Property Management Growth with DoorGrow

After pure startups and solopreneurs comes another type of property management entrepreneur with its own unique challenges: the transitioning property management entrepreneur. Property management growth expert Jason Hull shares his insight on the issues and problems that PM entrepreneurs face in the 100-200 door range. You’ll Learn… [01:20] The Next Avatar: the Transitioning PM Entrepreneur  [03:35] Learning to Trust Others and Building Your Team [07:41] Moving You Toward the Four Reasons for Starting a Business [09:13] Offloading the Tasks You Don’t Like  [09:41] Are You in This Stage? Keep Going!! Tweetables “If you add teammates and you're adding more expense to the business, you have to make sure you're doing it with the right people for the right things that the business needs most.” “There is nothing in the business that you have to do in the long run. If there's any piece you don't enjoy, you can get somebody else to do it.” “You can learn endlessly, but you need to be taking the right actions as quickly as possible.” “So if you're in that stage and it's uncomfortable right now, just keep going. Double down. You will graduate.” Resources DoorGrow and Scale Mastermind DoorGrow Academy DoorGrow on YouTube DoorGrowClub DoorGrowLive TalkRoute Referral Link Transcript [00:00:00] So property management entrepreneurs, they don't stay at this level of this transitioning property management entrepreneur in the stage between zero to 200 doors. They don't stay there for very long. They either make it to the next level or they contract from struggle and attrition.  [00:00:16] 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 your business and in life and you are 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.  [00:00:57] 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. [00:01:20] Now let's get into the show. So in today's episode, we're going to continue on this sort of train of thought or the series of talking about the different avatars that we target here at DoorGrow, and basically these different stages of progression in the entrepreneurial journey of property managers. So if you've missed some of the previous episodes in which we've talked about solo, preneurs, pure startups, those that are stuck, property managers transitioning is what we're talking about today. So go back and listen to previous episodes. We talked on previous episodes about pure startups and then graduating into that solopreneur stage of, you know, going from seeker to solopreneur. [00:02:04] And the next is transitioning. I call them transitioning property management entrepreneurs because they don't stay in the stage very long. So once you break that hundred door barrier, if you do it in a healthy way, you have basically graduated from that previous sort of sand trap, and you're going to graduate to the next sand trap. [00:02:27] And we'll talk about that on another call or another recording, that will be the kind of the standard property management entrepreneur, where they have a legit business at 200 to 400 doors. So you break the hundred door barrier usually within a year or two, if you do it in a healthy way, breaking that a hundred door barrier, within a year or two, you're going to be in that next sort of sand trap, typically, that next sort of challenge at 200 to 400 doors, and that's one of the most painful spots to be in. And we'll talk about that in a future episode. So let's talk a little bit about this transition. So say you break a hundred doors. You know now how to add doors. [00:03:08] Most likely you've done the work. You've did something that you can repeat. Finally, you're figuring out how to get past that first sand trap. You're figuring out how to grow and add doors. And so you've now graduated from being just at that solo preneurs sort of status. You've likely hired your first team member or two, and you're focused maybe a little bit on building processes and creating a little leverage for yourself. Maybe through assistance or other things. Going from seeker to that stage requires giving up control and trusting others, since that's really difficult for a lot of people. You probably also believe that you still are irreplaceable. You have this irreplaceable position and you probably still are lying a little bit to yourself, internally saying this sort of, kind of idea that "no one else can do what I do better than me. Nobody else could do it. It's like it's impossible. I'm so great. No one else could ever be as good as me."  [00:04:07] But you have now started to believe that at least there's other people out there that you can get and you probably are focused on some of the cheapest people. You could get, probably hiring VAs, maybe in Mexico or the Philippines. And you've started to like, let go of a little bit of that control because you're hitting a wall. Like you're hitting a limit in your capacity to focus and spend time on the business and you're maxing out. So you need some additional help and support. But if you could do it without them, you probably would 'cause you want to hold it all to yourself. Right? Because nobody's going to do it as well as you would do it because you're so great. At this stage, though, they're not good at hiring. They don't really understand how to hire. They don't understand how to build the right team. They have lots of failures when it comes to team and staffing and they sometimes wonder if they should just go back to doing it all back on their own. So you've probably thought that if you're at this stage, you've probably thought, "maybe I should just do this myself." [00:05:09] It felt easier. I hear this all the time: "if I have to tell them to do it, I might as well just do it myself." This is what this kind of category of person says, you know, "I might as well just do it myself, so it's a waste of my time." but they believe there might be this idea, they have the seed thought that there's this idea that they could have leveraged somehow. It just, they haven't experienced it fully yet. So they don't quite believe it. So property management entrepreneurs, they don't stay at this level of this transitioning property management entrepreneur in the stage between zero to 200 doors. They don't stay there for very long. They either make it to the next level or they contract from struggle and attrition. [00:05:52] Now, occasionally. You'll see somebody get to just, they might just break past that 200 door barrier and they figure out how to do it basically almost by themselves. They've got like maybe one assistant they've really gotten picky about their clients. They fired the bad stuff. They've got some processes kind of defined, and they figured out how they can almost stay a solopreneur with one boots on the ground part-time assistant and just have that. And you'll see people that have these businesses where they can do maybe 200 doors or so. It's rare to see them maybe break 300, but they'll be able to have a little portfolio like this and they'll be able to manage it. They're the one interacting almost entirely with most of the clients directly. They're still probably doing a lot of maintenance coordination stuff, but they've started to give up some pieces of the business to maybe one part-time or maybe full-time team member. And they really are pretty comfortable usually at that stage, some of them. Now, if you are like me, then you want to continue growing and you're going to get to that next level. [00:07:02] So usually they'd push through this. Once they've started into the transition, they want to fully complete that transition and they move into that next stage where they actually have a whole team. So really that transitioning property management entrepreneur at this stage, really your main goal right now is to learn how to hire, how to build a team, how to get the right people, but usually they never really learned that fully. And that's the challenge they deal with. As they build a team, they usually do it through a lot of trial and error, and then they have an okay team, but they build the wrong team-- the wrong team around themselves. And we'll talk about that in a future episode. [00:07:41] So what we do with clients early on, when they start to hire, before they hire, we have them do a time study. We figure out which things energize them and which things drain them, which things are tactical versus strategic. And then we have them offload and build out job descriptions and offload the things that are tactical and energetic drains, minus signs, so they can focus more on the strategic and the plus signs energetically. Right? So then we're getting on a team member that is taking the negatives off their plate that drain them that are not fun. So we can move them closer and closer with each new team member towards the four reasons, which is another episode we did previously. [00:08:21] The four reasons for having a business or the main goal to build a business in building a business is to have it be a vehicle for these four reasons, which is fulfillment, freedom, contribution, and support. And that means in order to have that, you have to have a team, and you have to have good team members. If you add teammates and you're adding more expense to the business, you have to make sure you're doing it with the right people, for the right things that the business needs most. And at the very early stages, it's really what you need most. If each team member you add is not moving you towards having greater fulfillment and greater freedom, greater contribution, and greater support. Then you are adding people incorrectly, or you're not adding the right people, or you're holding onto the wrong things. And a lot of times at the stage, you still probably believe you have to do certain things in the business. So if this is you right now, I'm letting you know there is nothing in the business that you have to do in the long run. [00:09:22] If there's any piece you don't enjoy, you can get somebody else to do it. And then will probably-- if you hire the right person-- they will be better at it than you, especially if it's something you don't enjoy and they do. They will be much better at that. And so if you do hiring right, you will build the ultimate team around you. [00:09:41] So that's kind of our topic for today is transitioning property managers. They're in this transitory sort of stage of 100 to 200 doors. I don't see very many people stay in that state for very long. It's usually maybe a year or two max, and then they're usually out of it. So if you're in that stage and it's uncomfortable right now, just keep going. Double down. You will graduate. And that graduation is building a team around you so that you are maybe in that 200 to 400 door category. And you've got maybe about five team members or more so that you can really start to hopefully graduate in fully into those four reasons. If you're like most you've done it wrong. And so we will talk about that on the next episode. [00:10:30] So until next time, everybody to our mutual growth, and if you are looking to add doors or you're looking to figure out hiring or scale operations, and you want to collapse time dramatically, the number one thing that you can do is invest in yourself and invest in knowledge. That's going to help you collapse time. If you are trying to do it all yourself and think you're the smartest person in the room. And you're trying to read books and watch videos and just learn, learn, learn, learn, learn, you can learn endlessly, but you need to be taking the right actions as quick as possible. And my goal would be as coach to help you collapse time on that. [00:11:08] So that's of interest to you. Reach out to DoorGrow we would love to help you out and support you. Our clients are getting phenomenal results really quickly, and it speeds up time dramatically and we've added some new trainings and some new material. We're constantly developing new stuff. So, and with that being said, we will talk to you in our next step. [00:11:27] So bye everyone.  [00:11:28] You just listened to the #DoorGrowShow. We are building a community of the savviest property management entrepreneurs on the planet in the DoorGrowClub. Join your fellow DoorGrow Hackers at doorgrowclub.com. Listen, everyone is doing the same stuff. SEO, PPC, pay per lead content, social direct mail, and they still struggle to grow!  [00:11:55] At DoorGrow, we solve your biggest challenge: getting deals and growing your business. Find out more at doorgrow.com. Find any show notes or links from today's episode on our blog doorgrow.com, and to get notified of future events and news subscribe to our newsletter at doorgrow.com/subscribe. [00:12:16] Until next time, take what you learn and start DoorGrow Hacking your business and your life.

I have noticed that property management entrepreneurs often try to do everything themselves. They think they can figure anything out on their own. This leads to frustration and wearing way too many hats as the business owner. Property management growth expert Jason Hull describes the next stage in the property management entrepreneur journey, the solopreneur. You’ll Learn… [02:02] The Property Management Solopreneur  [04:19] The Cycle of Suck and the Solopreneur Sandtrap [06:28] Fire Your Worst Doors! [08:15] $100 Earned Does not Justify $100 Spent [09:57] Don’t Undercharge [12:14] You Are Probably Limiting Your Own Business Growth [15:01] You Don’t Have to Do Everything Yourself Tweetables “It is absolutely possible to have the business of your dreams, to have the team of your dreams that supports you.” “If you have a crappy reputation and you're getting crappy reviews online guess what you attract more of? More crappy owners.” “You can't just go add another a hundred dollars expense because you're making another a hundred bucks.” “You can either be right, or you can win. You can either keep your excuses or you can start getting results, but you can't have both.” Resources DoorGrow and Scale Mastermind DoorGrow Academy DoorGrow on YouTube DoorGrowClub DoorGrowLive TalkRoute Referral Link Transcript [00:00:00] 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 your 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. [00:00:42] 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.  [00:01:07] Alright, everybody. So I just got back from Mexico. My last episode was about the importance of taking a vacation and it was an awesome vacation, except for one thing. I got sick. I probably ate some food I shouldn't have, or maybe some seafood that wasn't cooked right. Or maybe I was at a bad restaurant. I don't know. Maybe-- I heard the ice sometimes, it's the ice, not what you're drinking, but it's the ice they put into it. Cause they didn't filter the ice. I don't know. So, anyway, I got sick and so I'm still feeling a little bit on the weather. I'm not feeling amazing or a hundred percent today, so you'll have to excuse me, because I am human. [00:01:47] So, but today we're getting back into talking about these different avatars that we target here at DoorGrow in property management. And so we're going to talk a little bit about today the solo preneur property management. Last time, if you missed that episode two episodes back, we talked about seekers and then a couple of episodes before that we talked about pure startups. [00:02:12] So if you miss those episodes, go back and listen to those, then there'll be very insightful for you to learn the entrepreneurial journey as he moved through various stages of property management. So today we're talking about solo preneur, property management entrepreneurs. And so these, I usually quickly categorize just based on door count. These are usually going to be people that are maybe you know, they're under a hundred doors. Usually they're stuck in the 50 to maybe 60, maybe 80 door range. A lot of times they'd been in business for two to five years. There is also a category of them that I call the stuck property management entrepreneurs. [00:02:48] And they've been in business anywhere from four to 20 years. And they're still in that five 50 to maybe a hundred door range. So let's, let's first get into kind of identifying these solopreneur property managers. The reason I call them solopreneurs is they're caught in what I call the solopreneur sandtrap. This means they've been in business usually short time, maybe three to five years before they even reach out for help. I get a lot of people at that stage that reach out for help. They don't do it in the first year, first, two years, sometimes even the third year until maybe towards the end of that. [00:03:24] Because lot of times, they think they can figure it out on their own. And they're trying. They're trying lots of different stuff. Usually they're right around 50, 60 doors, I find they might get up to maybe about 80 if they have a spouse or business partner or somebody that's kind of working for free, you know, in the business. You'll see sometimes they'll get up to maybe around 80, but that's usually about as many doors as they can handle on their own without additional team members. Or if they have a spouse or business partner. That's usually as many as they can handle dealing with, because they're caught in that cycle of suck. I've done episodes on several webinars and things over the years, I've talked about the Cycle of Suck in property management, which is you take on crappy owners, you then have crappy properties. And you take that on as well and then you have crappy tenants by default. Because they're difficult to deal with because the owner's being difficult, or the property's being difficult. And then you have a crappy reputation, and if you have a crappy reputation and you're getting crappy reviews online guess what you attract more of? More crappy owners, right. [00:04:32] So then you're caught in this property management hell, this cycle of suck So you want to escape that cycle of suck. Now, a lot of property managers or solopreneurs, they want to get on every client. They take on anybody and they move right into that cycle of suck, and they end up trapped. They're kind of-- they've painted themselves into a corner. They can't afford to hire anybody. They don't have enough money and they can't really manage any more doors. And they're usually losing about as many doors as they're getting on every year because they've taken on a lot of accidental investors, people that are only going to stick around for maybe a year, they have a lot of attrition have to replace a lot of those. I mean, often the solo preneurs that are in this stage, they often dream. They dream. Their goal is to break that hundred door barrier. And if you've already passed that a hundred door barrier, you are rare. There's not a lot that do that. There's vast majority that have a lot less than this. There's a lot that only have a handful of doors and they're dabblers, right? The seekers.  [00:05:33] And then you've got quite a few they're stuck at this first major sand trap. This solopreneur sandtrap. Often I find they're in a worse financial situation than the pure startups. The pure startups usually know that it's going to take a little money to get the business off the ground and they have some cash on hand, but these solo preneurs have tried everything, and they're investing so much into the business and they're getting such a little return or yield from that. And they have all these new expenses. They just can't seem to make it work, and they're in a lot of pain. And so they have a harder time, sometimes-- than pure startups-- in signing up with us or working with DoorGrow. I love helping all of these different groups. Solopreneurs... One of the main things that I will generally have them do to get them out of the cycle suck, is fire some bad doors. So they usually have built a portfolio up that is maxing them out in terms of time and resources. And I know property managers that by themselves have managed 200 doors and that's absolutely possible, but it's not possible if you're caught in the cycle of suck and you have bad doors and bad owners. [00:06:45] So you've got to get out of that. And so, right now, if you're caught in this sand trap and you know that your portfolio sucks, my recommendation is just fire your worst client. I guarantee if you do the math and you figure out your profit margin and you figure out the expenses that it costs you to manage that property based on profit margin, right? [00:07:06] So let's say you have a 50% profit margin, which would be amazing in most, any business, right. That would mean for every dollar of expense that you have. You need $2 to offset that in sales revenue or you collecting revenue, right? It's two to one ratio. My guess is your ratio is even worse. So it doesn't make sense for you to even keep on somebody that the expense for this owner or operating costs based on what your time is worth and effort, you are giving up a lot more than just that money. [00:07:41] And by letting go of them, it creates a lot more space. I would guarantee that these are not profitable for you to manage. The big mistake I see a lot of people in the solopreneur stage make is they don't really have a lot of financial savvy. And so you'll see people with this really unhealthy, unrealistic mindset where they'll say, "well, I'm making a hundred dollars off this door. So now that means I can now go spend a hundred dollars. That's not reality. If your profit margin were 50% that would mean you would need to make $200 in order to be able to justify a hundred dollar expense. So you can't just go add another a hundred dollars expense because you're making another a hundred bucks. [00:08:23] For most it's way worse than that in the beginning, it might be instead of a two to one ratio, it might be a 10 to one ratio, which means you need to make $10,000 in order to justify a thousand dollar expense or by cutting a thousand dollar expense, that's $10,000 in sales revenue. You don't have the pressure of generating. [00:08:43] You don't have to generate. So. They are usually in a worse financial situation. So right now, take a look at your portfolio. And if you have any owner or property, that's eating up a large portion of your time. It's not profitable. Let them go. If you dedicated that amount of time to grow your business or doing some strategies we teach at DoorGrow, you could easily offset that and create that space. And so you may also want to set a rule like maybe a three to one or five to one rule, in which you give yourself permission that if you can get on three good doors, you will fire that bad one. Or if you get on five good doors, you will fire your worst one until you get this portfolio cleaned up. A clean, healthy portfolio will make you money and be profitable and you'll have room to grow. If you don't have room to grow and you've backed yourself into a corner it's because you made some tactical errors in your business. [00:09:41] So the next thing is you want to take a look at. and I can give some examples. You know, I had one of my clients came here and his name was Sterling. He was at about 60 doors. He was charging too little. So this is another challenge I see is they think getting into the industry, they need to charge less. And I've talked about that on some previous episodes, but he was charging too little on average, maybe only charging, you know, a percentage of $500-$600 rent. So he was taking on worse properties, didn't have as much margin. And I helped him double the amount of profit in his business simply by increasing his pricing. And that also filtered out some of the worst properties. He actually pretty much doubled his gross revenue because his fees were so low, right? Like if you imagine somebody taking-- let's just throw out their number-- like 10% of 500 or $600 rent. That's only 50 or $60 a door. It's not enough. It's not enough. [00:10:40] It's certainly not enough with it doesn't give you enough space or room to grow the business or add team members. So, in six months, Sterling, after working with us and six months after we did some type of sales and did a website for him and some other stuff, he was at 300 doors and he was almost charging double. Right? So he was making a lot more money. We had a couple Will and Robin, and they built up a pretty sizeable property management business that they were focused on real estate and some other stuff. And they turned it over to a family member or somebody to run. And somehow all those doors whittled down all the way, to about 60 doors. So in about a year, we got them back up to 200 doors and they focused heavily on online reviews and some other strategies that were really effective building out a warm outreach program and some other stuff that we did with them, but they were able to build up the business really quickly and get out of that. [00:11:39] And they were stuck, partially caught in the cycle of suck. And one of the ways to mitigate that cycle suck is to focus on the reputation piece, which is that fourth step in the cycle of suck. So getting things cleaned up is a really big deal for this stage because you've probably built the wrong portfolio. Now, there are a category of property managers at this stage that have been in business longer, like four to 20 years, like a lot longer. And what that tells me is if they're still under a hundred doors and they've been doing this longer than four years or for a long time, and this wasn't just some side hustle, they were really trying to do this... it may have just been a side hustle, which is the case a lot of times, but the reality is usually these are people that are going to stay stuck probably forever. I don't even think I can help them in a lot of situations because they are ironically really smart and they're adaptive individuals, but they appear stupid others simply because they cannot see how they're limiting their own growth by trying to control everything. [00:12:45] So sometimes they are smarter than some of my other clients. And sometimes they just are too in their head. These are seekers basically that are stuck and stagnant. Their biggest challenge is their mindset that they can do it themselves. They just believe that it makes more sense to do it themselves and save money by doing it themselves, that it prevents them from being able to make more money and to grow. [00:13:11] So that's the biggest challenge is that mindset. Essentially, they focus on saving money over the speed of speeding up growth and spending money to make more money. They're cheap basically. And so they waste a lot of time and energy by seeking out stuff on YouTube and trying to read a bunch of books and trying to figure out how to do it all on their own, rather than getting expert help. They sometimes have a decent amount of ego. Sometimes, they're a bit more analytical logical, and they just feel that there's so much out there that they want to do and can do if they just had more time, "if I just had more time, I'd be able to solve all of these problems." And that is probably true, but it will take a decade to do what can be done in a year if you are really caught up in trying to do it all yourself. And if you really are that know-it-all that thinks, "I am smart enough and I can figure this out on my own. I don't need anyone else to help me do this." So unfortunately they can't see this potential. They look at the expense, the potential expense of getting new team members as insurmountable unjustifiable, because they already have this discomfort of this limited profit margin and their inability to get support and help and pay for experts really is what holds them hostage. They're now a slave to this business. So they end up trying to just do more and become more productive and get more done. [00:14:46] But everybody has a limited capacity, and they've hit their limit. And over time they build this business full of confirmation bias that relies more and more on them and reinforces the idea that no one else could possibly do what I can do. Right? They have this ego that no one else is good enough, and they view the world through this lens. So they might even try hiring a team member, and they're like, "they're so terrible." Or "they don't want to work" and they blame everybody else. And they're like, "only I can do this." And they have this ego that "I'm so amazing. I'm the guy or the gal and no one else can do what I can do." and so they make that true. It becomes this self-fulfilling prophecy because no savvy property manager would want to do things that way. And so they create this sort of prison for themselves, if you will. And in order to break out of that prison, it's a lot of work because they've built it up. They built up these walls. [00:15:44] Whether they're real or not, they built up these walls and this perception that it's insurmountable, it's difficult and they believe it. And so to destroy those walls, they fight for it. What I've noticed on calls with them is I will say, "well, you need to do this." And they're like, "well, I can't do that. I don't believe you, Jason. That doesn't mean." Or "does it make sense to do that?" Or " my owners would never go for that" or "that's how they are in my market. You don't know my market. And they always fight to keep their excuses of why they suck and why they can't grow. And it's impossible. It's really, I found it really impossible to try and squeeze a new idea into their head. And the only thing I could do is say, "look, we've got clients that were in a situation similar to you, but they're getting results. It is possible," but they are unwilling to believe it. And a lot of times, these property managers, they turn on me and they want to find flaws with me and believe that there's some sort of dirty secret about DoorGrow like we're not really in a state of integrity or we don't really do what we can do, or we're just in it to take money from people or whatever they want to believe. And they will try and find validation for this and they go hunting for it and they try and find, you know, every business that has success has a little tribe of haters, especially in coaching. [00:17:00] Right? And so they go find the other haters that all are bitter and upset that also didn't want to do the work or didn't want to make changes or thought they were smarter than me or anybody else. And weren't willing to do the work or make the changes. And they were fighting to keep their excuses. You know and I sometimes will say and I heard other coaches say, you can either be right, or you can win. You can either keep your excuses or you can start getting results, but you can't have both. You have to give something up and then if you're not willing to change your story, you're not going to be able to change your life. [00:17:37] If you're not willing to change the story about your clients or the market or all the excuses you have for why you're not winning and see something different, you will never have a different result. So if you are at this stage, you are a solopreneur property manager, you feel like you painted yourself into a corner, reach out. If you're humble enough and open-minded enough to reach out for help, we would be glad to help and support you. [00:18:02] We can help you figure out how to get to that next level. Hopefully you've gotten a few tips and ideas just from this call alone so that you can get to that next level and move forward. It is absolutely possible to have the business of your dreams, to have the team of your dreams that supports you and to find people that are better at each of the things you don't enjoy doing in your business. Is absolutely possible to find people that are better in each of those pieces that you aren't naturally inclined to do or don't love doing. It's possible to find people that will be better at it than you. They will surpass your ability in those things. I've seen it over and over and over again. My team are built as a team of people that are all better at things that they enjoy doing and love doing and that they are doing. They're all better at those things than I would be. Most entrepreneurs, we're highly adaptable. I used to do everything in the business. Right now, you might be doing everything in the business, but you don't love and enjoy everything. I have an episode. Previously, I talked about the four reasons. Go back and listen to that. [00:19:08] You are heavily out of alignment with the four reasons if you really want to hold on to everything and do everything and control everything. And there's a process to feeling safe, letting go of those things and finding people that are better at it than you and making the right hiring decisions at the right time. Otherwise you'll make a tactical mistake and you get crushed or your business fails because cashflow is king and you have to have cash in the business. So you don't want to hire the wrong person. You need to hire the right person with the right job to take off the minus signs or the things that energetically destroy your dream, and that's what you need most. [00:19:44] So I'm really good at helping business owners build the right business and the right team around them. Instead, what most do is building the business that they think that and building the team that they think the business needs instead. So, and they just build a stronger and bigger prison for themselves as they gravitate up into the 200 to 400 door range, for example. So that is solo preneur property managers and stuck property managers-- that early stage-- stuck in that early stage. So if you would like to escape that and you're, open-minded enough reach out to the DoorGrow. We'd be glad to help you. You can check us out at doorgrow.com and you can also join our Facebook group by going to doorgrowclub.com. [00:20:26] So doorgrow.com is our business, and doorgrowclub.com is our Facebook group, our community, for those that are enjoying this podcast, and we will be glad to start you on your journey of escaping being the solopreneur. And next time we get in one of these avatars, we're going to be talking about the transitioning property management entrepreneur that is moving speedily from a hundred doors-- they've broken that a hundred door barrier into the 200 to 400 door sand trap. Right. So we'll talk about that next. Until next time everybody, to our mutual growth. I hope to see you winning we'll talk soon. Bye everyone. [00:21:03] 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!  [00:21:30] 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. [00:21:51] Until next time, take what you learn and start DoorGrow Hacking your business and your life.

