Podcasts about sarah oh

The property management industry is no stranger to conferences and in-person events, but have you ever thought about creating an event yourself? In this episode of the #DoorGrowShow, property management growth experts Jason and Sarah Hull discuss the behind-the-scenes of putting on a live event or conference and all the pros and cons of doing so. You'll Learn [04:39] Learning from Past Mistakes and Failures [15:32] Getting Back in the Saddle: DoorGrow Live [21:07] What Goes Into Creating a Conference? [30:31] The Magic of In-Person Events Quotables “I think being able to just connect with people, making sure that people know who you are and what you do, I mean, it's really valuable.” “When you've got a room full of people who are in the same sector, in the same industry, there's so much knowledge in that room.” “When you're connecting with other people that are like you, that are growth minded and you both share an industry and a share a business model, like it really helps you grow.” “Your business is the sum of the five property management business owners you as a business owner are most connected to.” Resources DoorGrow and Scale Mastermind DoorGrow Academy DoorGrow on YouTube DoorGrowClub DoorGrowLive Transcript [00:00:00] Jason: When you're connecting with other people that are like you, that are growth minded and you both share an industry and share a business model, like it really helps you grow. [00:00:08] Jason: Your business is the sum of the five property management business owners you as a business owner are most connected to. [00:00:13] Jason: Welcome DoorGrow property managers to the Property Management Growth Show. If you are a property management entrepreneur that wants to add doors, make a difference, increase revenue, help others, impact lives, and you are interested in growing in business and life. And you're open to doing things a bit differently, then you are a DoorGrow property manager. DoorGrow property managers love the opportunities, daily variety, unique challenges, and freedom that property management brings. Many in real estate think you're crazy for doing it. [00:00:42] Jason: You think they're crazy for not because you realize that property management is the ultimate, high trust gateway to real estate deals, relationships, and residual income. At DoorGrow, we are on a mission to transform property management business owners and their businesses. We want to transform the industry, eliminate the BS, build awareness, change perception, expand the market, and help the best property management entrepreneurs win. [00:01:06] Jason: We're your hosts, property management growth experts, Jason and Sarah Hull, the owners of DoorGrow. Now, let's get into the show. All right.  [00:01:14] Sarah: Woo!  [00:01:15] Jason: So first, you'll have to excuse if I sound a little nasally today, because I have a cold, which doesn't happen often. And I might have given it to Sarah. I don't know. [00:01:25] Sarah: My sinuses just feel weird.  [00:01:27] Jason: So.  [00:01:27] Sarah: So thanks.  [00:01:28] Jason: Yeah.  [00:01:29] Sarah: Thanks for that.  [00:01:30] Jason: Okay, so.  [00:01:31] Sarah: Appreciate it.  [00:01:32] Jason: You keep kissing me. I'm not kissing you. Like I'm not trying to get you sick.  [00:01:35] Sarah: He's not kissing me.  [00:01:36] Sarah: She can't resist.  [00:01:37] Sarah: Does anybody believe that? Nobody believes you. Nobody should.  [00:01:40] Jason: I'm sick. You keep coming up to me. [00:01:42] Jason: I'm like, you want this? Obviously she does, guys. Obviously.  [00:01:46] Sarah: Oh brother.  [00:01:47] Sarah: Alright.  [00:01:48] Sarah: What a great episode. What a great kicker offered.  [00:01:51] Jason: So I might be coughing and I apologize. Alright, so what we're talking about today is we thought we'd give you a little bit of behind the scenes into us creating an event and us doing DoorGrow Live, getting prepped and prepared for this. You know, we put an entire year into getting this thing going and getting this prepared and promoting it, finding speakers. [00:02:15] Jason: And so let's chat a little bit about some of the behind the scenes stuff.  [00:02:19] Sarah: Yeah. So one of the things that I wanted to talk about is kind of everything that really goes into it behind the scenes that when you go attend an event, you just don't notice. You just don't like realize a lot of the times, unless you're used to running events. [00:02:35] Sarah: And once you start running an event, go run one event and then you will attend every other event differently. For example, when we go to, you know, Aaron's events, or Funnel Hacking Live, my brain is constantly going, like, operationally, this must be a nightmare. How on earth are they coordinating all of this? [00:02:56] Sarah: It's just insane. Because I know how crazy it is with our conferences, and we don't yet have thousands of people there. We will, at one point. But, man, there's just so much that goes into it. So, If you're ever considering running events, and I think that for property managers and for anyone who's a real estate agent or investor, I really think events are something that you should at least look into. And it doesn't have to be this big crazy event where, you know, you spend 25- 30 thousand dollars like we do and that's kind of like a low budget, you know. That's like you'll blow through that real quick. It doesn't have to be anything like that and it definitely doesn't have to be this, you know, this big crazy promoted thing you can do your own version of events like in a very different way, back when I was in property management, you know, we would do some little networking events and they were nowhere near the size, but also nowhere near the cost, but they can be really beneficial for you to do. So I think if you haven't experimented with that, then maybe get some tips and pointers and check it out. Like try it, experiment and see what happens. Because for me, it was really great to just be connected. So there's that saying, "your net worth is in your network," and I think being able to just connect with people, make sure that people know who you are and what you do, I mean, it's really valuable. So if you're a property manager and you haven't done a little in person event yet, then perhaps you might want to try. And we're going to talk a little bit about, you know, what goes into like a bigger event the way that we run them. So why don't you give them some background? [00:04:41] Sarah: When was your first? Your first DoorGrow Live was pre-Sarah, the pre-Sarah DoorGrow age, I think it was it 2018?  [00:04:49] Jason: Yeah. 2018. 2018. Yeah. Yeah.  [00:04:51] Sarah: Okay. Can you talk about you know, what was the first DoorGrow Live like?  [00:04:57] Jason: Oh man. Yeah. And if you want to get a visual of this, you can go to, I think it's photos.doorgrow.Com and we have photos of all of our different major events. You can go back to 2018 and there's a nice photo of me and Mike Michalowicz there. And so we brought in some big, you know, for me, they were big speakers. Some people that I really looked up to and that I got a lot of value from. [00:05:22] Jason: So, coach, authors, you know, people that I had worked with. And so, it was a big deal. We spent, I think we spent about $115,000. Putting that event together because I wanted to do it, right. I didn't want my first event to be Mickey Mouse or cheap or you know, whatever So I wanted to do a really good job and I thought well, "and we'll sell tickets to make up for it." We did. We sold about a hundred and fifteen tickets at around, I think $1,000 a pop. [00:05:53] Jason: And I have a whole podcast episode I did on this. I call it my $2 million mistake because we were growing at a pace of, we were doing about a million in revenue a year and we were growing at a pace of about 300% percent at the time we were growing really quickly. We had a lot of momentum, and I decided to do this big conference. It was a little bit of an ego thing. Like it was like kind of a dream that I wanted to feel cool and be on stage and it was super stressful. The event went really well. People liked it, but I was massively stressed during it. And then I didn't do another one for how many years? I don't know.  [00:06:29] Sarah: Yeah, that was his first and only and then like canceled it  [00:06:33] Jason: I was like, "I don't think I'll do that again." [00:06:35] Sarah: Yeah.  [00:06:36] Jason: I mean I didn't realize everything that goes into it. I'm sure people were watching me start my first conference from the sidelines who have done events in the space were like, "good luck, bro," because they know how hard it can be. [00:06:47] Jason: It's like starting a whole nother business but you have to recognize there's like the hotel. It's hard to do an event that's not at a hotel. So you kind of have to do it at hotels and so they have this like, sort of, they're like the mafia. [00:07:01] Jason: They have this control over doing events. Like, and you go to them, you're like, "I want to do an event here." And they're like, "cool." And like finances become a thing and they negotiate a group rate with you, which means you have to book certain number of rooms because they want you to book rooms, and if you don't book out the group rate for the rooms in the room block, then you're responsible to pay for that. [00:07:24] Jason: So we were on the hook for like a lot of money for rooms. I'm like, "well, how many rooms does that mean? And like how many nights?" And all this stuff. So just managing finances for an event is like managing finances for a dangerous business startup is really what it is. Because people have gone bankrupt from doing big events really big events where you have two, three thousand, five thousand. These are millions and millions of dollars in and out. [00:07:48] Sarah: Yeah. [00:07:49] Jason: And if they don't navigate this well, it can bankrupt companies  [00:07:53] Sarah: Russell just said that on stage. He didn't say who, but Russell Brunson said that he knew someone that was running a big event, didn't sell enough rooms in the room block, and he went bankrupt from it because it was such a large event and he was on the hook for so much money and ended up bankrupting the company. [00:08:13] Jason: It's dangerous. And then you got to get people to buy the ticket, book the hotel, like, and then there's marketing to do this. You got to spend a lot of money to get people to do this. And then, you know, in order to attract people, sometimes people will do like big speakers. Like I got some speakers and let me tell you speakers, they're expensive. [00:08:33] Jason: Like usually they, they want thousands and thousands of dollars. Like an  [00:08:37] Sarah: inexpensive speaker just to like put it out there, like an inexpensive speaker is still usually around like 5k  [00:08:44] Jason: Anyone you've probably heard of is that minimum 25 grand.  [00:08:47] Sarah: Well more than that. [00:08:49] Jason: And if they're a big name It's 50k, 100k, it can be really expensive to have them come be in an event. [00:08:58] Jason: So, Yeah, so it can be really challenging. Then there's food and beverage minimums. So the hotel, they're like, "you also have to spend a certain amount on food and beverage while you're here." Yeah, so they're like, "you have to book a certain number of rooms. You have to, like, pay for a certain number of food and beverage, and you're not allowed to bring any other food or beverage into our place." [00:09:19] Jason: Nope.  [00:09:19] Jason: "You have to use our stuff. And our stuff is like going to the movie theater. It's overly priced, like, inflated."  [00:09:26] Sarah: Remember, we did the Game Changer event at the JW Marriott in Austin so I looked at everything afterwards and it was not a huge event. It was not a big event. We had under 20 people there. [00:09:40] Sarah: Yeah. And that included like Jason, myself, DoorGrow staff, speakers, like under 20 people. And one lunch and we had, it was a two day event. So we did like two lunches. So one lunch, I think was somewhere around like two or 3,000 dollars. Yeah, it was insane for lunch.  [00:09:57] Jason: And my first event, we spent eight grand to provide coffee for two days. Eight grand for...  [00:10:03] Sarah: coffee. Yeah.  [00:10:05] Jason: For two days like and you know, and they have all these rules. I think the rules are made to inflate the price, but they have these food and beverage and they charge you sometimes by plate. So that hotel that we were at our first event, we didn't realize this, but they have people to go around and pick up plates. [00:10:22] Jason: And you're paying by the number of plates people use. Like how much food they consume and by plate. So they were picking up plates.  [00:10:29] Sarah: Oh my god.  [00:10:30] Jason: It's a racket. Like if you go into this not knowing what you're doing, some hotels can take gross amounts of money. Wow. They negotiate a terrible group rate, they negotiate a horrible food and beverage minimum is really high for you, and then you go way over that minimum if they have anything to do with it. [00:10:45] Jason: And so you're spending all this money and they're like, "well..."  [00:10:47] Sarah: you'll never have to worry about hitting your minimum in food and beverage, like, never. No, really.  [00:10:51] Jason: I mean, if you want food there, period, like,  [00:10:54] Sarah: you're going to hit it. So, I don't care. I don't even care what my minimum is because it doesn't, honestly, it doesn't even matter.  [00:11:00] Jason: Yeah. So then people think, oh, well, then I'll do the event somewhere else. Well, if you do it somewhere else, then how are they going to get from where they're staying to the venue? And so then there's a logistical challenge. So then like people aren't like coming and it's just like it's so much easier if they walk. [00:11:17] Jason: So everything gets like complicated when you don't do it at the hotel.  [00:11:22] Sarah: Where was your first event? Where was it?  [00:11:24] Jason: It was in St. Louis at an old classic hotel. It was really beautiful.  [00:11:28] Sarah: Okay. Interesting.  [00:11:30] Jason: Yeah, we did in St. Louis. We did it at This hotel and we did it because we thought we'll make it easy because NARPM had an event around the same time. [00:11:41] Jason: So we're like, Oh man, we want to do it at the same time. So let's just do it at the same venue. I think we did it the same venue, but we booked a nicer room on the top floor with lots of windows. It was very cool. And it was on different days. So you could attend both. We thought that would give us some cross pollination and really, it didn't. [00:12:00] Jason: Like there were a few people that went to the NARPM one and came to ours, but yeah, it was like so small. So that didn't even really help. "We're like, yeah, it's so easy to stay a little longer and go to ours." [00:12:08] Sarah: Interesting. Okay. Yeah.  [00:12:10] Jason: Yeah.  [00:12:11] Sarah: So after the first DoorGrow Live, he decided, I think when I came on board, he said, "I'm never doing another event again." [00:12:18] Jason: Yeah, I just didn't want to deal with it. It was so stressful. And your whole team, that's the real part of it, is like your whole team is involved in it in different ways, unless you have someone specifically handling sales, event, marketing, planning, advertising, planning, like every role we had in our business that we needed for our business had to go towards the conference because we were now on the hook for, I can't remember, like 50, 80 grand or something with the hotel. We had to figure out how to get rooms booked. We had to figure out how to pay for speakers. It was a whole thing. It was like starting a whole nother business. And our main thing was no longer the main thing. [00:12:58] Jason: So our business stopped growing. It actually didn't grow for several years after that, like a couple of years after that. And that's why I call it my 3 million or 2 million mistake, but it was probably a bigger multi million dollar mistake than that, because there's a lot of money I could have made over those years extra. [00:13:14] Jason: We're not hurting by any means, but that really slowed things down. And I just chalk that up to being the price of tuition in business. I made a mistake. I didn't know. And I learned from it, right? And I didn't listen to my mentor. Alex was like, "make it a really small event. Make it really small. Do your first one, make it small." I'm like, "no way. I've been to so many events. I'm going to make this awesome. I want this. If I'm going to compete with all the other events that are out there, I want this to be the best." And I really think, like, we had the best food there. We had the best, like, everything was the best. [00:13:46] Jason: We had audio visual team. We had a stage set up, like, we put a lot of money into this and it was pretty awesome. Like, it went pretty well. But I was massively stressed during the whole event. And yeah, but people that went, they gave us good feedback. They had a good experience. So, which I'm glad. Then you got to like ticket sales is hard too. [00:14:06] Jason: That's a tough challenge. How do you get people to give up what they're doing to come do something else? And so, you know, we've created some really strong magic. I think at DoorGrow, like our in person events, there's just something magical about our events. There's more heart, there's more connection. [00:14:20] Jason: It changes lives and that's very different than what has happened in the space. And I think that's more just about who we are and what we bring and the type of speakers that we bring in. It's very different than just property management.  [00:14:34] Sarah: And so that's one of the things I wanted to talk about is, so you did your first event. [00:14:39] Sarah: It went well, but it was pretty crazy. We basically broke even. We're not doing another event. I came on to the business a couple years after this and there's still a lot of like trauma and PTSD associated with it and then we started talking. Well, what if we do another event? And he said "no. No I don't want to do another event," and I said, "well, what if we do it differently?" So we did bring DoorGrow Live back after that first conference that they did and we've done several of them since then. We have another one coming up in May. It's May 16th and 17th. It's a Friday and Saturday at the Kalahari Resorts in the North Austin, Texas area. So if you're watching this and you have not yet registered, then definitely go do that. You can go to doorgrowlive.Com. But we've done several of these events since then, and one of the reasons that we wanted to bring these events back, especially even though for Jason it was just so, so traumatic, we just needed to do them a little differently. [00:15:43] Sarah: So, the reason that we wanted to bring them back though is because everything is just so much different when it's in person. And we know that there's so much magic that can just happen if, you know, if we can get people in a room. It's not just going to another conference. So in the industry, there's a lot of conferences, I mean, there's tech conferences and like all the big you know softwares have their own thing and there's NARPM events and there's all kinds of things like this and DoorGrow Live is just different. It's different than all of those things. We're not trying to focus on hey, you know, what are they doing and let's duplicate it. We're focused on how can we provide like such a great experience and such great value and real connection in a like large group environment? Which is hard. [00:16:38] Sarah: Like that's a challenge. If you're like, okay, we're going to get, you know, 50 to a hundred people in a room and we want them to all be connected. That's hard. That's hard. But I think that our events do actually a really great job at that.  [00:16:49] Jason: Yeah, I think so. Yeah, we get great testimonials. It's going to we have a really cool venue We just decided to keep doing it at this Kalahari resort. [00:16:59] Jason: It's near our house. It's in Round Rock They treat us really well there. It's a big it's like we have endless room to grow there We could have thousands and thousands of people someday if we wanted to. There's plenty of room there  [00:17:12] Sarah: But they're great to work with and the rooms are nice. When you guys book a room, the rooms are nice, everything is right on property, it's very family friendly too, so, you know, if you want to kind of bring your family and usually, I've noticed sometimes people, when they go to the conference, and then their family stays at home, there's a little bit of like, "oh, you're leaving me with the kids, like, what is this? Like, you get to go off to a conference and," well, come, like, come with us and you guys can hang out at, like the water park and the Build A Bear and the restaurants and the like arcade and there's still...  [00:17:48] Jason: America's largest indoor water park. Yeah. Yeah.  [00:17:52] Sarah: And I think when you book a room, they include a ticket. [00:17:53] Sarah: Yeah.  [00:17:54] Jason: You get a ticket to all a bunch of cool stuff. So like you get a, like a wristband. So yeah it's a pretty fun place. Like there's a whole Facebook group just for people looking for deals and discounts to stay at this resort. Yeah. They're like always talking about it in that group. I've joined all the local groups, just see what's going on. [00:18:15] Jason: So, yeah, so it's pretty interesting. So yeah, we've got a really cool venue. And oh, the other things places have charged us for other places we've done some of our events they charge us for electricity, they charge us for, like, just having cords put down.  [00:18:31] Sarah: They charge for internet. [00:18:32] Jason: They find a way to charge you for everything at some venues, and so, not all venues are equal. [00:18:38] Jason: So, yeah, so we've really appreciated the Kalahari Resort in Round Rock. It's a cool resort, and they treat us really well there, so.  [00:18:45] Sarah: Yeah, and it's a great experience for people. Because that's really frustrating when you go into any kind of hotel and you're like, "Oh. Why is this where I'm at? I guess I'll be here because the conference is here, but outside of the conference being here, I would never book here." And this is not that at all. Like people like to book here for sure. I think now let's do our little demo and then we'll get back into it.  [00:19:08] Jason: Got a little sponsor for today's episode, KRS SmartBooks. [00:19:13] Jason: Do you have properties to manage and zero time for bookkeeping headaches? KRS SmartBooks is your secret weapon. They specialize in finances for busy property managers like you with 15 plus years of real estate know how and skills in Appfolio, Yardi, and more. Imagine monthly reports magically appearing and zero accounting stress. [00:19:35] Jason: Sound good? Head to KRS Books. At K as in Kansas, R as in Roger, S as in Sam. Books. Sarah's already dying. She's like, you didn't do the right military phonetically.  [00:19:46] Sarah: I really am dying inside.  [00:19:47] Jason: KRSbooks. com to book your free discovery call. Integrity, quality, and a dash of bookkeeping brilliance. That's KRS Smart Books. [00:19:58] Jason: Alright, how should I phonetically do KRS?  [00:20:00] Sarah: K like Kilo, R like Romeo, S like Sierra.  [00:20:04] Jason: Alright, Sarah, by the way, is Becoming a pilot. She's taking pilot flying lessons.  [00:20:11] Sarah: I've known the military code for years  [00:20:13] Sarah: because I used to work in a casino and that's how they would communicate in slot machines.  [00:20:20] Jason: Yeah, alright. [00:20:21] Sarah: But now it's also handy being a pilot.  [00:20:24] Jason: Okay.  [00:20:24] Sarah: Alright, so if that sounds good, I think it sounds really great. Because I know a lot of property managers struggle with bookkeeping, and that's usually not something that's fun for property managers. It's definitely necessary, but it, oh man, it's not fun, and it's really draining. [00:20:38] Sarah: So if you can find someone that's great at what they do, and you can allow them to handle that, and just kind of check in and make sure things are going well, then, whoo, man, life gets a lot easier.  [00:20:51] Jason: Yeah if you're not paying attention to the finances or the financial health of your business or your accounting You're probably getting stolen from it's just I've seen it happen so many times. [00:21:01] Jason: So get a great bookkeeper. Yeah have people you trust to take care of that. Okay.  [00:21:07] Sarah: So speaking of finances, let's talk a little bit about what kind of goes into an event. So for example, we have our DoorGrow Live coming up in May this year. So we have been working on this event now since, so our last one was in May, and then I think we started working on the new one in like July, June or July. [00:21:31] Sarah: So things that have to kind of happen just to be able to have the space, obviously, you have to look into venues, you have to, you know, look at the space, make sure it's going to work for the size of your group, which means you kind of have to estimate a little bit what it's going to look like, and then make sure that the room can. [00:21:48] Sarah: fit more or less if needed.  [00:21:51] Jason: You've got to negotiate with the hotel.  [00:21:53] Sarah: Yep. You've got to negotiate what the rates would be. You know, am I paying for the space or am I paying for the room block and the food? Because there's different ways to do it. So you've got to figure out, you know, how many rooms in the room block do I need? [00:22:09] Sarah: Because if you overestimate that, if you go, "Hey, I think I'm going to have a thousand people come" and 100 people come, it is not going to be a good time for you because every room in the room block that is not sold, you are financially on the hook for. So you get to pay for that. And it's like, it's a certain number of nights. [00:22:28] Sarah: So it's not even so much how many rooms it's, how many nights someone will book. So you want to track that along the way. And then you want to start looking at a lot of the tactical things that go into it, like, well, who is going to speak at the event? So you want to start looking at speakers and when you're looking at speakers, you start to think about, you know, who would our audience resonate with and what kind of value would they provide? [00:22:55] Sarah: And, you know, is this strategic and tactical stuff or is this like mindset and empowerment stuff? Because you kind of want to get a mix of both at each event because everyone who comes to an event They're looking for a different thing. So it's really impossible to satisfy everybody make sure everybody, you know is super happy with everything sometimes people say, "oh, I wish there was more of this and oh, I wish there was more of that," but you kind of have to do like this balance and mix to make sure that everybody gets something out of it. [00:23:25] Sarah: And that they have a great experience. You also want to build a little bit of fun into it. So that it's not just, "hey, show up to this conference, sit down, learn something, take some notes and walk out of the room." You know, we've been to events like that before. Where it's like, "okay, that was a lot. But also, man, it would have been really cool to like, do something fun and you know connect with people," so you want to you know start to build in some time so that people can connect with other people, you know, so are you going to do a mixer? [00:23:52] Sarah: Are you going to do some sort of networking event? You know, are you going to you know go do kind of some fun event before like the night before? Are you going to, you know, send them off to lunch together? What is that going to look like? So that they can really connect with each other especially when you've got a room full of people who are in the same sector, in the same industry, there's so much knowledge in that room. [00:24:15] Sarah: So just talking to other people in the room is really valuable and making connections. So there's got to be some room for that as well. And then you want to think about well, are we going to have any vendors or sponsors? Yeah, and are those vendors or sponsors people that have services that are valuable and that we trust? Because there have also been times where, you know, someone had wanted to sponsor us and we did not want them to be a sponsor. [00:24:43] Sarah: Because if they don't provide a great service, you know, can you throw some money and be in the room? Yeah, but if it's not the right person to be in the room, then that matters. That matters a lot. So we have turned down money. We've turned down sponsorships. So then you also have to think about all of the tactical things. [00:25:05] Sarah: Well, you know, am I doing round tables? Am I doing classroom style? Are we doing full circles? Are we doing semi circles? Like what is the front of the room? And what's the back of the room? And where are the vendors going to be? And what doors do people walk in and out of? And as soon as they walk in, what is the first thing that they see? [00:25:20] Sarah: In what direction do we want to go in? And are they crossing over our equipment? Is somebody going to trip and fall on all the 10,000 chords that we have like taped down and. Then you have to also think about things like your AV. So does the room have internet? Is there power in the room? And I know that seems like a silly question to ask, but guess what? [00:25:40] Sarah: Sometimes they charge you for power. So you would think, hey, there's power in the room, obviously, because like it's at a hotel. They obviously have electricity. Yeah, but do you have to pay for it?  [00:25:49] Jason: Yeah, AV is expensive. Like we rented it initially and it was so costly.  [00:25:54] Sarah: Yeah.  [00:25:54] Jason: For the price you could rent it for it made sense to just buy it. [00:25:58] Sarah: To buy it.  [00:25:59] Jason: And so we eventually bought all our own equipment, but that means now we have to set it up and we have to figure it out. And so, yeah, so there's always a challenge.  [00:26:08] Sarah: Before the actual conference, like before anybody even steps foot like on property, Jason and I and several members of our team are there setting things up. [00:26:18] Jason: Sometimes my kids. Yeah,  [00:26:19] Sarah: sometimes the kids, sometimes an assistant, sometimes Madi comes on in.  [00:26:22] Jason: We're hooking up lights, we're plugging in audio equipment.  [00:26:25] Sarah: So we like pack everything up in Jason's SUV. We drive it over, we unload it. I'm doing this in stilettos, mind you, because I'm a stubborn  [00:26:33] Jason: You do everything in stilettos. [00:26:33] Sarah: Yeah, that's what I am. Right, so we like, we get there, we unpack it, we have to set it all up. You know, we're making sure that, like, all the lights are working, a sound system has to work, because there's no point in having a microphone if it's not going to work. There's always technical errors, and I'm horrible with technology, so Jason is our tech person, and he is the only tech person that we have. [00:26:54] Sarah: So he gets to figure everything out. And then it's like, you know, is the screen working? And can people see it? And is the laptop connecting to the screen? And is it blurry or is it too big or too far? Like there's always these weird little issues that happen and I don't know how to solve any of them. [00:27:10] Sarah: Yeah, so Jason knows how to do that. And then there's the other things like well. What about swag? And you know, are we doing a registration table and who's going to be there to, you know, check people in and make sure they know what to do and they know where to go? And, you know, is there like just kind of first come first serve seating? [00:27:27] Sarah: Or is there like a separate section for, you know, special clients or VIP clients or speakers or the team? And there's also things like, "Oh, well what about name badges?" You know, are we doing, like, are we doing name badges? Are we, you know, making sure that everybody kind of knows who everybody else is? Is there anything special or is it just like a bunch of people walking into a room and then hopefully they figure out that they're in the right room? Like there's so much that goes into it and then there's the scheduling. So well, you know, who's going to go in what order, what day and time are certain speakers available? Because just because they commit to an event doesn't mean, "oh, I can speak at any point during the event." [00:28:11] Sarah: So, you know, it's putting the agenda together and how long do you give them for lunch and where are they going for lunch? And are we doing lunch? Are we, you know, letting them facilitate it on their own? Are we doing breaks? How do we get them back from breaks? Are we, it's crazy. Like it's so, there's so much. [00:28:28] Jason: If you give people a break at an event, it's like 30 minutes of downtime. Oh yeah. It's really hard to get people to like get to the next thing or come back right away. And they all start talking to each other, which is cool. They want to network. Yeah, so getting people back from lunch.  [00:28:43] Sarah: Yes, absolutely. Yes. [00:28:45] Sarah: And then it's, you know, who kicks off the event? Who opens it? Who closes it? Who's going after lunch? Because we all know most people, what happens to them after lunch? They're tired. I'm fine. But a lot of people, they're tired after lunch. So you can't have a, you know, more mundane or quiet or low energy speaker after lunch. [00:29:06] Sarah: You just can't. Because you'll lose everybody. So there's a lot that goes into the scheduling as well. And then there's things like, you know, who's going to MC it? Who's making announcements? Who's making sure that everybody knows where to be? And what time? And what to do and when to come back? And who's doing the intros for speakers? [00:29:26] Sarah: Are you doing music for every speaker that comes up? If so, like, are they picking it? Are you picking it? What happens? Like there is so so so much that goes into it, and then after you like run the event then you got to break it all down if it's your equipment. Yeah, so then it's like pack it all up and put it away and make sure nothing gets damaged or lost and repack the car and unload it again, and like there is so much that goes Into it. [00:29:53] Sarah: And I would say at this point, it's funny because Jason now can show up to DoorGrow Live and nine out of 10 times, he has no idea what's going to happen or when.  [00:30:05] Sarah: I love it.  [00:30:06] Sarah: I just call him up on stage and he's like, oh, okay, because, and I'm like, my team handle most of it. Talking on this go.  [00:30:12] Jason: Right now. I still just have to make sure the tech stuff all works. [00:30:15] Jason: But yeah, other than that, yeah, I don't. I don't have to do as much which is nice, but because it's stressful enough. It's stressful enough So yeah, so it's a lot. There's a lot that goes into it, but it's been worth it to have you know to see people's lives change to see people impacted. We've noticed there's some sort of magic that happens that when people come to something in person with us even if they've been a client for years, they start to get different results. [00:30:40] Jason: They start to see things differently. They start to absorb all of our content, our information, our training material, our ideas more effectively. Everything just magnifies. There's something about in person. You can't get the same sort of benefit in your business. If you think, "all I need to do is read books and watch videos and show up to zoom calls to grow my business. [00:31:04] Jason: Look, there's a lot of benefits in all of those things. I do all those things, but we still go to in person things. There's something different about in person that I don't know if it's the energy of being in the same space as the people you're learning from. If it's the group energy and that group mind that makes you able to like learn and faster. [00:31:23] Jason: There's, but there's some, I don't know if maybe there's some quantum physical magic, magical stuff, but there's something different about it in person. It's happened too many times for me to like believe otherwise or to dismiss it. I've had too many clients that I've been working with for years, go to their first in person thing with us, and then they have some breakthrough. And I'm like what? And they tell me about it, and I'm like, "I've been teaching you that for years!" Like "I know but like but it's just hit differently." [00:31:51] Jason: Yeah, "I just got it." [00:31:52] Sarah: It hits different. It feels different and you just absorb things. [00:31:57] Jason: And because we've seen this pattern, we've seen this pattern, we now make it part of our onboarding of every new client to come hang out with Sarah and I in person for a one day with usually a small cohort and like, and just get some things figured out and dialed in their business. [00:32:14] Jason: And that's been magic for our business. Like it's been magic for our clients, magic for us. So we give them that in person experience early on. And then DoorGrow Live allows them to connect with others, which is there's just something different about the people at DoorGrow. The property managers at DoorGrow are different. [00:32:30] Jason: I've been to a lot of conferences. A lot. Like in various industries, but especially in property management. And there's something different about the people that we attract and the clients that we attract. They're growth minded, they're positive active in mentalities, which means they're not like the skeptical, negative Nancy's that are grumpy about the industry and the business. [00:32:51] Jason: That there's this positive growth minded, healthier sort of personality that we attract at DoorGrow. And maybe that says a little bit about who we are, because that's what I tried to be. But we attract amazing people and the connections people make, when you're connecting with other people that are like you, that are growth minded and you both share an industry and a share a business model, like it really helps you grow. [00:33:15] Jason: Your business is the sum of the five property management business owners you as a business owner are most connected to or that you're most influenced by. So look at those property managers if you've got coaches or mentors, and they're not people that you really like that maybe you think they're smart, but you don't really want to be more like them, then maybe you're around the wrong people. [00:33:34] Jason: Maybe you have the wrong coach, and I'm not the coach for everybody. Sarah's not the coach for everybody. But you should have a coach. Otherwise, you're selling yourself short if you're not accountable to anybody, you're definitely getting less results than you could or should be so come to DoorGrow Live come check us out. This DoorGrow Live, [00:33:52] Jason: I want to open our playbooks up if Sarah lets me. I want to just reveal some really amazing stuff that only our clients get to see because I want to show anyone that shows up that's not part of our DoorGrow ecosystem. Our clients know the magic's there. We have more case studies or testimonials than anyone else in the industry, but if you're not a DoorGrow client, and you want to come to DoorGrow Live I'm going to give you some gifts for sure, some magic. We're going to make some significant changes in your business. They're going to help you make a lot more money a lot more easily and keep a lot more of your profit and so come hang out with us. [00:34:29] Jason: You're not going to be disappointed for sure So there you go.  [00:34:33] Sarah: Yeah. This event we've got some really awesome things planned. We can't let too much out of the bag at this point. But we always have some really great things planned and every event we do, like we always learn from it. [00:34:46] Sarah: And we always do like a little team meeting afterwards and we get feedback from people. We're always looking to make it better and better. And this year is absolutely no exception to that. So the things that we have planned for this year, like I know that if you come to this event, it will change your business and it will change your life. [00:35:12] Sarah: And I know that's a really bold statement and we're ready to back it.  [00:35:16] Jason: Yeah. And maybe that could be a later podcast episode as we get closer to the event. But we can tell you a little bit more about what's going to be happening there, but hopefully this was interesting to get behind the scenes at all that goes into DoorGrow Live and we meet on this you know, we're talking about it weekly, monthly in our planning meetings, like and quarterly. [00:35:37] Jason: And so, and that's it for today's episode. So if you are interested in that, go check it out at DoorGrowLive.Com and get your tickets and get things booked and get ready to come have an amazing experience in May at DoorGrow Live. So, and until next time to our mutual growth, bye everyone. 

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

Many of our property management business owner clients are focused on hiring or restructuring their teams right now. In this episode of the #DoorGrowShow, property management growth experts Jason and Sarah Hull discuss the most important parts of the hiring process and offer a little bit of “tough love.” You'll Learn [04:39] 1. Finding the right person for the role [11:04] 2. The importance of training your new hire [24:41] 3. Implementing accountability for your team [30:20] Review: what does the initial training period look like? Tweetables “We need to be clear on what results we're expecting.” “Any ambiguity or fuzziness, then you're going to get fuzzy outcomes.” “You cannot ever hire somebody and just say, "now my problems are solved." They're not solved yet.” “If you skip onboarding or if you don't have a very solid onboarding and training process, it's going to cause just so much friction.” Resources DoorGrow and Scale Mastermind DoorGrow Academy DoorGrow on YouTube DoorGrowClub DoorGrowLive TalkRoute Referral Link Transcript [00:00:00] Sarah: You cannot ever hire somebody and just say, "now my problems are solved." They're not solved yet.  [00:00:09] Jason: Welcome DoorGrow property managers to the DoorGrow show. If you are a property management entrepreneur that wants to add doors, make a difference, increase revenue, help others, impact lives, and you are interested in growing in business and life, and you're open to doing things a bit differently than you are a DoorGrow property manager. DoorGrow property managers love the opportunities, daily variety, unique challenges, and freedom that property management brings. Many in real estate think you're crazy for doing it. You think they're crazy for not because you realize that property management is the ultimate, high trust gateway to real estate deals, relationships, and residual income. At DoorGrow, we are on a mission to transform property management business owners, and their businesses. [00:00:53] We want to transform the industry, eliminate the BS, build awareness, change perception, expand the market, and help the best property management entrepreneurs win. We're your hosts, property management growth experts, Jason and Sarah Hull, the owners of DoorGrow. Now let's get into the show.  [00:01:11] Sarah: All right. [00:01:11] Let's do it. Before we do anything, we have an announcement for those of you that have not yet heard. Our foster dog Hans has been officially adopted. So we didn't do a podcast since he was adopted. So this is our first podcast that we don't have Hans kind of hanging out in the background. And I miss his little face, but he has an amazing family. [00:01:32] Jason: I miss Hans. I don't- [00:01:35] Sarah: love him so much.  [00:01:37] Jason: I don't miss him chewing my stuff in my office, but I do miss his little face as well. All right. Yes. Yeah, so he's adopted All right So the topic today and if you want to check that out, you can go to doorgrow.Com right at the top. There's dogs click on that see all our stories. Maynard got adopted. [00:01:55] Sarah: Maynard is adopted. Yeah, he now lives in California.  [00:01:59] Jason: This dog was like on death's door multiple times. Well, many times. Now he's living it up with a wealthy dude.  [00:02:06] Sarah: Who just fell in love with him.  [00:02:07] Jason: Guy in California.  [00:02:08] Sarah: Maynard just captured his heart, loved him so much and wanted to provide him an amazing life, so. [00:02:15] Jason: He's got a new name.  [00:02:16] Sarah: He's Bodhi.  [00:02:17] Jason: Bodhi.  [00:02:18] Sarah: Bodhi. So he's now driving around in a convertible in California. That's one of the pictures they put on there. Oh!  [00:02:25] Jason: All right. So  [00:02:25] Sarah: Maynard has a great life now, too.  [00:02:27] Jason: So you can check that out at doorgrow.com/dogs. All right. So our topic today that we're going to be chatting about you said that it came up a few times in You know this week with some of our clients dealing with some new team members We've got we're doing helping a lot of people with hiring right now. [00:02:45] Sarah: Oh my goodness so many. I built so many DoorGrow Hiring accounts in the last week.  [00:02:49] Jason: Yeah, so we're setting up this hiring mechanism and machine and system so that people can have some consistently good hires. But that brings us to kind of the next challenge. So what have you been hearing?  [00:03:00] Sarah: Okay, so one client asked me, he's about to hire. [00:03:05] He's going through the hiring process. So he doesn't have anybody lined up yet, but he's It's about to start this whole process. And he had asked me, "Hey, what about expectations for when they start when they come on?" And specifically this is a BDM. The second instance of this happening this week is a client who has already hired and his BDM is now about 60 days in. [00:03:31] And he sent me a message yesterday and he said, "Hey, listen, I really need to talk with you before the end of the month. I need to make a decision on my team." So I said, okay, let's. Let's figure out what's going on? And he said "yeah, I'm kind of pissed because my BDM is like 60 days in, and last month he didn't do anything at all. And then this month he started like he hasn't closed anything yet," and by he didn't do anything at all, what he means is he didn't close anything.  [00:04:00] Jason: Okay. Not that he wasn't working. No deals yet.  [00:04:01] Sarah: Yeah. Okay. Not that he wasn't working. He was working. And this month now is his 60 day mark and he hasn't closed anything, but he's, you know, making calls and he's starting to, you know, get some things kind of ready and warmed up in the pipeline. [00:04:16] He, he said, "man, should I just let him go? Like, is he just not the right person? I feel like it's 60 days, like, I should see some results at this point."  [00:04:26] Jason: Okay.  [00:04:26] Sarah: So I'd like to, I'd really like to talk about that. And this is going to be, whatever episode this is "Sarah's Tough Love episode." So here it is. [00:04:35] Jason: Got it. Okay, I mean, let's get the basic stuff out of the way, right? First, we need to know that we have the right person. So, we need to know what those expectations are. So, that's where we define that. Usually, we call them R docs, but in this ultimate job description. So, we need to be clear on what we're looking for. [00:04:51] We need to be clear on what results we're expecting. We need to be clear on, you know, what outcomes we're hoping for and they need to be clear on this, right? Like if we're bringing somebody in, they need that clarity. So if there's anyone listening and there's any ambiguity or fuzziness, then you're going to get fuzzy outcomes. [00:05:09] And those aren't good, right? And so there needs to be at least, and you need to be on the same page. Literally, the way we do that is with a page called an RDoc. And so you make sure you're on the same page. And all those young Gen Z people, notice how I used the word literally, correctly like it's an actual page. [00:05:28] Sarah: I was just thinking that.  [00:05:29] Jason: Stop saying the word literally. It drives me fucking nuts. So, all right.  [00:05:33] Sarah: Literally.  [00:05:34] Jason: I literally, like if, yeah, nobody's confused about it being figurative, then don't, you don't need to say the word.  [00:05:41] Sarah: I literally died yesterday when I read that text.  [00:05:43] Jason: No, you would be dead. [00:05:45] You would actually be dead. All right. So, Now the next piece is we need to make sure we've got a person that fits that job description, right? They actually are the right personality. Well, let's talk about the three fits real quick. They have to match all three or they're not going to be a good BDM. [00:06:01] Sarah: Or it's never going to work out. And it doesn't matter if it's a BDM, an operator, a property manager, an assistant, a maintenance coordinator. It doesn't, name the role, doesn't matter.  [00:06:10] Jason: So, first, they have to be the right personality for the job or they'll never be great at it. They'll never be motivated to do it. [00:06:18] You bring in somebody to be a BDM, for example, and they're not the right personality to go out and want to talk to people and connect with people and network and that's not fun for them, they're always going to resist it. They're going to avoid it. They're going to do a bunch of time wasting stupid activities They're going to train everything else other than what really should be done, which is to go connect with people and have conversations. So they're going to be like "well I'm trying some marketing thing and i'm trying this thing and like and-"  [00:06:47] Sarah: "I sent 5,000 emails I don't know why none of them came back." [00:06:51] Jason: "We did direct mail to, like, 7,000 owners." [00:06:56] Sarah: I've heard that and it's because this is a true example. "I sent 5,000 emails." [00:07:00] Jason: Yeah.  [00:07:01] Sarah: So essentially you did nothing. That's great. Right. Good to know.  [00:07:05] Jason: Yeah.  [00:07:05] Sarah: Thank you.  [00:07:06] Jason: Lots of emails, right? So. So,  [00:07:09] Sarah: you know how many junk emails we get in a day? What happens when you get junk email? [00:07:13] Do you open it? Do you read it? Do you respond to it? No. That's what you just did to somebody else.  [00:07:19] Jason: Yeah. It lacks depth. All right. So we can get into tactics later, but they need to match the personality for the role. Which means they would love succeeding at this. They would love doing it. They would enjoy it. [00:07:32] They get some fulfillment out of it. And so that's personality fit. They need to be the right the right culture fit, which means they need to actually believe in your business and in you and in the product. They have to believe in this. You cannot sell effectively if you lack belief. And that goes for everybody on the team. [00:07:53] Like, if your operator isn't a believer in you or the business, they're not going to want or care to make sure that it runs well for you. If your executive assistant isn't, you know, a believer in you or shares your values, they're never going to do things in a way that makes you feel safe or that you trust them. [00:08:09] Cultural fit means they do it the way that you would want it done, that they share your values. The big clue we talked about this at our last jumpstart event where we had clients and somebody had a team member. And I just asked, I said, well, do you feel better when they're around? [00:08:25] Do you feel calmer when they're around? And they were like, no, I'm like, yeah, then they got to go.  [00:08:30] Sarah: He said, oh, well, a lot of our communication we do over the phone because that's better.  [00:08:36] Jason: Because there's such a high degree of conflict.  [00:08:37] Sarah: Jason says, better than what? Awful?  [00:08:40] Jason: Yeah, and then he laughed. [00:08:41] Everybody laughed in the group and he was like, well, yeah.  [00:08:44] Sarah: Well, I can't talk to this person in person. I can't be around them. Because when we're around each other, there's too much conflict. It's just too, it gets, yeah, it gets too feisty. Well, that's not good.  [00:08:55] Jason: Yeah, that means that person's not a good fit for that person for that particular client. [00:09:00] Sarah: And let's be clear. It doesn't mean that there's anything wrong with this particular person. No, it doesn't make them a bad person It doesn't mean, you know, all the they'll never succeed No, it just means that they are better suited in a different environment That's all. It means not everybody like when you're dating, you don't want to date everybody. You want to date people that you like generally and there are certain people that you like and there are certain people that you just don't mesh well. The businesses work the same way.  [00:09:31] Jason: Yeah. They've got to match your values. Because regardless you get somebody that's amazing BDM, for example, or an amazing operator for your business, they don't share your values, you'll never trust them. Like you just can't. And then the third fit is skill fit. So they have to have the skill or the ability or the intellectual capacity to learn and develop this skill quickly. And so if they don't, then you'll invest a bunch of energy into trying to train them and they're just too stupid to get it. [00:10:01] Or they just can't figure it out or maybe you hire somebody and they've got bad habits or they can't adapt. So they need to have that skill fit. They got to be all three or they're not going to be a good fit. So let's assume if we've helped them with DoorGrow Hiring, we focus on these three fits. [00:10:18] We have a whole hiring mechanism. Make sure these generally go well.  [00:10:22] Sarah: Yeah. So I can tell you, I don't think that's any of those are the problem.  [00:10:26] Jason: This person. Yeah. So in these situations, the person is the right fit. Yeah, usually that's the problem is they're not even getting the right person. [00:10:33] Most of y'all doing hiring, you're playing Russian roulette hiring and you don't have good fits.  [00:10:38] Sarah: Or it's, oh, this person had the experience and they came from such and such a Yeah, we hear that all the time.  [00:10:43] Jason: Yeah. Well, they're so experienced, and you feel uncomfortable around them and you don't trust them. [00:10:50] Yeah. So let's assume that, you know, with our clients, we've helped them find people that match the three fits. So now we're past that hurdle, that's very typical for most people, well, now, if it's not them, then who is it?  [00:11:04] Sarah: Okay. So here's where the tough love comes is. This is always my question. [00:11:08] And I'm very, very particular about what happens when you hire someone. You cannot ever hire somebody and just say, "now my problems are solved." They're not solved yet. I know it feels like you've gotten through it and now things are better and you should just be able to rely on that person. You're not there yet. [00:11:33] You will be. But you're just not, you're getting closer. You're just not fully there yet. And this is what happens a lot of times and they go, "Oh, okay, so I know I need to train this person and then I'll probably train them for like a week or two and then they'll just be good." [00:11:48] Absolutely not. So especially with a new person and it doesn't matter. Here's the other thing that I hear all the time, especially when somebody has the experience. Oh, well, you know, they have a sales background. They know how to sell. Great. They don't know how to sell for you. They don't know how to sell what you've got. [00:12:05] They don't know how to sell your values and your mission. They don't know how to sell that yet. They don't quite know. So you can take any salesperson in the universe and plug them into your business. Do they have the skill? Yes. Do they have the experience? Of course, but they still have to be trained. So having the experience does not mean "Oh, I don't have to train them," or, "oh, I don't have to train them as much." [00:12:32] You still have to train them a lot. There is a lot of training. And I hate to break it to you, but your life when you hire gets worse. So your life is bad, you know you need to hire, then you hire somebody, your life is now worse for a short period of time. The reason being is everything that you were doing, you still have to do it, and in addition, you now have to train somebody. So nothing has changed except that you just added another responsibility for yourself for the next 30 to 90 days. And there is no way around that with hiring. So if you hire and you fail the train, it is probably not going to work out. They will not get the results. [00:13:16] They will be frustrated. You will be frustrated. And at some point, you will get back into the cycle of, "Oh, well, now I guess I have to hire again." And then you live in hell forever. And it's not a good place to be.  [00:13:31] Jason: Yeah, so unless you hire somebody that is an amazing 'who,' right? There's a book called Who Not How it's a great book. [00:13:40] Unless you hire an amazing 'who,' like you bring in somebody, they're a sales trainer and an expert closer, and they've had tons of success and they can teach other people's sales, then I think, in any role, you have to assume you need an assumption that they're going to do it wrong. You have to start with that foundational assumption that they're going to do everything wrong. [00:14:01] If I hired an operator cold, they're doing it wrong, that I need them to install my operational system. If they are coming in as a salesperson in the business, I know they've been trained poorly because most sales training out there doesn't work anymore. There's a new model and a new way of selling and all the old stuff. [00:14:20] All the salesy guys that are sales trainers and sales coaches largely out there that push. Doesn't work anymore. It's outdated. And we don't push that stuff at DoorGrow. We've had to shift how we sell and we teach clients differently, even in the last year. And so my assumption is that they're going to do it wrong, but. [00:14:40] What I do assume is if they've done it well before, they have the ability to learn it. They have the ability to be a good operator. They have the ability to be a good BDM. But there needs to, you can't assume because they have done it before, that you're just going to rely on them to do it.  [00:14:56] Sarah: It's not plug and play. [00:14:58] "I hired them now they're just going to go do it and they're going to sell a bunch of stuff for me." No.  [00:15:02] Jason: Right. You're always going to be disappointed with most everybody if you come in with this assumption and they're going to feel unsupported and untrained and frustrated.  [00:15:13] Sarah: And they will inevitably either quit or get fired.  [00:15:16] Jason: Yeah, they'll go find a better situation.  [00:15:18] Sarah: No matter what, it will not work out. So here's a good moment to talk about Vendoroo.  [00:15:25] Jason: We'll talk in just a minute. We're going to talk about the onboarding and then some of the next steps that are really important. But quick word from our sponsor. If you're tired of the constant stress and hassle of maintenance coordination, meet Vendoroo, your AI driven in house maintenance expert that handles work orders from start to finish. Triaging, troubleshooting, vendor selection, and coordination built by property managers for property managers to provide cost effective and accountable maintenance operations, where every dollar is accounted for, and every task is handled with unmatched reliability Vendoroo takes care of the details so you can focus on growth. Schedule a demo today at vendoroo.ai/doorgrow and experience maintenance done right. Okay. So check them out.  [00:16:10] Sarah: Speaking of doing things right, let's talk about what happens after you hire somebody.  [00:16:15] Jason: So the next step after you hire it, it has to be onboarding. There needs to be a good transition of bringing somebody out from the wild, this untrained wild creature, getting them to be something that is going to work inside of your business and fit you and fit what you want. [00:16:33] It's onboarding.  [00:16:34] Sarah: And if you skip onboarding or if you don't have a very solid onboarding and training process, it's going to cause just so much friction because I'm sure that you can think back to a previous job that you've had back when we all had job jobs, right? Have you ever just been hired and then kind of just, it's almost like train yourself or figure it out or, well, "I'm going to train you a little bit and then the rest is up to you. Well, what do you mean? I trained you for a whole day. Now I'm done." [00:17:06] "Oh, okay. So that's it. That's all the support I'm going to get. All right."  [00:17:10] have you ever been hired and then you don't even truly know what you're supposed to do? I don't know. I'm supposed to sell stuff.  [00:17:16] Jason: So here's the challenge. Here's the challenge with this with entrepreneurs, I've been thrown into job situations where there was terrible onboarding, terrible training, but I'm an entrepreneur personality type. [00:17:27] I then innovated, figured it out. And in some situations where at a job I then quickly was put into leadership and sort of managing others. But I had initiative. I had drive, like I had adaptability and I find entrepreneurs are incredibly adaptable and they make the mistake of assuming that everybody else is like them and they're not, they're like, "well, I would just figure it out and I would just ask enough questions. And if I didn't know something, I would just like, and so you can't assume that everybody is like you, if they were like you, they wouldn't work for you. How many of you would go work for somebody now? Like, you're unemployable. Like, let's be real. You would suck as an employee, probably, right? I'm unemployable at this point. [00:18:10] I'm not going to like sit around and let somebody just tell me what to do all the time and whatever. Right. But they're not the same as you. And if they were, then they might just, you know, start a business and leave your business. Right. So they're willing, if they're willing to work for you, you need to assume that they are not the same as you and that they need to be guided. They need support. Now that doesn't mean they can't learn or they're not adaptable. That's the skill fit Don't make the assumption that they'll just wing it and figure it all out unless they're just incredibly driven and incredibly patient And they're really a strong believer in you. [00:18:45] Some of them may do that, but you don't want to lose a good person simply because they feel like you don't care or you're not invested.  [00:18:52] Sarah: So this is There's so much time that goes into hiring and this is why I say don't waste the time that you've spent trying to find the right person and screening applications and interviewing and you put a whole bunch of time and probably effort into this and now you found the person, don't waste that opportunity. [00:19:18] So you need to onboard them properly. And what does that mean? We need to make sure that they have access to all of the systems that they're going to need. And that they know all of the systems that they're going to need. So, oh, what are the tools that I use? And then, do I know how to access it? And, do I know how to use it? [00:19:36] Right? Don't just assume that they'll figure out, Oh, well, this is how I use this phone system. Train them on it. Just show them that. So, there's got to be training for those sorts of things. If they're in sales, then, well, How do I sell? How do I reach people? What am I doing? Am I just doing the fit call, figuring that out? [00:20:00] Am I doing the full pitch? Am I closing? Am I setting them up for you and then you're going to close? What exactly am I doing? So train them on every single thing that they need to know. And I know this sounds so silly, but most people do not do this. So, what do I say? What do I do? Do I have a script? Do I just make it up? [00:20:22] Where do I find people? Am I in the office? Am I driving around? Am I, like, meeting people at events? What am I supposed to be doing all day? Because I'm brand new and I know nothing. So I'm completely reliant upon you to tell me what to do. So if they don't know, don't assume that they're just going to go and figure it out for you. [00:20:44] You have to show them and they have to shadow you. So for the first 90 days, this is all training. So when you hire any person, now some of them will pick it up a little bit quicker and some of them will take the full 90 days and either way it's all right. But just in your head, tell yourself it's going to take the full 90 days, right? [00:21:07] So in that 90 days. With any position, but especially in sales, don't expect them to come in and then just start selling. Oh, wow, they closed a bunch of deals. That was awesome. That's so cool. So there's kind of a ramp up period in every position, but certainly in sales. So shadowing is very important here. [00:21:31] They need to be all over you. All the time. So you need to meet with them every day.  [00:21:40] Jason: Or whoever is the person they're learning from. Sometimes it's not going to be you, eventually. In the beginning, it's always you, right? Which leads us to, like, availability and access is huge in the beginning. Like, if a team member doesn't have access to you, or you are unavailable because you're so busy. [00:21:58] They're going to feel stuck. They're going to feel unsupported. They're going to feel fearful in what they're doing. And so they need to have availability. This morning, I got a phone call. Like a call came in through Telegram. She called me and she's like, "Hey, I'm supposed to do a triage call right now? I have a scheduled appointment, and I'm trying to load Zoom and it's saying, it's waiting for the host. And I'm supposed to be the host." And I said, Then just call them, like pick up the phone, just call them. It's a quick call anyway, but it probably has to do with maybe you're not logged in or you click the link somewhere else and it doesn't realize you're logged in. [00:22:31] It happens to me sometimes. And she said, okay, yeah, I'll just call them. You know, if she were in that situation, this is her first triage call and she's like totally stuck and I'm like unavailable and she's freaking out, then she's going to feel, you know, people go through all sorts of emotions like anger, shame, guilt, fear, like, you know, stuff like this. And so we don't want to put our team members on this emotional rollercoaster of discomfort when everything's uncertain in the beginning. So that's important. Once we get through and the onboarding period, my general rule for onboarding is 90 days, like you said, then the first the first 30, I'm usually meeting with them maybe for an hour a day and I'm highly available.  [00:23:12] Sarah: Every day. [00:23:13] Jason: Yeah. [00:23:14] Sarah: Every day.  [00:23:15] Jason: That's usually the goal. And then after that, I might the next month, maybe it's a shorter time period every day if I'm over like consistently training them like a BDM especially. But otherwise, it might be that we start backing it off to maybe meeting weekly. And then depending on the role of whether or not I'm their supervisor directly, or if they're kind of owning a piece of the business, I then might back it off in the last month or eventually for the future to meet with them monthly to support them or whatnot. Like you kind of gradually step it down and it'll be obvious because you'll be getting on calls with them and like, Hey, what else should we talk about? What else do you need to know? What other questions you have or hey, I want to make sure you know this and you're going to start to run out of ideas. And they're going to start to not need you as much. And so then it's pretty obvious. Well, okay, then I guess we'll end this early. And that's a clue. Well, maybe we don't need to meet as often now. And they'll let you know. You know, do you think we need to keep meeting all the time like this? Like, well, it is helpful, but I don't know that we need an hour, maybe 30 minutes. Okay, cool. If we could just meet 15 minutes each day so I can get unstuck on a few things. Awesome. Right. So I meet with my assistant every day for a short amount of time. [00:24:26] But they're directly responsible to help and support me on things as an operator, like you run our weekly meeting and our daily huddles. Right? And so there's different things like there's sort of a cadence of structure, even regardless. So. I think after we get through onboarding and you've got good access, good availability, they feel supported and they're succeeding, they need to be getting results. [00:24:50] So I think the next step in my mind is there needs to be accountability. So if you're letting somebody just run and it's 60 days in and they are not succeeding or getting results, like cool, how many calls has the BDM made? "I don't know." Okay. How, like, how often have you met with them? "Well, you know, not often." If there's no part of meeting with them is to create accountability. [00:25:13] Like, Hey, what are you working on today? What do you feel like is next? What are you going to be doing? And to make sure that you're guiding them towards what they should be working on. So accountability means, you know, metrics if they're a bDM.  [00:25:26] Sarah: You need to know the metrics.  [00:25:28] Jason: How many networking events have they gone to in the last week? [00:25:31] How many phone calls and outreach have they made to potential referral partners or real estate agents? How many investors have they reached out or called? Are they on top of all of the follow up tasks and deals that are in the CRM? Do you have a CRM, right? Like there needs to be accountability. So there's a record. [00:25:50] Are they keeping notes? Are they, are the calls recorded? Can you listen to their calls to help them improve? Like if there's no transparency or accountability, there's almost no likelihood that they're going to succeed. Like it's because they're not being watched. So, basically, you're sending the signal, it doesn't matter. [00:26:08] You might get somebody that's an amazing self starter.  [00:26:11] Sarah: Go figure it out. Well, shit, I don't know. I guess I'll just make it up. But then when they make a decision and now their decision is different than your decision, now, you didn't tell them what to do. They just made something up and now you're not happy with the results. [00:26:28] Jason: Yeah, and they're lacking leadership and if they're lacking in your jobs to be the leader and they're lacking leadership, then they have no accountability and they have no, there's no transparency or visibility in what they're doing. You won't know. If what they're doing is working or not working. And so they'll just keep doing what's not working. [00:26:48] Because if they still get paid either way, that's a bad situation for most team members. Most team members will continue to get paid whether or not they're really performing at an exceptional level or a decent level. And with a BDM, their compensation should be directly connected to getting results, so they should really want it. [00:27:06] But if there's no accountability or transparency in the beginning, They're probably going to do a lot of stuff that isn't working and they're going to be frustrated and they  [00:27:15] Sarah: know why it's not working  [00:27:17] Jason: Yeah,  [00:27:18] Sarah: they'll come to you and say hey like I'm doing what you told me to do. You told me to make all these calls I mean all these calls. It's not working.  [00:27:26] Jason: And this is one of the ways in which DoorGrow can assist. [00:27:29] We can assist with this, right? Like they can show up to our Wednesday coaching call if they're a BDM focusing on growth. And the BDM can come to the call and say, Hey, I'm trying to do this and I'm getting this result. It's not the outcome I'm looking for. It's not working. Cool. Maybe you need to change this. [00:27:44] Or how are you saying it? Or what are you doing? Or could you send us a call recording? So all of these things that we teach, we know work. They can work. If it's not working, then it's obvious that it must be what they're doing. They're not doing it correct. They're doing it maybe in the wrong way or maybe they're not saying the right things or maybe their tone is off or maybe They are turning people off and they sound like a telemarketer or they're creating the sales ick or the sales resistance in people by how they're approaching people and these are easy changes These are little things that are very easy to tweak or change. [00:28:22] I mean just listening to one sales call from somebody, I can give them a lot of feedback and it's like they grow so much faster and quicker. And that's one way to add some visibility or accountability into the equation. But as a business owner, you need to know their metrics. They need to have metrics and be accountable for that, right? [00:28:40] They need to know what are the leading actions that I need to be taking that are going to get the business development results? What are the daily activities that I need to be doing in order to succeed? So that's my take  [00:28:53] Sarah: for sure. And I love listening to the call recordings because then sometimes when you're in the moment and this happens to all of us, sometimes when you're in the moment, you have a certain perception of how things went and then when you go back and you listen to it later, you'll catch something that you weren't aware of in that moment. [00:29:14] So maybe it's something that they said, maybe it's something that you said, maybe you. Didn't explain something the way that they understood it, but you'll hear things that you may have missed in the moment and Especially with salespeople, this is a training opportunity. So a lot of times people go "what am I supposed to train them on? Like they know how to use the CRM? they know how to use the phone system. They know what to do. They got to just go do it." Okay? Well Are we honing in skills? Are we improving things? Or are we just saying like, "Go do it! Go make a thousand calls this week!: Okay, well, if I make a thousand shitty calls  [00:29:53] Jason: Yeah, you're just wasting energy and you're wasting your leads or your opportunities. [00:29:58] Sarah: So there's always this fine tuning that we have to do. And very rarely are people able to do it for themselves. Sometimes they can go back and listen to a call recording and then go, Oh, you know what? I'm going to improve that. But a lot of times it's really good to have two people listening to the call recording for that reason. [00:30:20] And then the last thing that I do want to talk about is what does the 30, 60, 90 day period look like? So I always tell people in their first 30 days, this is nothing but training. This is deep training, you really do need to be meeting with them every day, not when it's convenient, not when you have time, not, "oh, well, I skipped that day because this happened." [00:30:42] Every single day, every day, they need to have the correct resources, the correct knowledge, the right support, the questions need to be answered, you need to be available to them. They need to have all of this because they're brand new. So a lot of times what happens is people hire somebody and it's like a little baby bird and then they push the baby bird out of the nest. [00:31:08] The bird can't fly yet because you didn't even teach it what its wings are, right? So we can't do that yet. So in the first 30 days, really expect nothing. Really, they just need to be training. If they close something in their first 30 days, that's awesome. Great! I mean, they should be doing the activities. [00:31:27] Jason: I expect work.  [00:31:28] Sarah: Yes,  [00:31:29] Jason: I expect to actually and work like if it's to make calls, I expect them in like a BDM should be making some outbound outreach and calls right away.  [00:31:39] Sarah: Absolutely.  [00:31:40] Jason: Otherwise, how are you going to know that  [00:31:41] Sarah: if it's going to, yeah,  [00:31:43] Jason: they shouldn't just be like, just learning. So it's like, I want to get them on the phone and get them making calls. [00:31:47] Sarah: No, but in sales, let's be really clear here. Training. This is hands on training. This is like trying to say, "Hey, I need to go learn how to drive a car. But I'm never actually going to get in the car. I'm going to meet with you on Zoom or I'm going to sit with you and you're going to tell me about how to drive a car." [00:32:03] No, honey, you gotta go get in the car. So, yes, you have to actually be doing it, doing the activities.  [00:32:09] That is training.  [00:32:10] Jason: There's no amount of manuals or videos you could read or watch that would teach you how to drive a car. You have to drive the car.  [00:32:17] Sarah: Yes. So, if they close something in their first 30 days, that's awesome, that's gravy, that's a bonus. [00:32:23] But sometimes people go, "oh man, it's been 30 days and I haven't closed anything. Like, man, they must suck." They're new. They're learning so much and when you implement a new thing, you're probably not going to be very good at it. Especially a new strategy or a new way of doing sales because the way that we teach our clients to sell is different. [00:32:43] It's different. We're not hardcore closing everybody. We're not doing that. So it's, everything is different. They don't have their bearings yet. They don't even have their footing and their foundations, right? So 30 days, if they close something, that's great. But I still, I want them to be training and I want them to be doing some sort of, you know, whatever it's going to be. [00:33:04] If you have them doing events or presentations or calls or a mixture of all of them, great.  [00:33:10] Jason: There should be progress. You'll see progress. And if that's the thing you don't want to tolerate somebody being in the business for 60 days, 90 days, and you're not seeing progress or action, and you're trying to push them. [00:33:23] If you're having to push somebody to do something. Probably they're not the right personality fit. If you feel unsafe with them doing things, and it makes you uncomfortable, how they're doing things, probably not a culture fit. They're not doing it according to your values. [00:33:36] The "how" they go about doing it is different than you. If they're just not doing the right things, then that's a training issue. Or they're just not intelligent enough to learn the skill. So that's a skill fit. Okay,  [00:33:48] Sarah: so then 60 days I do want to see some progress. They might close something. [00:33:55] They still might not it depends. I can't say yes or no Oh, they should definitely close. I can't you can't say that because everybody has their own time frame, right? And investors sometimes they work on their own time frames. You can't control that but I do want to see I want to feel like things are happening, and I want to feel like, Hey, we've got some stuff in the pipeline, we've got some stuff that I feel like might close. [00:34:20] If you say, Hey, what do you have that's about to close? Do you feel like anybody's close? And they go not really. Oh... [00:34:27] Jason: are they getting appointments? Are there relationships being built? Are there deals now kind of get in the pipeline at some of the earlier stages? Like you should start to see the sales pipeline mature and build. [00:34:37] Sarah: So then 90 days they've been doing that. Now they understand everything. They know what to do. They know how to do it. They've gotten their feet wet. They've now tested things and then also made some improvements. They're like, Oh, well, when I say it like this, it doesn't work. It doesn't resonate. [00:34:53] But if I say it like this, it's better. Oh I have to switch this and this, right? Now you're making those little tweaks, those little improvements. So 90 days, they should be able to close something at this point. And same thing with the pipeline. I need to see the pipeline moving forward. I need to see more being added in the pipeline. [00:35:11] I need to see them further along in different stages in the pipeline. Things need to start kind of really moving forward at this point. And then after the 90 days, Now, you get to push the bird out of the nest, right? Now, you're a baby bird, go push him. You should now have everything that you need to be able to soar, as long as we did our job. [00:35:34] But a lot of times, I get it, it's hard, because you're running a business, and you're an entrepreneur, and you're busy, and it's crazy. And now you want me to train somebody? Yep. Yeah. Because once they are able to do it for you, now you can relax into it. But if we skip the training, what's going to happen is you're going to go, man, they're just not getting me the results. [00:35:55] Or they might get frustrated and go, man, my boss sucks. Like they don't train me on. Anything, and it's just not, it's not a good place here. I know, I'm going to leave because I know that if I don't, then I'll eventually get fired. So regardless, they're going to leave. And then you're going to have to go, God, well now I have to go hire somebody. [00:36:11] And then you're going to hire somebody. And then you're going to be in this whole hiring cycle of hell for the rest of eternity. And that's not a fun place to be. It's not. It's really painful.  [00:36:21] Jason: Yeah, a lot of people wait until they're in pain to hire instead of hiring strategically with a plan or, you know, in advance. [00:36:29] And so once you get to the place where you need a new team member, and then you hire, and now you're going to have to, you're kind of shot in the foot, and you're going to have to like go backwards time wise, like then you're in a worse spot, like that's not the ideal place to be hiring. And then later you'll create more freedom you know, eventually, but yeah, you want to make sure that you are kind of aware of your capacity and starting to like get your hiring systems, get your new hires in place in advance before you need it. [00:37:01] And this is why it's super important to make sure you're making the right decisions in the business. So we have frameworks for how to decide what you need most in the business and frameworks for how to decide what the business needs most. So you're making healthy. financial hiring decisions because making wrong decisions that way can really hurt cash flow and can, you know, especially early in the business can really be dangerous. [00:37:22] So, well, is there anything else you'd say to maybe some of our clients or people that they've gotten a new hire. It's probably a good hire and they need to make sure they're doing their onboarding and taking care of this new hire correctly.  [00:37:36] Sarah: Yeah, get it on your calendar. Don't just say you're going to do it. [00:37:40] It has to be scheduled time where it's dedicated. And also, don't half ass it. Don't be like, oh yeah, I'm going to be on the phone with Joe while I'm like over here. They know. That's not dedicated. That does not feel good. We've all been on the receiving end of something like that. So, don't make people guess. [00:37:59] Don't make them figure it out. It's not going to work out well.  [00:38:03] Jason: Alright. That's our episode for today. So I think that this should be pretty helpful for some of our clients that are getting into new hires And hopefully it was helpful for a lot of you listening if you're struggling with hiring or building your team or systems or profit, all this relates to the people system in your business. You need people, planning, and process and that's our super system. If you're needing some help with this, reach out to DoorGrow and we can take you to a whole nother level by getting helping you get these systems installed and you'll have a business that you actually enjoy being in. So until next time to our mutual growth. [00:38:42] Bye everyone. [00:38:43] 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!  [00:39:10] At DoorGrow, we solve your biggest challenge: getting deals and growing your business. Find out more at doorgrow.com. Find any show notes or links from today's episode on our blog doorgrow.com, and to get notified of future events and news subscribe to our newsletter at doorgrow.com/subscribe. Until next time, take what you learn and start DoorGrow Hacking your business and your life.

