they really needed was to be taken and given the opportunity to be believed in more. And actually, they wanted more responsibility, not more compensation. They wanted to show that they're capable of more things, and then the compensation piece made more sense, but they almost really felt like they needed to earn it first, which is beautiful, but I tried to do it the other way around and it didn't work so well.   [00:25:59] Jason: Yeah. Yeah. I think it's a lesson everybody that runs a company eventually has to learn. And some of us are pretty hard at learning it, but I think another thing having a system in place allows recognition. So our planning cadence at DoorGrow, we call it DoorGrow OS, our operating system and it allows our executive team members to see what each other got done in the previous week or for our monthly goals or for our quarterly goals, and everybody gets to see the wins and gets to see that somebody contributed to the team goals. And a lot of businesses don't even have goals or it's the business owners pushing a goal onto everybody, which is very different. So having a really good operating system like that can really make a difference.    [00:26:46] Tommy: So I really like that system. I wanna talk to you more about that offline.    [00:26:50] Jason: Yeah. We'll chat with that. There's systems out there like EOS and Traction, and some of these, but really shameless plug, DoorGrow OS is better than those systems. Those have some fundamental flaws because they're still either entrepreneur centric and that's not as effective, like any business owner that's ever gotten burnt out or tired it's because you're doing too much and you're probably the biggest bottleneck in your business, and it's because you don't have a good operating system to really leverage your team effectively. And most entrepreneurs, we generally are the biggest bottleneck in our business. That's how it works.    [00:27:25] Tommy: What's interesting is I was gonna add, you said, what else would I offer property manager and other property managers out there from what I've learned and embracing technology. I can tell you, I researched the heck out of all my competition. I researched the heck out of property managers all over the United States, and I love learning about what are their best practices. What are they doing? How's their model set up? How do they value their company? Are they doing this new client retention thing? I love all the best practices and learning from it, but I almost always see, "Oh, we utilize technology," and I'm so curious. And then sometimes when I dig deeper, it's: "We send our clients digital pictures," like digital pictures isn't new technology. That was new technology 15, 20 years ago, or, "Our accounting platform says they're the latest in technology," and there's a lot of different platforms out there. And man, when some of these things came out, they were great platforms for being the latest and greatest at being more efficient in organizing your business.    [00:28:22] To say we utilize technology because you have email or mobile phone, smartphone, or a platform that came out 10 years ago. It's got some updates since... no like I'm interested in the DoorGrow operating system because you guys are leading edge in how to use that to make my business more efficient and grow not because it was something you came up with 10 years ago and you've made a couple of updates since. I'm fascinated by being an early adapter and new tech, not claiming I've got tech because I use email.    [00:28:54] Jason: Yeah, there are. There's a lot of property managers that feel like, "Hey, I used to doing spreadsheets and now I have AppFolio or Buildium, so like we're high tech, so.   [00:29:02] Tommy: Right. "I got a website!"    [00:29:04] Jason: Yeah. They got a website now. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm probably more tech-savvy and geeky than most people on the planet, but yeah we're doing some really cool things at DoorGrow that we really feel like add some serious value to the industry. I think two of the most challenging systems for our clients, once we get them growing that they need that we've built out is a really good planning system. Have project management or task management system, sort of system to assign tasks, but that's tactical work. They don't have anything related to strategic planning, and some have EOS, but there's some fundamental flaws with EOS, but the company that puts out the idea of EOS, the entrepreneur operating system, their goal is to sell coaches for that system, which they call integrators.    [00:29:52] And so they create this org chart in which you have the visionary, which is you usually, the entrepreneur, and then they have the integrator, and then they have the entire team. A fundamental flaw in that is if you have somebody that could run your entire business like that, and you're once removed from it. They could walk away with your business and that's not really a safe place to be, and that's not really how anybody actually does it. So you need a planning system though, and EOS DoorGrow OS, most systems out there will have annual planning, quarterly planning, monthly planning, maybe weekly, maybe some sort of daily things, but that's pretty typical of any business planning system, but you do need a business planning system.    [00:30:30] The other system that every business needs is a really good hiring system. So we just partnered with an AI firm for hiring because our clients always screw this up. Like it's hard. Hiring is hard. One of the hardest transitions I see entrepreneurs go through is solopreneur to having a team. And this is the transition from maybe about a hundred doors into that two to 400 door range, and usually they build the wrong team around the business owner, doing the wrong things, to where the business owner gets maximum lack of fulfillment and misery and being the biggest bottleneck and so really our entire system is built around the entrepreneur, like identifying what they most enjoy and don't enjoy doing, building the team around them and then build a hiring system to bring in the right team members that you actually can trust. Trust equity can only exist if there's culture in a business. And culture can only exist if it's defined so that you can bring in people that can look at that cultural material and say, "Hell yes, I want to be part of this where some people might just want a paycheck and there's a massive difference in output.    [00:31:41] Your team members, it sounds like you have good culture, and so you're probably getting three times the output of companies that have bad culture, and by bad culture I mean they hire team members just based on what the business needs. It's based on skill. And so they have people that are maybe a skill fit. They can do the work, but they're not the personality fit for the role, which means they'll never be great at it or they're not-- the most important-- cultural fit for the role, which means they actually share your values and you can trust them and let go of pieces of the business. So if you have team members you trust, but they can do the job, but they're always coming to you asking questions, you're always having to micromanage them, it's because you lack culture in your business. And you need to get that defined...   [00:32:21] Tommy: I hope-- you can't just have it. It's a continual build. It's just like trust equity like it's a continual... continue to work on, continue to define, continue to build. I would define our culture as that Camelot culture, Camelot principle, which is the heart of it is the saying "In service to one another, there is freedom."   [00:32:40] Jason: Love it. So yeah, service is one of your top cultural values. I love that. We have one at DoorGrow. Ours is called Care ROI, like care, and similar to your trust equity, like we wanna let people know that we care and if we invest care into people, then you know, we're gonna get a return on that investment. Tommy, it's been great connecting with you and chatting. It sounds like you found some cool little ways to facilitate and decrease churn. Appreciate you coming on the show and looking forward to connecting more in the future.    [00:33:11] Tommy: Yeah. Jason, looking forward to also following up with you and chatting, talking more about how you can help us grow.   [00:33:18] Jason: Absolutely. All right.    [00:33:19] Tommy: Cheers.   [00:33:20] Jason: Until next time, everybody, if you're curious about how to grow or scale your property management business, you're curious about DoorGrow OS or some things we mentioned on this show or how to identify culture, or you're just starting to experience that burnout as a visionary, and you don't feel like the visionary anymore. You feel like your best employee, which sucks. We would love to help you get out of that. We have processes to take you through to systematically help you offload, help you feel safe offloading, and helping you have great people to offload to that are actually better at those things you don't enjoy. And you, and a lot of entrepreneurs listening, if you haven't experienced that, you're like, "No, nobody's better than me." Believe me, it's an ego thing. We can kill that real fast. So reach out. We'd love to support you. Check us out at DoorGrow.com. Until next time, to our mutual growth. Bye, everyone.    [00:34:10] 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!    [00:34:37] At DoorGrow, we solve your biggest challenge: getting deals and growing your business. Find out more at doorgrow.com. Find any show notes or links from today's episode on our blog doorgrow.com, and to get notified of future events and news subscribe to our newsletter at doorgrow.com/subscribe. Until next time, take what you learn and start DoorGrow Hacking your business and your life.

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