If you want to scale your business, you have to let go of controlling everything. How? Plan a vacation. Vacations are ESSENTIAL in owning and running a business. Yes, really. Property management growth expert Jason Hull and DoorGrow Operator Sarah Hall explain why taking vacations is essential when running a property management business. You’ll Learn… [00:38] Where is Jason this Week?? [01:47] Why Should You Take a Vacation as a Property Manager? [02:53] Schedule Your Vacation in Advance [04:08] How to Prepare Your Team (p.s. You are Not as Important as You Think [06:21] Making Sure Your Business is Scalable Tweetables “Vacations are essential. You've got to be able to take a vacation and relax, otherwise you'll burn out.” “If you don't schedule time to make sure that you are healthy mentally and healthy physically and taking time to relax, the whole business will suffer.” “It forces your team to step up and level up because they can't lean on you anymore. So by taking vacations, it actually improves your team.” “I realized I'm not as important as I thought I was in my own business. Which is humbling.” Resources DoorGrow and Scale Mastermind DoorGrow Academy DoorGrow on YouTube DoorGrowClub DoorGrowLive TalkRoute Referral Link Transcript [00:00:00] Sarah: Vacations are essential. You've got to be able to take a vacation and relax, otherwise you'll burn out.  [00:00:05] Jason: All right. Welcome DoorGrow Hackers. So today's going to be a little bit of a different episode. I'm on vacation. And where are we?  [00:00:16] Sarah: Acapulco.  [00:00:17] Jason: Acapulco. So this is going to be a little different episode. I'm doing this from my phone. So hopefully this turns out. You're not going to-- I'm not going to read my manifesto, my normal intro. Just know that if you are a property management entrepreneur that wants to grow your business and you do things a bit differently, then you are a DoorGrow Hacker, so. And, uh, you want to do things differently, alright? That's like the short version.  [00:00:38] All right. So, we're sitting here at the Banyan tree resort in Acapulco, which is like the number one resort. It's really nice. We are by the little pool near the bay here. This is the ocean. And, uh, what are we drinking? We've got the best mojitos that I've ever had. Which really sucks because once we leave here, I will forever feel like all other mojitos are not as good because these are the best ones I've ever had, so we'll have to come back to get a good Mojito I guess, so. They're really good.  [00:01:14] Anyway, what we want to talk about on today's episode is vacations, the importance of vacations. So one of the things I've noticed in dealing with and helping and talking to thousands of property managers is that there's a general lack of taking vacations. And this is one of the things that I coach clients on doing. So I'll let Sarah talk. So I'm here with my fiance, Sarah, who's also the operator at DoorGrow. She's amazing. She's already helped us save hundreds of thousands of dollars and figuring out things and really getting operations dialed in. So why do you think managers should commit to taking vacations? Like I'm in such a state of overwhelm, I'm completely part of the day-to-day operations. I don't have the support that I need. How am I going to take vacations?  [00:02:02] Sarah: So I'm also a property manager and vacations are essential. You've got to be able to take a vacation and relax, otherwise you'll burn out. It'll just keep going, your business. You're always going to have things to do. You're always going to have your endless to-do list and your things that need to get done and you would like to get done and things that you know is gonna happen to move your business forward. So that will never end, ever. So, if you don't schedule time for yourself, then your business will suffer. If you don't schedule time to make sure that you are healthy mentally and healthy physically and taking time to relax, the whole business will suffer.  So make sure you take some time for yourself. Plan family time. Plan vacations. Plan little trips. [00:02:53] Jason: To really make sure we drive this home. I want to point out that just scheduling a vacation. Schedule it out in advance. Give yourself plenty of time to prepare. If you haven't taken one in the last two or three years, do it right now. Sit down with your partner, your spouse, whoever, especially if they're involved in the business with you and say, "let's just schedule it." Because just by scheduling it and setting that intention, you have to figure out how to make it work. Set it out 90 days out. You can pretty much change everything significant related to this in the business in the next 90 days. Schedule a vacation schedule six months out if you feel like there's no possible way you could do this. But schedule the vacation and then do everything you need to do to get ready for it. If you have a team, even better. You can start meeting with your team and say, "Hey, look, I scheduled a vacation. It's in the next 90 days. It's on this date and we need to make sure we are ready for when I'm going to be gone because I'm going to be gone." [00:03:52] And I want you to be gone during your vacation. Like, "I'm not going to be available. You can't hand me escalations. I can't put out fires for you. I'm not going to be able to take care of problems. Like I'm going to be off grid. You'll need to figure out how to handle this." So if you have any team members at all, then you can do that. [00:04:08] If you need more time, get at least one one executive assistant, one team member, an operator in your business. And if you need help with that stuff, talk to me, talk to our team at DoorGrow. We can get you in a place where you're ready for that and figure out how to build out a really good hiring system. But if you set that intention, you can figure it out. You can figure out with your team, "what processes do we need for me to be gone for a week? What systems do we need to have in place for me to be gone for a week? Who needs to know how to do what in order for me to be gone for a week? [00:04:42] And so if you set that intention to do that, what I found was when I finally just started scheduling vacations, a couple of things happened. One, I realized I'm not as important as I thought I was in my own business. Which is humbling. Like my team actually stepped up and could handle stuff without me. And it forces your team to step up and level up because they can't lean on you anymore. So by taking vacations, it actually improves your team. The other thing I noticed was that leading up to the vacation, we got a shit ton of stuff done. Like we got a massive amount of things done: processes documented, things figured out, things changed. All this stuff that was on my plate, I had to start figuring out how to give this up in order to be prepared for it. So we had massive momentum and a massive amount of changes in the weeks leading up to the vacation Because stuff got real, and they knew I wouldn't be available, and everybody started to freak out a little bit including myself. So I started making a lot of changes. So this is an intentional way of forcing yourself to get out of the business, which is what you want. You want to have more freedom, more fulfillment, more contribution, more support. And in order to do that, you need to be able to lean on your team, and by forcing and setting an intention of a vacation, this will allow you to have a vacation. This will allow you to create distance from the business and be able to have a business that can run without you for at least a week. Very few things can really get completely destroyed or damaged in a week, right? You aren't going to lose clients in just one week.  [00:06:10] So set the intention, schedule a vacation, especially if you haven't done it in the last year or two. All right. My phone is saying we're on low power mode, so that means it's time to get back to vacation. So anything else we should add?  [00:06:21] Sarah: Yeah. We also want to make sure you and your business are in a position to scale. If everything is on your plate and you can't offload anything and you can't trust your team and you don't have any processes or any systems or anyone you can rely on you can't scale. You can only handle so much. Every person can only handle so much. So, if you want more out of life and you want more out of your business, and most of us do, you've got to be able to figure out what to do to get yourself out of the business. [00:06:52] Jason: Yeah, you're not as important as you think you are. Like, that's one of the humbling things us CEOs or entrepreneurs need to realize and learn. And the more you are out of the business and less you're involved in it, and the more you're able to lean on your team, the better the business actually does. And I've heard this repeatedly from multiple business owners and entrepreneurs I've helped over the years that the business and the team are happier and things are better because usually us as entrepreneurs, we're not really good managers. Most of us are visionaries and we're not good operators. So anyway, that's all we're going to do for today here for those that want some FOMO and you can see here what we're hanging out and dealing with here in Acapulco. And until next time to our mutual growth, everybody. Check us out at doorgrow.com. [00:07:35] We want to help support you and grow you in your business and help you have the business and the life of your dreams. And that's what we at Doorgrow all get a thrill of doing, to support our clients. And we want you to be able to experience more of this. All right, bye everybody. Until next time, to our mutual growth. [00:07:52] 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!  [00:08:19] 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. [00:08:40] Until next time, take what you learn and start DoorGrow Hacking your business and your life.

After getting past the pure startup phase, property management entrepreneurs begin to face new challenges. Whether you have 1 door or 50 doors, you probably experience similar problems and fall victim to common mistakes. Property management growth expert Jason Hull explains the common pitfalls and challenges that “seekers” face in the property management industry. You’ll Learn… [01:12] Seekers: the Next Phase of Being a Property Management Entrepreneur [03:14] Falling Victim to Franchises [04:34] Learning the Ropes: Product Research Interviews [07:16] Getting that First 50 Doors [08:11] Becoming an Expert in Your Field [11:47] How to Collapse Time and Avoid Wasting Tens of Thousands of Dollars [12:32] Getting the Right Kind of Leads Tweetables “One of the big challenges: you don't know yet what you don't know at this stage.” “Get educated because the more educated you are, the more of authority you are” “If you are a decent human being, you will experience imposter syndrome. Every entrepreneur goes through this state.” “Remember, nobody wants to buy property management from you. What they really want to buy from you is peace of mind or safety and certainty.” Resources DoorGrow and Scale Mastermind DoorGrow Academy DoorGrow on YouTube DoorGrowClub DoorGrowLive TalkRoute Referral Link Transcript [00:00:00] Remember, nobody wants to buy property management from you. What they really want to buy from you is peace of mind 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 your business and your life, and you are open to doing things a bit differently than 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 businesses and the business owner. 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 am 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 on a previous episode, we started talking about this journey that the entrepreneur or the property management entrepreneur business owner goes through. And we started with the pure startup. The zero door crowd. So today we're going to get into the next level. It's barely beyond that. It's like one door beyond that. Like they've actually started. And these, I call seekers. Why? Because they are seeking a lot. They're seeking a lot of knowledge. They don't know a lot. They're trying to figure out like what they need to do. They're trying to get over all sorts of challenges. So when you first start taking action, that's a big leap. It's difficult. So a lot of times these might be-- and if this is you, you're likely a realtor, maybe with a few rental investment properties of your own. Maybe you have a little bit of experience managing properties for yourself, or maybe a little bit for others. [00:02:14] These seekers are not yet even aware of how painful and tough it can be until they mature into kind of that next level we'll get into in a future episode. They are now wanting to start a property management business, and they are easy prey to making many common mistakes. They fall prey to a lot of potential pitfalls, such as selecting poor branding. Choosing poor branding that costs them a lot of leads, getting a website that doesn't convert and capture leads well, not pricing themselves effectively... like trying to be the cheapest in the market, no strategy for online review gathering and they start quickly earning a negative reputation just from their first few interactions taking on bad clients that costs them 10 times good ones. We talked about the cycle of suck on a previous episode. I recommend you review that if you're in this stage or any stage, really. And so that is a challenge. They're caught in the cycle of suck.  [00:03:14] A lot of times in this seeker stage, they fall prey to expensive franchises. And so, you know, you can check out DoorGrow, and just Google DoorGrow and "property management franchise alternative." and we have a whole page about the potential pitfalls of choosing into a property management franchise and all the limitations that that creates and why it may not be a good fit for almost anyone so. Paying for expensive and ineffective marketing channels, which franchises generally push you towards such as SEO, pay-per-click content marketing, social media marketing, pay per lead services, and you end up getting really poor results. So it's really costly, takes a lot more time, and you get way less results. A lot of times at this stage, they're seeking a broker. Uh, that's an issue with pure startups. A lot of times they're seeking a broker. They're working on getting their brokers license. They may be working underneath the broker instead of having their own brokers license, and they're just seeking a lot of tools and resources and ideas. And there's so many shiny objects, so many pieces of software, so many tools, and a lot of times they go down this rabbit hole of just playing around with all this stuff and not actually taking action and moving forward. [00:04:34] So. I've seen a lot of clients come to me that were kind of at this level and at this stage, and one of the big challenges: you don't know yet what you don't know at this stage. You haven't learned yet how difficult certain pieces of the business can be. So there's a lot of decisions that need to be made. So one of the things that I teach clients just to throw a bone out is an idea or strategy called product research interviews. And without giving away too much awesome stuff just on our free podcast-- but I want to always give value-- is product research interviews are going to be a great tool for the seeker and for the pure startups to get ideas and to learn what they need to do to please investors. It helps them learn what objections, what challenges. So do some product research interviews. If you are going to create something new, a new product or service. Such as starting a property management business and offering a suite of services for property management, my recommendation is you do some product research interviews because you may not really know. You know maybe what you need as an investor, but you're one limited avenue for information. And so my recommendation is that you talk to at least minimum 20 or 30 investors. And ask them about their concerns, why they haven't used a property manager in the past, if they have, what challenges have they had. [00:06:06] So you get connected to reality in terms of how the investor thinks, what their mindset is, what challenges they see, what their objections are. Once you've done this with about 20 or 30, you'll probably be almost as savvy as a lot of property managers that have been doing this for at least a handful of years, because they never did that, so they just waited until they had 20 or 30 solid opportunities. And then eventually they actually got wise enough to start asking really healthy questions to get feedback, which might've been, you know, a hundred people in after talking to a lot of investors. So I want to collapse time for you. Start doing some product research interviews. Real simple. Go out to some sort of real estate investor group. Start connecting and meeting people and just say, "Hey, I'm starting a property management business. It looks like you're doing some cool stuff in the industry or that you're an investor. I would love to take you out to lunch, pick your brain. I could really use some feedback on what I was looking at doing and offering to clients." And the secret that we talk about, even in more detail in our program is these are awesome leads. This is a really easy side door to get some leads for your business to get things started. [00:07:16] So getting that first 50 doors. A seeker, may be like one to 50 doors, right. And this stage you are just learning. You're just learning, like "how should I handle a lease?" And like, "how should I handle contracts?" And like, "how should I like get property management software in place?" And like, you're just focused on some really basic stuff to get the business healthy and going, and you might get caught up on stuff that you don't really need to spend a ton of time on yet. Like if it's just, you, you don't really need to be spending a ton of time documenting processes or worrying about VAs or, you know, some of this kind of stuff. That's probably once you have 50 doors, then it's time to start maybe focusing on "how can I offload a little bit?" "how can I start creating some leverage?" Maybe there's some software and some tools, and then we'll get into that on a subsequent podcast episode.  [00:08:11] So if you are a seeker and you are figuring this stuff out, I mentioned this for the pure startups, but a lot of seekers need to hear this too. Make sure you really learn the laws and the rules in landlord tenant law, and get really connected to the local real estate board and just really be aware of what you can and cannot do or should and should not do in your market. Get educated because the more educated you are, the more of authority you are and the more you're going to kill what every seeker feels, which is imposter syndrome. Seekers have stepped beyond the fantasy and they're in reality and reality is uncomfortable. And the pain you will experience, if you are a decent human being, you will experience imposter syndrome. Every entrepreneur goes through this state. You suck during this stage, you're going to experience a lot of pain and a lot of people avoid the suck. You have to just start sucking to get over it. You have to lean into the suck and you have to be willing to look stupid sometimes and ask dumb questions. [00:09:16] Cause you're not going to learn otherwise. And you need to be willing to experience that discomfort of imposter syndrome. And figure out how to overcome it, so you don't feel like a fake or phony or are worried whether or not they're going to know whether you know or don't know something. It's okay to admit that you're new. It's okay to admit that you might not know something, but that you will figure it out. You could easily say, "you know what? I don't actually-- I'm not totally clear on that, but that's a great question. Let me do a little bit more research and I will come back to you and let you know what I find out. You know, I have some connections with my lawyer. I have connections with my trade organization. I have connections with some of my investor clients. Let me ask around and find out a really solid answer for you on that." [00:10:06] You don't have to know everything immediately. They want to know that you can figure out problems and solve problems for them. And you don't have to be the expert on everything, but I want you to become the expert. Like become the expert that they can lean on and trust because that puts you in much higher category in their mind of trust. And they will want to do business with you if they feel safe with you. Remember, nobody wants to buy property management from you. What they really want to buy from you is peace of mind or safety and certainty, as I've talked about before. I talked about on a previous episode, the four reasons for entrepreneurs to start a business. The fifth reason for people in motivation of why they are involved in businesses or that you need to focus on a business. That fifth reason is safety and certainty. And so that's really what people want to buy from you. So make sure you know how to offer safety and certainty to them instead of just offering a bunch of products and services and things about managing their property that will maybe create safety and certainty. Help them become certain in you that you're going to create safety and certainty and they will care a lot less about all the details and features and benefits and trying to micromanage you and trying to ask way too many questions. That's usually a clue they're not feeling safe with you and they are uncomfortable and they don't feel like there's a high level of trust or safety and certainty. And remember, sales and deals happen at the speed of trust. So the faster you can create authentic, real trust, the faster you're going to get results, so. [00:11:47] If you are a seeker and you're struggling with some of this stuff and you're trying to figure it out and you don't want to make a ton of mistakes and you want to collapse time and you don't want to waste tens of thousands of dollars on marketing and signing contracts with marketing agencies, and you want to get some real solid wins, you want to grow your business without spending a dime on marketing and just investing time, but actually less time than it would take if you got leads through marketing-- which takes more time, by the way, than the warm lead strategies that we focus on at DoorGrow. If you want to spend less time and less money and get more doors more quickly, then reach out. One of my clients-- just had a call with him just the other day-- he's added 300 doors in the last year in working with us, about 300 doors.  [00:12:32] That would be impossible if you were focused on any lead gen channel or advertising channel, you know, if you were doing marketing or paying for SEO or pay-per-click or content marketing or social media marketing or any internet marketing, that would be impossible because those leads would have been colder. He wouldn't have had the time. He wouldn't have had the time to be closing that many deals and that many doors, but when deals come to you hot or warm and you're getting warm leads and referrals, and you've really optimized that sales pipeline for that, you built up really good partner programs and some of the stuff we talked about, this can go really, really fast because. The close rate on warm leads is super high. It's like 80, 90% typically. And the sales cycle time to close them is way shorter, so you're spending way less time selling. So if you want to get this business off the ground, build the right engine from the get-go. And then once it's built like this client, he's just injecting a little bit of fuel into this engine. He doesn't have to invest all the hours that he was putting in, and he was putting in like probably 20, 25 hours a week, I think, into this strategy. It is like a part-time job just to focus on sales and grow the business.  [00:13:45] But now, it just takes a little bit of fuel to keep that engine going now that he has really good connections, really good partners. He's built that. And there's some really easy, low hanging fruit that can get you a lot more doors than any of the really expensive cold lead marketing strategies. Some of them are so obvious, such a no brainer when I point it out to our new clients, they're just, they're just winning. It's just wins. We started doing in our mastermind, a new client call cause we had so many new clients that are in the early stage. And we started doing that on Tuesdays. And a lot of these are in this seeker category. [00:14:19] They've started the business, but they're in this difficult sort of stage and they have to build the engine. And the call that we just had, the first two calls we did on Tuesdays were just sharing strategies. Right? But this last call yesterday was just wins. It was just really awesome. It was lots of wins. Everyone's sharing wins and they just couldn't believe-- like they're batting a thousand. They're making calls and they're getting zero on some of the calls that they're doing. They're getting no one saying "no" in building up these referral relationships. And I know that sounds crazy and ridiculous, and you probably don't believe me, but join the program and then you'll be like, "oh yeah, that makes sense." and "that is so easy." And "I can't believe, I didn't think of doing that. I would never say no to that either." Right. So, anyway, if you're interested in growing your business, you are a seeker, check us out at doorgrow.com. Schedule a call with my team and let's get you into the DoorGrow and Scale Mastermind. [00:15:18] And our first goal with all of these seekers is to get them paid. We want to get them making double what the monthly cost of the mastermind is within the first 30 days, so that they're making enough money to justify the expense. Double the cost of the expense. They're making double that. So, and that's not too difficult to do. For most property managers, it's maybe like 10, maybe to 20 doors, depending on how much money they make per door, which later in our program, we will optimize and improve because everybody comes in with bad pricing. [00:15:50] So, all right. So that's it for today. For those of those seekers out there, keep seeking, and you will find right. This is what the Bible says anyway. So it keeps seeking, you'll find it. And hopefully in your hunt or in your seeking, you find DoorGrow. We would love to help you out. And until next time to our mutual growth. Bye everyone. [00:16:10] 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!  [00:16:37] 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. [00:16:58] Until next time, take what you learn and start DoorGrow Hacking your business and your life. 