Owning a business of any kind impacts your life and relationships. In this episode of the #DoorGrowShow, property management growth experts talk about marriage, relationships, and how these things correlate with having a property management business. You'll Learn [02:03] Owning a business impacts your relationships [07:45] You have to be selfish sometimes [11:10] Why people pleasing is harmful [14:13] Masculine and Feminine frames [24:51] Leveling up in business and your relationships Tweetables “In business, you don't want to be the needy, pleasy guy running a property management business, trying to please every tenant, trying to please every business owner.” “I think as a business owner, you, there is part of you that has to be selfish and you have to be comfortable with being selfish because there is a time and a place for it.” “If you do not take care of yourself, you are not going to have energy to then continue to take care of other people.” “Ironically, the more you are trying to please somebody,  the less they value you.” Resources DoorGrow and Scale Mastermind DoorGrow Academy DoorGrow on YouTube DoorGrowClub DoorGrowLive TalkRoute Referral Link Transcript [00:00:00] Jason: In business, you don't want to be the needy, pleasy guy running a property management business, trying to please every tenant, trying to please every business owner.  [00:00:08] Welcome DoorGrow property managers to the DoorGrow show. If you are a property management entrepreneur that wants to add doors, make a difference, increase revenue, help others, impact lives, and you're interested in growing in business and life, and you are open to doing things a bit differently, then you are a DoorGrow property manager. [00:00:29] DoorGrow property managers love the opportunities, daily variety, unique challenges, and freedom that property management brings many in real estate think you're crazy for doing it. You think they're crazy for not because you realize that property management is the ultimate, high trust gateway to real estate deals, relationships, and residual income. At DoorGrow, we are on a mission to transform property management business owners and their businesses. We want to transform the industry, eliminate the BS. Build awareness, change perception, expand the market, and help the best property management entrepreneurs win. We're your hosts property management growth experts, Jason and Sarah Hull the owners of DoorGrow.  [00:01:11] Now Let's get into the show.  [00:01:14] All right, so today's topic, we're going to chat a little bit about marriage. So let's talk about it. We're going to tell a little bit about marriage. Those that have followed my journey over the years have probably seen that I've been divorced. I've gone through struggles in marriage. I've learned things the hard way. Some of y'all probably been married forever like my parents. I have amazing parents and they were a great example of just loving each other from the beginning forever. [00:01:44] They've been married for, I don't know, like 50 years or something.  [00:01:48] Sarah: Almost. 49.  [00:01:50] Jason: Yeah. Yeah. I think  [00:01:52] Sarah: this year is going to be 47. So they're like going to be 50.  [00:01:55] Jason: I think they got married two years before they had me. So yeah.  [00:01:58] Sarah: They celebrate it though, but they're still in Australia.  [00:02:01] Jason: Yeah. So my parents, they just love each other. [00:02:03] But one of the things that I think it's been coming up a lot, I've been noticing a lot of clients as I go deeper with them and they kind of open up especially the guys like relationships are a struggle. It's a challenge. I think it's difficult. It can be difficult for entrepreneurs. I think it's difficult for the women entrepreneurs because in a lot of ways you have to kind of step into sort of a masculine frame to run a business. And that creates an interesting dynamic in a relationship. And this is in general. Some women out there, maybe you don't want a masculine guy. Maybe you don't want a guy that leads. Maybe you don't want a guy that initiates stuff. Maybe you don't want to be able to let your hair down after work and like have him kind of take the reins and like plan something and take you on a date. I think a lot of women do. A lot of women appreciate that. Even the ones that are running businesses and showing up in a masculine sort of frame and being kind of dominant in leadership and displaying these things, they would like to have somebody else take the lead. Is this accurate do you think or no?  [00:03:03] Sarah: Yeah, well. You think it's different.  [00:03:05] Jason: You've run your own business. [00:03:06] You've been kind of in that frame.  [00:03:08] Sarah: I'm a very masculine woman.  [00:03:11] Jason: Yeah, in some ways I think you've consistently since we've been together.  [00:03:15] Sarah: I look very feminine. I do it's deceiving. Yeah.  [00:03:19] Jason: Yeah, I think since we've been together, you've consistently stepped more and more into your feminine and I've stepped more and more into my masculine I think has kind of been a trend. [00:03:29] Would you say that's accurate?  [00:03:30] Sarah: It could be. I don't know. I think you've probably more recently been focused on that. I can't say, I really cannot say, oh, I've ever been focused on.  [00:03:41] Jason: I don't think you've been focused on it. I just think.  [00:03:44] Sarah: I'm just living life.  [00:03:45] Jason: Yeah, you're just living life and this is the thing. [00:03:48] Sarah: I'm just going about shit, doing my thing.  [00:03:50] Jason: She's not as conscious of it probably because I think this is something that men, if you are the leader and leading, you should be conscious of this. And women, when men are kind of taking that leadership role, women respond to that, and it's natural. Like, I've noticed it in Sarah, she's not even probably super aware of it, but there's behaviors and things that have kind of shifted. [00:04:15] And so, the way it'll show up for a woman in this, in a relationship like that, as a man stepping more into leadership and into his masculine role, she will generally, over time, feel calmer. There'll be probably less fights, probably less explosions, you know, things like this. And the guy will be like letting go of some of the needy, whiny, pleasy, weak behavior that's kind of gross to women. [00:04:39] Does this sound accurate?  [00:04:40] Sarah: That is, yeah, that is gross.  [00:04:42] Jason: Yeah.  [00:04:42] Sarah: To me, anyway, I cannot speak for all women.  [00:04:45] Jason: Yeah.  [00:04:45] Sarah: To me, it's gross.  [00:04:47] Jason: Ironically, when women are showing up kind of more in a masculine frame, they sometimes bring that out in guys. Like the guys think, Oh no, there's a problem. I got to please more. [00:04:57] And so it kind of creates this weird, gross spiral in relationship. And so, which I've experienced in past relationships. Right. And so the man needs to kind of. shift and lead out of that. And so I've been noticing this in clients. And so, this is something that I've been paying a lot of attention to. [00:05:14] A lot of guys show up in a feminine frame because we've been raised by our moms. Maybe you had a loving mom. She took care of you. Maybe she didn't. And she wasn't really a great mom, maybe but either way, that feminine influence towards pleasing has a strong impact on the male psyche, which puts us into kind of a growing up with kind of a feminine frame. If we don't have a really strong sort of masculine walled stoic father, you know, and there's really great book I would recommend for men that want to kind of eliminate that feminine frame that they're carrying around. [00:05:49] It's called shattering the feminine frame by Jerr, J E R R. It's really hard to find, so you may have to search for it on Google, because if you search for it on Amazon, even though it's there, Amazon won't let you see it. I don't know why. It's super weird. You may not be able to find it. Sometimes searches on some of the books by Jerr don't show up when I search for them. [00:06:11] His main book that he puts out there, I can find, and then I have to go to the author, click on the author name, and then find his other books to find some of these books. I don't, it's really weird, but you might be able to find it through Google.  [00:06:23] Sarah: Maybe it's just you. It could be just you. It'd be an interesting test. [00:06:27] Maybe everybody else, even though.  [00:06:30] Jason: I bought multiple copies of the book and sent them to guys. So Jason gets blocked on everything. He gets himself blocked. I'm a little controversial. I get shadow banned all the time. It was something. I was definitely shadow banned on Twitter. My accounts aren't working, your whole Instagram account. [00:06:45] I have a political account on Instagram that's totally blocked and shut down. Like, I log into it, it blocks everything. I can't do anything. I can't even go to settings to, like, request help to support. Nothing. So, yeah. So, which probably might be why I can't find which probably means my ideas are actually correct. [00:07:04] So since we live in a world of control and censorship nowadays, all right, so that aside, so I think you know, to kill that needy sort of pleasing behavior, I think guys, this is really important. And it's important in business too, because in business, you don't want to be the needy, pleasy guy running a property management business, trying to please every tenant, trying to please every business owner. [00:07:30] And that was something you were very good at not doing in your property management  [00:07:34] Sarah: business. I don't give a shit about that at all. I [00:07:37] Jason: think you're like, what do I want my business to look like? How do I want to show? Yeah. Yeah.  [00:07:42] Sarah: Right. And I think it's, It, part of it is very selfish. And I think as a business owner, you, there is part of you that has to be selfish and you have to be comfortable with being selfish because there is a time and a place for it. [00:07:54] Now I am not sitting here telling you, be only selfish and only think about yourself all the time. No matter what, prioritize you and forget everything else, right? That is not what I'm saying, but there is a time and a place to be selfish and to really think about you. And if you think about it this way, there's a lot of people, like one of my, one of my very good friends in Pennsylvania she will just give and give and give and give to everybody. [00:08:21] She worries about her kids and she worries about her friends and she worries about her family and she worries about, it's like, she's like, so giving and like, I mean, she would literally give you the coat off of her back in the middle of winter if you needed it. I have watched her do it. And that is great. [00:08:42] However, if you do not take care of yourself, you are not going to have energy to then continue to take care of other people. And I tell her that all the time because she's just in this constant exhaustion. Like now it's manifesting physically. Now she's had like, she had health issues. She had like a heart problem. [00:09:02] She had all kinds of issues and it's because she's not prioritizing herself. She will go to do something for herself, but then something else pops up and needs her attention. And she's like, Oh, well, I can't worry about me. Now, I have to worry about this other thing. So there is a time and a place to be selfish, and you must take care of yourself first in order to then serve and take care of other people. [00:09:22] It's like, put on your own oxygen mask before helping other people. Because if you die trying to help your family, well now your family doesn't have you. When you could have just put on your own oxygen mask first. Yes? So there is a time and a place to be selfish. I think in my later years, especially after my, like, my divorce when I was, what was I, 28? [00:09:48] Yeah, I was 28. So, 28, I flipped my entire life upside down. All of it. Everything. I pretty much scrapped it all. Anything that wasn't serving me, anything that was toxic, anything that wasn't good for me, anything that didn't make me feel happy or bring me joy or make me feel loved and cared for, I said, fuck it. [00:10:10] Gone. Gone. So I cut off relationships with my biological father. I ended my marriage. I cut off a lot of friendships. I quit my job. I did all kinds of things. I was like, yeah, this isn't working like, and that was the end of it. But that was very much about, that was for me. I did that for me. [00:10:30] And up until that point, I wasn't really living for me. Yes, I was concerned about myself. I was always trying to take care of myself. But I was also always worried, Oh, well, who needs this? And who needs that? And, oh, you know, this person, you know, is kind of, it's always like in the back of your brain. [00:10:48] And after, after that, I made that change and that after that point was when I started my business, when I started my business, I'm glad that I didn't do this before I had that shift in my life because when I started my business, number one has to be me. If the business makes me miserable, then I'm doing something wrong. [00:11:07] So why do it like that?  [00:11:10] Jason: A lot of people are miserable in their businesses. They like, we see a lot of them. That's why a lot of people come to us. We can turn that around. Ironically, the more you are trying to please somebody, the less they value you. And so if you're like just bending over backwards trying to please tenants, they're going to treat you even more and more like garbage because you're showcasing and demonstrating in your language your behavior everything, "I'm low value." [00:11:37] I'm a doormat. Walk all over me. You might do that with owners. You might be displaying, Hey, I'm low value. I'm available whenever you need me. Your time is so much more important than my time. Interrupt me anytime. Here's my cell phone number. Right? And so by displaying that you're low value, you actually end up being treated worse and being perceived as worse. [00:11:58] And people respect business owners that are leaders and then are able to display strong behavior that they can lean into and that they can trust. You need to have a stronger frame or a more masculine frame if you are the leader of a business. Otherwise, people are not going to really trust, respect, or feel safe with you. [00:12:18] And so I think that Also, when we're in relationship and we're with somebody and I think that this is probably more true of women, a lot of women might throw me some shade for saying this, but as guys, I don't know what the major difference is. Maybe it's testosterone levels, whatever. Maybe it's just in our DNA, but we do not grow up feeling fear. [00:12:41] We just, we don't generally feel afraid of a whole lot of things. Like, most guys would never even think, like, am I safe if I go walk out on the street? Unless they're in a really shitty area, you know? But if I go out for a walk, I'm not concerned about my safety at all. I could roll down my windows and take a nap in my car, parked by the side of the road, and wouldn't even worry. [00:13:03] Women, I didn't realize this until later years, but women from.  [00:13:08] Sarah: Even going like for a walk by myself, no way, I'm taking my pitbull, like  [00:13:12] Jason: Yes.  [00:13:13] Sarah: Or I'm carrying.  [00:13:15] Jason: Right. Or some combination.  [00:13:18] Sarah: Something. There's no, there's no chance. Yeah,  [00:13:21] Jason: I mean even if I'm out of town, for example You'd like you get a little bit more concerned about things and your safety and stuff like that, right? [00:13:30] Sarah: See, I'm the type of person I'm like, I want like a fortress. I want like reinforced concrete like five inch, you know, like, maybe even 11 inch thick, like, walls, I want, like, a moat, I also like some sharks that we don't feed, like, ever, and then, you know, somebody might accidentally fall down. [00:13:49] I've been getting in, like, this is how I'm like, that would make me feel safe. I want like bulletproof glass. Give me the Cybertruck glass just everywhere. Like, that's like, this is what I need. I need like laser beams, like you see in museums. Like motion sensor laser beams that trigger like the SWAT team. [00:14:06] That's what I need, but I've watched way too many horror movies, admittedly, way too many for my own good.  [00:14:13] Jason: So regardless of your gender, masculine and feminine energy is always at play. And, Feminine energy generally is not going to feel safe without masculine energy nearby. [00:14:24] That's just generally how it works. Masculine energy creates that protection and safety. This will be true of your clients. So you'll need to show up somewhat in a masculine frame so that your clients can feel safe. feel safe with you. And that's what they want to buy. They don't want to buy property management, but they want to buy a safety and certainty. [00:14:40] They want to buy peace of mind. And so that certainty that you can display is more of a masculine energy or masculine frame. This is true of women that are in relationships. If they're not getting that from the man that they're with or around them, That sort of masculine frame, they're going to become, a lot of times, they become more nervous, more neurotic. [00:14:59] They're more concerned about things and more fearful. And especially if they have to then step into the masculine frame to take care of the guy that they're with because he's even more needy and pleasy and whatever and feminine than she is, then it's like, it creates this gross sort of I'm your mother type of dynamic, right? [00:15:17] And you don't want to be my mother, right? You don't want to be cleaning up after me and telling me what to do all the time.  [00:15:22] Sarah: I don't want to be anybody's mom.  [00:15:24] Jason: Yeah, exactly.  [00:15:24] Sarah: I am not cut out to be a mom, let's be honest. I'm just not, I'm just not good. Like my mom is the best mom in the world and then like, how do I measure up to that? [00:15:34] Like I can't compete with that.  [00:15:35] Jason: Well, I don't think it's a competition.  [00:15:37] Sarah: Everything is a competition.  [00:15:39] Jason: It's not really. [00:15:39] Sarah: You know nothing about me.  [00:15:41] Jason: It's not really competition. You don't need to compete with your mom, but you can take, you know, some of the good that you've got from her and the stuff that you don't want to apply or we learn from our parents. [00:15:51] We don't want to be like. We don't have to take that. Right. So, you know, I guess the takeaway from this episode maybe is men, check out that book, like step into a little bit more masculine role in your relationships, your wife will be calmer, she'll be more loving, you will definitely get more respect and you'll get more sex if you're showing up in a masculine frame. And it's your responsibility. Stop trying to change her. Stop trying to get her to be something different. Stop wishing she was nicer to you. Stop trying to focus on I need love and I need to please her and do things like that like Show up in a confident leadership position, like plan stuff, plan dates. [00:16:35] We're going on a date this weekend, right? We went on a date last weekend.  [00:16:40] Sarah: Round two.  [00:16:40] Jason: I messed up last weekend. I planned a date. I was so excited and took her out to eat. We went to go to where the date was, we were supposed to go watch a show. And it was closed, like, there was nothing there. And I was like, what? [00:16:54] And I checked and I had the date wrong. I had the date wrong. So what did I do as a leader? I found another date. So I quickly booked tickets, found tickets to a comedy show that was right there, downtown Austin. And then we went to that and we had a good time, right?  [00:17:08] Sarah: Well, that was when I rescued the bird. [00:17:09] Jason: Yes.  [00:17:10] Sarah: So here, let's talk about this. This is how crazy my life is. Jump out of a moving car because my husband wouldn't stop the car.  [00:17:16] Jason: Let's, let me explain this. I'm driving into a parking lot, there is a bird that has landed on my hood and it's just staying on there so I'm like, this is weird and I'm turning into a parking structure and I was barely moving. [00:17:30] I was slowed down or you would have hurt yourself but I'm like, she's like, I'm going to get out and I'm going to take care of the bird and because it had jumped off. And I was like, No.  [00:17:37] Sarah: It didn't. It tried to fly, like, it was on the hood. And it tried to fly a little bit and it, like, barely cleared, like, the roof of the car and I went, Jason, that bird is injured, I'm telling you, it's injured and he's like, okay. [00:17:51] And I'm like, stop the car, and he's like, what? I'm like, no, stop the car. I was like, I am not stopping the car. Yeah, he's like, I'm not stopping.  [00:17:57] Jason: There were, like, homeless people on the street, like, right outside there. Yeah, I know. Ghettos, they probably were all high on drugs, like, it was not a great area. [00:18:06] And she jumps out of the car and I have to then find a parking space because there's nowhere to park and I had to go up seven floors in this parking structure. I'm like, my wife is probably going to be dead by now, right? So I eventually get to the top floor, then I come down, I'm, like, so anxious because I'm, like, I need to protect this woman from her crazy bird saving, like, whatever. [00:18:27] Sarah: And actually, I had this dress on. And my high heels, and I'm running around trying to, like, scoop up. I'm like, it's okay, try to scoop the bird. And the bird, like, it can't really fly. It flew a little bit for, like, a couple feet, and then it, like, sank back down. And I'm like, oh no, it's injured. So I'm, like, chasing the bird, and the bird, like, hops around. [00:18:45] Like, it comes out of the parking garage, and it hops around to the corner. I don't know what's back there. So I'm just following, I'm like, come here, bird. And there's a man in the corner. who I can only think, my guess is, like, coke, I don't know. I don't know what he's doing, it's, I don't know, crack, whatever crack is, it's probably that. [00:19:03] So, I don't know, I'm not a drug expert, I've never been in narcotics, I don't know. But he's, like, in the corner and he's, like, doing, I was, like, okay, I'm just going to, like, not look at what's happening, cause I don't care, I'm just, Hi, I'm just getting the bird, I'm, like, don't, like, sorry don't mind me. [00:19:19] And yeah, he didn't like that. But I did get the bird, and then I didn't know what to do with the bird. So I have the bird now, I'm like, oh, what do I do now? So I was going to walk back to my husband and tell him to get in the car.  [00:19:33] Jason: Yeah, we were seven floors up. You had no idea where I was.  [00:19:36] Sarah: No, I didn't. I was just going to walk around until I found you. [00:19:39] But I had the bird in my hands. And I was going to go back to my husband and then say, like, I guess we have to figure out what to do with this bird. We have a bird now. But this woman, she was on the street and she's like, Oh, hi. She was like, excuse me, do you need help? And I said, I don't know. [00:19:54] Can, do you know what to do with an injured bird? And she said, actually, yes I do. And I said, Oh my God, thank God. Because I didn't know what I was going to do with this bird. And she said, Oh, you have to take it to whatever on earth she said. And she's like, I can do that because I guess she works there or something. [00:20:11] So she's like, oh, I'll take it in tomorrow. She's like if you give me the bird So then she had this whole bird probably ate  [00:20:18] Jason: the bird. She's probably some homeless person that ate the bird.  [00:20:21] Sarah: He was not a homeless person. It was a couple.  [00:20:23] Jason: Okay.  [00:20:24] Sarah: There was a couple they had a dog.  [00:20:26] Jason: Okay, meanwhile, I'm coming down an elevator. [00:20:30] It lets me out on the first floor of this parking structure, does not let me into the parking structure. There's no, like, it just exits the building. So I exit the parking building and it locks me out of the building. So I can't even go back in and I'm like trying to find her. I have no idea where she is. [00:20:49] And so I'm calling her and yeah  [00:20:53] we ended up talking, didn't we?  [00:20:54] Sarah: No, I called you.  [00:20:55] Jason: Yeah, you called me.  [00:20:56] Sarah: Then so the lady takes the bird and now I have no bird, which is great and the bird is safe. And now I'm thinking, okay, let me just, I didn't realize it was as tall. I really did not know that the building was that tall. [00:21:08] So I figured, Oh, there's probably like three levels, whatever. I'll just walk around and find the car. It won't be hard. Well, I'm walking around and I'm realizing, Oh, okay. Well, this just keeps going. Yeah. And you  [00:21:18] Jason: were wearing the worst shoes on the planet.  [00:21:19] Sarah: Worst shoes. I was wearing a  [00:21:21] Jason: Okay. Let me explain this. [00:21:23] They can't see your outfit right now. Sarah looks like sex on wheels. Like, her outfit is hot. Like, this is a hot dress. This is like a form fitting store dress. I bought this for her. She looks really good in this. Sorry. And she's wearing these high heels. [00:21:39] She's wearing these high heels like Louboutin, whatever they're called. And they're like, did I buy you those?  [00:21:46] Sarah: That pair? Yes.  [00:21:48] Jason: Okay. Yeah, I bought her these shoes and they're wicked uncomfortable.  [00:21:51] Sarah: They're so uncomfortable.  [00:21:52] Jason: Like whenever she wears them on a date.  [00:21:53] Sarah: Christian Louboutin, I have to say something about him. [00:21:55] He either hates women or he has no idea what women's feet are like.  [00:21:59] Jason: I don't know, but he's laughing. Or both. He's laughing all the way to the bank, whatever. Because they're not cheap. So, she's wearing these shoes that she can't even walk around in. And you're going to, there's no way she's going to go up seven floors of parking. [00:22:12] Sarah: I was on the third floor.  [00:22:14] Jason: Yeah.  [00:22:15] Sarah: Yeah, I got to the third floor and then I realized, oh, okay, so then I called you.  [00:22:19] Jason: Yeah, and then she eventually finds me. We get. You need to go back up to the car because I didn't grab your purse. Because  [00:22:26] Sarah: he left my purse in the car.  [00:22:28] Jason: Because I should have been psychic and known that she needed me to grab her purse. [00:22:32] Right guys. And so we go back up, but he had to let me back into the building because I was locked out and their thing wouldn't work to let me back in with my parking pass thing. So she comes down to the first floor, opens it up, lets me in. We begin in the elevator, we go back up the top floor. [00:22:47] I'm like, what were you thinking? And she's like, what were you thinking? You didn't grab my purse. You left my purse. I'm like, you're way more important than the purse, woman. And you're like going around crazy homeless people and like trying to save a bird.  [00:23:03] Sarah: It was saved.  [00:23:04] Jason: So  [00:23:05] Sarah: It was saved.  [00:23:06] Jason: Okay, good job. You did it. [00:23:08] Good job. You're like  [00:23:09] Sarah: We've been saving lots of animals.  [00:23:11] Jason: I think there's a Bible verse where Jesus says something or God says something about like your life is worth more than many sparrows or something like that. Yeah. So I don't know. Some of you don't know what the verse is.  [00:23:24] Sarah: I must've missed class that day. [00:23:26] Jason: Yeah, exactly. So anyway, we go up to the car, get this, come back down, we exit that same exit down on the first floor and I'm looking around, I'm like, this is not a great area. No, it was not.  [00:23:37] Sarah: It was bad.  [00:23:37] Jason: There's some rough characters and like, they're walking around and like,  [00:23:41] Sarah: bleh. In fact, we went to the comedy club and one of the comedians, he said, so now I have a bully and he's a homeless man and the same homeless man, he like, hangs out right outside the comedy club and he said, I'm here all the time. [00:23:52] And now the homeless man is like harassing me every single time. And he's like, so now I have a bully who's a homeless man. He's like, what do I do about that?  [00:24:01] Jason: Yeah, this is great. This is great. So  [00:24:05] Sarah: yeah.  [00:24:06] Jason: Yeah. So I may be able to keep Sarah safe from her bird rescuing adventures in the future. We'll see.  [00:24:13] Sarah: Stop the car. [00:24:15] When I tell you to stop, just stop the car.  [00:24:16] Jason: You still would have gotten out. I didn't want you to get out. We could have come back.  [00:24:20] Sarah: Oh, no. It could have died in the meantime. What if it went in the street? It tried to go in the street. I had to stop it.  [00:24:27] Jason: All right. I would rather a little bird die than my wife. [00:24:31] Sarah: So that's okay. Yeah. But I don't feel like I feel like there's a third option.  [00:24:36] Jason: Men, you know what I'm thinking right now? You know.  [00:24:40] Sarah: They're like, what is wrong with her?  [00:24:42] Jason: They don't think what's wrong with it. They just go, that's what women do. Like, and yeah, and guys understand. So.  [00:24:49] Sarah: We have to save things. [00:24:51] Jason: Okay, so, should we wrap this up? Anything else we should have? I didn't know we were going into this whole date, but I have a date planned for this weekend. It's the one that I thought had been the previous weekend. So we're, I'm taking her out again, but men plan some dates, show some leadership. Don't wait till she asks you to do things. [00:25:10] Try and Be proactive and find ways to do things before she asks you right. And if she's asked you to do things multiple times, you probably are being a lazy bum. Comfort ease and that's feminine, right? Everybody loves to see a woman in comfort in with her pillows and cushions laying out attractively but guys. They love to see guys at work, like they, man, you do the work. [00:25:34] If you are just sitting around watching football games all day and being a bum, then you are actually in your feminine as a guy and men are men of action. Get some stuff done, do some things, be proactive, improve yourself. So that's all I'll say about that. All right. So yeah. And join our program and get, join our program. [00:25:56] Get a coach like me. That's going to call you out on your BS and help you step into a mass more masculine frame. We will crush it more in business. And I guarantee that you will be getting more respect, more love, more sex, more, all the good stuff. If you show up and if you like show up and be the person you were meant to be. [00:26:16] So, we, I will challenge you to do that. I've worked with relationship coaches. I've got a coach for a marriage coach right now. I've got we've had business coaches like you need to be constantly improving yourself. So, I will make sure that you're doing that if you join our program. All right. [00:26:33] That's it for today, right? All right. Until next time, everybody to our mutual growth. If you would like to be part of the adventure with door, grow, Go to doorgrow. com. Check us out. Book a call with us. We'll find out if we can help you. And if you are wanting to be a little bit more connected to our free community, you can go to doorgrowclub. com and join our free Facebook group. And that's it. Bye everyone. [00:27:01] 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!  [00:27:27] 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. Until next time, take what you learn and start DoorGrow Hacking your business and your life.

Man can learn valuable lessons from man's best friend…  In this episode, property management growth experts Jason and Sarah Hull talk about their passion project of fostering dogs and how business owners can learn about resilience from these adorable rescue pups. You'll Learn [02:56] The story of Chance the dog [11:09] What does this have to do with running a business? [18:39] Jason and Sarah's foster dogs Tweetables “You will look back on this as being such an easy thing for you to deal with in the present moment.” “If you're going to go through tough stuff, it's a lot better to have the right support around you.” “You're going to make mistakes, but that's the price of tuition in business.” “We're all doing the best we can with our current limited capacity and knowledge that we possessed in that moment.” Resources DoorGrow and Scale Mastermind DoorGrow Academy DoorGrow on YouTube DoorGrowClub DoorGrowLive TalkRoute Referral Link Transcript [00:00:00] Sarah: If this dog can go through everything that he went through and still push through, whatever is happening in your business, whatever is happening in your life, whatever is happening in your marriage, in your friendships, in your relationships, you can push through it.  [00:00:14] Jason: Yeah, just tell yourself you're not yet at Maynard level. [00:00:17] Welcome DoorGrow property managers to the DoorGrow show. If you are a property management entrepreneur that wants to add doors, make a difference, increase revenue, help others, impact lives, and you are interested in growing in business and life, and you're open to doing things a bit differently then you are a DoorGrow property manager. [00:00:35] DoorGrow property managers love the opportunities, daily variety, unique challenges, and freedom that property management brings. Many in real estate think you're crazy for doing it. You think they're crazy for not because you realize that property management is the ultimate high trust gateway to real estate deals, relationships, and residual income. At DoorGrow, we are on a mission to transform property management business owners and their businesses. We want to transform the industry, eliminate the BS, build awareness, change perception, expand the market, and help the best property management entrepreneurs win we're your hosts, property management growth experts, Jason and Sarah Hull, founder, [00:01:16] cOO of DoorGrow. [00:01:18] And now let's get into the show. All right So we were thinking what we should talk about today and one of Sarah's strong passions Is dogs. I think Sarah likes dogs more than people. Is that fair?  [00:01:34] Sarah: That's accurate.  [00:01:35] Jason: Okay, she's an intj. Any of you that are familiar with myers briggs intjs typically like animals more than people. I don't know why, and I like dogs too, so not a fan of cats I'm allergic to them and I think they're smelly. [00:01:51] Sorry, all you cat lovers out there, but I'm more of a dog person. You can see in the background here is. Hey buddy, who's smelling around. This is a dog that we're fostering right now. And the working title for this dog is Hans. That's they give them names, but this is a dog we're fostering and it's such a sweet dog. [00:02:13] And so I wanted, this is a passion of Sarah's. We've been fostering some dogs and we've had, had some difficult times fostering dogs and we've had some good times, you know, let's, should we talk about our first foster?  [00:02:27] Sarah: Yeah. Yeah. If that didn't turn us off to fostering...  [00:02:31] it was like worst case scenario, I would say. [00:02:35] Jason: So Sarah's dog, one of our dogs, he's a large dog and he's a Pitbull. American.  [00:02:44] Sarah: He's an American Pitbull. American Pitbull.  [00:02:45] Jason: Terrier. 100%. We got him DNA tested, purebred. And then we have another little mutt that we can talk about that we got.  [00:02:53] Sarah: That we adopted. Well, that one was after the whole Chance thing. [00:02:56] Jason: Yeah, totally. So we decided to, like foster, we brought a dog in and this dog's name was Chance and he was a pit bull. We thought maybe they'd get along but we didn't know Chance's background. We didn't know Chance's history. The previous people made it sound like he was a good dog sort of, but they really, I think we're kind of keeping secrets from us and gave us a bunch of rules. [00:03:21] Like, be careful with other dogs and like separate for a while and we did everything  [00:03:25] Sarah: that's always the rule.  [00:03:26] Jason: Sure.  [00:03:26] Sarah: Careful with other dogs be separate for a while. Slow introductions. Never feed together. That's yeah, those are always the rules. You say that as if that was like a red flag. [00:03:35] That was not a red flag.  [00:03:36] Jason: Okay. [00:03:37] Sarah: They tell you that with every dog.  [00:03:38] Jason: They had to have known that this dog had some violent tendencies or some history. So long story short, this dog bit Sarah. They gaslit us and blamed, it bit her arm. And they were like, "oh, well, there was food involved" or something like this. [00:03:53] We're like, okay, maybe it was us. We'll be more careful. So we still kept the dog. And we had the dog for like a month.  [00:04:00] Sarah: We struggled with that too. Because we really, we, right then and there, we thought, okay. I think we're done. I think he's got to go back. Someone else can foster him. [00:04:08] Yeah. And they kind of talked us into it. Like, "oh, well, can you just hang on to him until I find another place for him to go? Because like, nobody can take him right now."  [00:04:18] Jason: I don't think there's any safe place for them to go. So later. At this point later, it had been a month, we had integrated the dogs, they were hanging out, they're on the couch together, like it didn't seem to be a problem. [00:04:31] It was kind of, but I think really was like a working truce or something. I think this dog had a history of maybe being involved in dog fights, something like this would be my guess. Because some dogs will usually get together. And they'll do a little bit of have a little tiff, but they're not trying to kill each other, right? [00:04:48] They'll, like, bite, they'll do something, they'll give a warning, and they'll be done with it. So, I had come home from a walk, Parker came up to me, I played with him a little bit, he did a little playful sort of growl with a toy or whatever, the other dog gets off the couch. This dog had no expression. He's just headed towards Parker. [00:05:07] Parker saw him and it was like, it was on and saw him coming towards me. And they just locked up and they got into this horrible dog fight. Like, and we have a long entryway into our home, like a big hallway, like entryway that runs kind of all the way to the back of the house almost. [00:05:26] Right. And this was. in our family room towards the back of the house and the fight continued all the way to the front door. Like it was just, it was a disaster. This dog Chance and Parker were fighting and we were trying to break it up. Sarah was on with Parker trying to pull him and I was trying to get Chance off and Sarah, you were freaking out if you don't mind me saying. [00:05:51]  [00:05:51] Sarah: I mean, yeah. Like, rightfully so.  [00:05:54] Jason: Yeah. She's freaking out. And so it, yeah it was interesting. So there's blood everywhere. Blood flying all over the place, dogs are locked up and fighting, biting at each other and so then I, yeah. You know, if I had my gun or knife on me, dog probably would be dead. [00:06:09] I couldn't figure out what else to do. And we weren't going to let him kill our dog. And he was much stronger than Parker. So, we didn't want Parker to die. Right. So, but what I did in that moment is I was like, I had done a little bit of jujitsu training in the past. So I was like, Oh, I'm going to choke him out. [00:06:26] I was trying to, I first tried to lift the legs up. Cause that's what people say. I didn't, that wasn't really a great idea because I lift his back legs up and to try and pull him off. And he just turned and latched onto my leg. He turned really quickly, latched onto my leg, bit my leg through my pants. I have permanent bite mark on my right leg and had latched on my leg. [00:06:49] through my pants and was biting me. Then Parker was coming at him. So he turned back to Parker. And then I use that moment when he came at my leg towards me to get my arm underneath his neck and then to choke him out, just like in martial arts. So I did a blood choke and I figured he's probably got veins going through his neck to his brain, just like all of us humans. [00:07:13] And it choked him out. And then He passed out. I was holding him in my arm and I picked him up and was choking him out because he eventually released Parker and I was choking him out. I'm holding this limp dog in my arm. And then his Parker was latched onto one of his legs or something. And Sarah was like, "what do I do? What do I do? He won't let go!" And I was like, Sarah has a martial arts background, so I figured you knew how to do a choke. So I was like, "choke him out. You got to choke him out!" So she had to grab Parker and get him to release. And and he did. Parker really was trying to protect us. That was obvious. [00:07:52] But Parker was losing, like it wasn't going well for him. Parker, the other dog had some bites on him, but he was okay. But Parker had to go to the hospital. Like he was really messed up. He had to get surgery. His ear was like torn in half. Yeah, his  [00:08:09] Sarah: ear was torn and then he had a chunk ripped out of his neck. [00:08:13] Like the back of his neck. Yeah, it was ugly. Yeah, it was not good.  [00:08:16] Jason: So, while I had Chance in the choke hold and limp, I carried him through the house to the backyard and put him into the backyard. And shut the door so we could just keep them separate. And then, yeah, we were just, I was totally scared of that dog after that. [00:08:33] But that's what we did. And eventually I think we just got him into a crate or something. So he wasn't in the backyard.  [00:08:39] Sarah: Yeah. No, I had to go get him.  [00:08:41] Jason: Yeah.  [00:08:42] Sarah: Into the crate. Because he was like, I don't think he's going to want to see me. I just choked him out. No. No, that's probably a good call. [00:08:48] Jason: He probably wouldn't want to attack me. Yeah. Because I was pretty rough with him. So, that's my adventure in choking out a pit bull. Yeah.  [00:08:58] Sarah: So I think you never really know what you're going to do until you're like in the moment.  [00:09:02] Jason: Yeah.  [00:09:03] Sarah: And then your adrenaline kicks in and sometimes you know what you're going to do or you think you know what you're going to do ahead of time and you find out there's no plan. [00:09:12] There's no plan. And the they do tell you like, oh, lift the dog's hind legs over its head and it will release. Yes, and  [00:09:20] two out of two times it released and then latched on to.  [00:09:25] Jason: Yeah, they don't like that it's being lifted up.  [00:09:27] Sarah: No.  [00:09:27] Jason: So, I mean, that was an interesting moment because I went into tunnel vision. [00:09:31] This is how guys brains work. We're generally singular focused. This is why they send us to war, right? We can just focus on one thing. So I wasn't really particularly traumatized by the event. I mean, it was, but I was like, okay, I'm in mission mode. I'm doing what I need to do with the dog and that's it. [00:09:47] Yeah. And then we got to clean up because there's blood everywhere, all through our home. Yeah, it was like a freaking emergency. Walls, everywhere. It was awful. There's blood everywhere.  [00:09:53] Sarah: Everywhere. And then I was covered in it. Because I was holding  [00:09:57] Jason: Parker and I had a white t shirt and then  [00:09:59] Sarah: when we like I got Parker in the office and Chance was outside because Jason put him out there and Jason looked at me and I'm literally like from here down I was just drenched. [00:10:12] Jason: You were holding Parker and he was the more wounded. Drenched. Yeah. [00:10:15] Sarah: And he's going "oh my god. Oh my god." He's like, "Sarah, there's freaking blood" It's not mine. It's not mine. Like, I'm okay. I lost my pinky nail. That got ripped off. So for a while I had no pinky nail that, that was not fun.  [00:10:27] Jason: Like your actual nail.  [00:10:28] Sarah: Like my actual, everybody says, okay. [00:10:30] Let me clear something up. Everybody says, Oh, those aren't real nails. These are real. These are actually attached to my real nails on my finger. So like underneath you can kind of see,  [00:10:41] Jason: yeah, there's like,  [00:10:42] Sarah: there are real nails here. And then yes, I make them longer, but it's not just a tip. Like if you pull off one of these nails, it is attached to your real nail and your real nail will come off with it. [00:10:55] Jason: You had a flesh pinky, like there was no nail for a while. Yeah. Yeah. It was kind of odd.  [00:11:00] Sarah: Yeah, it was horrible. Yeah that, that was awful.  [00:11:03] Jason: Yeah, and it took a while for my bite mark to heal. So, yeah. So, so that was our first adventure.  [00:11:09] Sarah: Let me pause here and say, cause I know some of you guys are going, "why the freaking hell are they talking about any of this? It sounds awful. And it's like, oh my God, I don't even want to keep listening to the episode." Keep listening. Because I think one of the things that I would say about particularly about this situation that we had to go through is sometimes in life, sometimes also in business, you gotta go through some shit. [00:11:34] And you're going to be in some situations that you definitely did not plan for, that you've never been in before, and that Maybe you don't know what to do, and in the moment, the only thing you can do is whatever comes to your mind, whatever you can think of, and then, it's afterwards, then there's the PTSD, so then you just have to heal from the PTSD, but I also would say it's fair that every entrepreneur has a little PTSD from their business.  [00:12:07] Jason: Yeah, for sure.  [00:12:08] Sarah: Yeah  [00:12:09] Jason: Well, because entrepreneurs we take bigger risks. We get to experience you know issues like cash flow problems or staffing issues or team members that losing faith in us and leaving or team members stealing from us, right? [00:12:24] Sarah: Having to fire somebody.  [00:12:25] Jason: If you're working for a boss you don't generally have to experience a lot of this stuff that you experience as a business owner. We're choosing into a higher level of stress, trauma, difficulty, which is why it's not for everybody when not everybody starts a business. And but yeah, it's important to heal from these things and to level up from these things and learn from these things so that you can get to that next level of capacity to be able to deal with that next level of stress that exists in business. And I tell clients this all the time. [00:12:55] They're currently dealing with some problem they think is so hard and they're at kind of a lower level and I tell them, someday, you will look back on this as being such an easy thing for you to deal with in the present moment, you'll be like, Oh man, I can't believe that was so hard for me then. I'm dealing with such bigger challenges and bigger level, higher level things now. And that's encouraging for them. They're like, Oh, that's good news. They're like, and they know they're like, yeah, someday this will be easy. I'm like, someday, this hiring stuff will be easy. Someday this, you know, process stuff that you're dealing with will be easy. [00:13:29] Because you're going to increase your capacity. You're going to learn, you're going to level up. It's the price of tuition and business. So let me take a quick break. I'm going to share our sponsor for this episode, which is Vendoroo. So if you are dealing with constant stress, the hassle of maintenance coordination, and that's an issue for you, check out Vendoroo. They're your AI driven in house maintenance expert that handles work orders from start to finish, triaging, troubleshooting, vendor selection and coordination. It's built by property managers for property managers to provide cost effective and accountable maintenance operations where every dollar is accounted for and every task is handled with unmatched reliability. [00:14:08] Vendoroo takes care of the details so you can focus on growth. Schedule a demo today at Vendoroo, V E N D O R O O dot AI slash doorGrow and experience maintenance done right. I was actually, we were hanging out with the Vendoroo guys and I was telling them the story. Because we were telling them how we were fostering a dog and we had to get home, you know, from dinner. [00:14:29] And then they were, we somehow shifted in that story and they were just like, so interested. So, but yeah, so if you want to check out DoorGrow. com, we actually just put this up yesterday because we've been fostering and taking care of dogs and our team are really excited about this. I had the idea with one of my team members, we did a secret project. [00:14:51] Yeah, because we knew Sarah would probably like it. So we put up a dog page. So you can see the dogs that we've like, fostered. I don't think we put Chance on the page. Did we? I don't think we put Chance on the page.  [00:15:03] Sarah: No, we didn't. No. Chance was not a great story. But Parker isn't on there either. And Parker is the OG. [00:15:09] Jason: Parker's the OG. We can add Parker.  [00:15:11] Sarah: Parker's like the mascot of everything.  [00:15:14] Jason: So, anyway, check that out right at the top, you'll see a little dog emoji and it says dogs on our website. And you can see, you know, a little bit of the passion we have for helping out dogs. All right. So we told the story of Chance. [00:15:27] And you would think after that we would be done. And I think we were for a little while. It was like, yeah, kind of free, especially for you to like, get past the PTSD of that. You beat yourself up quite a bit about it, which you can be good at times, right?  [00:15:43] Sarah: I'm really, yeah. Yeah. Because on the DISC profile, I'm a DC, so I'm super critical of everything and everyone, including myself. [00:15:54] Yeah.  [00:15:54] So yeah.  [00:15:56] Jason: Which good operators are hard time.  [00:15:58] Sarah: And hard time with that. And I, like I, I internalized a lot of that. I took blame for a lot of that and I had to just kind of work, work my way through that. And it kind of goes back to anytime that you deal with a hard situation, it might be in business or otherwise, you know, you're going to reflect on the situation and some people are really good at externalizing and saying like, none of that was my fault. [00:16:25] You know, I have like no ownership in that whatsoever. Some of people, they take all of the ownership and are really bad at externalizing. So I think you have to kind of find the middle ground. Like what am I responsible for? What am I accountable for? You know, how can I learn? I'm going to learn from that. [00:16:43] And for me it was the, it hands down, it was the scariest moment of my life. Most terrifying moment of my entire life. And I've been in some pretty scary situations back when I did property management. This puts it to shame, absolute shame. But I think it's really just, it's finding the middle ground and figuring out what am I responsible for and how can I learn. [00:17:06] Jason: I think also, I think that some people are kinder to themselves and have more grace for themselves. And I think it's important to remember, like all of us have been through tough stuff and we may beat ourselves up for it, but beating ourselves up doesn't really have any saving power. It doesn't make us better to beat ourselves up. [00:17:26] What we can do though, is we can recognize, you know, in that moment. And based on the decisions we made we were making the best decisions we knew to make at that time And I think you know, we can all afford ourselves a little bit of grace. You're going to make mistakes and screw things up in business. [00:17:41] You're going to fuck up and you're going to make bad choices. I've made some big mistakes like in business. You know, I did a whole episode on my two million dollar mistake or whatever you're going to make mistakes, but that's the price of tuition in business and you keep going. But I think also we need to be willing to afford ourselves some grace and recognize we're all doing the best we can with our current limited capacity and knowledge that we possessed in that moment. [00:18:08] And so if you knew better, you would do better, right? We are definitely going to behave differently having had that lesson with Chance with other dogs, right? We're a little bit more attuned to their behavior. their temperament, like how to integrate them. Like we're paying more attention. [00:18:25] Like we just, we have a different level of awareness and that's what happens in business. If you can move past the trauma and the difficulty and you go right back at it, you pick yourself back up. You dust yourself off. You're going to learn from the experience. So should we talk about some other dogs real quick? [00:18:42] All right. Who else? Well, let's first, let's go to the OG, right? So Parker's my baby. Parker is the best dog I've ever had. And I don't know if there's ever going to be a dog that is better than Parker. I just don't, I said that about my first pit bull and then Parker, I love him so much more than my first pit bull. [00:19:01] . So Parker, I got him 2016, so he's like eight now. And he his mom was a family pet who got out of the yard one day and got herself pregnant. So she went, had a good old time. Her owner found out that she was pregnant and decided to drop her off at the pound because he didn't want a pregnant dog. [00:19:25] Sarah: So, you know, instead of like spay, neuter, that whole thing, he's like, yeah, I'll just take her to the pound.  [00:19:29] Jason: Let's get rid of her.  [00:19:30] Like, while pregnant.  [00:19:32] Sarah: Still going to find you, bud. Like you're out there, I'll get you one day. So dropped her off at the pound. Pregnant dogs should not be at the pound. They will, you know. [00:19:40] Get very sick. So, they moved her to a foster. She had a bunch of puppies and Parker was one of those puppies. So I saved him and he's my baby. He's fiercely loyal and protective of me, even when he probably shouldn't be. Sometimes with Jason, he's protective of me. Like you'll smack my butt, and Parker does not like that.  [00:20:04] Jason: I do smack Sarah's butt butt, everybody. Honest confessions. Husbands, if you are not smacking your wife's butt occasionally, something's wrong. Letting you know. So.  [00:20:15] Sarah: Yeah. But Parker doesn't know. He doesn't know that. He doesn't know it's friendly and playful and loving. No. He knows hitting is bad. [00:20:21] I [00:20:22] Jason: have to do it when he's not nearby.  [00:20:24] Sarah: Yeah. To be fair, I can't hit myself either, so, like, if a bug lands on me or something, I hit myself.  [00:20:30] Jason: Yeah, he starts getting around you and, like, trying to, like, climb on you and, like, protect you from yourself, yeah.  [00:20:36] Sarah: He does.  [00:20:37] Jason: And he'll get, try and get in between us and, like, prevent me from getting near her, yeah. [00:20:41] He does.  [00:20:42] Sarah: He does. So Parker was the first dog that I had ever rescued.  [00:20:45] Jason: He's like a nanny dog.  [00:20:46] Sarah: He is a nanny dog. We call him the nanny dog. He is. And we say, when he's doing his thing, I'm like, oh, he's nanny dogging again. Yeah. So, Parker, we've got Parker. And then after the whole Chance thing, we took a break for about eight months. [00:21:01] And then I thought, okay, well, what if we do a smaller dog? Because after that, Parker was more selective with bigger dogs. Rightfully so. That's his version of PTSD. So I thought, okay, well, maybe a smaller dog could work. And that is where Captain came in. So Captain just for reference, size reference, Parker varies between 80 and 85 pounds. [00:21:24] Jason: Big dog.  [00:21:24] Sarah: Captain is 14, 14 pounds.  [00:21:27] Jason: Yeah, Parker's tall like a lab, but built like a pit bull.  [00:21:30] Sarah: Yeah. Yeah, so Captain is only 14 pounds. He's a little baby. He's about  [00:21:36] Jason: tiny  [00:21:37] Sarah: three or four ish He was we got him from a shelter about like an hour and a half away an hour 45 minutes away and Someone had him and his two brothers and decided they were done with him So they shoved them in a crate and they dropped them off at an animal shelter overnight  [00:21:56] Jason: Yeah, because it says you're not allowed to leave animals here. [00:21:59] So they secretly did it in the middle of the night, left the crate there.  [00:22:03] Sarah: On the doorstep. So the staff came in at 7 a. m. and found three dogs shoved in the crate. Huh. Super, super, don't be like these people, be better, okay? So, then him and Parker actually worked really well together and Like Captain just loves Parker so much. [00:22:21] He just loves him so much. Like I take Parker to the chiropractor and Captain stays here. And when I come back with Parker, Captain is way more excited to see Parker than he is to see me. He loves me so much, but he's like, just  [00:22:35] Jason: he's jumping all  [00:22:36] Sarah: over the moon about Parker. So Captain's our second rescue. [00:22:40] Jason: And Captain's, he's kind of a mutt. He, we did a DNA test on him.  [00:22:43] Sarah: Oh, no, he's a he's absolutely a mutt.  [00:22:45] Jason: Yeah, he's got Rat Terrier. He's got...  [00:22:48] Sarah: I think if you could do him in order, probably not.  [00:22:50] Jason: I don't know. Rat Terrier was probably the largest.  [00:22:52] Sarah: Rat Terrier is the largest. What's next? Then American Pit Bull Terrier, which is why he's brindle on the top. [00:22:57] Jason: Oh, yeah.  [00:22:58] Sarah: Huh. Yeah. Okay. Yep. American Pit Bull Terrier. Then Super Mutt.  [00:23:03] Jason: Yeah, that's what the That's a breed. Super Mutt.  [00:23:05] Sarah: I'm like, oh, wow. They call it a Super Mutt. Okay. Okay. It's like 14 percent Super Mutt. Huh. I think. Boston Terrier, Yorkshire Terrier, And then Dachshund, which is what we're told he was. [00:23:19] Jason: Yeah, and he's little. He's really little. He'll get in our face. All the time. Alright, so, next dog.  [00:23:27] Sarah: Yeah, so, we've had Captain for a little over a year now, and then I thought, okay let's foster. We won't adopt another one, but like, we'll foster, we'll, you know, help train it, kinda get it back on its feet, do something good, get it ready for a family. [00:23:42] And that's where Maynard came in.  [00:23:44] Jason: Mmm. Maynard.  [00:23:45] Sarah: That one, that, he's heartbreaking. So if any of you guys had followed us on social media, like, a lot of people I guess were checking in with you, like, how's Maynard? How's Maynard?  [00:23:55] Jason: Yeah it was hard to even look at him and not get emotional. This dog was so emaciated, so starving. [00:24:03] It was a bulldog. They found him in the, in San Antonio, on the street. And this is like in the height of summer. In 104 degree Texas heat, which, if you know anything about bulldogs, they can't breathe because their face is smushed. He was basically a skeleton with fur. If you see pictures or any of our, if you see it, you'll be like, Oh my gosh, like, how's this dog alive? [00:24:27] Yeah, he was covered in like over a hundred ticks. Yeah and he had all sorts of diseases and problems related to that.  [00:24:36] Sarah: Like lesions and wounds. Yeah, he had wounds.  [00:24:38] Jason: Burns it looked like all over his body? [00:24:40] Sarah: He may have hidden under a car that was hot and like burned himself on the hot car trying to find some shade. [00:24:47] Jason: Yeah. [00:24:47] Sarah: And cool himself down. Yeah  [00:24:49] Jason: It's super sad.  [00:24:51] Sarah: This dog was in bad shape. He was 25 pounds and he's supposed to be probably at least 50 or 60.  [00:24:57] Jason: Yeah, they spent And a whole evening trying to pull all the ticks off of him, like they had to give him a blood transfusion or he would have died. Like he was just, he was in bad shape,  [00:25:07] Sarah: He had two tick borne illnesses. [00:25:10] He had pneumonia. He needed a blood transfusion just to survive this. He was obviously severely emaciated and severely dehydrated. And eating, you can't just take a dog like that and shove a bunch of food like Edla, she was like, oh, we could just feed him a lot. And I'm like, you'll kill him. [00:25:29] He'll die. Yeah. So your body, very what happens when you're that far along is muscle atrophy. So your body will eat the muscle. So he had literally no muscle left on him anywhere.  [00:25:42] Jason: He didn't hardly walk  [00:25:42] Sarah: at all.  [00:25:43] Jason: He would just crumple over like he would like, yeah, he would try to walk. [00:25:46] You fall the time, man.  [00:25:47] Sarah: But he would try. He was really like, he tried. You'd think that a dog like this with this many problems would just say like, fuck it, I'm out. Like, I probably would. If I was up for it, I'd be like, alright, just, like, where's the plug? Pull it. Let's do it. But he did not. He did not want to give up. [00:26:04] He did not want to die.  [00:26:06] Jason: We had him for about a week?  [00:26:07] Sarah: We had him for a week. Yeah, we had him for a week.  [00:26:09] Jason: And then, like, he was in bad shape. I don't even think they should have let him come to us, but they didn't know all the stuff that was wrong with them. They  [00:26:15] Sarah: didn't, yeah, they didn't know everything because they didn't do the full like, scan. [00:26:19] Jason: So we had him for a week and took care of him, but we started to notice he was like, he was getting worse. So then we we reached out to the foster organization and then they took Maynard to the doctors and they were, like, he was in bad shape. His whole esophagus had been destroyed so he couldn't, like, move food down. [00:26:38] They've, we've, later they figured out, well, he just needs to sit upright, and like, gravity, and maybe that'll heal over time, I don't know, but he had a whole bunch of issues, but before they figured that out, they were like, this dog is in such bad shape. He's not really getting food down.  [00:26:53] Sarah: He's. Well, they didn't know what exactly. [00:26:54] Yeah, so they were about to put him down. When I brought him back to the vet. So they started doing some tests on him. They said he actually lost weight and I'm like that doesn't make sense. Like he's been with me for a week. He's eaten every day and he wants his food. Like he wants it, desperately wants his food. [00:27:11] And that doesn't, it doesn't make any sense. How did he lose weight? And they're like, I don't know. So then they found out that he had. A very rare parasitic infection that attacked his liver. He has heart disease. His pneumonia has gotten worse. And then they were trying to figure out the whole, why did he lose weight type situation? [00:27:38] And they ended up doing a scan. They did not think he was going to make it. They just, they didn't know. There was so much going on with him. Like issues as long as my arm, the list was as long as my arm and they didn't think he was going to make it. So the president of the organization, she let me know, she's like, I have to make a really tough decision right now. [00:27:59] Jason: And they put a lot of money towards this dog. The whole, like, a lot, thousands of dollars.  [00:28:03] Sarah: It was, I think his treatment was somewhere, All of it was like over like 7, 000 so far.  [00:28:09] Jason: Yeah, they were really doing everything they could to take care of this dog. But she was at the point where she was like, I think we're going to have to... yeah. [00:28:16] Sarah: Oh, and he was anemic on top of all of that. So he couldn't keep heat in.  [00:28:19] Jason: Okay.  [00:28:20] Sarah: Poor guy.  [00:28:20] Jason: So like, they were about to put him down. Right.  [00:28:25] Sarah: Yeah they decided like it doesn't seem like there's anything like he's too like he's just too far gone and The vet came in the room like with the shot and they said all right, let's give him like one last really awesome meal So they gave him mac and cheese and he Scarfed it down like you wouldn't even believe and that whole day and the whole day before he wasn't moving. [00:28:49] He wasn't walking. He wasn't really interested in anything. He was just very lethargic, very tired. He didn't, he did not care. Mac and cheese, he was like, what is that? Give me all of it. Perked right up for the mac and cheese. So the mac and cheese literally saved his life because he was minutes from being put down. [00:29:08] Said that she has never been that close to putting a dog down and then didn't do it.  [00:29:13] Jason: Yeah.  [00:29:14] Yeah, but that gave her hope that, Hey, there's something here. There's some life in him. And he's, You know, he's motivated for some reason.  [00:29:22] Sarah: Yeah. And the vet who was going to euthanize him then, she said, there is something weird with this dog. [00:29:30] Like, it's just, there's something off. We don't know, like, is it okay if we do like the full scan? And she's like, if you think it'll help him, like, if you think that we can figure this out and save him so that he has some quality of life. So  [00:29:45] Jason: because of the mac and cheese, and seeing something that seemed a little bit off, because that like, he was so excited about that and he was eating it, they then did and he perked up, they did the scan and they found what? [00:29:59] Sarah: So in dogs, they call it a mega esophagus. So essentially, his esophagus doesn't work. They think that he may have, back like when he was dumped on the side of the road, and also, I should, we should have said this, he was intact, so we think that he was used for breeding. And then when he got too far along, these fuckers dumped him on the side of the road. [00:30:21] So they're number two on the hit list. I will find them and they're not even far from me. I will go get them. So they dumped him on the side of the road. When he was on the side of the road they think that he either ate something or drank something that was toxic and messed up his whole esophagus. [00:30:38] Yeah. [00:30:39] So that's why he was eating food, but it was all impacted in his esophagus. Hardly any of it was actually getting through to his stomach.  [00:30:47] Jason: Yeah,  [00:30:48] Sarah: so they found that out and Bruni the president of the organization said well wait a second when he was with his fosters like he had a bowel movement So something had to have gotten through like what can we do? [00:30:59] She's like, what if we like prop them up. They have like a little Bailey chair, but they didn't have one there. So they made a makeshift one out of like blankets and cardboard.  [00:31:07] They're like, what if we do like a makeshift Bailey chair, test it for 24 hours, see if any food actually gets through into the stomach because that is a treatable condition. [00:31:17] Now, if they're born with it and then that's really hard. But he wasn't born with it. Something destroyed his esophagus. So they said, oh, that's like, it's a treatable condition. So what if we try this, give him 24 hours, and then he's got to show us that he can get some food and medication down into his stomach because all the medication for all of the problems, it wasn't even getting into his system. [00:31:46] Jason: Medicine, food, nothing was making it.  [00:31:48] Sarah: Nothing. No water. Like he had a couple bowel movements with us. So like Something must have, but not. Not the way he should have been. So after a 24 hour hold, he had a full stomach of food.  [00:32:02] Jason: Yeah, they figured out he just needed gravity. Like they just had to prop him up. [00:32:06] So he's sitting up like a human eating, you know, and he was perfectly happy to eat. Like he was a hungry dog. So then he went to be taken care of full time by the foster organization. Yeah [00:32:18] Sarah: He has multiple medications he has to eat like a very small strict  [00:32:23] Jason: And she has a lot of dogs at her place that she's taking care of so she asked if she had another foster. She said could you take this dog Silver? Yeah So then we got Silver was the next...  [00:32:33] Sarah: oh, wait. The thing I want to say about Maynard is that he had every reason to give up and he had every reason, multiple reasons. [00:32:43] Like he had like literally so many health problems.  [00:32:46] Jason: Yeah. And everybody around him had multiple reasons to give up on him. .  [00:32:48] Sarah: He had every reason to not trust humans and every reason to be like a nasty, vicious dog. And he just wasn't he was not he was so sweet and he loved to like just shove his little smush face into me And just nuzzle it and when it was in there, he still wasn't close enough He was still like pushing trying to get closer Because I think that was the first time he ever experienced love and even though he had every single reason stacked up against him. [00:33:19] Like the odds were not at all in his favor. There's no reason that this dog should technically be alive. It's only because he's so freaking stubborn. He did not want to give up on himself. Even through all of that, even through all of that, he didn't want to give up on himself. So when we were going through all of that, like with him, I was telling people like when I would run my scale calls on Fridays, my our operations call, I was telling people like. [00:33:45] If this dog can go through everything that he went through and still push through whatever is happening in your business, whatever is happening in your life, whatever is happening in your marriage, in your friendships, in your relationships, you can push through it. Because every single time that they thought they had the issue figured out, there were like five more issues that popped up with him. [00:34:08] Jason: Yeah, just tell yourself you're not yet at Maynard level. You can handle it though. He also had a really good support mechanism around him eventually, right? And I think that's also there's a little lesson in that is that you need If you're going to go through tough stuff, it's a lot better to have the right support around you and to have people that believe in you, even when you might feel like giving up, and that, you know, can see that you can be better. [00:34:36] And we need those. We need those people around us. And so if you don't have that in your business, it's probably feeling pretty hard because you're doing, you feel like it's all up to you and you're all on your own. And that's a dumb way to grow business. It just is. All right. Next dog.  [00:34:54] Sarah: Okay. So the medical foster that took Maynard after his second, third ER stint she said, Hey, like I, I cannot take another foster, but I have to take Maynard. [00:35:05] Can you take Silver? And then that gives me room to take Maynard. And I said, so Silver, like this is Austin Bulldog Rescue. They largely work with bulldogs. It's not only bulldogs, but most of them are bulldogs. Silver is not a bulldog. He looks like some sort of terrier. I think he had very terrier fur. But he was little, like 30 pounds. [00:35:28] Very high energy. He was probably like in his teenage phase. They also found him on the side of the road in San Antonio. The sad thing about him, though, is he had like, he was house trained. He had like house manners. So he lived in a house at one point. And Either escaped or was dumped, but he was hanging out with a pack of dogs and the bulldogs He was like, these are my friends and the rescue were saving all the dogs and they were like, okay There's like this other dog like what do we do? [00:35:58] And she's like, well, you can't leave him like come on he's an honorary bulldog now. So so they They fostered him, took him in, and then we had him. We had him for about a week, and he already had some applications coming in on him, and he got rehomed to a family that I think is a great fit for him. [00:36:17] Jason: Yeah.  [00:36:18] Sarah: They're such a good fit.  [00:36:19] Jason: Silver had a lot of energy. Yes. He was like doggy teenager. He had a ton of energy, super excited, loved running around. Yeah. Yeah.  [00:36:30] Sarah: And they're like, we want to go for a walk every day. And we like to go on hikes and we like to go camping and we'll bring the dogs. And I was like, Oh, he would like,  [00:36:37] Jason: he'll love that. [00:36:38] Sarah: He would love that. He would love that. And every dog that Silver saw, he wanted to play with every single one of them. And then they have another dog. So it was just figuring out, are those two going to be nice to each other? And they're great. He was very like respectful of her boundaries, which none of us had seen previous to that. [00:36:57] So that was really good. And they're doing great so far. And then. The woman that adopted him, she sends me pictures of him. Like, she's like, just so you know, he's doing great. I'm like, oh, thank you. Thanks for sending that.  [00:37:09] Jason: All right. Next.  [00:37:11] Sarah: Next is this guy behind me.  [00:37:13] Jason: Yeah.  [00:37:14] Sarah: Baby. [00:37:15] So we wanted to do another foster. Bulldogs are a lot of work, like so much work. And we went to a shelter that's local and we were looking, I was looking online for a dog that was not small, but also not large. So he's like 44 pounds ish. He's  [00:37:37] Jason: got a bit of a cough right now.  [00:37:39] Sarah: Yeah, he had kennel cough. [00:37:41] So we're. working on clearing that up with him and they don't know a whole lot about him. They found him as a stray in Round Rock but that's also so sad because he's so sweet and like he's house trained and he's got manners and I'm like, oh, Jason keeps saying he's like this somebody's like some family's dog like they must be missing their dog and I'm like, it was in the shelter for over a month. [00:38:06] So yeah, like Parker goes missing. I'm not sleeping until I find him.  [00:38:11] Jason: Sure. [00:38:11] Sarah: You know, I would there would be a bolo out on it everything like I would call the SWAT team like Everybody would be involved. So now we are fostering Hans and We're looking for a forever family for him. Although we might foster fail and keep them ourselves. [00:38:30] We'll see but we're That's what it called. It's foster fail.  [00:38:33] Jason: Oh. Yeah. This one's hard to not  [00:38:37] Sarah: The first day we got him, the two kids and Jason were already pushing me. They're like, we could just keep him.  [00:38:44] Jason: He's a special dog.  [00:38:45] Sarah: It didn't take long. They're like, we could just, and I thought I was going to be the one who was weak. [00:38:49] I thought I was going to be the one who says like, oh, we should keep him. Like, let's just keep him.  [00:38:54] Jason: Yeah.  [00:38:55] Sarah: And shockingly enough, I was the one that was like, yes, but like, we're fostering so we can help more dogs. And the three of them, they're like, but we can just keep him. He's so perfect. Aren't you perfect? [00:39:07] So if he gets along with our other two, then. I think we might keep them. We'll see. See what happens. So. All right. So there's our dog story. That's the current. That's what Jason wanted to talk about dog thing  [00:39:20] Jason: today. So, you know, gives you a little glimpse into, I guess, what? Our personal lives a little bit. [00:39:27] Some of the things that Sarah cares about that we care about. And yeah, so. Dogs. So if you like dogs, then maybe you enjoyed this episode and maybe you learned something. I don't know. All right. Well, I think that's it for today. Until next time to our mutual growth, everybody, if you're wanting to grow your property management business, you can use some extra support, then reach out to us. [00:39:50] You can check us out at doorgrow. com and be sure to join our free Facebook group. If you are a property management business owner or planning on starting a property management business in the near future, go to doorgrowclub.Com and join our free community and that's it. Bye everybody. [00:40:09] 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!  [00:40:35] At DoorGrow, we solve your biggest challenge: getting deals and growing your business. Find out more at doorgrow.com. Find any show notes or links from today's episode on our blog doorgrow.com, and to get notified of future events and news subscribe to our newsletter at doorgrow.com/subscribe. Until next time, take what you learn and start DoorGrow Hacking your business and your life.