How many times have you considered going into short term rentals as a property manager? Short-term and vacation rentals are enticing, but they can also be an intimidating niche for newcomers.  Today’s guest is Alex Jarbo, short-term rental developer and manager and CEO of Sargon Investments.He is the host of the Youtube Channel called Alex Builds where he teaches the ins and outs of short-term development and management. You’ll Learn… [01:08] Starting out in the Short-Term Rental World [08:04] Useful Tools for Managing Short-Term Rentals [12:13] Virtual Guidebooks: Providing a Unique Experience to Guests [15:42] Dealing with Common Issues in Short-Term Rentals [18:32] Some Extra Tips from Pro Short-Term Rental Manager Alex [23:06] The Shifts in the Industry Since COVID [25:34] Where to go to Learn More! Tweetables “And anytime I talk to someone they're like, "I don't know where to start investing." I was like, just start in your backyard.” “It's easier to rent out these unique properties compared to, say, something like a normal condo or something.” “I like the property to be an experience in itself on top of the city that the people are visiting for the attraction.” “I talk to a couple of people a week then it's like, is it too late to invest in short term rentals? Like, no. It's not. Invest and manage both.” Resources DoorGrow and Scale Mastermind DoorGrow Academy DoorGrow on YouTube DoorGrowClub DoorGrowLive TalkRoute Referral Link Transcript [00:00:00] Alex: I talk to a couple of people a week then it's like, is it too late to invest in short term rentals? Like, no, it's not. Invest and manage both. [00:00:06] Jason: Alright, 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 life, and you are 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.  [00:00:44] At DoorGrow, we are on a mission to transform property management businesses and the business owners. 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.  [00:01:08] And today's guest is Alex, Alex Jarbo. Am I saying your last name right?  [00:01:13] Alex: Yup. [00:01:14] Jason: I did? Okay. I didn't know if it was like a soft, "h" sounding 'j' or something. So Alex, welcome to the show. You have a company called Sargon investments. You do a lot of cool Airbnb stuff. So I'm really excited to have you on as a guest. I think the Airbnb market is of interest to a lot of my clients and a lot of property managers. It's heating up. There's more interest growing. So, maybe to get started: tell us a little bit about your background and how you kind of got into dealing with rental properties. [00:01:48] Alex: Yeah, absolutely. So I was originally, I served about four and a half years in the Marine Corps. And then I had gotten to a point where I just wanted to branch out and sort of do my own thing outside of the military. So, got out, and then the day I got out of the military, I actually moved down to where I live here in Asheville. Prior to that, I spent a couple months trying to figure out like where I wanted to move. I'm originally from Detroit, Michigan. And I wanted to get into short-term rentals. That was sort of the niche that I had chosen inside real estate. So when I moved here, got my real estate license, helped some people purchase and sell properties, but I saw a lot of people purchasing short term rentals that would just come to me. [00:02:26] So I decided to purchase my first one or at least start to purchase my first one. And I originally wanted to use my VA loan and purchase like a duplex or a triplex, live in one, and rent the other couple out on Airbnb. But what I realized really quickly was that like it was just very difficult, even back then in 2017 to find good, cash flowing short-term rentals that weren't completely out of my budget at the time. So after maybe like three months of looking and getting outbid a lot, I decided to build my first short-term rental. And on top of a building I decided to take over the, uh, management. So that's where I decided to both start a development company and start a management company. And that one property turned into two, two turned into four that we're developing, and now we're developing 10 and then working on like a boutique resort. [00:03:13] But yeah, that's the sort of the short of where I'm at now is just focusing on putting together these like boutique resort developments. And then we self manage in house. [00:03:24] Jason: Awesome. So a lot of property managers listening might think "I would like to be an investor and maybe get some of my own." I know some of my clients dabble a little bit just in their own investments. Even if they manage long-term rentals, they want to get more into AirBNB. So why don't we approach that topic first? Like getting into it, you do some things that are a little bit different than the typical Airbnb investor. And one of which being cabins. So I'm really curious about this idea of: why cabins? [00:03:59] Alex: So this is prior to COVID. My whole idea was like-- right now we invest in mountain communities, but every market has their own little area. And anytime I talk to someone they're like, "I don't know where to start investing." I was like, just start in your backyard. If you live in a Metro area, like a lot of areas, you're going to be renting out, like say condos, or you're going to be renting out apartments or something just cause you're in a busy metro city. I like to ask them like "where in your city or the market that you live in-- where do people like to take weekend vacations, maybe an hour to two away from you driving wise? [00:04:29] And that's sort of the market that I recommend people sort of go into. People are fine with driving say like 15- 20 minutes away from like a Metro city up to an hour in some cases. So like a good example of that is like people in New York, like New York city are going to travel maybe two hours. They're used to traveling two hours north to vacation, same thing with, say like in California on the west coast. People in San Diego are pretty used to going up to Big Bear Lake and taking that drive. Land prices are going to be cheaper.  [00:04:59] You can also host some like, not parties, but like bigger-- you can host more people in some of these larger cabins and you have more control on the design and that's sort of the thing we really focus on is focusing on developing unique cabins, whether it be a frames, really nice log cabins... we're, we're dabbling in like tree houses. It's just difficult to find like financing on those right now. The reason we gravitated towards cabins over something like purchasing a condo in a Metro city is we have more control over the design, which just plays into the marketing. It's easier to rent out these unique properties compared to say like something like a normal condo or something where it's a little bit more difficult to differentiate yourself to like the condo next door or something. [00:05:41] Jason: So it sounds like some of the key things you look at is proximity: like pick an area that's nearby. It needs to be something kind of where people take vacations and then novelty seems to be an aspect to this. Like cabins are a novel thing in the mountain area and making it somehow unique or different or stand out.  [00:05:59] Alex: Yeah, absolutely. And it's like, what I always like to say is: say, if you're not developing the property and you're coming into it, you want something unique about the property. I like the property to be an experience in itself on top of the city that the people are visiting for the attraction. So like, if you're looking at a market that has its attractions, but at the same time, it's like you sort of get rid of the seasonality part of it a little bit when the property itself is an experience in itself,  [00:06:24] Jason: Mmm, yeah, good point. The property kind of needs to be its own event or its own thing. Yeah. Cool. So let's shift gears and talk about property managers that might want to get into this game of targeting people. Like you have a portfolio or a small portfolio of investments that they can maybe get on as clients and what that might look like. And then maybe one of the things I think you're really good at is the technology. And so we could chat maybe a little bit about that.  [00:06:55] Alex: Yeah, for managers who are looking, before this, we were talking about like a lot of long-term managers are sort of starting to dabble in the short-term rental game. It sounds intimidating, but it's not as intimidating as it sounds. There's a lot of technology out there right now, plugins and then also CRMs that make the process pretty seamless. Depending on how many properties you have in the portfolio, you really don't need boots on the ground. It might in terms of like having a property manager in an area. Again, I would focus on one market at a time.  [00:07:25] But you can get away with a part-time maintenance person. The most important part is probably going to be your cleaning crew, and that's going to be up to you. There's pros and cons to either hiring your own, like managing the cleaning in-house or teaming up with a local cleaning crew in the area that can handle the cleaning stuff. Which again, the cleaning is definitely like-- I look at my cleaning crew as almost the manager of the properties themselves, because they're there at least twice a week or at least once a week, depending on what the booking looks like. So they see what needs to be replaced, what's damaged. If anything is damaged, they send me a picture directly, which I send directly to either Airbnb, VRBO, or wherever the property's listed.  [00:08:04] So the technology piece is going to be huge. And it, again, it's all dependent on how big you are. If you have 10 cabins, you can probably get away with, there are messaging plugins where it's like, I would say 80% of your messaging is automated. And then you can hire virtual assistants to sort of take over the other 20% of the messaging where it's like specific questions that are asked or say, if they're calling or something. [00:08:26] Jason: So the cleaning crew is almost your inspection crew. Like they're doing somewhat of an inspection as well, not just coming in and cleaning. So they're identifying issues, submitting things to your maintenance team or your system for maintenance. And then you need people that are managing that. And then you've got VAs that can help facilitate some of these things happening right? [00:08:48] Alex: Right. [00:08:49] Jason: What are some of the actual technological tools that you utilize that help you to systemize the business and make things simple for yourself?  [00:08:58] Alex: The first one is-- and I'll talk about maybe four or five tools here. The first one is going to be a tool and a company called StayFi. And I've talked about this tool so much now that I've recommended it to anyone looking to get into short-term rentals. StayFi is essentially a little disk that plugs in the back of the router. And what that does, is it email captures any guests that's using your internet. That 1. Protects you from if the guest is doing anything illegal on your internet, which might happen. But 2. It captures everyone's email in the cabin.  [00:09:29] So, you're essentially taking digital marketing principles and applying it to brick and mortar business, which is the short-term rental stuff. Which is a little difficult to do, but if you can master that part, you can essentially capture your customers. So StayFi. Imagine like you're walking into a Starbucks, you walk into an airport and you have to enter in your email address to be able to get access to the wifi. It's the same idea here, but it's geared towards short-term rentals.  [00:09:52] So from there we use MailChimp to push out marketing emails, but we push out maybe seasonal emails, like three or four emails a year just saying, "Hey," like "this season's coming up" or "Valentine's day is coming up. Would you like to book with us?" [00:10:04] Originally, when you're starting off, you can just put your Airbnb link directly in there. But as a manager who wants to build a bigger short-term rental business, you can use this to sort of take people off of Airbnb, VRBO where they book initially with the short-term rental sites, but then you can build a platform on the backend to sort of capture direct bookings where you're not paying both. The guest is not paying the processing fees. And then same thing with the host. You're saving money on that end where you're sort of-- you have more control over the guests, which is what we realized is very important.  [00:10:38] Jason: Yeah. So you're shifting from just traffic that's fed to you by Airbnb and you're taking that traffic so that it doesn't always have to come back through that and creating your own traffic. It's traffic you own now.  [00:10:50] And for those emails that you capture, do you have any, like, even anecdotal data or information on how many rebook at the same property? Is that common? [00:11:00] Alex: It is pretty common. I don't have exact numbers on that. But we do see a boost in booking say like a couple days after we've pushed the email out. Right now we're still working on building out the backend platform.  [00:11:13] We're just pushing them directly back through Airbnb right now. But like, companies like Airbnb and VRBO have metrics that show like, "Hey, this person has rebooked with you this many times." And then people who are looking to get into more of an advanced system, we use Streamline, or we're going to be using Streamline. vacation, rental software is top of the line where you can syndicate all the top short-term rental sites, and then it sort of syndicates all the messaging too that comes from the different sites. So you have one platform which I really recommend doing. Like, if someone is coming up to a manager and saying, "Hey, I want to take over your property. What can you do for me?" The first thing I recommend is always: are they just on one platform? If they're just on Airbnb, if they're just on VRBO, there's already room for growth there by just putting it on a couple other platforms or putting more eyes on your property. [00:12:00] Jason: Yeah. Very cool. So Streamline for syndication is one of the things. You mentioned MailChimp for getting emails out periodically do your list or some sort of newsletter. What other tools are you using to kind of simplify the business?  [00:12:13] Alex: Right now, a digital guidebook is very effective. We like to essentially plan-- I sort of stole this idea. My wife and I had a vacation in Taloon beach on a resort. And when we arrived, the resort had practically planned our trip for us, where it's like, "Hey, if you want to do a cave diving trip, this is this. If you want it, this is what your day would look like. If you wanted to go visit the pyramids, this is what your day is going to look like. If you just want a chill day and just want to go visit restaurants, this is what your day could look like."  [00:12:43] So we did the same thing there where we plan maybe three to four days. Like here we have like over a hundred breweries in the city, so we do like a brewery day. We do a hiking day. We do a waterfall chasing day, and it's like all that's in the digital guidebook where you could put links to different things in the digital guidebook. And it's just sent out. The link is sent out with the check-in instructions. Same thing with you can get with local restaurants or local providers and be like, "Hey, can you give me like a 10% discount, and then I'll put it in my digital guide book where the guests can use almost like a QR code where you can just generate a QR code. Yeah.  [00:13:15] Jason: So for the digital guidebook, is this just like a Google document or is this like..? [00:13:21] Alex: We use a company called Hostfully. And Hostfully is specifically a short-term rental, digital guidebook. [00:13:28] Jason: Host fully?  [00:13:30] Alex: Yeah, Hostfully. Host and then F U L L Y. Yeah.  [00:13:33] Jason: Okay. Great. [00:13:34] Alex: Pretty cheap too, man. It's like, I think it's like 15, $20 a month per property.  [00:13:38] Jason: Got it. And so what advantages does Hostfully give you over just throwing it in a Google document, for example?  [00:13:45] Alex: The templates are super easy to use. You can also track like how many people are actually looking at it. I mean, I would say the templates, and then also, Hostfully does have a backend system just like Streamline. So. Streamline I believe it's a minimum of 15 properties if you're just starting off. Hostfully I believe is like $25 a month per property. Where it's the same type of syndication CRM, where it pushes out to the other short-term rental sites. So you can sync those two together.  [00:14:11] Jason: Got it. Yeah. I had a software company on one of my previous episodes. They were showcasing TripAngle. Tripangle.com. And he was talking about how they like reduce all the fees, connected Airbnb and all this stuff. So. Pretty cool. It might be worth listeners checking out that and checking out tripangle.com. I think he had mentioned something about Streamline the last time I talked to this gentleman too. So, some connections. [00:14:37] Alex: Streamline's a company standard. It's been around before Airbnb. Before VRBO blew up too. People forget like short-term rentals is not a new idea. It's just the access Airbnb has made it so much easier and VRBO too. Short-term rentals have been around for a very long time where people have to pick up a phone and book So like, I mean, people aren't missing the boat on that. I talk to a couple of people a week then it's like, is it too late to invest in short term rentals? [00:15:04] Like, no, it's not. Invest and manage both. It's continuing to grow, especially with COVID like people sort of stepped away from hotels a little bit, and they're more comfortable driving out a little further out where it's like, would you rather pay an extra $1500 to stay an actual house compared to a hotel? And same thing with like some of the larger properties that we manage. It's like we have families instead of booking, maybe two or three hotel rooms, they're just going to book one house and it almost comes out to be the same price.  [00:15:31] Jason: Nice. Yeah. For large groups it's hard to beat, you know, if you're doing a family reunion or something like that. It's pretty difficult. You're talking a whole bunch of hotel rooms or you get a 10 bedroom house. So, [00:15:42] Alex: One thing going back to the tools that just came to mind. This has helped us a lot when it comes to-- cause we are in a very strict short-term rental market in terms of like laws and zoning and everything. And one of the things that's helped us a lot. And this can help a lot of the managers who are looking to get into the space is using a company called NoiseAware and stacking that with a company called Party Squasher. And we mainly use NoiseAware compared to Party Squasher. You can combine the two but NoiseAware sort of, it hears-- it doesn't listen to everything. It doesn't listen into conversations, but it monitors the decibel level inside of the property.  [00:16:17] So if the guests are being way too loud or screaming since you get their phone number at booking, even if it's through Airbnb or VRBO, they get an immediate text message "Hey, you're being too loud. Could you please like quiet down?" Or something like that. Maybe a little bit more tactful than that. But that's been a very powerful tool for us and especially approaching the county. It's like the biggest thing neighbors think about is like, oh my God, when they think Airbnb they think like, oh my God, there's gonna be just parties next door all the time. So.  [00:16:44] Jason: Right. Destroy the neighborhood.  [00:16:46] Alex: Right.  [00:16:47] Jason: So, yeah, that's pretty interesting. So they get a text message. Do they reply to this and do you see their messages? Or like, what the hell? You know,  [00:16:55] Alex: But what we do, there's like a whole list of things. So Stayfi, what I mentioned earlier also allows you to see how many devices are connected to the wifi. So. [00:17:06] Jason: Right, so if there's like a thousand, you know there's some rager going on. [00:17:09] Alex: Granted, you might have your laptop. Like one guest will have a phone, a laptop, So two, three devices, maybe an iPad too, a tablet. But if like the property sleeps six people and there's 30 people attached to the wifi. [00:17:21] We also have like an outdoor facing camera just at the driveway too. So say if we do get a say, cause we can set it up to where we get the noise notification as well. So from there, we just look at our cameras and say, oh, okay. There's 50 cars in the parking lot, and this place sleeps six people. And then from there, we can either text "Hey, like you're not supposed to have..." or we can reach out to Airbnb directly. We've never really dealt with that issue, but the systems are in place just to make sure. [00:17:48] Jason: And it's largely probably the screening process at the outset that you have in place to prevent that. Right. So you mentioned NoiseAware you couple it sometimes with Party Squasher, is that what you said?  [00:17:59] Alex: I personally haven't used it, but some other guests have recommended it to me. I haven't-- I have almost no experience in that, but I've seen it a lot mentioned on different short term rental podcasts and some of the books that I've read too. [00:18:10] Jason: Okay. Cool.  [00:18:11] Alex: I Don't know what it does on the backend but...  [00:18:13] Jason: Yeah, I don't either. Okay, cool. But it probably prevents parties, which is probably a big concern, like, parties happening, the NoiseAware and the Party Squasher. All right. Cool. Any other tools or systems that you utilize in managing your rentals to make sure things go smoothly. [00:18:32] Alex: Going back to the cleaning crew just a good line of communication is very important. Making sure that you are choosing a cleaning crew or cleaning company that can grow with you. A lot of the time, you don't want to be teaching your cleaning crew how to clean short-term rentals because what I realized initially, and just with the labor shortage that's happening right now is a lot of people, like my cleaning crew stopped taking on new clients, not new properties, just new clients. [00:18:58] It's difficult to try to switch the mindset of approaching a cleaner that takes care of properties. Say for just cleaning people's properties like our property manager or our cleaning crew specifically deals in short-term rentals, a company that is used to turning a property two, three times a week if need be.  [00:19:17] Another thing I'd recommend is-- it might affect your bottom line a little bit, but it might outweigh the amount of time that you put on a specific property. Because of COVID, we stopped taking on one day bookings, which we were taking a lot of, one day bookings prior to COVID and that sort of just came out of my cleaning crew couldn't handle the work from the one day bookings, but what I realized is looking back, we've been doing that for four or five months since we stopped taking one day bookings, a lot of our problems, a lot of our questions, a lot of our bandwidth was taken up by one day guests. And I sorta understand it's like a lot of the times they were just coming in at like, say 8, 9, 10 PM. And they have to check in at 10:00 AM the next day. They don't really get to enjoy the property too much. You get those late night texts a lot too, from the one day guests compared to a guest staying 3, 4, 5, sometimes a week with you. [00:20:10] Sometimes those are the quietest guests where you don't hear anything from them. Maybe a couple of questions here and there. But what I saw was a lot of my issues, a lot of my people requesting refunds or whatever was coming from one day guests. So for people who are already in the short-term rental space, I'd play around to see. And what I also realized too, was like, sometimes that one day guest will book in the center of the week on the Wednesday, which blocks someone from booking that entire week. So if someone's in the short term rental space play around with seeing, maybe just do it with one property and see how the property is affected.  [00:20:42] You might get a better tenant in there which is what we saw a better tenant by booking two, three days minimum compared to a one day. And what I also saw with if you're booking on Airbnb or VRBO, is the algorithm sort of adjusts based off that request of only accepting two or three-day bookings. They'll try to play with your schedule to show it to people who are only trying to book three days and sort of, like for most of our properties are fully booked up with no one day gaps in the schedule right now, after we've switched over from not taking one day bookings. [00:21:16] Jason: Yeah, that's interesting. I would imagine that would be really effective. Plus if you're able to get two and three day bookings to fill it up for the most part, you probably rather than a bunch of one days, you're probably between a one day and a three day. For example, you probably have similar operational costs. [00:21:34] Alex: That's been huge. And that's sort of just came that we discovered that by accident. Also, one of my mentors had told me, like we were operating for the first year, we were operating at like a hundred percent occupancy and he's like, "your prices aren't high enough. You shouldn't be at a hundred percent occupancy." And that rings true for any type of real estate asset. It's like, if you're at a hundred percent occupancy or hundred percent booked... [00:21:53] Jason: yeah. You haven't hit the limit yet on what you could get. [00:21:55] Alex: Right.  [00:21:56] Jason: If you're at a hundred percent,  [00:21:57] Alex: If it's multi family, self storage, whatever. It's like, if you're at a hundred percent, you got to raise your prices. [00:22:01] Jason: Yeah what's the occupancy rate you go for now instead of aiming for a hundred percent.  [00:22:07] Alex: So we raised our rates by 30%, if we can stick to the 85%, which is, I mean, if you look at like companies that look at like what to price your property as like rdna.co is probably another good a good tool for the audience that sort of helps you price out what the short-term rental will rent for rdna.co they look at if a property is anything over 75% that's looked at, like you're in a higher percentile compared to anything below that. [00:22:35] This is getting on the development side when we develop our properties, we underwrite them as long-term rentals. Just in case, if the zoning ever changed in the city, that it's an extra fail safe, it's an exit. That's worst case scenarios. If we have to book it out, has a long-term rental. It can cover the debt service and the expenses. If we need it.  [00:22:54] Jason: Smart. Yeah. I know when COVID hit, the short-term rental game got pretty damaged in the short term, right? And there was a lot of people like trying to shift and shuffle and get their properties into the long-term space.  [00:23:06] Alex: What I saw too is I had talked to someone. I realized that this was different. We use the term vacation rental and short-term rental pretty interchangeably, but sometimes people look at that as differently. If you're looking at the definitions of what I'm about to explain right now, vacation rentals is what I'm in right now. Sometimes short-term rentals can be looked at like 30 day plus stays, but not over six months. During COVID a lot of people were renting out to traveling nurses and they're still doing that is they're renting out to traveling nurses. Say you're not in a market where you have all these properties. You might be close to a very large hospital. [00:23:40] If you're close to a large hospital, you can go. There are short-term rental sites that are specifically geared towards nurses. And that's a lot of hosts sort of pivoted towards that during, when they weren't allowed to do short-term rentals. But the 30 day plus stay is a gray area. Almost all cities and counties cannot regulate short-term rentals for 30 days plus which is interesting. A lot of people are making good money just on that route.  [00:24:06] Jason: Yeah. I've talked to some property managers. One property manager mentioned that they do a lot of that extended stay it's in the short term sort of space, but they get a lot of people from overseas that are coming over that need a place to stay in the interim or they're coming for some sort of work thing, you know, they might be maybe from India coming to work for a tech firm or some of these things, and they need an extended place to stay for a few months while they're doing some sort of training, you know, things like that. And so, yeah, that can be a very profitable business. They're getting a lot more money than the standard rate on a property.  [00:24:43] Alex: And you had mentioned COVID. It'll be interesting to-- I've seen different projections on like once international travel really starts to pick up again. Prices or occupancy might drop, but it's going to be interesting to see, every market's going to be different, how that plays out because a lot of people did start using. They picked up Airbnb and VRBO during COVID where it's like, instead of staying in a hotel, they decided to book through Airbnb and VRBO for the first time. So it'd be interesting to see if those people, if the occupancy and the rates sort of stay the same once, international travel picks back up. [00:25:16] Jason: Yeah, that will be interesting. Well, cool. This has been really insightful and I'm sure those that are kind of dabbling or just getting into the short-term rental game will have picked up some cool ideas and some cool tips. Anything else that you think they might be interested in or that we could point out to property managers? [00:25:34] Alex: Yeah. I talk a lot about this stuff on my YouTube channel too. Alex Builds it's a little logo of a blue tree house. If they want to sort of dive deeper into the management side of it and the tool side they can check that out. And then also my website, Sargoninvestments.com they can, if they can't find that YouTube channel, they could find it through there too. [00:25:51] Jason: Awesome. Cool, Alex, I appreciate you coming on the show and thanks for sharing so many of your knowledge and insights, and I wish you continued success in your short-term game.  [00:26:03] Alex: Perfect. Thanks, Jason. [00:26:04] Jason: You bet. All right. Cool. Check him out on YouTube. He's got a cool little YouTube channel you know, going over investments short-term rentals. He talks about some cool ideas. Lending loans like how to play the game of short-term rentals. So check him out on YouTube. And for those that are interested in growing their property management business, be sure to check us out at doorgrow.com we're here to support you and your growth. We're especially really good at helping you not just add a bunch of doors without spending a bunch of money on marketing. [00:26:34] And we are helping. We have short-term rental clients, you know, in our program. Long-term rental clients are our most common target audience that we're helping build out their portfolio. But we also are helping on the operational side to be able to streamline the business and to become the entrepreneur that can run and have a team that makes your life easier so that you have more freedom, more fulfillment, more contribution, which means you're making a difference and doing things you really feel good about, and more support. And so if you feel like you're kind of scarce on those things, I call those the four reasons and you're really frustrated and you're banging your head against the wall with your team, then reach out. We can support you and help you in that. [00:27:17] You might be a really good candidate for our DoorGrow and Scale Mastermind which is really awesome. So anyway, check this out. And for those that are listening to this on iTunes or on YouTube, be sure to also join our free Facebook community, which you can get to by going to doorgrowclub.com and until next time to our mutual growth. Bye everyone. [00:27:42] 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!  [00:28:09] 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. [00:28:30] Until next time, take what you learn and start DoorGrow Hacking your business and your life.

If you own a property management company, you know how difficult it is to get solid leads and add doors. It’s even harder to get started when you have no doors, no experience, and you are focused on the wrong things. Property management startups often make a lot of the same mistakes. Property management growth expert Jason Hull addresses common myths and misconceptions about starting a property management business and adding doors.  You’ll Learn… [01:14] The DoorGrow Avatars: Pure Startups [04:20] The Myth of Growing a Business by Stealing Prospects [06:57] The Myth of Being the Cheapest Option [08:36] Fantasy vs Reality in Business [10:17] Embracing the Suck [14:16] Become an Expert + Tenant Landlord Law [17:26] Get Help and Resources! [19:28] Branding and Website Mistakes [24:52] More Helpful Resources to Check Out Tweetables “The biggest hurdle to overcome is they have decided they're going to start a business, but they haven't actually started it yet.” “Every entrepreneur goes through this journey of learning through difficulty and pain.” “Going with an unknown disrupts safety and certainty, which is the number one thing that owners want to get from a property manager.” “There's no reason to charge less than what the typical or most common market rate is. You're just making your life harder.” Resources DoorGrow and Scale Mastermind DoorGrow Academy DoorGrow on YouTube DoorGrowClub DoorGrowLive TalkRoute Referral Link Transcript [00:00:00] Alright? Nobody wants to suck, but the biggest secret I can tell a pure startup... the biggest secret is: you need to get the 'suck' out of the way. You have to suck. [00:00:10] 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 your business and life. And you're open to doing things a bit differently, then you are a DoorGrow Hacker. [00:00:28] 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  [00:00:47] 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. [00:01:14] So I'm thinking what I want to do with the next few episodes-- and I may change my mind-- is go over the different avatars that I recognize in the industry, or basically the different target audiences that we target as DoorGrow. So, this is something that, uh, we just brought on a new team member recently, and I was helping them to understand the property management industry. [00:01:37] And we have this document that I've created once to give to marketers to help them understand who we're targeting. We didn't have much success with outside marketing firms. So it's all in-house now, but I still have this document. So I wanted to talk a little bit today about startups and some of the challenges and what I'm talking about are pure startups. [00:02:00] Pure startups are those that have zero doors right now. They have no doors. And I think I may have talked about the idea of fantasy versus reality, but I'll touch on that again today. But pure startups are those-- when they come through our funnel, their number of doors is zero. And the number of years is zero. So we know they're a pure startup.  [00:02:19] And the biggest challenge I noticed with pure startups, the biggest hurdle to overcome is they have decided they're going to start a business, but they haven't actually started it yet. And so the biggest hurdle is just taking that first step. It's a huge step. They don't realize how huge it is. So what they usually do as a first initial step is they build this fantasy business in their mind. And some of us remember those days. We had this big "pie in the sky," huge vision and idea of how amazing our business would be and how rich we would be and how awesome things would be. I don't know, maybe. [00:02:56] This fantasy initially is how a business starts out. It's not connected to reality because there's a lot you don't know. Like those of you that have been in this industry or in business or an entrepreneur for a while, know that there is a lot that you have learned. A lot of hard lessons, a lot of well fought lessons, a lot of painful lessons that you have absorbed or figured out. And some of these things were really challenging. Some of these things kept you up at night. Some of these things required legal battles and that was the tuition you paid to learn these lessons. Some of these cost you money. Sometimes there were refunds, right? And so every entrepreneur goes through this journey of learning through difficulty and pain. [00:03:40] So pure startups: this fantasy is so seductive. It's sexy, it's delicious. And in their mind, what I hear from all the pure startups is every property manager in their market sucks. They all suck. And so they're going to start one that doesn't suck. So that's the first challenge and they think that they're going to be somehow magically different than all the other companies who have a lot more experience and a lot more knowledge. And the other weird thing I see really common with startups, pure startups is when I talked to them about their business plan, their idea, they usually have a couple of myths that they believe.  [00:04:20] One myth they believe is that they're going to win and grow their business by stealing other property managers' clients. They think that this is how they're going to grow their business. So that's one of the myths I have to destroy with them is they don't realize how difficult it is to get somebody to switch companies. Going with an unknown disrupts safety and certainty, which is the number one thing that owners want to get from a property manager. They want peace of mind, safety and certainty. They're not going to give up what little peace of mind and safety and certainty they have, even if it's not super great to go with an unknown. [00:04:53] I usually like to use the analogy of a cow. He may see that there's greener pastures over the fence, but how likely is it for that cow to jump over the fence? Not very likely. Could the cow do it? Maybe. Maybe the cow could do it ,and maybe the cow would do it if there was a raging fire or a rattlesnake coming after them or something that was really scary to the cow. It might jump into that other pasture, but it's not generally going to happen. [00:05:22] And what I've seen is people that make that their strategy and their goal and go try and reach out and target people, it doesn't work. I've even heard property managers that are more seasoned when they're meeting somebody new that's competing with them in their market, say to them, " Good luck," you know like, "go for it. If you can get any of my clients on..." you know, "good luck." [00:05:44] Why? Because they know how hard it is. They know that it's not likely to work. And it generally doesn't work. And if anybody has had really amazing success in stealing business from somebody else, hit me up. I'd be super curious to hear about how you're doing this. But in general, they have to be a really, really bad company. The only time I've heard people leaving or being able to get clients from other property managers is when they found out that property manager was stealing from them or doing something really gross or unethical, and then they were able to get them to switch companies. And if you ever talk to anybody, that's worked with lots of property management companies and talks about how bad they all are. The red flag isn't the property management companies usually. The real red flag you should be paying attention to. Is that prospective client. They're the common denominator in all of these situations. So before you just believe that all of these companies are so horrible, you may want to take a really close look at what their expectations are and make sure you're setting really healthy boundaries with this prospective client, because the likelihood is they're the actual problem or bad egg or whatever. [00:06:57] All right. So that's one of the things, the other common myth that I see with startups: they believe they're going to win business and be more successful by charging less money. This is so common. I always kill this very quickly. If I talk to a pure startup, I'm like, what's your plan? [00:07:17] They're like, "we're going to go around. And all the other companies suck, so we're going to like take those clients away from them. We're going to get their clients and we're going to do it by being cheaper." First of all by having lower prices than your competition, you're just making your own life harder. [00:07:36] There's no reason to charge less than what the typical or most common market rate is. You're just making your life harder. You're not going to make as much money. You're going to have much higher operational costs in the beginning because you're taking on worse clients and you're making a lot of mistakes in the clients you take on, and then you're going to have less revenue, so you're gonna have less profit than some of these companies. And then you're going to be the next sucky property management company that you thought you were going to be competing with and helping people avoid. So do not just come into the market, playing the game of "we're just going to be cheaper. And that's how we're going to get business on." [00:08:15] That's not a very effective strategy. Most businesses that tried to do that generally end up failing. Can you build a really big portfolio really quickly by being super dirt cheap in the market? Maybe. But you're going to be miserable and it's not going to be very effective, and you're not going to make much money and the business is gonna fail. [00:08:36] So, the next thing that I notice is that we've got to get them past this hurdle of fantasy versus reality. So they often spend, at the pure startup stage, too much time preparing, too much time planning, too much time scheming. They don't just implement and take action. They think they need a website in order to look legit and have a real business. [00:09:03] They think they need business cards. They think they need a flashy logo. They think they need a whole host of things. And there's really only one thing that you need in order to have a real property management company. You can have a business that has none of those things. It doesn't have a cool name. [00:09:22] It doesn't have a cool logo. It doesn't have a website. Like you can have a business that functions without any of that. You don't even have to have property management software. You can just do everything in spreadsheets. I've seen that done. The one thing that you do need in order to have a legitimate, real property management business though, is clients. That's it. [00:09:42] And sometimes they focus on all these trappings and getting all these ducks in a row and all these things that they think they need. Meanwhile, they've got-- sometimes they'll tell me, "oh, I've got all these investors I know. And I've got all these connections and I've got some investors are saying they're ready to work with me as soon as I'm ready." [00:09:58] And then, the property manager is spending a hundred hours building their own website on Wix or they're like trying to do something that isn't even in their skillset. Why do we tend to avoid as entrepreneurs getting started? Because the fantasy has to die. And the second we take a step into reality world, like we start saying, "Hey, I'm ready to take on your property." [00:10:21] There's so many pieces that you don't have that you realize that actually matter. You need a contract. You need to know landlord tenant law. You need to know how to onboard this property. You need to know how to get the property rented out. And these are all things in your brain, you didn't have at a really specific detail level of how to do these things. So you're going to have to figure it out. And what that means is you're going to suck.  [00:10:47] This is the next thing I want to point out is most pure startups, most property managers that are just getting started, no doors... they're afraid to suck. Nobody wants to suck, but the biggest secret I can tell a pure startup... the biggest secret is: you need to get the 'suck' out of the way. You have to suck. You need to be willing to suck. We all start at 'level suck' in anything that we do that is new, and you have to be willing to do it. If you're unwilling to suck then you're going to just get caught up in your head in mental loops. You're going to mentally just keep going over and over and over things, trying to figure things out. You're going to do tons of research. You're going to watch tons of videos and read tons of books, and you're going to waste so much time. You want to know who learns fast? Those that are willing to suck that just do the work. They just go out and do the work and they suck and they learn really fast because sucking is painful. [00:11:44] And as entrepreneurs, when we suck at something, we get good at it very quickly because we're highly adaptable creatures. We adapt very quickly. We figure out how to not suck really fast. So the analogy I like to use for those that are stuck in this loop of preparation and trying to get everything ready and trying to look really a certain way is: driving. [00:12:09] So I like to ask them, how many videos and books and things could you watch and go through to get ready to drive that would make you ultimately just be an amazing driver without driving a car? And they're like, you could watch endless videos and books, and you're not going to be a great driver. Right? You have to just drive the car. You have to start driving the car. You have to suck at driving the car.  [00:12:36] I just taught my daughter Hailey how to drive and made her learn to drive in my suburban. Right? This is what she learned in. And we just helped her buy her first car, which was an SUV, but not a suburban, not that big. But she learned it's something that was difficult and challenging. And she sucked in the beginning. She was really bad and she got better and better and better. And she was willing to suck. And I had to put pressure on her, like, "Hey, we need to go driving. We need to get your time in. We need to get all the hours that are required here in the state of Texas."  [00:13:08] And so, we got her to the point where she was ready to take her driving test and get her license, and she aced her driving test. She had to go do a driving test in a car that was not a suburban and much easier to navigate and much easier for her to drive. And she felt like she did great. And she did. She did really well. And I feel a lot safer with her driving her vehicle because she learned in a situation where it was difficult and she sucked.  [00:13:35] So don't choose out of the discomfort. Don't choose out of sucking. Don't avoid that because you need to do that. And a lot of startups just avoid that. You have to just choose into it. You have to step into sucking. You have to start sucking. And this is relevant to anybody listening to this. There's always something that we know deep down we should do, and we probably could be great at it if we were just willing to step into it and just suck for awhile. And it doesn't take very long. Sometimes even 20 hours of putting some work into one thing, you're better at it than most of the people on the planet that are avoiding doing that thing. So just start sucking. [00:14:16] The other thing that pure startups have that's a challenge is they have no real knowledge of what investors generally really need, want, what their objections are, what the challenges are... They don't know. This is where I coach clients on a strategy called product research interviews to collapse time on that without going into a whole lot of detail on this recording about that, it's basically, you need to do some market research. You need to talk to people that are the type of people you're going to be targeting. [00:14:46] You need to get familiar with what their needs and their desires are and their challenges and why they aren't working with a property manager. And that knowledge is usually earned by talking to lots of investors over time. Property managers that have been at this for 20 years, they know right away like all the challenges, all the objections. They know how to form their pitch to include all of these potential hurdles and challenges. [00:15:13] You're going to pitch, you're going to talk, if you're a pure startup, to somebody and you're going to leave out all of these things that they're concerned about internally. You're not going to hit those and target those effectively because you don't even know what they are. And so you need to do some research by talking to a lot of investors. Just ask some investors, go to some investor groups, talk to people there and just say, "Hey, I'm looking at starting a property management business. Do you work with one?" And they might say "no." and then ask them, "why haven't you worked with one yet? Like what's preventing you from doing that? Do you see that there'd be any advantages? What's your perception of property management companies? What would make you need one or think that you want one? What challenges are you dealing with with your properties currently? Right. You need to understand your audience. And the better you understand your audience, the better you're going to be able to sell.  [00:16:06] The other thing pure startups also lack that hurts their ability to sell or confidence is they don't know landlord tenant law. And that varies by location, city, state. You need to be the expert at this. So actually read the laws. Just go find all the laws. Look for tenant laws, look for things related to properties, owners, and read the actual laws and get to know this stuff. Get familiar with this so that you're aware of what the laws say. And then maybe even talk to some of the city officials, some of the people that are connected to this industry, some of the people that enforce these laws and ask, how does this actually play out in reality? [00:16:51] You need to be educated. This is some preparation that would be worth doing, because if you're going to step into this industry, nobody in this industry wants more shitty property managers. Everybody wants some really good people that really know what they're doing and are giving really real, good advice. You may want to talk to an attorney or a lawyer, somebody that deals with landlord tenant law and challenges and ask, how does the law actually play out in reality? What happens here locally? How do evictions actually work or end up happening right now with COVID and everything else that's happened? [00:17:26] Right. So figure out that, that piece. Um, another challenge that pure startups deal with is they don't get enough resources around them. They think they can figure it all out on their own. They think they're so smart. Like, "I'll figure it out on my own. Oh, this is going to be easy. I can read a book or I can watch videos..." or whatever. Get a mentor, get coaches, get connected to other property managers. That's all going to help you collapse time because there's so many things you don't know that you don't know yet. And you're going to make a lot of mistakes.  [00:18:03] Another big mistake that pure startups make is their growth strategy they think is to do SEO or some sort of internet marketing. They think this is their gateway to happiness and money and revenue and freedom. And this is a really expensive belief to have, a really expensive mistake to make. They usually think they're going to just somehow get to the top spot of Google through SEO. They're going to focus on pay-per-click and do Google ads or Facebook ads. [00:18:31] They're going to do content marketing, do a ton of social media marketing. Or they're going to find some sort of pay per lead service, like allpropertymanagement.com or managemyproperty.com and they're going to buy leads and they don't realize how difficult this game is and how it just helps you get cold leads. [00:18:53] So if you are a property management startup and you're a pure startup, and you're thinking about starting this business, or you've already started to dabble with some of this stuff and realize how difficult it is, then I highly recommend that you get into our mastermind program so we can help you collapse time dramatically, make a lot more money. The program pays for itself very quickly. That's our initial first milestone actually in the program is to make sure the program is paid for. And our goal with clients is get them to do that within 30 days. So it's a no brainer to stay in the mastermind.  [00:19:28] So the other thing that startups do is they make a lot of mistakes on their branding. The most common is they brand themselves as something generic like "properties" or brand themselves as a real estate company, the most common, which is super detrimental to word of mouth and to getting referral partners in the industry and can cause a lot of challenges.  [00:19:50] The other big mistake is they make a lot of mistakes with their website. They just go and get some sort of website maybe from their property management software company. And they do some sort of website there, and they spend way too much money on this. We include in our mastermind, by the way, a website for free. They're included as part of the program now. [00:20:12] So as long as you're a mastermind member, we will work on developing and building a website with you, however long that takes whether it's a month or two months or whatever it takes to get you to gather all the content and get everything up. We will build a website for you. We even have like 50 predesigned styles and we give you market exclusivity on that design. [00:20:33] So that means nobody else in your state in the U.S. or your province in Canada, will get to have the same design or style as you. And we're going to match the colors to it, put your brand on it. We also are the world's leading branding agency. We help you avoid all the common potential pitfalls in your brand. [00:20:53] We have training material on how to choose and pick a really effective name and branding, help you avoid common mistakes that really could cost you about 50% of the leads and deals you could or should be getting. We're gonna help you avoid that. And we've rebranded hundreds of companies over the years. Nobody else has done anything close to what we have done for clients in the branding space or at the level or the amount that we have done. [00:21:18] We've rebranded hundreds of companies. And anytime we help clients rebrand or help them redo their websites, they tend to get more flow of whatever their acquisition strategy is for getting new clients on. We also have really good strategies for you getting acquisition or acquiring new clients. So that costs $0. They just take time and they actually take less time than SEO, pay-per-click, content marketing, social media marketing, or pay per lead services. It takes less time than those because those are cold leads, and cold leads take a lot of time to nurture, a lot of time to follow up. We're going to focus on warm leads, strategies, and we're not going to fight over the existing market share, which is small and try and compete with other companies that are probably a lot larger than you spending thousands of dollars to employ those strategies. We're going to sidestep all of that. And we're going to capture people earlier in the sales cycle where there's less price sensitivity. There's a much higher close rate. They're warmer leads, and you can charge more money on average.  [00:22:22] And then you're creating new market share. We call this the blue ocean strategy. Instead of fighting in the red ugly water with every other property manager, especially the big ones that are spending two, three grand a month on all of those channels, maybe even five grand a month and already have the top spot on Google, right? [00:22:39] So we're going to get you focused on something that's more efficient, more effective. The biggest companies right now, most of them are down about 200 doors I've noticed over the last year or two, just due to sales and the sell-off. Investors are selling properties, so they're losing more doors than they're getting on, and they are spending a ton of money on marketing and it's not even helping them offset that. But we've got clients they've added 100, 200 doors easily in the last year and they didn't spend a dime on SEO, pay-per-click, content marketing, or social media marketing, or pay per lead. Nothing. No advertising costs. They did invest time into using our strategies, but they invested less time than it would have taken if they had gotten a huge pile of cold leads. And they've got a much better output.  [00:23:25] All right. So hopefully that gets you a little bit excited about talking to us at DoorGrow. A lot of people wonder if we're legit. We're legit. This has been proven. We've helped a lot of clients do this. And if you're willing to put in the work, you're going to get great results. That's the bottom line. There's no system out there that's just going to work for you and do the job for you.  [00:23:45] We're also gonna help you increase your close rate and help you be better at selling. And then the operational piece, which becomes the next big hurdle. We're going to help you solve that, how to scale your team and your business so that your life and business gets easier the bigger it gets instead of harder, which most listening, if you've had a business for a while, your business probably feels really hard and you probably feel pretty stuck and you probably recognize you're the biggest bottleneck in the company. [00:24:11] And you're probably frustrated at your team and in a state of overwhelm and wish they would all just think and make decisions for and on your behalf. We can help you solve that problem, probably within the first 90 days of working with this. We call that the scale program. And anyway. [00:24:28] So we talked today about pure startups. Just get started, start taking action, don't try to avoid sucking, and kill that fantasy as soon as possible by taking action and make sure you're educated on the legalities of your industry. And I hope that this has been really helpful for those that are looking to start a property management business. [00:24:52] The last piece is if you do not know how to manage rental properties, which is not something I personally teach anybody. If you need the nuts and bolts like the basics join. The National Association of Residential Property Managers. They have great training and resources. Check out rentlikeapro.com and Rent Like a Pro's YouTube channel. They've put out some great content. There are books about running a property management business, things like that. So check out some of those resources we do have in our Facebook group doorgrowclub.com. Just go to doorgrowclub.com. If you join that and give us your email address, you will get some really cool tools, including a list of really cool software tools and vendor tools and stuff that you can use to build your business. [00:25:40] We'll also send a gift, which is a fee Bible. So how you can make more money, which is put out by Rent Like a Pro. The fourth edition of that is given to you for free. If you join the DoorGrow Club Facebook group, you will also get a email. We have like five different gifts that you're going to get, a tool of how to grade your website in terms of getting business and some other things. So check that out. Get those free resources. We do have in the Facebook group, in the file, section a document for startups, with some of the things that I mentioned that can help you kind of get started. [00:26:12] So I hope this has been helpful. And until next time to our mutual growth. Bye everyone. [00:26:19] 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!  [00:26:46] 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. [00:27:07] Until next time, take what you learn and start DoorGrow Hacking your business and your life.