Recently, Jason and Sarah hosted a few momentum coaching calls where they taught DoorGrow Mastermind members ways to grow and scale their businesses. In this episode of the #DoorGrowShow, property management growth experts Jason and Sarah Hull go over 3 strategies property managers can use to increase their close rate. You'll Learn [01:53] Sales in a post-trust era [07:16] Objection-handling with a newer sales strategy [09:59] Proof bomb testimonials [13:55] One of the most effective selling tools Tweetables “A lot of you are trying to sell the way you learned maybe in real estate or the way that things happen in the past and you're probably finding it harder and harder as well.” “My agenda is to figure out simply, do they need what we have?” “If they can't find a consequence to not starting now, then they won't start now.” “People's trust levels are at an all-time low. And so in selling, I've had to really change things up.” Resources DoorGrow and Scale Mastermind DoorGrow Academy DoorGrow on YouTube DoorGrowClub DoorGrowLive TalkRoute Referral Link Transcript [00:00:00] Jason: If you have any leads, deals, opportunities in the pipeline right now, and you would love to maybe double your close rate or double the deal count that you're getting out of your existing lead flow, I think these three elements combined would easily do that.  [00:00:14] Welcome DoorGrow property managers to the DoorGrow show. If you are a property management entrepreneur that wants to add doors, make a difference, increase revenue, help others, impact lives, and you are interested in growing in business and life, and you're open to doing things a bit differently, then you are a DoorGrow property manager. [00:00:31] DoorGrow Property Managers love the opportunities, daily variety, unique challenges, and freedom that property management brings. Many in real estate think you're crazy for doing it. You think they're crazy for not because you realize that property management is the ultimate, high trust gateway to real estate deals, relationships, and residual income. [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. We're your hosts, property management, growth experts, Jason, and Sarah Hull the owners of DoorGrow. [00:01:10] Now let's get into the show.  [00:01:13] So today we're going to talk a little bit, this is going to be a quick episode. We've got camera malfunctions. I don't know. I don't know what's going on, but I had a coaching call with clients recently, just the other day. We do these momentum coaching calls with some of our clients in the mastermind to get them back in momentum. [00:01:31] Like if they've maybe been disengaged a little for a little bit, or they've been focused on other things, or they're kind of unclear on what they should be doing next, we want to get them back in the state of momentum, which is where entrepreneurs want to be. And so, on that call, I was sharing with them some of the new stuff cause some of them have been a little bit unplugged and we're always adding new, innovative ideas. [00:01:53] So one of the things that I've noticed recently is that sales, we're kind of in this post trust era. I've noticed over the last three, four years, sales has become really difficult. It's become harder to sell using older sales tactics or typical sales tactics. And so I had to change up how it was selling. [00:02:14] And I did a lot of research, a lot of study. I took an empathy course and a communication thing, like seminar thing, and just a bunch of other stuff. And the old school sales, methodology just isn't working here in this post trust sort of era, like nobody believes anything anymore. The news, you can't really trust it. [00:02:37] We all know now the news is fake, right? Voting has been fake. Food's been fake, right? A lot of the medical stuff shoved on us, fake, right? Just saw something about the conspiracy theory or scam of like C sections being pushed on people, which is like ridiculous amounts, like everything's fake. [00:02:56] And so we don't know who or what we can trust. But we trust ourselves and so what I've noticed is people's trust levels are an all time low And so in selling I've had to really change things up and transparently sales was not going really well for us for a while, right? [00:03:13] Sarah: Yeah.  [00:03:13] Jason: Like we had a lot of clients that stayed in our program, but closing deals was hard.  [00:03:17] Sarah: Yeah, and we didn't focus on sales. [00:03:20] Jason: Yeah, it wasn't really a focus for us. At all. We focused a lot on the product. Yeah.  [00:03:24] Sarah: For like a year and a half maybe almost two years and then by the time we needed to focus on sales, it wasn't as easy to like, just flip a switch as we thought. We were like, "okay, we're ready now. Like, let's amp up sales." And they were like, "oh, that isn't happening the way we thought." [00:03:43] Like, we just thought, you know, like, just pick it right back up where you left off.  [00:03:47] Jason: Yeah. I thought, because I hadn't been doing sales for years. Like I had sales team members, people. So then I was like I'll go back to doing sales. And and the game has changed. Like, and a lot of you are trying to sell the way you learned maybe in real estate or the way that things happen in the past and you're probably finding it harder and harder as well. [00:04:08] I would imagine. So what I've noticed is that we need to shift to a different model. So I shifted to a more question based empathetic model of selling. And I went through and coached our clients on this and they're already starting to get some different results, which is awesome. My close rate using this different methodology has gone through the roof. [00:04:32] So what I've noticed, my close rate has gone through the roof, but what I've noticed is by just being super curious and not trying to sell something. [00:04:40] And I know that sounds wild, like I'm closing way more deals by not trying to sell. I'm just being curious and I'm just being helpful and I'm asking a lot of questions. If I'm on an hour call, I'm spending like almost the entire call just asking questions and letting them talk. If I ask questions in a strategic order, what I'm noticing is that if I ask the right questions, it helps them figure out what their problem is. It helps them figure out what their sort of ideal solution is. It helps them figure out what the consequence is if they don't change this, or if they continue doing what they're doing. [00:05:14] And then at the very end, like, I'll get into the pitch a little bit. But what I'm noticing is people don't know, we assume people know what their problem is. Like somebody comes to you for property management and you're like "they're already dealing with the problem. They're aware." They might be superficially, but they're not aware of the problem. They're not aware of how they feel about the problem. They're not aware fully about what the impact of that problem is. And they're not really even aware of what they want or what the ideal solution is to some degree. They become aware of all of this stuff when you ask them, like in that moment. [00:05:47] And so when I start asking clients these questions, they start, these potential clients, they start formulating this real time. I know NLP stuff. I can see their eyes moving around the right way. I know they're now creating this in their head. They're figuring it out. And if they don't know that they have a problem or where their pain is and what they want and what paradise looks like and the ideal outcomes and if they haven't formulate all this, it's really difficult to close the deal. It's really difficult to get them to move forward towards what they want. And I've also given up focusing on trying to you know, having any sort of agenda. My agenda is to figure out simply do they need what we have? I can see this, but they need to figure this out. So I need to ask questions to help them see that they might benefit from this or that they need something. And they, if they do identify that they need something different or they need help, then the next question I need to figure out is, do they want what we have? And that's it! i'm no longer trying to pitch and spending the majority of the call telling them how awesome our program is and all the cool stuff that we have. I go through and I just ask some questions and then at the very end My pitch is like I just picked three things because there's so much in our program. It was overwhelming people.  [00:07:02] I spent the whole call like "we have this call! We do this! We have this! And we have all this content in DoorGrow Academy and Telegram messenger access and blah blah blah," and like they were just like "oh, well, I need to think about it." And if you overwhelm them with features and benefits, you're going to get that objection every time. What I'm finding is with this new methodology of selling that I've been coaching clients on there's a very few objections. [00:07:22] There's not really anything to object to because you've gotten clear on what their problem is. They've gotten clear on what the problem is that you've gotten them clear on what the, you know the positive future outcome would look like and they're clear on that now, and so that creates this pain gap in between and then you're able to create urgency and one of my big challenges is I wasn't able to create urgency because I didn't get them clear on their problem or what they wanted and what that gap felt like and if the if that was really an issue And then I didn't ask some questions to help them get clear on why does this matter now? [00:07:58] Does this why would it matter to get this going now? Why not change it? Why not keep it the same and by asking that it helps them to identify also urgency and so then adding urgency was one of the big things I was missing because everybody would go through, listen to me pitch. And they'd be like, "this sounds amazing. It sounds like it's solved my problems. It sounds really great, but I'm onboarding a new assistant right now and I'll do it later." Or "I'm dealing with this challenge right now," or "I've got this problem in my business right now," or "it's summer and things really busy," right? And so there was no urgency. [00:08:30] And so if you're running into that with clients, the lack of urgency is caused by a lack of identifying this pain gap and then a lack of helping them identify what's going on. Why does it matter to do this now? Is there any consequence? And if they can't find a consequence to not starting now, then they won't start now. [00:08:47] They may never start. And so, my close rate is ridiculously high lately. And I'm not really doing anything other than asking questions to help them figure out what they want rather than trying to push my really cool ideas like, shove it, cram it down their throat, you know, like old style sales. [00:09:06] So I don't have to deal with objections. I don't have to use manipulative things like, "do you want the red one or the blue one?" And they're like, "I didn't even say I wanted one." You know, you don't have to use any of these old school. Pushy, icky sales tactics. And so what I'm also noticing is it doesn't create sales resistance or ick, this gross feeling in them that they feel like you're like disgusting or they feel awkward. [00:09:30] And a lot of you that have problems doing sales or you have problems with salespeople or you have problems feeling comfortable being a sales person or identifying with that, it's because of that gross feeling that you get when selling, when you're being pushy or manipulative instead of helpful. So I'm actually really enjoying doing sales because to me this feels more like what I love to do, which is coaching so that's one of the things I talked about with our coaching clients. Other thing I talked about with proof. [00:10:00] Sarah: The other thing that you're gonna do right now is take a break.  [00:10:03] Jason: Oh, we're going to take a break and then I'll tell you about proof bombs. One of our sponsors for this episode is Vendoroo. We're hearing great things and getting great feedback. So if you're tired of the constant stress and hassle of maintenance coordination, check out Vendoroo, your AI driven in house maintenance expert that handles work orders from start to finish, triaging, troubleshooting, vendor selection and coordination. Built by property managers for property managers to provide cost effective and accountable maintenance operations where every dollar is accounted for and every task is handled with unmatched reliability, Vendoroo takes care of the details so you can focus on growth. Schedule a demo today by going to vendoroo.ai. vendoroo.ai/DoorGrow and experience maintenance done right. And go to that page, you get a special little perk or benefit. So, check out Vendoroo. We're hearing great feedback. And this is part of the AI revolution right now. If you're not doing stuff like this, you're getting left behind. [00:11:00] So, we're hearing some amazing things. True Submeter. Let me tell you about True Submeter. If you are a property owner or manager, check out True Submeter, the number one water Submetering company in the U. S. Say goodbye to water use abuse by your tenants, and hello to billing for exact water consumption. [00:11:21] With no unit minimum, enjoy smart, cost effective solutions designed to optimize your properties operations and save you money. Plus get an exclusive 10 percent discount with the code DoorGrow10. That's DoorGrow one zero. Visit True Submeter today for intelligent utility solutions and substantial savings. [00:11:43] That's truesubmeter. com. Okay. Proof bombs. The other cool thing I shared, it was an idea I learned from one of my mentors, which is Sharran Srivatsaa. Do you want to mention, tell them about Sharran?  [00:11:54] Sarah: Yeah. So, if you guys are in real estate there's a publicly traded real estate company. [00:12:02] Which is insane. Like it's on the stock market. Crazy. It's real. R E A L. Real. He's the CEO. Yeah. Of Real. They're A multi billion, billion with a B, yeah, multi billion dollar company. And they're growing really rapidly. They do some really cool stuff. Thanks to Sharran's leadership. Yeah. [00:12:26] Sharran's a really cool dude. His story's just so interesting. And he like, I mean, he literally came here with like 150 in his pocket and he got robbed on the street. So then he had zero dollars in his pocket and he's just so Well, wait such a cool dude. [00:12:41] Jason: I want to share this story. So he got robbed He had a certain amount of money and then he negotiated with the thief to allow him to just have enough money so he could like do a train ride or get on the train. So he negotiated with the thief, like, and he was able to  [00:12:56] Sarah: "...take all of my money." [00:12:57] Jason: Yeah. "Just leave me this much and you can have the rest." And they did that, like, he's negotiating. This just like, he's just a brilliant guy. And so he shared this idea with proof bombs and he was sharing how he had basically taught this to Alex Hormozi if you've heard of Alex Hormozi or followed his stuff, Sharran's kind of one of the mentors behind the content that Alex Hormozi shares. [00:13:20] And Alex Hormozi used this proof bomb concept in his book launch that went amazingly well. And proof bombs are basically this idea of showing a visual testimonial that you can just see without having to watch the video which uses like a photo and bullet points and some data as evidence and stuff like this. [00:13:39] So I trained my clients on how to create proof bombs, which we have in our pitch deck that I'll pull up sometimes or that we use because it helps get an idea across very quickly using images basically. And so, we shared the idea of proof bombs. And the other, the third idea I shared on these calls was I coached clients on an offer doc because the question came up, "well, what if I don't have a really effective website or I don't have a website yet? I need to wait until you guys help me with that before I can really sell effectively." And then I shared with them what's more effective, even if you have a website or what we call offer documents. If you have conversations with us, we will share one of our offer documents with you at some point, because this gives you everything you need to know or understand about our offer, our program, or what you might be interested in. So we have offer documents for just about everything in our DoorGrow all our different programs our different one day things events stuff like this we have offer documents. So I shared, I coached clients on how to build out these offer documents real effective. [00:14:44] And so those three elements alone will dramatically increase somebody's close rate, like significantly. So if you have any leads, deals, opportunities in the pipeline right now, and you would love to maybe double your close rate or double the deal count that you're getting out of your existing lead flow, these, I think these three elements combined would easily do that. [00:15:06] It'd be significant. Yeah. Very significant. My close rate is just through the roof right now. And if you want to experience some of the sales magic and not even feel like you're being sold to or sold on anything because nobody wants to be sold really, set up a call with our team and we'll help you grow. [00:15:24] We'll help you figure out if we can help you. So, that's basically what I've been up to lately. Is there anything else we should share?  [00:15:30] Sarah: I don't know if I told you this. On the scale call on Friday, Portia actually mentioned that they created offer docs and she's like, "these work so well." She's like, "these are so cool." [00:15:39] She's like, "this is such an awesome tool." So, you're not, you don't run that call, I run that call. So, I wanted to... yeah.  [00:15:47] We've got clients, super excited.  [00:15:49] Jason: We've got clients creating offer documents, proof bombs, and and using that new sales model and they're seeing results. So, just some of the latest stuff just to kind of open up the I don't know, the curtain a little bit and let you know what are some of the things that we're helping people at DoorGrow accomplish and do. Always innovating, always learning and getting new ideas. So that's the advantage of having coaches and mentors, which we have, and we recommend you have. So if you're interested in getting coach, it doesn't have to be us. Go get one. [00:16:23] If you are interested in it being us, then you can check us out at DoorGrow. com. And until next time, to our mutual growth.  [00:16:31] Sarah: Oh, and check out our Facebook group.  [00:16:33] Jason: DoorGrow club. com Join our free facebook community. And that's it until next time, to our mutual growth. Bye everyone [00:16:41] 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!  [00:17:08] At DoorGrow, we solve your biggest challenge: getting deals and growing your business. Find out more at doorgrow.com. Find any show notes or links from today's episode on our blog doorgrow.com, and to get notified of future events and news subscribe to our newsletter at doorgrow.com/subscribe. Until next time, take what you learn and start DoorGrow Hacking your business and your life.