At DoorGrow, we love highlighting client success and wins. The Schmitts are a great example of clients who put in the work and get the results. Since joining the program, they have DOUBLED their PM portfolio! In this episode, property management growth expert Jason Hull interviews Jon and Sonia Schmitt from True Patriot Property Management in Florida and gains their valuable perspective on adding doors, growing a PM business, and being a part of the DoorGrow and Scale Mastermind. You’ll Learn… [01:06] Today’s Guests: Jon and Sonia Schmitt of True Patriot [02:30] Discovering and Getting Started with DoorGrow [04:39] The Results and Major Lessons: What Has Changed Since DoorGrow? [07:28] Your Personal and Business ‘Why’ [12:29] Finding Clarity in Your Business [14:17] What’s Next for the Schmitts? [22:04] Where Would Jon and Sonia be Without DoorGrow? [026:55] Wrapping up: How to Grow Your PM Business like Jon and Sonia Tweetables “The business exists to serve you.” “Everything has to start with the sales and going after the right clientele that we want in our niche.” “I find entrepreneurs, we have two speeds. We feel stuck or we feel like we're in momentum, and in momentum feels like life to us.” “If you don't have the business of your dreams and the team of your dreams yet, you're not the person that can run it yet.” Resources DoorGrow and Scale Mastermind DoorGrow Academy DoorGrow on YouTube DoorGrowClub DoorGrowLive TalkRoute Referral Link Transcript [00:00:00] Jon Schmitt: You definitely changed me. You definitely did. Thinking, my focus, everything. I mean the name, just everything.  [00:00:07] Jason Hull: 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 your business and life, and you're open to doing things a bit differently, then you are a DoorGrow Hacker. [00:00:27] 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 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. [00:01:06] Now, let's get into the show. And today's guests, I have two guests here today hanging out with me and it's the Schmitts, right? So I've got Jon and Sonia Schmitt, and they are clients in our mastermind program. And why don't I let you two kind of introduce yourself? [00:01:27] Jon Schmitt: I'm Jon.  [00:01:30] Sonia Schmitt: I'm Sonia.  [00:01:31] Jason Hull: Awesome. So why don't you give people a little bit of background on yourselves, like getting into property management and what you've got going on currently.  [00:01:39] Jon Schmitt: All right. Well, getting into property management, you know, just all started when I started buying properties back, you know, 28 years ago. Just driving around in a station wagon with my lawn mower, cutting grass, that kind of stuff. [00:01:52] And then, uh, you know, became a real estate agent a couple of years later started managing properties for some other out-of-state people 'cause the company I worked for allowed that. And I figured, you know, it's income without having to do any deals. So struggling to be a real estate agent, property management was a paycheck every single month. So that's how I got started. And then Sonia, she has been a landlord as well from way back. And once we met, I already had an established business, which was dwindling away. Then she came on board, and we kind of held steady and we weren't growing, and then here we are with you. So that's pretty much our background.  [00:02:39] Jason Hull: How'd you hear about DoorGrow?  [00:02:41] Jon Schmitt: I seen you on Facebook.  [00:02:43] Jason Hull: Okay. And so you saw some Facebook and then... what's that?  [00:02:47] Sonia Schmitt: I was saying, I think he seen you on Facebook for a long period of time.  [00:02:51] Jon Schmitt: I was stalking you. [00:02:52] Sonia Schmitt: He was a stalker.  [00:02:54] Jason Hull: Yeah. Okay, cool. I like stalkers 'cause they're like nurturing themselves over time. And then when they come to us, they're really excited. I mean, you're not just going to sign up right away, right? So you saw us on Facebook, and how many doors did you have at the time you decided to start with us and what challenges were you dealing with then? [00:03:14] Jon Schmitt: I think we had about, um, forty or so. Most of our business was from foreclosures, from homeowners associations, and condo associations. I made a contact with a couple of attorneys and they were just throwing it at me and throwing out the owners that weren't paying their fees, getting foreclosed on. [00:03:35] And then I was turning the properties around, getting them rented and collecting rents and doing the maintenance because the homeowners associations and their managers, their management companies, are not landlords. So, I established myself as a landlord. So that's what they needed. And I exploded from there. [00:03:54] But then when the banks were taking over and I was losing business, right at that time, Sonia came into the picture. We kind of stabilized, but then we needed to grow. And I said, "Hey, Sonia, look at this guy on Facebook." and here we are today.  [00:04:10] Jason Hull: What'd you think Sonia, like, who is this cat?  [00:04:13] Sonia Schmitt: Oh, I thought you were phenomenal from the-- from the moment-- from the moment I heard you first speak and I was intrigued and excited. You brought excitement back and direction.  [00:04:27] Jon Schmitt: I should leave you two alone. [00:04:29] Sonia Schmitt: He's a card. He's always a card. You never know what's going to come out of his mouth.  [00:04:39] Jason Hull: So we love having Jon on the calls because Jon is so funny. Like you just, you say the funniest things. So John, Sonia, you started at that level of doors and you had some challenges. What's changed? Like what's been happening in the business since then? [00:04:56] Jon Schmitt: Well, since we hooked up with you, you totally changed our direction. You change the way we think. You're changing the way we operate. You've changed our brand. We kind of did that immediately. I mean, you really pointed out a lot of my own personal flaws, which, you said one thing where I was beside myself. You called me low value. I couldn't believe it.  [00:05:23] Jason Hull: Did I call you low value? [00:05:24] Jon Schmitt: You called me low value! Hence the TalkRoute. And now I don't like it, but I'm going to go back to low value, but I'll figure that out at a later time.  [00:05:33] Jason Hull: I don't, I don't know that I called you low value. I want you to be high-value.  [00:05:38] Jon Schmitt: And I want to be that. And when you did my son, Alex was laughing, and he keeps teasing me. He's like, "You're low value." And you'll love that.  [00:05:49] Jason Hull: You tell him to watch it. You tell him to watch it. [00:05:51] Jon Schmitt: Oh yeah.  [00:05:52] Jason Hull: He needs to respect his elders.  [00:05:55] Jon Schmitt: You've changed our direction. You really made an impact and changed our direction, and it seems to be working. We have to do the work. You have the ideas. You tell us the ideas, we do the work, and we're starting to get results. Hence, Alex landed a deal through a realtor. And the lady went with our premium services. And that was Alex. He's very proud of himself.  [00:06:16] Sonia Schmitt: Yeah.  [00:06:17] Jason Hull: Awesome. Yeah. We revamped your pricing.  [00:06:20] Jon Schmitt: Yes, yes.  [00:06:22] Jason Hull: Right. So you're making on average more money per deal. You have more offerings that are a better fit for different types of clients. [00:06:31] So how many doors are you at right now?  [00:06:33] Jon Schmitt: What do we have? Like 80?  [00:06:35] Sonia Schmitt: 79.  [00:06:36] Jon Schmitt: 79 doors.  [00:06:39] Jason Hull: Yeah. I mean we're getting close to doubling, right? What- what'd you start with? What'd you say?  [00:06:45] Jon Schmitt: Like 40.  [00:06:46] Jason Hull: I mean, we're just right there.  [00:06:48] Jon Schmitt: Right. When we met you, we kicked a couple of sisters to the curb. You know, we were talking about firing them and then after talking to you, we said, "You know what?" Sonia said, "We're done." Fired. They were a little pissed off, you know, when we gave him 30 days notice and they couldn't believe it, but we needed to do it. And it was probably-- yeah, it was like almost 20 doors. So we took a hit, but we were okay with the hit. We're better now.  [00:07:15] Jason Hull: Yeah. So you had 40. I told you to get rid of 20. So you were at 20 and now you're at 79. You're almost at 80.  [00:07:26] Jon Schmitt: Right.  [00:07:28] Jason Hull: And so that's incredible. So that's awesome. What do you feel like for those that haven't been in the program, what do you feel like is the most significant thing that you've been getting out of this? [00:07:40] Sonia Schmitt: Oh, I mean, for me and Jon handles most of the sales as of right now, but for me it was developing your 'why.' Why are you doing this? It's the weekly meetings that we have. We get ideas from you. We get ideas from other property managers that are located throughout the United States on things that are working, things that are not working. And it's the focus. I think, you know, you talked about the "5 currencies" and focus. And I think the focus has-- it's now laser sharp versus before it was very dull. Okay. So now we have focus. We're a little bit scattered because we're trying to do multiple different things, but we're laser focused in on the how and the why. [00:08:37] And I also think accountability. Conversations. Where are you at? Tell me what you're struggling with. You know, what, what is your direction? I think that you come up with innovative ideas, which I think that is at the top of the game of different things that are gonna make us be able to succeed, make more money in collapsed time. And that's the one thing that I am working on is collapsing time so I can be more effective, more efficient. And I think with Jon, just-- gosh, it's the motivation behind it all. And like I said, being laser focused on what you're going after, why you're going after it. And you know, Alex and I went to a property and it's like, 'oh, I'm not sure. I'm not sure.' And I ended up and I liked it, but when I first seen him and I met him kind of like the location, and I didn't know what the inside looked like I just looked at him and I said, "I don't know if I'm going to take this or not." I said, "just be prepared," you know? But again, we don't want all properties. We want to know and go after our client health. And we want that to be narrowed in and focused on, which is going to give us the most bang for our buck.  [00:09:57] Jason Hull: Yeah. Yeah. Some of the stuff for people that are not in the program might sound a little fluffy and woo woo, right? Like "we figured out our 'why,' and like collapsing time... and you know, people in the program, they get it. So what would you say to those people that are not in this? Like, how has figuring out what your motivation or your 'why?' How has that shifted what happens in the business?  [00:10:21] Sonia Schmitt: We're just not going for anybody any longer. We're not taking on clients because those clients end up taking a lot of our time. You know, you don't want a homeowner, right? Or a landlord. You want a specific landlord within a certain location that takes care of their properties that cares about their tenants. So it becomes more focused. So, you know, and you then can drive your business with more focus in that direction.  [00:10:51] Jason Hull: Yeah. So you've got a lot more clarity on the avatar that you're kind of targeting and going after now. And so, surprise, you're getting more of that type of person as a client, right? [00:11:02] Sonia Schmitt: Yes. Yes. [00:11:04] Jason Hull: And really at the core, for those that are watching or listening to this now or later, understanding the 'why' may sound like fluffy sort of weird stuff, but understanding why you started as a business and the motivation behind it and what type of clients you want to be working with. [00:11:21] I mean, the business exists to serve you. And I'm sure that it's starting to feel a bit more like that, like that instead of you serving the business, which doesn't feel very fun, now you're starting to shift into "the business is serving us and our needs and desires." Does that sound accurate?  [00:11:40] Sonia Schmitt: Yeah, absolutely. [00:11:42] I think we were very scattered before all over the place. Now we are focused in on-- we have different buckets that we're going after. And we may not have everything checked off, but it brings clarity with the mastermind group of what needs to be done first. It's kind of like, yeah, I may handle the operations and the accounting, but without the sales, there is no operations or accounting. There is no maintenance. There is none of that. Everything has to start with the sales and going after the right clientele that we want in our niche.  [00:12:20] Jason Hull: Now I'm sure. Before you signed up, there was no shortage of a to-do list of things you felt needed to be done in the business, right?  [00:12:28] Jon Schmitt: Right.  [00:12:29] Jason Hull: I mean, every business we have endless to do lists. It's like a "to-die" list for us as entrepreneurs. So coming into the program, it sounds like just really helped you get clarity. And we talk about this a lot in the program, like really focusing on where's the biggest pain first and assessing things. I talk about going through the core functions of the business and figuring out which things are the weakest. Did you realize going through some of this and coming into the program, that you were focusing too much on some things that were already working well, and then maybe shifting to things that needed more attention? [00:13:05] Jon Schmitt: Yeah, we were all over the board. Okay. We still are a little bit. But the things that need attention is new business at this point. The accounting is functioning good, bookkeeping's spot on, the maintenance? We're okay with that. You know, it's the sales. So I had a couple people that were referring me business, but you know, that kind of has gone away. [00:13:29] Not that they don't like us anymore. They just won't throw us business. However, the type of business we had, the foreclosures, have dried up. So now we're just laser focused on the real estate agents, some other attorneys, CPAs, and insurance brokers. Alex and I are doing calls, you know, I have my calendar blocked from 9:00 to like 11:00-11:30. That's all I'm doing. Okay. And we do it nonstop one call after another. Some calls last 10 minutes, some calls last 30 seconds. So I want to try to make at least 30 calls a day. And Alex also, and that's our focus first thing in the morning. And then I'll take care of maintenance and everything like that afterwards, as it needs to happen. [00:14:17] Jason Hull: Yeah. Awesome. So what are you excited about in the future? Because you're in a state of momentum. You can see the things are positively changing and shifting in the business. I mean a lot of property managers right now are losing more doors than they're getting on. They're like going down because the sell off that's happening in the marketplace. The market's generally hot throughout the U.S. Lots of investors are getting out and I'm sure you felt some of that as well. I doubt your market's immune to that totally. Correct me if I'm wrong. But you're growing and outpacing that attrition that's naturally happening with growth. So what would you say to those that are like thinking about working with DoorGrow? Because I'm sure a lot of people see my social media. They see the things that we put out and they think, 'yeah, who is this guy? Like this-- another guru out there who's trying to get money from people.' So what's your perception of me since you're on the inside, behind the paywall and we've had one-on-one conversations and you've been on our group things and you've been into the material. What's your perception of me, my motivation, and DoorGrow and the team? I'm curious. And you can be as honest as possible. [00:15:32] Jon Schmitt: Oh, I'll be honest. I think you're a very interesting guy. Me personally, I'm not a woowoo type guy, but she's a woowoo girl and her friends are all woowoo. Um, you know, I think you're very interesting. You're very creative. And just your techniques that you pitched to us and your ideas and your way of doing things, I think it's spot on. I think that you know, people that aren't doing it the way you say to do it, it's kind of like they're old school and you know what? We're into like a new era, a new way of doing things. And you have to change with the times. If you don't change, you're going to die. [00:16:12] The way we used to do it, you know, I would cold call landlords, I would send out mass fly postcards and stuff like that. I mean, I tell you I'd send out 10,000. It'd be 10,000, we'd get one call. Okay. You see what I'm saying? I mean, that's just like an old school way of doing it. And before we hooked up with you, I mean, I was printing out tax records of all out of state owners and just looking them up, calling them up, "Hey, Jason, you know, I see you've got these two duplexes over here. How's your management work and start talking to him and you'd get 'click.' Right? So I'm getting away from that, so people that are not in your group, I'm sure they're just old school and the ones that are losing business, aren't keeping up with the pace and the times and changing their ways. [00:17:00] Sonia Schmitt: Hmm. I think you're very authentic. And I think that you have a lot of direction in many years of helping property managers throughout the United States. And I think what DoorGrow does is it brings focus whereas we could be all over the board trying to get new clientele from single family homes to quad quadplexes, triplexes, for sale by owners, property managers, people are getting rentals. You know, you'd go after the rentals and after all of that. But the nice thing is, is you establish relationships and trust with real estate agents. You have a big focus with that, right? Because that's your honey hole. I love that word. But anyways I think that having focus and going after certain groups. Real estate agents, CPAs... and you can take it out further and further. I mean, in Palm beach county alone, and in Florida, I believe we have the second largest or third largest real estate realtors associations. [00:18:13] So I think that you're cutting edge. You stay on top of things. You're trying new things out. What works. You've tried it. Either you like it, you don't like it. If you'd like it, you pass it onto the group and then other people explore. So I think that adds a lot of value.  [00:18:33] Jason Hull: Cool. Yeah. I'm just wired that I love to learn and I love sharing good ideas that I learn. And I guess that kind of just is what we do. Well, I really appreciate both of you being the program. Oh, I wanted to touch on your son, Alex. So as part, like in this journey, in working with you at some point, you're like, "Hey, let's bring our son in on this." [00:18:55] And by son, you know, some people might think it's some little kid. He's an adult, but he's come into the business and it's been rewarding for me to see him come in and be learning and stepping into new roles and doing things and getting success too. He shared a win on the call today. [00:19:12] Now, Jon. Jon was chiming in from the background, making sure he said some of the right things being dad.  [00:19:19] Jon Schmitt: We received these doors this week from a realtor referral. So I was saying to him, "Alex, tell 'em--  [00:19:28] Jason Hull: Give credit!  [00:19:28] Jon Schmitt: Got them from where? And then he yells at me and says, "they're not realtors." I'm like, I'm not meaning what they are. I'm meaning how you got the doors, right? So he brought one in. The lady signed up for premium. And then I brought the other one in that Sonia and Alex closed the guy. Okay. I met him through another realtor referral. And then the other appointment that I was on, I was on actually two appointments that day. [00:19:56] And they came off of people searching us and liking the new name.  [00:20:03] Sonia Schmitt: Rebranding  [00:20:04] Jon Schmitt: Right, they loved it, you know, the way we were branded. So that's why they called us.  [00:20:09] Jason Hull: Yeah. We've made a lot of changes in your business already. So in the fruit of all of those changes is going to start to really start to show up. You're just at the beginning of all of this, like the rebrand, the pricing, like all this. And as you build that brand in your market, and as you build that clout up, I'm really excited to see what you guys do. I mean, over the next year, I think you guys are going to be crushing it because once you really get into a groove with this... I mean, the sky's the limit. With the growth you've had, you could easily be adding a hundred to 200 doors a year, I would imagine.  [00:20:39] Jon Schmitt: You know, if we stay consistent, and that's what's going to happen, there's no other way to go. If we stay consistent, what we're doing and just keep doing what we're doing. I see that as well.  [00:20:50] Jason Hull: Does that sound crazy to you? Like if Jon pre-DoorGrow could listen to Jon now say that, would that sound a little crazy to that guy?  [00:21:00] Jon Schmitt: Yes.  [00:21:01] Jason Hull: Like impossible? Like there's no fricking way, you know? [00:21:05] Jon Schmitt: You definitely changed me. You definitely did. Thinking, my focus, everything. I mean the name, just everything. Calendly the TalkRoute, which I'm getting rid of. I don't like it.  [00:21:16] Jason Hull: You don't like TalkRoute. Alright.  [00:21:20] Jon Schmitt: We'll find something that works for us.  [00:21:22] Jason Hull: Yeah. Right, right. I mean, you're old school sometimes. Right. So maybe just get a second phone. Right. Just get another phone, like the private phone and the public phone. Right? I don't know, but yeah. Yeah. So, well, it's been really great having you in the program, excited to see what you guys accomplish. Anything else you think people should know about door grow or about y'all before we wrap this up? [00:21:49] Jon Schmitt: You're definitely a good coach. And we're happy with you and, um, we're looking forward to hearing about the invitation to the in-person meeting.  [00:21:58] Jason Hull: Ooh. Yeah.  [00:21:59] Jon Schmitt: We're looking forward to coming over to Texas.  [00:22:02] Jason Hull: Yeah? Alright. That'll be cool.  [00:22:04] Sonia Schmitt: We wouldn't be where we are today, if it wasn't for you and if it wasn't for DoorGrow. That I can tell you and our business is growing exponentially and we're very appreciative and grateful to be a part of your team.  [00:22:21] Jason Hull: Well, I appreciate that. Where do you think you would be? Where do you think things would be right now?  [00:22:27] Jon Schmitt: We would probably be-- we have a lot of investment properties of our own, so we would just be going off of that. And we would do some real estate sales and we would just, we'd probably get business here and there and we'd still be just old school, throwing out some mails every quarter. And you know, that's probably what we'd be doing. [00:22:47] Jason Hull: I mean, that doesn't sound so bad. So on the personal side, what do you feel like has kind of changed like in your life? ' Cause I mean, really there's a reason behind this business, right? It's so you can have the life you want. [00:22:59] Jon Schmitt: Right. My life basically changed. I've got new fire in me. I feel like I just came into the business again. So, you know, when you have something new? You're very excited about it. So I'm very excited every single day to see what I'm going to make happen. Okay. Sometimes the day before follows into the next day, but there's always something new now popping up. So that has been created again. It's like, I'm just, you know, the second week in. [00:23:30] Jason Hull: Yeah. So you feel alive again. You know, I find entrepreneurs, we have two speeds. We feel stuck or we feel like we're in momentum, and in momentum feels like life to us. We're not so worried about whether we're happy or sad. That's everybody else on the planet, but for us as entrepreneurs, it's like, "am I in momentum? Do I feel alive and on fire and inspired? Or do I feel stuck or frustrated?" So Sonia, what's it been like seeing the shift in Jon, like with this? [00:23:58] Sonia Schmitt: It's beautiful. It's absolutely beautiful. I'll tell ya, you know, for couple of years. I think that he was burned out at work, tired. It was pretty much on my shoulders. And, um, you have made a difference in his life and like you said, he has a new spark. He has direction. He knows what he's going to do. And he has his plan. He's scheduled. There's a little bit of everything that you've spoken about and taught that he has implemented into his daily routine. And you can see a difference.  [00:24:37] He would say that he called people before, he didn't call nobody. You know, he didn't make connections if they call him that's great. He'd take it, but he was just kinda, I think he was burnt out. And you brought the spark back and we see the momentum, we see it making the bottom line difference in our lives, and we're able to expand, looking to hire somebody. So it's been a positive all around.  [00:25:04] Jason Hull: You know, property management can be a grind. It can be really hard. I mean I've never done it. Right. But, the feedback I've heard from hundreds, thousands of property managers is that this is not an easy business. It can be really difficult. It's as difficult as you allow it to be. Right. And business in general is hard. Running a business is hard. Entrepreneurs are under no illusion-- if they've run a business for even a year that it's not an easy thing. So I think every entrepreneur has gotten to that point. [00:25:35] I know I have where I'm burnt out. I'm done. I wake up and I'm like, basically "fuck it." I'm watching Netflix today. Like, that's all I'm doing. Like, I don't want to do it. Like I've had those moments and I feel like I'm living a dream right now that I get to do what I get to do, because it's in alignment with my 'why.' and that's what I want for all of my clients. I want them to have that clarity because we're all unique, and we all have a different purpose in life and a different thing we really want that gives us the maximum level of the four reasons as I've talked about on a previous episode of fulfillment, freedom, contribution, and support, and that's different for everybody. [00:26:13] And I get to experience that in my business and in my day-to-day. And I want all my clients to experience that because I also want their team members to experience that. And ultimately you're helping your clients to experience a taste of that as well. And so I think the ripple effect that I get to have through amazing clients, like you is really inspiring to me and it really motivates me to keep going. And just having clients that do what I tell them to do and get results is like super rewarding to me. So, you know I appreciate that greatly so. Well, I appreciate you being here on the #DoorGrowShow and I'm excited to see your continued success.  [00:26:52] Jon Schmitt: Thanks, Jason.  [00:26:53] Sonia Schmitt: Thank you very much. [00:26:55] Jason Hull: All right. So we'll go ahead and wrap up this episode. I really appreciate them taking some time out of the day to come help me plug DoorGrow so to speak. But I wanted to just share if you are property management entrepreneur that is struggling to either add doors or maybe you have hundreds of doors, but you're really struggling to dial in the operations piece. You're just banging your head against the wall. Why can't my team members just think for themselves? Why do I have to micromanage them? Why can't they just do what I need them to do? The hard truth is you are not yet the entrepreneur that can run the business of your dreams, right? If you don't have the business of your dreams and the team of your dreams yet, you're not the person that can run it yet. [00:27:34] That's what one of my mentors said to me once, and that hit me hard. And so I want to turn you into the entrepreneur that can have the business of his or her dreams and can grow it and can have that fire and have that excitement in your day to day, because you are aligned with the things you really enjoy doing. And you have direction on how to get what you really want to be doing. And you're not stuck because being stuck sucks for entrepreneurs. It's really uncomfortable. It's frustrating. So if that sounds interesting to you, that you're dealing with-- maybe your business it isn't in alignment, which is like branding is off and maybe your pricing isn't optimized and your website isn't optimized, or maybe you're just not getting the growth that you want. [00:28:20] And you want to know how to add doors without having to spend any money on advertising or doing SEO or pay-per-click or content marketing or social media marketing. And you could still outpace all the companies that are spending tons of money to do all of this. Or you want to just scale your operations, get out of the day-to-day, have more energy, more fun, more focus, more freedom, and figure out how to get a team that really supports you. [00:28:48] I want to help you build that business and I want to help you become the entrepreneur that can have that business. So reach out to us. You can find us at doorgrow.com, and until next time, to our mutual growth. Bye everyone. [00:29:00] Jason: 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!  [00:29:27] 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. [00:29:48] Until next time, take what you learn and start DoorGrow Hacking your business and your life.

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to have your own kid work with you in your business? Here at DoorGrow, one of our team members is the founder/CEO’s daughter!  Property management growth expert Jason Hull interviews his own daughter AND team member, Madi Sleight. Madi gives a unique perspective on Jason, DoorGrow, social media, and more. If you ever wondered what Jason is really like personally, this episode is for you. You’ll Learn… [01:15] Meet today’s guest: Madilyn Sleight with DoorGrow [05:16] What does Jason even do? Madi’s perspective as a kid and as Jason’s daughter. [07:45] Joining the team at DoorGrow and Madi’s role on the team. [05:16] What does Jason even do? Madi’s perspective as a kid and as Jason’s daughter. [17:45] The program is not a miracle cure… then who is the program for? [22:15] Jason’s personality according to his daughter and how Jason’s “out there” beliefs benefit the DoorGrow and Scale Mastermind [27:40] What’s next for Madi? [32:01] More about Madi and her relationship with her dad [38:25] Madi learned to mimic Jason’s voice on socials + how she does social media Tweetables “I love those clients. I love the ones that just show up to everything and they do everything that we say and they just get the best results.” “For me, it's super rewarding to see clients winning and succeeding. Like it's worth more than money and getting paid to do what I do.” “It's crazy that I get paid to just help people win, which is really awesome.”  “I think the first thing that people who are skeptical or unsure need to realize is you're not selling a magical cure.” Resources DoorGrow and Scale Mastermind DoorGrow Academy DoorGrow on YouTube DoorGrowClub DoorGrowLive TalkRoute Referral Link Transcript [00:00:00] Madi Sleight: You know, you've always kind of been out there in your beliefs or like what you're interested in. Like, And I mean this in the best way possible, you're kind of like a nutjob. [00:00:11] Jason Hull: 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 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. [00:00:50] 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. [00:01:15] All right, everybody, so today's interview guest that I have with me is Madilyn Marie Hull, my daughter who goes by Madi. [00:01:28] Madi Sleight: It's also Sleight now.  [00:01:31] Jason Hull: Oh, oh, that's right. She's married now. So it's Madilyn Marie Sleight. So... no? Madi Sleight?  [00:01:40] Madi Sleight: You didn't have to put in the middle name in there, come on.  [00:01:43] Jason Hull: I know, but like I named you, and I gave you that name, so. Cool. So yeah, gosh, that's a old habit. Yeah, Madi Sleight. I got to get used to that last name. I'm still not used to it. So Madi Sleight... I wanted to have her on the show. I want to have my daughter-- she's my oldest-- and I wanted to have her on the show partially because her birthday is tomorrow. We're recording this here on February 1st and she was born February 2nd. And it's her birthday tomorrow.  [00:02:10] But Madi also has been working with me. How long have you been working with me?  [00:02:17] Madi Sleight: It'll be two years in I think July-- June or July.  [00:02:22] Jason Hull: Yeah. So she's been going to school, going to college, and doing work with DoorGrow. And so, she's become a critical part of the team. And so, I wanted to have her on the show because I think it would be really cool for those that listened to the podcast. Those that wonder who Jason Hull is and what's he really like, you know? I'm also a father, and I am a boss and Madi's gotten to experience both sides of those things the good and the bad. And I thought it'd be cool to have you on the show just to help people understand maybe a little bit more about me and that sort of thing.  [00:02:59] So Madi, why don't you introduce yourself? Tell people with the right name, since I screwed that up already and tell everybody what it is that you do at DoorGrow. [00:03:10] Madi Sleight: Okay. Well, my name is Madi Sleight. Nobody calls me Madilyn, except for you apparently. But, I am our social media manager here at DoorGrow, and I also just do a couple other little things like I video edit and I create case studies/ testimonials of our clients, showcase their wins, post those to YouTube, and I hand those over to Kyle as well, our kind of marketing guy. And he makes those into these awesome Facebook ads that are our lead gen source right now.  [00:03:40] I sit in on all the weekly calls, the weekly coaching calls with our clients and I take notes and I capture their wins, so I kind of get to know all of our clients on maybe more of a surface level, but it's still really cool. I get to know their names and faces and backgrounds of their businesses. How many doors they add each call. And it's very insightful. I've tried a lot of different things in the last year and a half of being at DoorGrow. I tried sales followup for a little bit, tried a little bit of client success here and there. I've gotten to learn a lot of things, and I am an advertising major at the university of Idaho. [00:04:17] And so it's kind of been cool learning, you know, things in lecture about advertising, SEO, sales, marketing, stuff like that. Being able to use that knowledge at DoorGrow. But then also learning things at DoorGrow and being able to put that towards my degree and use that in my classes.  [00:04:38] Jason Hull: Yeah. And I think it's really cool. [00:04:40] So, I think the most important thing that I want that you do is more testimonial videos because it's proof, it's evidence that we're getting results and you get to see this stuff firsthand. You're not just behind the paywall and seeing what goes on, but you get to see the inner workings of the business. And so, maybe you could share with people what you thought I did in the business and what you thought I did before you became a team member of the business, what your perspective was and then maybe how that shifted, because I'm sure that was quite a bit different once you got in. [00:05:16] Madi Sleight: I don't even know what I thought you did cause for a while, when I was a little kid, you were the website guy. And I thought, "oh, how cool," you know, "my dad made a website for Mr. Gas in my hometown." And I was like, "wow!" You know. [00:05:30] Jason Hull: Wow, that's a long time ago.  [00:05:32] Madi Sleight: I know! And I remember that. And so, when you started making that transition into coaching, you know-- and it was kind of a subtle, smooth transition. You started in with your brother. You've got family members who are into this kind of stuff, but it wasn't something that you necessarily shared with me and my siblings all the time. You kind of just would disappear and turn on your busy sign, your neon, sign outside your door of your office. And we were like, "Yeah, he's working," you know, "he's doing what he's doing." [00:06:02] And it was only until I think two summers before I started working at DoorGrow, when you came to me and were like, "Hey, you should try out making a couple social media posts for us." And I did 'cause I was into design stuff. Only then I was like, what is DoorGrow? What is-- what does that even mean? [00:06:22] That is such a weird term doors and growing? Is it like a plant business? I got really into it. Like I was really curious and I actually like begged him for the remainder of those two years. Like, "dude, I'll do your social media. It's a travesty. I will fix it for you" [00:06:40] Jason Hull: "Let me do it, dad." [00:06:42] Madi Sleight: Seriously! I was like begging him. And even like my sister-- I would be texting my sister and I'd be like, "man, you know, he still hasn't gotten back to me on this." And she's like, "oh, I'll go talk to him. Hailey did. Hailey and I would text behind your back and be like, man. [00:06:58] And that was one of the first things when I, was graduating high school and going off to college, your social media was still-- it was still not great. it was very inconsistent. You guys were probably posting... you posted mostly about the podcast episodes, which I still do. But other than that, you were posting maybe once a month or less, not consistently. [00:07:19] And the branding, the designs and branding were kind of off and it almost made you look sketchy from a social media standpoint, and I honestly, when I was applying to work for DoorGrow, I still wasn't completely sure what you did. I knew that you've coached businesses to like become better businesses. And that's kinda what I told people like, "yeah, he's a business guy who makes other business guys do better."  [00:07:45] But it wasn't until I actually-- I was just desperate for a job at that point, but I applied to DoorGrow and you made me jump through all these hoops, personality tests. I was like, "this is so my dad." Cause you had made me take these personality tests before. You had, you know, human design stuff. This was stuff that he would make my siblings and I do, but I took them again and I was like, "he makes his applicants do this?" [00:08:10] I was like, that is such a thing that my dad would do, but I'm going through. I do all the things. And as I was going, I just started getting more and more excited. I was like, "man, this a lot of hoops to jump through." I feel like if I get past all of this, I must be a really cool person. [00:08:27] Like it started making me more excited to work for you guys, because it was like qualifying me as someone you were hiring. And then I made the little introduction video, and I tried to have fun with it and get like my personality involved. And I remember being so nervous. I was like, "Why am I so nervous? It's my dad. I'm trying to work with my dad." But I was so nervous all of a sudden. I was so excited. And I remember-- we had different team members at the time like Jon Ray-- and you were sending me messages that you had gotten from the team. Like, "Man, I love her video!" And I got so excited, and going through the trainings that you sent me-- you sent me like the company mission statement and the core values-- I went through those and I read it and I got to learn like what you do and what you stand for. And not only was it cool' cause I got to know you a little bit better on the business side. That was something me and my siblings never really got to experience when we were little, but I also got to know the business. [00:09:25] And first of all, I learned you were not a scam because I wasn't sure. It's an expensive program. You know? Like are people getting value out of it? But people were, and the more like I dove into the client testimonials and I watched, I remember some of my family members at the time being like, "what are you doing?" [00:09:44] And they're like, "come take a break and hang out with us." I'm like, "no, I'm watching all these videos." I was like watching them in the background while doing other things. I was watching them and I really got to know the business. And then I got even more excited and I was like, "you know, this company doesn't really need me for social media right now. I mean, you did, you needed some social media help, but also you guys were doing just fine. The value was there and people noticed that even without flashy visuals or a really well set up socials page. Although, and I can get into this later, but I do think the social media is helping from what I've seen now. I can get into that later if you want, but...  [00:10:23] Jason Hull: I don't, I don't have to mess with it now, which is really nice. It just gets done. So, yeah. And I don't really have to spend time on Facebook. I don't have to spend time on Instagram. So that really did add value. My favorite thing that you do though, is get testimonial videos. I love those and you do a really great job on editing those. So you had mentioned just seeing me work from, you know, I was working from home. Right? And most people, if they have a dad that works, which I guess most people probably do, their dad usually takes off, like leaves and comes back. Like they just disappear, but I was always there and working from home. What do you think that was like for you? Is that different than you think other people's experience? Was it weird?.  [00:11:05] Madi Sleight: Yeah, it was weird. I mean, when we were really little, and I mean like second grade, eight years old, you had an office for OpenPotion downtown, you know, and even then when you would go to work sometimes-- [00:11:19] Jason Hull: I forgot about that. [00:11:21] Madi Sleight: Sometimes even then when you would go to work, you'd take me and my sister along with you. And we would like to play around-- [00:11:27] Jason Hull: Yeah, I did for a little while. In the beginning, I did have an office, yeah. [00:11:30] Madi Sleight: And we would play around in the back with your workout equipment while you were working. Even when you had an office. It wasn't like, like a day job, like a cubicle. We were around. We would play in the shop windows, you know.  [00:11:44] Jason Hull: You have such a good memory. It's really wild. [00:11:49] Madi Sleight: I really do. Well, I wasn't that young. I was like eight years old. That was when I was missing my two front teeth, you know? Yeah, no, I remember. You had the Roomba going around the office. We would tape stuff to it. Anyway, I'm getting off track. [00:12:04] Jason Hull: I had a robot cleaning for me. So coming in from the outside and then seeing-- cause you get to see-- you're on pretty much every coaching call, I think every coaching call, right? And you take show notes and then you give those to the group in the Mastermind and everybody else. How would you describe what we do now? And like, what's your perspective seeing what goes on in the business? [00:12:30] Madi Sleight: Even in just the last year and a half, and I know like we've really sped up the process of getting things organized with Sarah coming on, but even in just the last year and a half, like from when I started versus now-- The program has been polished and cleaned up the value and the coaching, modules themselves were always there, but now we're really like getting to polish and refine them and you get to work on making all the fine adjustments and tunings that you want to. [00:13:00] And it's really cool seeing that happen because as we're growing and adding more clients, I also see our clients getting more excited. When we made changes to certain documents a couple of weeks ago clients went crazy for it. They were like excited with us over this nerdy formatting change or like changing the order of the program around. The clients get excited, and I've gotten messages from clients being like, "Hey, can you send me the link to this document? I'm excited to restart it or like to do it over again. I want the newest updated version." And so, it's not just something that benefits us on like a organization level... [00:13:37] Jason Hull: You're talking about the Roadmaps roadmaps or the new scripts, or? [00:13:39] Madi Sleight: I didn't know if I was supposed to like, go into details on the podcast. [00:13:43] I don't know what I'm supposed reveal to the public.  [00:13:44] Jason Hull: Like it's a proprietary secret? Nah.  [00:13:48] Madi Sleight: It's a secret. It's for clients only. I don't know. But no, the clients love the updated grow roadmap. They really did. They found a lot more clarity. And I remember when I was reaching out, you know, "Hey, you're in this program, we updated this." [00:14:03] They're like, "man, can you send me the notes for that call? I missed it." Or I get notes all the time because I've turned into like the weekly coaching call and note taker. People will message me like, "oh man, I'm so upset. I missed today's call." You know, they'll be on every other call like, "man, what did I miss? Can you send me the summary directly so I can like study it and take notes? I'm like, wow. Some of our clients get really invested and find a lot of value in just the weekly coaching calls. And some of our clients-- like we've got a group of them that show up to every single one. [00:14:36] Jason Hull: Oh, I love those clients. I love the ones that they just, they show up to everything and they do everything that we say and they just get, they get the best results. They're like... they're the best. Like if I could just have all those kinds of clients, I would just have those and everybody would be rich. We would make tons of money. They would make tons of money. But yeah, I love clients that just do what I say.  [00:15:03] Madi Sleight: No, it's true. And it's nice to watch them, especially like from beginning to end. Sometimes they come in a little bit skeptical, like Jon Schmitt. I remember in the beginning he seemed a little stubborn. I dunno, he was intimidatingat first. But when I got on that interview with him last-- or a couple of weeks ago, he was the most excited and he was just going on and on about how much value he got out of the program and how he just decided to do what you said. And so he got the results and he's now like one of our biggest cheerleaders, he and Sonia and Alex come on the call and Alex as well, his son, Alex is always mentioning how much he's learning. He takes notes and he's learning and he wants to quit his day job and start taking over the property management business. [00:15:47] And that's really cool to watch because I've been on and I've been able to watch a lot of the clients' journeys from beginning to now. [00:15:58] Jason Hull: Yeah, you have, and you have a perspective or a lens through which you get to see the business that nobody else has because you're watching these videos over and over again, probably while you're editing them and piecing together, and you're like keeping track of different clips where they share wins on different calls, and then you're taking these together. So you get to see their entire journey in collapsed time. And so that's interesting.  [00:16:24] Madi Sleight: Well, I almost get like emotionally attached to these people that I've never met. You know, I've seen through a Zoom screen every week and I'm just quietly sitting there not talking back and I'm just recording them. Sometimes when I'm watching them and piecing together, putting music to their story and cutting out some "ums" or "and yeah"s or "and so"s and like putting together this really impactful video, sometimes I get emotional. I'm like, "wow, I'm so proud of them." You know, they came so far and it's so cool because I almost feel like I get to know these people on a personal level. [00:17:00] Jason Hull: Yeah, I mean for me, it's super rewarding to see clients winning and succeeding. Like it's worth more than money and getting paid to do what I do and to be just even a guide and seeing all the success in their journeys. It's like really, I mean, it's really amazing. I think it's really amazing that I get to have this job. It's crazy that I get paid to just help people win, which is really awesome. So we like any coach or any business, I've had haters. There's people that just don't believe like we're real or think we just, maybe could be snake oil salesman or something like that. Maybe you could share with people what are you noticing clients are doing? [00:17:44] Madi Sleight: I think the first thing that people who are skeptical or unsure need to realize is you're not selling a magical cure. You know, they're not going to go through the program and immediately they're going to have knocks on their door being like, "Here, take my properties." That's not how it works. And you know, at first I thought when I first joined the business, I was like, "How can you make that guarantee? How does this work? You know, are you helping them with SEO, helping them get referrals, but really the program benefits those who put in the work. [00:18:15] It's not for people who are just going to watch the videos and then not do anything about it. In fact, most of the program is doing the work. The videos are almost just helpful content to get you going. The program is not the videos, but I feel like some clients come in and that's what they think, but our most successful clients, our most excited, our most-- I don't know-- just our best clients, the ones that get the best wins and successes. They just come in, they dive right into the content, they keep their three commitments. They put in as many hours of prospecting they can a week. They get right into it. They just do what you say. They attend the weekly coaching calls. They ask lots of questions. That is something that I've noticed is our best, most rewarded clients. They ask a lot of questions. They come on and ask where they're stuck. They ask really good, insightful questions. [00:19:07] And sometimes they'll take up half the coaching call some of these questions, like 30 whole minutes or 40 minutes. We've been going over time a lot lately because we've been getting really good questions. And then they take what they learned from those calls and they just go implement it.  [00:19:26] Jason Hull: Yeah, it's true. Yeah, we spend a lot of time on those calls sometimes. And I love them asking questions. If they're doing the work, they always have questions. And I see my goal as mentor or as coach to just help them collapse time, point them in the right direction, give them enough information to get them moving forward in the right direction and then kind of get out of their way. So the training material in DoorGrow Academy helps them collapse time, especially because it helps them avoid doing the wrong things. Most people are just doing the wrong things or they're spending-- every business owner is spending tons of time in their business, but they're just focused on the wrong things. And so I think one of the greatest things I think that I provide is just clarity and helping them collapse time. So they don't waste so much time doing the stuff that isn't working. [00:20:15] So they actually spend less time on the phones and less time talking to people overall. In relation to the amount of doors they're acquiring than they would, if they were focused on SEO or pay-per-click or content marketing or social media marketing, or pay per lead services. This is all the stuff that people try to do. And then they come to us and we say, don't spend any money on any of that stuff. In fact, you don't even need to spend money, and we'll get you growing faster, but it takes work. All of those channels take work. They all take time.  [00:20:48] But none of them could help somebody like John Babiarz add, you know, how many doors has he added in what period?  [00:20:58] Madi Sleight: Right now, our most updated testimonial, which is already out of date because you just had a call with him. He had hit around 200 in under a year of being in the program.  [00:21:10] Jason Hull: 10 months, I think you put on the video?  [00:21:11] Madi Sleight: 10 or 11 months.  [00:21:13] Jason Hull: Yeah, that would be impossible with focusing on lead gen, typical internet based lead generation, like SEO, pay-per-click, content marketing. How many doors did he start at? I can't remember. [00:21:25] Madi Sleight: He said he started at 60 or 70. And so about six months into the program. I think he had doubled his portfolio.  [00:21:35] Jason Hull: Yeah. [00:21:36] Madi Sleight: Don't quote me on that. Those dates could be wrong.  [00:21:38] Jason Hull: I think I remember our first video used to run ads was 60. He added 60 doors in 11 weeks is what it said. And we just got lucky that he would mention how many he had added so far in the program, which inspired us to actually start tracking with clients, like keep them conscious of that. Like how many doors total, since during the program, have you added? So that we can monitor that and speed it up. [00:22:01] But yeah. So that's interesting. What else do you think people should know about. That don't know me from a perspective maybe as my kid or as boss, but how would you describe me to other people?  [00:22:15] Madi Sleight: I don't know. it's really interesting. You know, you've always kind of been out there in your beliefs or like what you're interested in. [00:22:25] Like, you tend to-- and I mean this in the best way possible, you're kind of like a nutjob. Like you go out, you love to read books and learn. You're constantly on this like self-improvement grind. You're always like learning new things and that's something that you always, you've always been that way. You've always wanted to learn and try new things to figure out like, what's the best way to do this? What's the best diet to eat? What's the best workouts? You've always kind of got that like innovative mindset in a way. You're willing to try like out there experimental things if it's working. [00:23:00] And I think that also translates into business. Like I wouldn't say that what we're doing is crazy here at DoorGrow. I think what we're doing is just something that helps businesses in general to thrive and to grow. But I don't think anyone else is really doing it like DoorGrow is. I don't think so. [00:23:19] Maybe you would know better. [00:23:20] Jason Hull: Probably not.  [00:23:20] I don't think anybody's doing anything the way that we do it. Not, not exactly. That's why all my trainings and with "secrets." We've got special, unique ways that I've come up with of doing things they're similar to what other people might do, but those little differences are where all the magic happens, I think. [00:23:38] Madi Sleight: And I think in a way, you know, those kind of out there techniques in your personal life and in business, that's something that benefits DoorGrow and is kind of what this whole thing is riding on is your unique perspective and take on these processes that help property managers add doors and scale their businesses. [00:23:59] It all kind of comes back to you being just a little bit crazy, just a little bit. [00:24:03] Jason Hull: A learning nut job. So yeah, I think one of the most common things I heard you and the kids say to me growing up is, "you're weird" to me.  [00:24:17] Madi Sleight: You are! And you were, you really were.  [00:24:21] Jason Hull: So, what else would you describe about my personality? And then we'll probably talk a little bit about you.  [00:24:26] Madi Sleight: Well, another thing that I think kind of lends itself to the program and to DoorGrow, but it's totally your personality is you're very logical in thinking. You're very like process oriented. And so you take that crazy and you mix it with this nerd. And then you get this person who can not only come up with these crazy ideas, but can implement them. Like you spend hours in AirTable, creating spreadsheets and processes and crazy like interconnected, intricate spreadsheets and databases. And I don't know. I don't know if I could do that, but you're willing to figure that out. You think it's fun and it's 'cause you've kinda got that like nerdy side as well, but you're very logical oriented and I think that helps our clients as well. [00:25:15] It's got pros and cons. You tend to think less emotionally and more logically. You don't bullshit or beat around the bush. You tell our clients what needs to get done. You push them to succeed and you're okay telling them the uncomfortable truth, even if they don't want to hear it. [00:25:33] Jason Hull: Yeah. That's true. Do you think I'm too harsh?  [00:25:36] Madi Sleight: Um, you know, there are times where it's appropriate and times where it's not. In your personal life, sometimes I'd be like, man, you're just a robot.  [00:25:45] Jason Hull: Personally, I'm probably too harsh sometimes.. [00:25:48] Madi Sleight: Sometimes you're a little too logical. Me and my siblings come to you like, "oh my gosh, I've got this emotional problem." and you're like, "it's okay. Just read a book. Here, take this book on self-improvement. And we're like, "I just needed you to listen!" But I think your clients need to hear it, so.  [00:26:09] Jason Hull: Yeah, I think I've gotten better with that over time that, I mean, I used to be really, really analytical and logical and truth was all that mattered, you know, so. But yeah, I think the challenge of that is you're constantly bombarded by emotional challenges if you're too logical. So I had to learn how to feel things and empathize more and more over the years. So I'm up there in years now, you know.  [00:26:39] Madi Sleight: How old? [00:26:39] Jason Hull: I think I turn 45 this year, so. [00:26:42] Madi Sleight: You think? You don't know? [00:26:43] Jason Hull: Yeah, no, I do. I turn 45 this year, so. All right, so that's enough about me. So let's just talk a little bit about you. So how old are you turning tomorrow?  [00:26:58] Madi Sleight: I'm turning 20.  [00:27:00] Jason Hull: 20? And your birthday's on 2/2/02. And you're turning 20 on 2/2/22.  [00:27:11] Madi Sleight: Yeah, it's also Groundhog's day.  [00:27:15] Jason Hull: Oh, okay. So what what's with the twos, Madi? [00:27:19] Madi Sleight: I don't know. It's my lucky number. I was also married and I graduated in 2020, so.  [00:27:25] Jason Hull: Yeah, a lot of people did not like that year.  [00:27:28] Madi Sleight: You know what? It was okay I guess. I also did not like that year all the time, but hey, still the twos. Two is my lucky number.  [00:27:40] Jason Hull: Yeah. So what's next for you? Like you're going to school now. You're doing a little part-time with DoorGrow. What gets you excited about the future?  [00:27:49] Madi Sleight: I don't know. I've always been very future oriented, you know, even since I was a freshman in high school, I was getting 4.0 not because I want it to, or because anyone expected me to, but because I wanted to get scholarships for college and I accidentally became valedictorian by doing that. I was willing to give it to the other girl that was salutatorian. I literally said, she's student body president. She can have it. They said it doesn't work that way. I was like, okay. But I just wanted the scholarships. I was always very future oriented. [00:28:23] And so I took a bunch of credits in high school, college credits. And so now I've kind of fast-tracked through college. It's only my second year, but I've got junior standing. And so I don't have a whole lot of college classes left to take, I don't have very many semesters left and at this point in my college career, I'm not taking any gen ed courses anymore. I'm taking all the fun, you know, journalism and mass media courses, taking a lot of graphic design, a lot of media ethics. And right now, I actually applied and I made it onto the school's national advertising competition team. So I'm working with a team of like nine or 10 other people right now, and we're working on a creative brief sent to us by Meta for the Meta Quest 2 VR headset. [00:29:13] Jason Hull: Formerly known as Facebook?.  [00:29:14] Madi Sleight: Yeah, Facebook. You know, all that good stuff. And so I get to actually come up with a whole advertising campaign with this team and I was given the producer role, which basically means I get to boss everybody around, which is something I'm good at. I have been told.  [00:29:29] Jason Hull: You are. You're good at that. You used to boss around your siblings. [00:29:32] Madi Sleight: I know, I know. And it's a little bit of a control freak. But I think this role suits me really well and I'm able to help our two presidents and I work very closely with them and they've already decided that I talk so much that I'm going to be the one presenting in person. [00:29:51] I guess I volunteered by talking a lot in our meetings. But no, I'm excited and this is something that I feel like will benefit my future, my resume. And I was very excited to be working for DoorGrow and getting relevant experience toward the field I'm going into, the digital design space or the desktop publishing, advertising sphere. [00:30:14] So I don't know. For a while, I feel like after I graduate, you know, Preston, my husband's still going to be in school, and so he'll still be going to school. So I'll just be sticking around and working with DoorGrow full-time and will stay.  [00:30:29] Jason Hull: Ooh, that'll be cool.  [00:30:30] Madi Sleight: I know you're excited. He keeps trying to get me to drop out by offering me a salary.  [00:30:39] Jason Hull: Yeah. 'Cause I'm obviously a huge fan of college. I went to college, but I feel like nowadays it's not really as useful as I don't really even look at applicants' college degrees. I really don't. I just look at experience and skills. Some people do, but yeah, I would love to have more Madi in the business because it's a good thing. [00:31:03] Madi Sleight: After I graduate, I'm just going to be sticking around here, saving up money for whatever's next. We've got a good area. We're close to Washington advertising agencies and stuff like that. There's lots of internships and possibilities. So I don't know. I'm happy, you know, with what I do at DoorGrow right now, I wouldn't mind branching out and trying new things when I go full time. But for now, I'm just excited to stay within this industry of, marketing, advertising, graphic design area and I like working from home. [00:31:34] And so that's something I've kind of gotten used to, but that's kind of what's next for me, I'm excited to keep taking classes at the university. It's a small college the journalism and mass media college, we're small. A lot of my classmates are the same in every class. A lot of my professors are the same, but they're very experienced. [00:31:52] A lot of them are experienced journalists and advertisers, marketers, PR people, know what they're talking about, at least I think so.  [00:32:01] Jason Hull: All right. So everybody's like he's throwing her some like easy, slow balls. What do you feel like is my biggest challenges or my biggest deficiencies or whatnot?  [00:32:14] Madi Sleight: In the business or in general? [00:32:17] Jason Hull: Oh, well either one. [00:32:21] Madi Sleight: Well, I mean, like I said, it's something that you've been working on and something that you've improved upon, but the emotional aspect was something that I personally had an issue with growing up, especially being the oldest, being very hard-headed and stubborn and also very emotional. All of your kids are very emotional. [00:32:39] So that's something that you're going to have... [00:32:43] Jason Hull: Yeah, I think of all of them, you're the least emotional out of all of them. [00:32:49] Madi Sleight: Which is funny because I've actually gotten more in tune with my emotions as I've gotten older, but I'm also just better at regulating, I think, than some of my siblings. [00:32:59] Jason Hull: Yeah, perhaps yeah. I mean, you are the oldest. I'm also an oldest. Right. And I think there's a sort of a personality type attributed to the oldest child. But yeah, I know that the things that I've always seen in you, the gifts that I see in you is that you have a really great memory. Like you remember like history from even when you're really young, like you bring up stories and it sparks, like it helps me remember and I'm like, oh my gosh. I can't believe she remembers that. Even when you're a really young, it's really quite weird. You remember a lot of details. I think also you would always take control. If there were a group of kids playing-- we would go, I would take you to the community swimming pool, for example. And you would immediately just start meeting people and you would organize everyone into doing a game or doing something like you would immediately, you were taking charge.  [00:33:50] And it wasn't like something you were ever pushed to do, you just did it. You're just driven to do that. You're like, this is what I want. I want to have fun. And I want to be in charge and get everybody doing things and you would just do it. And every kid would then be playing and like doing what you wanted them to do. Even with your, you know, your sister right under you Hailey, you would tell her like-- You would play games, which would be like some sort of role-play like pretending to do stuff. [00:34:15] And you would tell her what to say. You'd be like, "I will have a blah, blah, blah. And then you say blah blah blah blah..." and then she would be like, "blah blah blah blah." and she would just like, say it. Eventually, I think that wore thin. [00:34:28] Madi Sleight: Yeah, she got sick of it real quick. [00:34:31] Jason Hull: Eventually that wore thin. And she no longer tolerated that, but yeah, you would always like take charge. You were always really outgoing, like naturally, like talking to people and whatnot. And you were just, you were such a fun kid. You were just so fun. What was interesting about you growing up is you would just break out into song. You would make up songs while like, while we were driving or while we were doing things, you just sing about what you were seeing and what was going on. And it was really, really stinking cute. [00:35:04] Madi Sleight: You want to know what's funny? You want to know what's really funny? So I remember that when I first came on at DoorGrow, you pulled up my DISC assessment. And you were like, "man, this is really interesting." It's something about like your natural or your taught personalities, you know?  [00:35:19] Jason Hull: Yeah. your natural score versus your-- [00:35:22] Madi Sleight: like adapted. [00:35:24] Jason Hull: Yeah your adapted score.  [00:35:25] Madi Sleight: And you brought up something that was kind of unknown to me at the time that I was an adapted people pleaser, like my people pleasing score it was really, really high. I had been taught or expected to do that, but it was naturally pretty low. And that's, been in the back of my mind for like the last year and a half. And that's something that I've been working on. And as I've been like more myself and less worried about what people think... my poor husband. We have this inside joke. And I mentioned this when I was in Austin. The, "oh, is that your song? Is that your song?" Because I will be doing laundry or I'll be cooking and I'll be like, "it's time to do the laundry. I'm doing the laundry going to fold some socks." And like, I'll just start-- I'll just start like singing and dancing and he'll look at me and he'll go, "is that your song?" [00:36:12] I'm like, "that's my song."  [00:36:13] Jason Hull: "That's my song."  [00:36:15] Madi Sleight: So now that I'm like getting more into like my natural personality, I'm like reverting back to how I was, singing and dancing and coming up with stupid little jingles when I was a kid, So it's really funny.  [00:36:30] Jason Hull: It's kinda like that inner child work. Like you're just, you're becoming more comfortable being that authentic version of yourself. It's funny. Cause like I wrote songs, and I would make up songs all the time, like about things. Like sometimes the kids will still, like, if they're making chicken nuggets, will sing "chicken nuggets." [00:36:49] Madi Sleight: I do that! I do "the chicken nuggets."  [00:36:52] Jason Hull: "I want eat chicken nuggets, I like to eat chicken nuggets."  [00:36:57] Madi Sleight: I do that every time. I can't believe you remember that..  [00:36:59] Jason Hull: Yeah. I mean, as a parent, you've learned ways to get your kids inspired to do things because this is something that I learned a long time ago, but whenever we fail to inspire, we always control. And so it's hard to control people. if it were easy, everybody would do it. I'm going to control everybody and make the world around me, do what I want. But there's a lot less friction when you can inspire people to do it and song is sometimes a way to get kids to do things. [00:37:24] So well. All right, cool. Is there anything else people should know? About you? About me? About DoorGrow?  [00:37:33] Madi Sleight: I don't know. I'm happy where I'm at. And I think as we're growing our team, you know, we just hired Ashlee and she seems like a really good fit. And I get along with everyone on the team super well. We've got a good, fun dynamic, even Adam, you know, Adam's a little more shy than Kyle. [00:37:50] Kyle's a little rambunctious. Yeah. No, everyone like fits really well. And I get along with everybody and I like the company culture. I thought originally, you know, I kind of had this like inner fear that working with my own dad would be a nightmare. [00:38:06] Jason Hull: Yeah.  [00:38:06] Madi Sleight: Yeah. That was something that I was worried about. But honestly, I think it's been good because I don't know how often we would get to communicate otherwise, but now we talk to each other on a daily basis. Sometimes I get sick of you. Sometimes I do. sometimes I'll be in the huddle at 7:30 in the morning and I'll be like, "I'm too tired for this," but I think it's helped us like grow together personally. [00:38:28] And I also just learn a lot from you and from the business. And I think it's a really good opportunity for me.  [00:38:35] Jason Hull: Yeah. I love having you in the business because, you know, a lot of times parents-- I feel like I have a lot of stuff that I know that I would like to get into my kids, but there's not really a vehicle to do that, but getting your kid in business with you and in doing things because I want everyone on the team to grow, but of course I want my daughter to grow as well. [00:38:56] And so, you know, it's being able to see you develop and grow. Is even more rewarding, you know, for me. And it's really rewarding to be able to share some of that stuff that's in me that I would love all my kids to have, which are heavily connected to values and the things that I care about. [00:39:19] And. You know, interacting and dealing with people and what's effective and contribution and all the things that you've heard. Here's what's really genius about you that I should point out. So when you started doing social media posts, you had listened to some of my podcast and you'd listen to things. You've learned my voice, which is really weird. Like there's AI software out there now, which we now can play with a little bit that actually can learn our voice and it can speak. And it can make the sounds that sound like me, right? There's like an AI version of Joe Rogan out there. For example, it sounds exactly like them. It's like a deep fake, like, it's crazy. You can sound just like him and it's AI, people can type in words and it can spit out someone else's voice. Right.  [00:40:03] You learned to pretty much do that by just watching the videos, but in text, right. So when you're creating posts and content, every now and then I'll read something I'm like, well, that's kind of a little different than how I say it, but what's really weird is most of the time I would see posts or things that you would post and I would look at it and then I would feel like I needed to like it because I was like, that's great stuff. I love that. I mean, it's silly that I love like things you've gotten from what I say, but I didn't write it and I'm reading it going, "yeah. I resonate with this" obviously. And so it's really funny.  [00:40:40] And then I'm like, oh, that's silly. I shouldn't be liking my own stuff. That's weird, but I didn't post it, you know? So it's really awesome to see that you were able to encapsulate the voice. How are you able to do that when other people haven't? [00:40:52] Madi Sleight: Well, the weird thing is I started out making this, like this kind of like a reservoir, like a doc of all these different quotes on all these different topics. [00:41:00] So if I needed a caption for something about a topic, I'd look and I'd go, oh, and I'll just copy and paste it. So I really did just--  [00:41:08] Jason Hull: So you have a Jason's quotes database?  [00:41:11] Madi Sleight: I do, and I keep adding to it, but now I started off doing direct quotes and then I started like, "Hmm, I don't like the way he said that. I feel like that's inproper grammar" So I like tweak it a little bit. Yeah, no, "I feel that's not the right word. I think he meant to say this." And so I like put in little things that start tweaking it. And now what I do is I actually, like, I've gotten way more efficient and like more quick at getting social media posts out there. [00:41:37] 'Cause I'll go into this reservoir. and I have pages and I know exactly where everything is and I'll be like, "oh, this is a good line. I'll throw that in there. This is also a good line. I'll throw that in there." you know, make something up as well to go along with it. It's almost bad because we'll be in the coaching calls and you'll be talking about something and I'll be like, "I could regurgitate this quote on this topic because you'll be trying to say it and I'll be like, "I know exactly what he's trying to say." because you've said it before. One thing that's helpful is your views on a certain topic, like let's say SEO, or referral partners or this or that, you say mostly the same things about the same topic in most of our calls. And so I kind of picked up on that. [00:42:23] And so even if I don't have something in my beautiful reservoir, I just know what you would say. Like, I dunno.  [00:42:30] Jason Hull: You've heard me talk so much and heard me say so much, you know. I've worked with some coaches and mentors. I had one coach I worked with for like three years and it got to the point where on calls. I knew what he would say. Like, I could answer the question for people on his behalf. Yeah. So do you think you could coach clients? Do you think that's something that you could do? You'd be like, I know what Jason would say. This is like, what he would say.  [00:42:52] Madi Sleight: Well, it's funny because when I was doing like the client outreach for a little bit, you know, messaging all of our clients every week, sometimes I'd get a question and I would be able to confidently answer it. And other times, more rarely I would send them over to you but because I know your viewpoint on most of the things-- and that also helped when I was doing sales followup, because I started off and they'd ask me questions, like "how much does the program cost? What do you do?" And I couldn't confidently answer. [00:43:17] But now I can. And I don't think I'm to the point where I could take over the weekly coaching calls yet. I think I need to go through our program kind of like what Ashlee's doing right now. And like actually go through, take notes and become more familiar with the content of the program itself. But I don't think I'm too far behind that honestly because I listen to you for an hour, twice a week, plus meetings and huddles. And I post to your personal and to our business, social medias every single day. And I'm looking at your quotes every single day. Every time I'm creating social media content, I'm going through. "Hmm. You know, what's a good topic for this post."" [00:44:02] What's something we haven't, you know, put on social in a while." and I look at your podcast episodes and see what kind of content you put up there. And so there's a lot of information. If somebody wanted to impersonate you, I don't think it'd be that hard. There's enough information out there.  [00:44:20] Jason Hull: There's a lot out there.. [00:44:21] Madi Sleight: And the more that I consume just doing my daily tasks or weekly tasks, the better I get at, you know, mimicking your style, your voice on social media. [00:44:32] Jason Hull: Cool. Yeah, I think it's just really kind of weird to see when I see stuff that looks like I did it, but it's actually you, but it's like I did it, which is really strange. Cause I don't remember doing it, which is the weirdest thing I'm like, "I don't remember doing that, but that sounds exactly like something I would say." [00:44:52] Madi Sleight: Most of the time it is something you said.  [00:44:56] Jason Hull: That's why. Sometimes I don't even remember saying some things. You'll post something. I'm like, "that's really good! Did I actually say that?" Yeah. So, all right. Well, I think this has gone on long enough, and I appreciate you coming on and being willing to do this and kind of share your perspective on me. [00:45:16] And I think it's probably fun for everyone to hear a little bit about you.  [00:45:20] Madi Sleight: I think that the people listening to this podcast should go check out our socials. You know, we don't get a ton of engagement. We've been getting higher numbers. I've checked the percentages. They've gone up. We've gained more followers, but I think our social media content is pretty good. So if you could go check it out, that'd be really great. You're gonna find a lot of regurgitated quotes from my dad, but a lot of it's good information, especially for property managers. If you're like struggling to grow doors or feel like you're stuck at a roadblock or you can't scale your business, there's a lot of little tidbits of sneak peaks of what we kind of talk about in the program on our socials, lots of short paragraphs. [00:45:57] Little things, I take little gold nuggets from your podcast and put them on socials. So I think that's something that could be nice for someone to get into if they don't have a lot of time to listen to your podcast or to do a ton of research on DoorGrow,  [00:46:13] but also go check out our YouTube channel and our clients success videos. I'm going to be posting more this week as I get them refined to make some revisions and get them up there. We've got some really awesome client wins and people should expect a lot more client success videos in the coming year and in the next few months, especially because I've got a lot of content to get up there and to get out to people so we can show off how awesome our clients are. [00:46:42] Jason Hull: Yeah. I just got to get you to quit college and make videos full-time so I can get more of them out of you faster. [00:46:52] Madi Sleight: I'm too far in, at this point. I just gotta finish it. You don't have to wait that long. I promise I will work full time when I graduate.  [00:47:05] Jason Hull: Well, I'm looking forward to the time where you can go full time. Cause that'd be awesome and Madi, I love you. I adore you. A dad couldn't have had a better first kid and you were just, you've always been so fun. You always get my jokes and I really appreciate having you in the business. And thanks for coming on the podcast.  [00:47:26] Madi Sleight: Yeah. I don't know. I love working for DoorGrow and I like working with you, believe it or not.  [00:47:32] Jason Hull: I believe it. All right. And I think everybody else listening does too well, everybody else, I appreciate you hanging out with us. This is about an hour, this will be a long episode. And until next time to our mutual growth bye everyone. [00:47:47] Jason: 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!  [00:48:13] 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. [00:48:34] Until next time, take what you learn and start DoorGrow Hacking your business and your life.

If you own a business, you are likely either a visionary or an operator. Entrepreneurs/visionary types are risk-takers. They innovate and lead a business with their ideas and vision. Operators are analytical and organized and solve problems within the business. This important dynamic between the visionary & the operator personality types keeps a business balanced and running. Property management growth expert, Jason Hull explores the relationship between visionaries and operators and their roles in a business. You’ll Learn… [01:02] Intro: Visionary vs. Operator [01:34] What is a Visionary? What Makes Them Different From an Operator? [03:22] Visionaries Must be Allowed to Lead [04:23] Giving Operators the Right Problems to Solve [06:20] What if You are Both an Operator and an Entrepreneur? [08:23] Surrounding Yourself with a Team that Supports You [10:21] Another Type of Team Member: BDMs [11:18] What to do in a Toxic Business Partnership  [12:28] The Visionary and the Operator Together: a Magical Pair Tweetables “Visionaries are big-picture oriented. They're dreamers, they're creative, risk-takers, innovators. Whereas operators-- operators are these really detail-oriented, meticulous people.” “Giving the operator correct vision gives them the right problem to solve.” “Running a business is risky. It requires innovation. It requires creativity. These are the skills of the visionary.” “The visionary will lead with vision, and the operator in a healthy state will ensure that that vision is always going to get accomplished, which is super important.” Resources DoorGrow and Scale Mastermind DoorGrow Academy DoorGrow on YouTube DoorGrowClub DoorGrowLive TalkRoute Referral Link Transcript [00:00:00] 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 your business and life, and you are 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.   [00:00:39] At DoorGrow, we are on a mission to transform property management businesses and their owners. We want to transform the 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.    [00:01:02] So today's topic everybody. We're going to be talking about visionary versus operator. So I get a lot of clients coming to me that are visionaries. And so, I want to get into this dynamic of the visionary versus the operator, and there's some important ideas to understand around this because it's a really common partnership or relationship that exists in business. It can be very symbiotic and it can be very helpful to have this relationship in a business.    [00:01:34] And so let's talk about the visionary. So what is a visionary? Visionary is the typical entrepreneur personality type. The visionary is somebody that has, you know, vision. They have these ideas of what they want to accomplish. They are usually driven. They're usually a bit more sales-oriented.    [00:01:52] They're a bit more risk-oriented than most people on the planet. They're comfortable taking on risks. They're comfortable doing the work. They're comfortable coming up with new ideas and innovating. They change quickly. They move quickly. They want to do new things. They experiment... they're driven, risk takers. You get the idea.    [00:02:13] These are the typical, stereotypical sort of entrepreneur personality type. And the operator is very different than that. Right? So, and to contrast these: visionaries are big-picture oriented. They're dreamers, they're creative, risk-takers, innovators. Whereas operators-- operators are these really detail-oriented, meticulous people.    [00:02:35] They focus on the details instead of so much the big picture. They're grounded. They focus on keeping things grounded. They're not like theoretical and big plan, this guy dreams... They're like practical and grounded. They're meticulous. They're cautious. And they are focused on implementation rather than so much innovation.    [00:02:56] And so visionaries, you need operators, right? You know, you might have them as a personal or an executive assistant. They might then graduate to being an operations assistant-- might graduate to being an operations manager-- maybe eventually director of operations-- and then maybe the VP of operations --and maybe even the COO of your company, where they may be dealing with some financials and some other things that you wouldn't trust anybody else with. Right?    [00:03:22] It's important in understanding this relationship between these two contrasting, different personality types-- and this is really important for the operator to understand, is that the visionary must be allowed to lead. The visionary has to lead because they're going to move the business forward.    [00:03:40] Running a business is risky. It requires innovation. It requires creativity. These are the skills of the visionary. but they are a dynamic duo, right? The visionary will lead with vision and the operator in a healthy state will ensure that that vision is always going to get accomplished, which is super important.    [00:03:59] A lot of times, visionaries might be trying to do it all themselves, and they wonder why things end up staying on their to-do list forever, why they feel stuck, why they have so much frustration, why they aren't able to just get stuff done. And if there's all these things you've had on your to-do list for way too long, it's probably because you're a visionary and you need badly some sort of operator in the business.   [00:04:23] Now the operator has some inherent challenges. The operator needs vision, and it's important that you give the operator the right problem to solve because if the operator doesn't have the right problem to solve, their usual default problem that they work on is how should we do this? How can we avoid this? Is this safe? Keep the business safe and keep things comfortable and make sure everything is done perfectly before we take action. And so they're always looking for the flaw, the problem they're super critical. A lot of times and they're always looking for the flaw in whatever your vision and things are.   [00:04:55] So what's important to understand, visionaries, is you need to give operators the right problem to work on. So instead of the problem of, "should we do this?" And "what's wrong with this,? And "where's the flaw?" You need to give them a different problem to work on saying, "this is the goal. How do we get this accomplished?" [00:05:15] "How can we make this possible? How can we make this work? How can we hit this target? How can we make more money? How can we do this?" Instead of, "should we?" or "why?" Or, you know, some of these kinds of things sometimes, right?    [00:05:29] So, giving the operator correct vision gives them the right problem. ‘Cause they are really good problem solvers. They're really good at solving these problems. And if given the right problem, "how can we make this work? How could we do this?" It shifts the brain out of, "should we do this?" Or "Why?" You know-- which your goal is to get this done-- shifts them to thinking and helping you figure out how to accomplish this.   [00:05:50] Now a lot of lawyers, accountants, really detail-oriented people might have that kind of personality type. And so a lot of times you need to give them the right problem to solve, because they're going to try and keep you from doing things or tell you don't do this, or this might not be safe. And if you know that this vision and down in your intuition says, 'this is what we're going to do, this is what I want to do.' [00:06:10] You give them: this is the problem I want you to work on. I already know I want to do this. Help them figure out how to do this... very different problem to give operators.    [00:06:20] Alright, now, forcing non entrepreneurial operators. Cause there are some of you operators out there that are also the entrepreneur and you run a business. And you're kind of a unicorn, you're a little bit unique and different, but forcing a non-entrepreneurial operator to lead and to push and to have drive is often very uncomfortable for them. And it's often very ineffective. There's going to be a lot of friction. They'll experience massive resistance to doing new things, taking risks, and they shouldn't be pushed to do sales or marketing or outreach or prospecting, or to be the face of the company in the long run.   [00:07:03] So if you are the operator personality type running your property management business, you may want to attract or get around some people. So operators should not be over sales, marketing, BDM-- business development management. They should not be over that typically because they're going to focus on conservation and conserving and doing less and spending less money and not experimenting and doing things safer typically.   [00:07:29] So your head of sales and marketing would be maybe their equal, not their subordinate. You do not want to put your operations person over them. Everybody may report metrics to the operator, but the operators should not be their boss. They should not be their supervisor or superior. If you have a head of director or head of sales and marketing or a BDM.   [00:07:50] Now, what if you are that operator entrepreneur? So let's talk about that. First, you may not actually be that person. You may just enjoy creating operational systems. I enjoy that. I love creating the systems and building out operational stuff, but I don't love doing the data entry. I don't love running those systems. I don't want to run the meetings. I don't want to run the process, but I like building out sometimes those processes or the mechanics or the mechanisms 'cause that's creative work for me. That's visionary, creative work for me.    [00:08:23] Now, if you actually are this operator personality type and you run a business, you may have struggled to grow your business because of that. So you may need to surround yourself with visionaries to get ideas. This is why some of my clients that are operator personality types, work with me as a. It helps expose them to new ideas. It helps stretch them, move them into the things that they wouldn't normally think of doing. It's kind of like, I get to be the visionary for them in some regard.    [00:08:50] Or you may need to go get a business partner or somebody that can fill that role if you really feel that that's a deficiency. So getting a visionary co-mentor can help... getting somebody else. Now you may also want to-- just a tip-- is just practice feeling, right? Because usually operators are very in their head. They're very mental. They're avoiding their feelings. They're trying to avoid feelings by using logic, which doesn't really work.   [00:09:17] The only thing you can do with a feeling is to feel that feeling. So my recommendation is don't be mentally avoiding feelings, be present, get in your body and feel those feelings because once you're comfortable feeling uncomfortable feelings... Once you can deal with that, you can move to a higher level of capacity as an entrepreneur.   [00:09:39] You will also need to learn to build the right culture and attract people that you can actually trust to let go of control to. A lot of times, you want to hold onto things and control everything and you don't feel safe letting go. They don't really share your values and you're never going to trust somebody unless they really share your values.   [00:09:58] You won't trust them to do things the way you would. You won't trust them to work with people the way you would. You won't trust your clients to talk to them. You won't trust that they'll make great decisions because they don't share your values and you cannot create values in people. It's hard wired in. They get their values from their religion, their parents, their upbringing, the culture they grew up in.   [00:10:20] They have those kinds of set. They've made decisions long ago, lots of little decisions that led to their values. So you need to find people that are good at culture fit or value fit for you. You may also want to get a BDM. So a lot of the operator entrepreneurs really struggle in the sales outreach, business development sort of category. That stuff's not fun. Like making a cold call sounds really uncomfortable for a lot of them, for example, right? They just know they're not good at it. They're not a closer, they don't have the bite, the hunger, the drive. They don't feel comfortable following up on somebody three times in the same day. They're like, "that sounds mean, or uncomfortable for them. Right?   [00:11:01] So if that's you, you may need a BDM or you may want to partner with a visionary I had mentioned before. Or at the very least, at least maybe a sales assistant that you can groom to be a BDM, which I've done a podcast episode on previously, which is a great episode. You should listen to it if that's of interest to you.   [00:11:18] All right. So what if you have an operator business partner? You're the visionary. And you're both equal partners in this business? This can be a really difficult, uncomfortable dynamic. If you want to grow and you have vision and they don't trust you, then that relationship is now toxic.    [00:11:38] If the operator doesn't trust you-- if you've destroyed trust with your experiments and your risks, and they don't trust you anymore, then to, to move the business forward, either you need to rebuild that trust or the relationship needs to end, because it's toxic. You cannot grow when you have an equal partner that's able to make decisions in the business, and they're saying, "I don't want to do experiments or do something uncomfortable or hire a coach or work with DoorGrow, or do anything that feels expensive or risky or new... I'm comfortable with where things are right now.    [00:12:11] So if you have somebody that's growth oriented and somebody that's comfort oriented and wants safety and certainty, and they're equal partners, you may have to dissolve that relationship. This is why I say the visionary must be the one that leads. This is super important that the visionary must be the one that is allowed to have leadership and to lead in this organization. They have to lead. Visionary has to be allowed to lead in this organization.   [00:12:38] So the visionary plus the operator: so if everything's working out, then you will be stronger together. This is a magical relationship. Somebody's creating the vision and somebody making sure everything gets done. It takes a huge load off the visionary entrepreneur's plate. And the operator has the right problems to solve and the right things to do, and they know what to do in order to win and what to figure out. And they're in the right role. And everybody is going to be happier in that type of business.    [00:13:10] If you're in a business that doesn't have a good operator, then a lot of things will fall through the cracks. There'll be a lot of things that aren't getting done. There'll be a lot of chaos. A lot of confusion there'll be constant changes in direction. Goals will change. Goals will be too big and unattainable. You're not connected to reality in the business and a business without vision or without a visionary will feel like it's not moving forward. It won't feel like there's growth. It won't feel exciting. It won't feel like there's something to look forward to in the business.   [00:13:40] And it will feel just safe, comfortable, and you're not gonna have a lot of growth. Right? So my hope is that those of you listening have self-identified: are you more of a visionary? Or are you more of an operator? And what do you need in order to get to the next level? And I hope this is helpful for those of you that are running property management businesses.   [00:14:00] If you want to move your business forward, if you want to grow your company, if you could use a little more vision or you could use some operational systems and to learn how to attract and build the right team, the right planning system, the right meeting structures, the right, systems in order to scale your business operationally... To support your operator or the right sales-related things to support your BDM...    [00:14:27] there is nothing better out there than the DoorGrow and Scale Mastermind. Our clients are crushing it with this stuff right now. And we have scripts for your BDMs. We have programs that are far more effective than what most people are doing to grow their business that are focused on generating more warm leads, more trust, more relationships that have like an 80- 90% close rate-- really effective.   [00:14:52] And we also have systems that are better than EOS or Traction or all these systems that exist out there we call DoorGrow OS. We also have a really brilliant hiring system called DoorGrow ATS so you can attract and retain and have A-players in your business and make sure everybody's on track, everybody's accountable and you have no hiders in your business.   [00:15:13] And so if you are interested in this, get on a call with our team, check us out at doorgrow.com and we'd love to support you. And we will also give you a free training with 7-- there's a couple bonus ones-- maybe 9 Frameworks, in which you can learn some of the secrets to growing and scaling your business and different lenses to view your business so that you can make your business even more effective. And we will give that training to you for free and explain the program and everything in it. And we would love to do that for you. So reach out to us at DoorGrow, and, until next time to our mutual growth.   [00:15:47] Bye everyone.   [00:15:48] 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!    [00:16:14] 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.   [00:16:35] Until next time, take what you learn and start DoorGrow Hacking your business and your life.

How can you build the ultimate property management team for your business? Too many entrepreneurs build the wrong team. They have to micromanage their team, they can’t trust them, and their team members do not share the business owner’s values. Property management growth expert, Jason Hull explains why business owners might get stuck with hires that do not share their values, how to attract the right team members with clearly defined company culture, and what to look for in the ultimate executive team. You’ll Learn… [01:13] Recap on the Four Reasons for Starting a Business [02:22] Going from Solopreneur to Having the Ultimate Team [04:24] Building a Team to Give YOU Fulfillment and Freedom [6:19] The “Sandtrap” of Struggling to Grow Business [7:49] Why You Might Have the Wrong Team and Company Culture [10:26] The “Fifth Reason” for Starting a Business: Safety and Certainty [11:05] The Key Team Members for a Property Management Team [15:10] Creating a Core Executive Team of Thinkers [18:48] The First Hire You Should Make and Job Descriptions Tweetables “If every team member is coming to you and asking questions on a daily basis, throughout your day, you do not have a very good team.” “The reason you have the wrong team is because you are showing up in the business as the wrong person, and you are in the wrong role.” “The goal is we're trying to build a core executive team that you can trust to make decisions for and on behalf of you, the business owner. Which means you need people that can think, people that share your values.” “The very first hire that you get should be based on not what the business needs most.” Resources DoorGrow and Scale Mastermind DoorGrow Academy DoorGrow on YouTube DoorGrowClub DoorGrowLive TalkRoute Referral Link Transcript [00:00:00] If every team member is coming to you and asking questions on a daily basis, throughout your day, you do not have a very good team. You've built the wrong team.    [00:00:10] 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 your business and life, and you are 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.   [00:00:50] At DoorGrow, we are on a mission to transform property management businesses and their owners. 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.    [00:01:13] All right. So today, we're going to be talking about this idea of the ultimate property management team, at least the basic foundational team that you would need in order to get to that ultimate level we all want to get to where we have the highest level of the "four reasons." and if you have not listened to my episode on the "four reasons for starting a business," Then go back and check that out.    [00:01:42] So for those that have not heard that, quick recap: the four reasons for having a business are to have more fulfillment in life, to get fulfillment out of your business, to get freedom more and more freedom, and more contribution so you feel like you're making a difference, living your purpose, and support. This is why we create the vehicle of a business. So it can also give us more support and related to that, you cannot have maximum freedom, maximum fulfillment, maximum contribution, unless you have the ultimate team. So let's talk about the ultimate property management team.   [00:02:22] Now, for most business owners, you start out as a solopreneur. This is this journey you start on. The transition from solopreneur to having a team is one of the most painful and difficult transitions. I see business owners go through. This was hard for myself. It's one of the biggest challenges at even multimillion dollar companies or large companies that have been in groups or masterminds that I've been in with... it's building that team and building the right culture and the right team. In building the ultimate property management team, usually you're going to need a few key strategic ingredients, right? So the ultimate team would be basically you as a business owner-- property management business owner-- having a team that allows you to not have to do anything you don't want to do in the business.   [00:03:08] So let's say, you just want to function as a business owner and maybe just hold on to a couple of little pieces that you enjoy or love doing. So here are some of the key people. So typically you're going to need at least probably about five team members, and in order to afford that most property management businesses usually are going to need to be around 200 to 400 doors typically.    [00:03:34] I know there's this model out there. And a lot of people will bring up Steve Crossland. He's a really cool guy right here in Austin... does property management. And there is this Steve Crossland model of property management where you do everything. You do every single thing in the business.    [00:03:52] You do every single thing in the business, and if you're doing every single thing in the business, that's cool. But, you might not enjoy that. You might not enjoy every single thing. Most of us as business owners, there's certain things we're really good at, and there's a lot of things we're really bad at. There's a lot of things I'm not good at, and I don't want to do those things. I don't enjoy doing those things. Those things, those things are not fun for me. So I want other people to help me do those things. And not only that, but it becomes really difficult to try and do everything on your own.    [00:04:24] Now, is it more profitable if you can do every single thing yourself and you're willing to just dedicate all your time? Yes. You can make a lot more money maybe that way, because you have very little cost, but you have to recognize on a previous episode, I talked about the five currencies. I think I talked about that. If I didn't, I'll do it in a future episode, but these currencies are time, energy, focus, cash, and effort.   [00:04:52] So, not all of them are money, right? Cash is only one of them. You want to hold on to as much cash as possible and you're willing to give up all these other sacred currencies, like your life time, your energy, your focus, and that's fun for you? Cool. But for most that's not fun.   [00:05:10] That's not freedom. That's not fulfillment. That sounds like hell right? It's just another job. And if you want to be the guy, or gal by the way, for every maintenance request and every accounting problem and every sales call, or any leasing situation, or every showing... or every operational challenge you are not going to really--- you're not going to have freedom, you're not going to have fulfillment. You're going to be in a prison of your own creation.   [00:05:39] So what's the ultimate goal? Like, if you start this business, usually for most entrepreneurs, the ultimate goal is going to be to have a team so that you feel supported and you feel like Iron Man in that super suit. You're a normal person, but you have this team that increases your abilities, your capabilities, allows you to provide a great level of service and to do a good job and feel like you're making a difference in the world, but you don't have to do all the stuff that's uncomfortable, painful, or you don't enjoy doing.   [00:06:08] So typically, maybe about five team members in addition to yourself. And probably 200 to 400 doors so that you can afford or justify that at least minimum, somewhere in that range or more.   [00:06:19] So we need to get you to that point, and if you're having trouble with that, that's something we help clients focus on is how to get to that point. Now, most people get to this point, and I call this sometimes the "second sand trap," or maybe the third sand trap.   [00:06:33] But, there's the initial sand trap of like: "I can't get on any clients" or "I'm starting my business." That's where a lot of people get stuck. I don't know if that even counts as a sand trap because they're not even going, they have a fantasy business. Right? The next is the first real sand trap is the sand trap of the solopreneur sand trap. Just breaking that a hundred door barrier... getting stuck, maybe around between 50 to 80 doors... can't grow any more. It's too painful. You can't manage any more properties than that on your own for most people and you're struggling and you can't afford to hire anybody and you end up painted into a corner and stuck, right? First sand trap.    [00:07:09] Second sand trap is you are in that 200 to 400 door range and you have a team, but it's the wrong team. And this is where a lot of property management businesses sit stuck and stagnant. They're in that 200 to 400 door range.    [00:07:23] The business owner feels like they have to micromanage everybody on the team, which, you know you're that person if you're like, "We just need more checklists! And we need more processes!" And you're trying to control everyone. And you are the person that every single person on the team comes to and asks questions. If every team member is coming to you and asking questions on a daily basis, throughout your day, you do not have a very good team.    [00:07:49] You've built the wrong team. You don't have a team of thinkers. You don't have a team of decision makers. You have a team that you have to micromanage, and these are people as process that you have to control. And this is the initial team most people build. When they start building a team, they build a team the wrong way. They build a team that they have to micromanage and control because at first it feels really cool.    [00:08:11] There's a lot of ego and everyone's coming in asking questions and they feel like they're really smart. And they end up quickly like the Emperor or Empress with no clothes. Everybody wants to say yes to the boss. They're not giving the boss valid feedback. And so you end up with a business that is struggling.   [00:08:30] And the reason you have the wrong team is because you are showing up in the business as the wrong person. And you are in the wrong role. You've created this role, holding onto all the things that you think you have to do as a business owner. You're like, "I have to do, you know, the accounting. I have to control the finances."   [00:08:53] That's like, "I'm the business owner. That's my job." Or "I'm the only one that can do the sales. I have to do all the sales and I'm the BDM too. So I have to do all of that because nobody else is as good as me," or whatever you tell yourself. Or "I have to handle the operations because that's running the business and it's my business and I'm running it.   [00:09:11] "I have to manage the entire team and do everything." Whatever it is that you are holding on to, if it's not something you enjoy, you are showing up as the wrong person. So we want to make sure that we build the right job for you, and then we build the right team to supplement you-- the right team around you.   [00:09:31] And most business owners are stuck at the 200 to 400 door range in this industry because they have the wrong team because they've been showing up in the wrong role and they didn't understand the four reasons and they weren't moving towards that consistently. And they didn't set up the right culture.   [00:09:49] Their team has no clue really what the company's core values are. They have no clue what the company's client-centric mission is to, to benefit clients. Then, you know, none of this is clearly defined. There's a lack of culture. And the business owner has a lack of clarity on themselves and never got clear on why did they even do this? How does this give them more fulfillment and more freedom? How's this helping them be more of themselves, create more contribution. How does this help bring them more alignment towards the four reasons? That lack of clarity means you're going to have team members that also are not in alignment with those four reasons.   [00:10:26] So there's the fifth reason. And the fifth reason is safety and certainty. Your team members are just people that want safety and certainty, they just don't want to get fired. They just want to keep getting paid. They just want their job and they become hiders, not believers in your business because you haven't given them anything to believe in. There's no real culture that's clearly defined, so the culture in your business is what actually is going on in your business.    [00:10:49] So if there's office politics, if there's micro-managing, if there's laziness, if there's confusion, if there's crappy processes, that's your culture. That's the culture that you have defined by not clearly defining it.    [00:11:05] So let's talk about these key team members that you would need once you get to that 200 to 400 door range, or as you're growing and scaling, if you wanted to offload things. So in most businesses at that stage, you're going to probably need a maintenance coordinator that handles the maintenance coordination.   [00:11:23] This could be an introverted person. That's just really detail-oriented and really good at remembering stuff and can facilitate tools like Property Meld and stuff like that. That was property meld, M-E-L-D. They can facilitate tools like this for communication and nothing falls through the cracks with them because they're on top of that kind of stuff, if they're the right personality. So you have a maintenance coordinator handling maintenance, it's a big piece of the business, right?    [00:11:48] You will probably need a property manager, somebody that handles the leasing side of things, that handles the onboarding of new tenants and new owners that the salesperson hands people off to, and that is the boots-on-the-ground person that goes out into the field and does certain things related to leasing and onboarding... that sort of thing.    [00:12:08] You'll also need an operator. This is probably the most important role, second to the visionary or the entrepreneur, which would be you, those listening to this. So the operator is going to be the person that handles all the operational pieces they're going to be very different than the visionary personality type. They have all the details, make sure the team are doing what they're supposed to be doing. They make sure that meetings are being run on time.    [00:12:34] And in a certain way, they're handling the strategic planning for the company, which we have a system that we teach clients called DoorGrow OS, which I believe is better than Traction or EOS or any of that kind of stuff that most of you are dabbling with out there. There's several advantages in DoorGrow OS over that system. Maybe that'd be another podcast episode.    [00:12:55] But you have an operator and they have an operating system and they're going to make sure process documentation and systems and everything are working well and that the business runs. And they're basically the key person that's going to enact your vision and make sure your vision is coming to fruition and they will ensure that it gets done.   [00:13:12] You will probably also need a BDM. You may love doing sales. And that may be one of the last things that you give up and maybe nobody would be quite as good as you. But if that is not your personality type and you don't enjoy it, or you just have part time availability to dedicate to that, you can only really do sales and follow-up maybe 10 to 20 hours a week or less.   [00:13:34] Then you may want-- if you really want to grow and scale your business, then you will need to get a full time person. That's focused on networking, connecting, building relationships, prospecting, and growing and scaling your business... referrals... all of that kind of stuff. So that would be a BDM, which is a business development manager. Basically a sales person in your property management business.   [00:13:59] The other role that you may need is maybe you don't enjoy– or are not an expert at the financial stuff. I've worked with financial coaches and things like that, because this was something I was not naturally good at because I didn't enjoy it. But I like making money and I like winning financially. And I like knowing that the business is sound and safe financially. So I got coaches and mentors on this, but I still have people and resources and a team to help with these pieces so that it's not something I have to put a lot of time and energy into.   [00:14:33] So you'll need somebody on the accounting side or financial side, bookkeeping, accounting, that sort of thing if that's something that you are not getting a lot of freedom and fulfillment from and contribution from.   [00:14:45] Then another role that you will probably need would maybe be a receptionist, somebody to just field the onslaught of all these phone calls that you're getting from so many tenants and owners and things coming in, to triage things and get them to the right people. You'll need somebody maybe to answer the phones because those low level calls can eat up a lot of resources for these higher level team members.    [00:15:10] Now, what is the goal that we're trying to build here? The goal is we're trying to build a core executive team that you can trust to make decisions for and on behalf of you, the business owner. Which means you need people that can think, people that share your values. You will never trust your financial person to make decisions, you'll never trust your BDM to sell and bring in people the right way and attract the right clients, you'll never trust fully your operations person to do the job the right way unless you deep down know they share your values.    [00:15:48] They might be skilled and can do those jobs, and you may have a team. If you're in that 200 to 400 door range and you feel stuck it might be because you have a team of people that don't share your values, or they're not clear on your values and so there's a disconnect.    [00:16:05] So you need executive team members that are part of this executive team decision-maker/ thinkers that can run pieces of the business-- additional engines in the business-- instead of everyone just being cogs or wheels that are turned by the engine. You need other people that can take these pieces off of your plate so you don't have to make every decision. You don't have to answer every question. You don't have to do every single thing in that, and they don't have to check in with you on every single thing either-- that you're able to trust them. And the only way you'll be able to trust them is if they share your values.   [00:16:40] And if you cannot trust your team members with those things, either you haven't made your values clear to them, or you just know already, which is probably more likely they don't have the same value set as you, You cannot create enough processes and checklists and systems to force executive-level-thinker team members to be effective at implementation and taking action and taking over pieces of the business. That's impossible. There's too much going on.    [00:17:07] They need to share your values, and those values need to be clear to them and need to be related to them, and they need to buy into them and be believers in those values and believers in you and believers in the vision of the company.   [00:17:21] If they don't believe in you, and they don't believe in the values, then they're just "hiders." they're just showing up to get a paycheck. They're going to just do their job. They will do the bare minimum. They're not going to do anything extra. They're not going to think or make decisions 'cause they'll probably just make a mistake or get in trouble, so they're going to come to you and ask you to do it for them. "Make this choice for me." And then you end up just with a whole bunch of people that are eating up your time instead of taking more of your time off of your plate because they're just eating up time, asking all these questions.    [00:17:54] So that's kind of the ultimate team. Now, if you have other ideas or other team members, feel free to comment inside our Facebook group, which is the community for those that are fans of this podcast and that are fans of DoorGrow. You can go to doorgrowclub.com which is our Facebook group, and you can join that group.    [00:18:16] Let me know: what does the ultimate team look like for you? I'd be curious to see if I missed something here, but this-- these are some of the key team members that I've seen people need in their businesses in order to offload and take things off their plate. So that's that. That's about the ultimate team. So in order to have the ultimate team, you need culture, you need a lot of clarity on what you and your role should be in the business and on your purpose in life and on what your values are and what drives and motivates you so that we can build the right ultimate team around you.   [00:18:48] And the next step: the very first hire that you get should be based on not what the business needs most. It should be based on what you need most in order to get to the next level towards the four reasons. This is why I have a strategic process for clients to do a time study, to figure out: what do they need next?   [00:19:10] And then we have a specific way of doing job descriptions that I call "Rdocs" to figure out what is the ultimate job description for the next hire that I need to get in order to let go of the things that are eating up the currencies that I don't want to be giving up, which you know, things that are stealing my energy, things that are stealing my focus, things are stealing my cash, that were preventing from making more cash things. They're stealing my time.    [00:19:35] What are the things that I would want to give up most? And how can I build the right job description around that? And what is my current accurate job description? Is this what I want? Or are there things I can just highlight on that, that I could eventually put onto somebody else's job description. So these are the things we get into more in the DoorGrow OS and into the scale program that's in our mastermind.    [00:19:55] So if this stuff is interesting to you, if you got some value out of this, you might be a good fit or interested in being part of our DoorGrow and Scale Mastermind. So reach out to us, go to doorgrow.com, schedule a call with our team, and we will give you a free training that will help you know everything about our mastermind and help you learn some of these cool frameworks.    [00:20:20] We give this free training away that has seven-- actually, it has probably like nine or more, frameworks that are gonna help you learn how to scale and grow your business more effectively, and we hope you get really excited about that. Realize you're a great fit for it. And it will also break down why most companies are struggling to grow and why most marketing ideas and channels like SEO and pay per click, Google ads and content marketing and social media marketing and pay per lead services are BS and are not helping you grow your business.   [00:20:52] And if you've been trying this stuff and struggling, they all can work, but there's a big, massive reason why they're not working. We can reveal that to you in that training and help you do something that's not those things that cost no dollars and we'll make you a lot more money, and it takes less time than using those strategies to get on a lot of business.   [00:21:14] So anyway, check this out. Doorgrow.com and until next time, to our mutual growth. And I hope you all build the ultimate team and have the ultimate level of freedom and fulfillment in your life and contribution and support. Bye, everyone.