There was a recent event where the stock market plunged. Some are speculating about an impending recession. We're seeing the real estate market downturn in real time…  In today's episode of the #DoorGrowShow, property management growth experts Jason and Sarah Hull talk about the impact the current real estate market and economic downturn will have on property management businesses. You'll Learn [02:10] The current state of the economy [10:00] The real estate market and leasing challenges [21:07] Having empathy in property management [25:03] Real estate investing in a recession Tweetables “In every single recession, new millionaires are made and this is an opportunity for that to happen.” “Those that have built that ark so to speak, like Noah did, are prepared for the storm. They're ready. They're just going to float through it instead of drown.” “We always have to remember that property management is a relationship business.” “One of the most magical, impactful ingredients that you wouldn't think has an impact in getting people to move or do things or to take action is empathy.” Resources DoorGrow and Scale Mastermind DoorGrow Academy DoorGrow on YouTube DoorGrowClub DoorGrowLive TalkRoute Referral Link Transcript [00:00:00] Sarah: If you want to be in doom and gloom and "the sky's falling and I'm never going to make any money" then you're absolutely right. But if you want to look at the opportunity that is staring you in the face and say, "what can I do with this and how can I capitalize on this?" that is where millions are made.    [00:00:16] Jason: Welcome DoorGrow property managers to the DoorGrow show. If you are a property management entrepreneur that wants to add doors, make a difference, increase revenue, help others, impact lives. And you are interested in growing in business and life. And you're open to doing things a bit differently, then you are a DoorGrow property manager. DoorGrow property managers love the opportunities, daily variety, unique challenges, and freedom that property management brings. Many in real estate think you're crazy for doing it. You think they're crazy for not, because you realize that property management is the ultimate, high trust gateway to real estate deals, relationships, and residual income. At DoorGrow, we are on a mission to transform property management business owners and their businesses. We want to transform the industry, eliminate the BS, build awareness, change perception, expand the market, and help the best property management entrepreneurs win. We're your hosts, property management growth experts, Jason and Sarah Hull, the owners of DoorGrow. [00:01:22] Now let's get into the show. All right.  [00:01:27] Sarah: That was good multitasking there.  [00:01:29] Jason: You saw that? See.  [00:01:30] Sarah: I saw that. That was one time of you multitasking. So you are capable of it.  [00:01:35] Jason: That was hard, but I had that part of the intro memorized. I was putting my phone on do not disturb as I was reading and she decided to call it out. It's hard, right guys? It's hard for us to multitask. Women have us beat in this area.  [00:01:49] Sarah: Oh, yeah. Yeah, we dominate you here.  [00:01:52] Jason: Yeah, your brains are just wired differently, but we have that singular focus advantage. We can just cut everything else out and focus on one thing at a time. [00:02:01] Sarah: Well, speaking of focusing on one thing at a time, let's get into the show.  [00:02:07] Jason: Yeah.  [00:02:07] Sarah: So we were going to talk about some doom and gloom today.  [00:02:10] Jason: Yeah. So we just saw the stock market tank, like a thousand points, right. Pretty wild. And friend of mine who runs a company, Jeremy Pound, he had mentioned, I saw his post online. [00:02:23] Shout out to Jeremy. He said, "now's the time to reach out to your real estate investor clients and say, 'Hey, look, your property didn't go down by a thousand points and never will,'" you know, something like that. So I thought that was clever. But yeah, real estate, probably a better investment right now than long term but a lot of investors are still in general freaking out. There's a recession that seems to be looming and coming or is already here depending on who you listen to. And so yeah, the sky is falling and chicken little's been shouting which is the news media and like everything bad is coming and so is this going to be how's this going to impact property management? [00:02:59] Might be a good question to start with.  [00:03:01] Sarah: Yeah, I think one of the things that we're already seeing is we have been seeing in many markets at least a decline in prices if you are trying to purchase a property right now. And we are no longer, no matter what market you're in, because some markets have still held pretty steady, no matter what market you're in, we're no longer in the days in which you list the property on a Monday, you get multiple offers and it's accepted for well over the list price the same day. [00:03:40] We're not in that situation any longer. So how does that affect property management? Well, on the real estate side, investors right now should be, if they're not, but they should be looking. Because things are on sale right now.  [00:04:00] Jason: Steals.  [00:04:01] Sarah: So as you think about what is your favorite store of all time? [00:04:06] Let's ask you, what's your favorite store ever?  [00:04:10] Jason: Amazon. Amazon. Okay, cool. I spend a lot of money there.  [00:04:12] Sarah: That's great. That's actually, you know, I wouldn't have thought of that. Because I don't, for my brain doesn't equate it to a store, but I guess it is.  [00:04:18] Jason: Okay.  [00:04:19] Sarah: I love it. I love Amazon. Okay, cool. Amazon. So if Amazon had a sale where everything was 30 percent off, would you probably buy some stuff? [00:04:29] Jason: Oh yeah, I'd buy a ton of stuff.  [00:04:31] Sarah: What if it was 55 percent off? 60. Oh. 70.  [00:04:36] Jason: No brainer. I would stock up on so much stuff.  [00:04:39] Sarah: You'd be like, "I don't even need this, but what if I do?"  [00:04:41] Jason: A million supplements. I would like.  [00:04:43] Sarah: Right.  [00:04:44] Jason: I'd be healthy set for the next year.  [00:04:46] Sarah: You'd be buying everything. So investors, this is your call. [00:04:48] Hello, real estate is on sale right now. So the savvy investors, they already know this. They're super excited right now. The savvy investors are not freaking out. The savvy investors. They know. This is where millions of dollars can be made and in fact in every single recession new millionaires are made and this is an opportunity for that to happen. [00:05:18] So people who are like the accidental investors and they've got that property they've been hanging on to and they're just waiting until the market gets hot enough and then they'll probably sell it. But in the meantime, I guess I'll hang on to it and rent it out. They're going to freak out right now. [00:05:36] They're going, "Oh my God, what if rents dip even more? What if vacancy rates are longer? So I can't fill a property or my property manager can't fill a property in a week like they used to be able to?" It was just churn them out and hurry up, get another one in there, find a warm body, put them in. They're like coming in droves. [00:05:54] That's not the situation anymore. And they will freak out. But the investors that understand the situation that we're in and the market at where it stands. Oh man, they are excited. Yeah, I'm excited right now. I'm like great tank, baby. Let's go . [00:06:12] Jason: So the big news out there like right now is Warren Buffett decided to sell off a ton of stock like half of his stake in Apple like some major things and he doesn't make very many moves, right? [00:06:24] He's like this minimalist in making Purchases or selling he's like he's the he's got the diamond hands, right? And He's now sitting on a cash stock pile 277 billion  [00:06:39] Sarah: billion with a b  [00:06:40] Jason: he's just hanging out with cash He's waiting for the bottom to hit because he knows he must know that things are going to get worse.  [00:06:47] Sarah: Because he's gonna go shopping. [00:06:50] Jason: Yeah, he's gonna he's definitely waiting to go shopping is my guess And so there's going to be some deals to be had And that may mean the real estate market could be getting worse. Could be getting a lot worse, perhaps. So, and if that's the case, then savvy investors right now should be stacking cash, right? [00:07:09] Property managers, you should be stacking cash because you should be a savvy investor. And looking for these deals. Now we've been through a recession before here at DoorGrow. Historically, what I've seen happen whenever there's a recession, the real estate market kind of dries up. Things get tough for real estate agents. [00:07:26] So a lot of real estate agents get squeezed out. So they find other jobs. And there's quite a few of them that think, "well, why don't I do property management?" And a lot of you listening, maybe during the last recession, that's what you did. You started a property management business. Maybe that's why you're now listening to this podcast and you have a property management business that you've probably, hopefully grown by since the last recession to at least 200 units or something, but maybe you haven't put enough focus on it. [00:07:53] Who knows. Those that have built that ark so to speak like Noah did are prepared for the storm. They're ready. They're just gonna float through it instead of drown. And you're going to see a lot of people scrambling to start property management businesses. That being said if you are a real estate agent, you're struggling you're like, "you know what? I don't really like the hunt and the chase of real estate buying and selling I would be really interested in property management," check out our foundations program. It's pretty great And it's super affordable. Hit us up, learn about DoorGrow Foundations. It's going to help you avoid thousands of dollars in costly mistakes and stupidity in getting started.  [00:08:33] Sarah: Since we're talking about avoiding costly mistakes, it would be a great time to talk about our sponsor.  [00:08:39] Jason: Cool. So, let's talk about Vendoroo. All right. Awesome new tech. Are you tired of the constant stress and hassle of maintenance coordination? Meet Vendoroo, your AI driven, in house maintenance expert that handles work orders from start to finish, triaging, troubleshooting, vendor selection and coordination. Built by property managers for property managers to provide cost effective and accountable maintenance operations where every dollar is accounted for and every task is handled with unmatched reliability. Vendoroo takes care of the details. So you can focus on growth schedule demo today at Vendoroo that's a vendor, V E N D O R O O like a kangaroo, get it? Dot AI. vendoroo.ai/doorgrow and experience maintenance done right. We've got some clients getting great results with that. [00:09:33] Yeah. So check that out. We're in an AI revolution right now.  [00:09:37] Sarah: Get in.  [00:09:38] Jason: We're hearing great things from our clients about this so far. I mean, it's been programmed for the last 12 years and has over half a million work orders already in it and never forgets any detail you tell it about the property and is intelligent. [00:09:53] And they put a human layer between that. So it's really cool. All right. Yeah. Back to the topic at hand.  [00:10:00] Sarah: Let's also talk about how things look right now in the property management world because you're like, "yeah, Sarah, things are on sale right now. Cool. But, man, it's just tough being a property manager right now. It's harder than it normally is." And a lot of times what we're seeing is again in certain markets right now is well rents are lower and that means property managers typically make less especially on that percentage part that you're charging so if the rent is 5, 000 versus if the rent is 1, 000, simple math will tell you, yes, you'll make less when the rents dip. [00:10:40] The other part of that is occupancy. So just like we used to be, what, two years ago, three years ago, we used to be able to list a property for sale and we would have multiple offers very quickly and it was no problem getting it sold. And the rental market has shifted a little bit as well. So we used to go, "Oh, we have a vacant property. Well, let's market it. And then we're going to have multiple applications and we'll get it filled really quick. It could be in a day. It could be in a week, but we know it's going to happen and we're not really worried." And now we're seeing that cycle take a little bit longer. So the rents are lower and the renting cycle of getting the applications and finding someone who's qualified, that is taking a little longer, so now it might take a few weeks. And if things are really bad, that might take a few months.  [00:11:38] Jason: So in some markets, vacancies are up right now, rents are lower, the rent cycle's taking longer, so leasing in general can be a bit more of a challenge. [00:11:47] And to be fair, a lot of property managers in the longterm rental management game, I've had it pretty easy, right? When you look at like multifamily stuff like this, 2020,  [00:11:58] Sarah: 2021, like none of y'all were complaining then, right? Super easy then.  [00:12:03] Jason: When you look at the multifamily industry, like getting tenants in place has always been a challenge in a lot of these multi family places And so they focus on this. [00:12:12] They're more aggressive. They put a lot more attention on this and so It may mean that you're going to need to put some greater attention on the leasing side of things to be a bit more competitive and a bit more aggressive to get these properties seen to get these properties like showed, to get these properties rented out. [00:12:33] So what are some things that they can do to kind of deal with this challenge with leasing right now?  [00:12:37] Sarah: Well, number one, I think the most important thing that you can do here is you may need to look at changing your processes depending on what they are in the leasing process, specifically regarding showings, right? [00:12:52] So if you're like, "well, we do two showings a week." This is how I used to do things. "I do two showings a week and one is at this day, this time. The other one is at this day, this time. This is when you can come and look at the property." Well, if we consistently aren't having anyone show up and then now all of a sudden we have someone who's interested and they can't make any of those showings, you may need to change your processes, right? So now we might need to look at "how can I offer more flexibility for someone who is qualified and interested? How can I offer more flexibility?" And that doesn't mean, "oh, I'm just going to be on call 24 hours a day as a leasing agent, and I'm just going to jump when somebody says, 'hey, I want to look at this property.'" [00:13:34] That is not what you're going to do. So, can we do self showings? Can we use electronic lock boxes? Can we have a team member just go to the property, unlock the door, stand and wait, and then lock it up? Because that's what I used to do, right? "Well, they have to be licensed." No one has to be licensed to unlock a door. [00:13:56] Unlock the door, stand there and wait, and lock up when they're gone. That does not require a license, right? So how can we offer more flexibility so that people who are interested are now able to go see the property when it's convenient for them? Because they might work 9 to 5. So 5:30 might be impossible because at 5:30 I'm stuck in traffic. Right. So I might need a 7 o'clock showing or a 7:30 showing, or I might need to do something on the weekend. But on the weekend, you know, I have all my kids stuff and soccer camp and all this stuff. So like finding those little spots that do work for them. "Well, great. What day and time would be good for you because I can see if I can fit you in" and, or if you have the electronic lock boxes that opens a whole host of availability. I think they shut off at a certain time. So you can't go at like midnight. Right? But, then you have a whole bunch of available slots. And they get to choose what's convenient.  [00:14:57] Jason: So, maybe even a step earlier, which I love the idea, like, you can start to be more flexible. [00:15:04] And maybe that could be helpful is just to get more eyeballs on properties maybe optimizing the listings and so there's several ways to optimize listings and a lot of property managers probably been a little bit lazy about this. Some companies put a lot of detail on this but this is a competitive advantage if you have better photos. We've had companies on like box brownie and others where they will improve or edit the photos there's so many ai tools now as well for photos and so if you can get your photos optimized and improved without lying without like, "Hey, look, the carpet and the walls are all perfect." And AI made it that way. And it looks like garbage, right? That is not going to like bode well for you. But yeah, if you are getting better photography, Improving and optimizing the listings, making sure the descriptions are really clear, adding video tours to these. One of the big things I would look at I loved seeing on any listings when we were looking to buy a rental property to rent out or anything. I love seeing the floor plans  [00:16:05] Sarah: That's so easy. [00:16:06] Jason: Just I love seeing the floor plans like then I could go "oh, this is how it all fits together. This is how it works," you know and all these photos that are taken from the corner with a wide angle lens and make everything look giant. That stuff's probably not serving you. It's not showcasing reality And so I think there's going to be a greater push with ai and fake humans and all this stuff, there's going to be a greater desire for humans to get reality. Everything's been fake news, fake everything, fake voting, fake food, right? Everybody's waking up to this So we need to stop trying to make everything look better than it is. We need to start showcasing reality. And so it might mean photos instead of wide angle from the corner, maybe more like we've done with our airbnb taking photos straight on. [00:16:52] Sarah: I think with Airbnb, that works really well. The types of photos I've put on our Airbnb, I would not.  [00:16:58] Jason: You wouldn't do on real estate?  [00:17:00] Sarah: What I would do though is I don't want to use the wide angle lens. That's going to make a little tiny closet look triple its size.  [00:17:08] Jason: Sure.  [00:17:08] Sarah: So that I think is something. [00:17:10] But still maybe from the corners. Yeah. And I would because when you're trying to either sell or rent a home, you are looking like, "Hey, imagine your family in here. Look how big the space is. Look how great it is. It's beautiful. Lots of light." But don't advertise there's lots of light if there's not lots of light, right? [00:17:27] So be realistic in it, but still do things to make it look attractive. That being said, a step even before the listing is really do some research in the market. What's available? "So, okay, this property, I can rent it out. I know what it looks like because I'm familiar with it, but this property is competing against other properties. What do the other properties in my market look like?" If all of the other properties have a swimming pool and you're the one without a swimming pool, you may have a problem, right? So if all of the other properties, they have certain amenities. You may need to look to see, "Hey, is it possible for us to also get these amenities?" [00:18:10] Right? So you might need to look at doing some updates to flooring, kitchens, bathrooms, and it may or may not be something that investors are able to invest in right now. But the important thing is, "Hey, this is in fact, an investment."  [00:18:29] Jason: Sure.  [00:18:29] Sarah: So right now, what we might need to do in order to be more attractive and in order to get those higher rents and in order to find a qualified tenant sooner, we might need to put some work into the property to make it look more attractive. [00:18:42] Now, right now that might seem really painful. However, it is an investment, which will give you an ROI on the property because even though rents are low right now, everything moves in cycles in real estate and the stock market. So we're at a low right now, but we're not going to stay there because if you recall, just two short years ago, it was booming. [00:19:08] So see how quickly things can change? So that means that in even two years from now, this can very easily be something that "Hey, rents have bounced back." And now this calls for a higher rent.  [00:19:24] Jason: So price is also going to be a factor right? And being able to get and convince your owners that "hey, we're going to need to drop the price. It's not just about cashflow in having a rental property." We've talked about our ROI calculator on previous episodes that have been helping clients close deals But being able to showcase the life the investment long term of the property, even if it's not cash flowing right now, it's still a good investment to keep can be effective and just getting the price low enough sometimes is what it takes to get at least out like that's always going to be a significant factor.  [00:20:01] Sarah: Absolutely.  [00:20:01] Jason: Related to that, our next sponsor is True Submeter. So with True Submeter, what's interesting about this is you have multi family properties and you're trying to fold the utilities into the rent and your rent looks higher on listings than other places where they're not including the utilities, then you are putting yourself at a disadvantage. [00:20:21] Here's a way to solve this. Attention, multifamily property owners and managers. Discover True Submeter, the number one water submetering company in the U. S. Say goodbye to water use abuse by your tenants and hello to billing for exact water consumption with no unit minimum. Enjoy smart, cost effective solutions designed to optimize your property's operations and save you money. Plus, get an exclusive 10 percent discount with the code DOORGROW10. That's DoorGrow one zero. Visit truesubmeter.Com today for intelligent utility solutions and substantial savings. That's truesubmeter.com [00:20:57] Another way, maybe to get the rent down, at least on the surface and the utility separate. All right. So, I think another factor in solving the leasing challenge... I've been studying sales a lot lately and one of the most magical, impactful ingredients that you wouldn't think has an impact in getting people to move or do things or to take action is empathy. [00:21:25] And so there are a lot of tenants that they will pick you, or pick getting a property from your business because you showed care, you showed empathy. You weren't an asshole. You weren't rude to them. You didn't make them feel unimportant or like a number and so just showing a little bit of care and showing a little bit of empathy is often the determining factor why somebody picks something over anything else. "Well, I got along better with them," or "they were nicer to me," or "they seemed like they actually cared and I could imagine them as a landlord" or "they answered their phone."  [00:21:58] Sarah: "They answered the phone when I called them, that was helpful." [00:22:01] Jason: And so adding in empathy or making sure that the people that are having, like working on the leasing and you know, showing the property and communicating with the tenants are team members that are feelers and are empathetic and show care would probably be a little bit more effective in getting placement would be my guess. [00:22:22] Sarah: One of our clients, I think he's outside of the Chicago area, Ed Kirch. He was saying in his area, there's like two, 300. New apartment buildings like being built and they're like large multifamily like apartment complex buildings. And then of course, they're not going to work with like a small mom and pop. [00:22:40] They're like, they're corporate owned. It's a big corporation that manages it.  [00:22:45] Jason: Yeah, they'll be brand new.  [00:22:47] Sarah: They're nice. They're pretty. And he said, "and sometimes the rents are either the same or even less than the units that we're managing." And he's like, "man, it's really hard to compete with that." And I said, "well, is it though?" [00:23:04] Because yes, there are always going to be the people who just want the bargain. They're like, "well, if this thing is $100 and this thing is $110, I'm going to go with this cheaper thing. Even if the $110 thing gets me better service, I don't care. I'm just all about the money." So if you're attracting those cheapo tenants, good luck managing those. [00:23:27] Have fun. Have fun with that. But if you're looking to attract great tenants, price is one factor, but it's not the only factor. So again, it's the relationship. And we always have to remember that property management is a relationship business because we have a relationship with the client and we have a relationship with the tenant. [00:23:51] So if one or both of those fails, it's going to be really hard for us then. So just by building that relationship and you do not need to be friends with them. You don't need to take them out for pizza and beer but just by being available to communicate with. Now again, don't go too far with this. [00:24:13] This does not mean you're at someone's beck and call 24 hours a day. "Oh, i'm going to be glued to my phone and as soon as somebody calls i'm going to answer right away." No, but it does mean that you are available. You are responsive. It's not a hundred percent of the time. Sometimes you might need to call someone back, but it's can they get in touch with you? And do they feel like 'I'm talking to a person who actually cares about me and my situation, or do I feel like I'm talking...' we've all had these conversations where you can just tell they're like, "hurry up. Come on, just sign the stupid application so I can be done with you and move on to the next thing that I'm doing. I don't really care at all, but I just want to make the money. So like, would you hurry it up here, sweetheart?" Right? So there's a big difference on how you're communicating with people as well. [00:25:03] Jason: Got it. So is there anything that you think will be shifting related to recession related to the owners? Like maybe money gets tighter for them. Inflation is going up. They're having a more difficult time paying for some of the repairs on the properties. Maybe it would make sense for some of the property managers now to be communicating with the owners, like, "Hey, set aside cash. Things are getting more expensive. Make sure you have the funds in order to take care of things related to this rental property, to weather this, you know. What do you think?  [00:25:31] Sarah: Yeah. I think that's fair for sure. I also think that, I mean, for me, that's always something that I do because I've been in situations where we needed a cash call and we had no cash available, so now we're really in hot water. So I do that anyway, but I think right now, especially just having those conversations like, "Hey, and just so you know, like this too shall pass. So you might not be in the best situation right now. Maybe cash flow is not happening. Maybe we're cash flow negative. But this too shall pass, right?" [00:26:06] So it, again, it comes in waves. It comes in cycles. And I think that's even more important at this point to discuss why investing on cash flow alone is just not a great strategy because if you buy a cash flowing property right now that can change in a year or two years or five years, right? [00:26:31] And vice versa. So right now you might buy it and it's not going to cash flow at all, but in two years or five years or eight years, then all of a sudden, "wow, we have a lot of cash flow happening." So everything comes in cycles, but it's important to understand cashflow is just one piece of the pie. It's not the entire pie. [00:26:48] Jason: Right. Like even great stocks will lose money in the short term.  [00:26:52] Sarah: Yeah, absolutely. And real estate is a long term game. It's not, "I'm going to buy it today and sell it tomorrow and bank a million dollars." [00:27:00] Jason: Yeah.  [00:27:01] Sarah: Can you do that in certain situations? Absolutely. But is that going to be the normal experience that people have? No.  [00:27:09] Jason: Okay.  [00:27:10] Sarah: So I think yes, talking with your owners about the other pieces of the pie or pieces of the equation. "Well, let's look at the tax benefits that you get," right? Because a lot of times people don't even understand really what it means to be able to take your losses, losses on paper, from real estate to apply them to your active W 2 income. [00:27:38] So you can pay less in taxes just by owning a real estate, a piece of real estate. That's amazing, right? You're getting the depreciation. You're getting appreciation because even if it's not appreciating currently, it will over time appreciate. Every property over time appreciates. [00:27:55] It's just a general rule of thumb. So it might take a couple years to get the appreciation, but you will get it. And now you're building up equity in an asset that you can tap into later. And if your tenants are paying some or all of your mortgage for you, that's amazing. Where else can you get something where you're going to take out a loan on something, but somebody else is going to pay that loan for you? [00:28:21] Even if it's not all of it. Even if your mortgage is 2, 400 a month and you're like, well, the 1022, but then I have some other expenses on top of it. That's great. They're still paying a large chunk of your mortgage for you. And again, things change. So right now that might be your situation and you might not cashflow and that can change very quickly in the future. [00:28:43] Because again, back in 2020, 2021, people were cashflow and really great, especially if they had bought. If you buy in a dip and then things spike, you're sitting pretty.  [00:28:55] Jason: So maybe to sum it up with your existing owners, now is the time to help them build their ark right before the storm hits. With the intention for yourself to protect your portfolio, to protect your rent roll and to make sure that you keep that up and as healthy as possible. And You know, and look into, you know, there may be investors you have in your portfolio clients that you have that they're sitting on a bunch of cash. They're waiting for the deals to happen. And then you have investors that they're like kind of struggling. They're already like kind of the straw that breaks the camel's back might like float down and land on their back like any moment now. And so there may be opportunities to keep the properties in your portfolio, but move them over. [00:29:39] I've been hanging out a bit with the the founder of a blanket, which is a cool platform. Maybe we'll have them on the podcast here shortly, but there's different methods to keep your portfolio, even if the owners are changing. So you keep the properties. And so that's some things to be strategically thinking about as well. [00:29:58] So, well, I think we've covered several things. Is there anything else to prepare people listening for the doom and gloom, get them maybe focused on the positive.  [00:30:08] Sarah: Just in the height of the market, one of the strategies I used was tapping into my current investors. Is, "are you looking to pick up more properties?" Can I partner, you know, two or three investors together so that they're able to get more properties? And anyone who's looking to get out, can I shift that to someone else in my portfolio? And to get referrals. Like, "Hey, this is going well for you. Do you know anybody else that might be interested in doing this or might want to purchase a investment property or have already an investment property?" [00:30:42] So, and that, in the height of the market, that worked really well for me. So right now they would work even better. It would work even better. So even if you're like, "well, I only have like 20 clients and that's it." Plenty. That is plenty. You have an untapped gold mine. So if you want to be in doom and gloom and the sky's falling and "I'm never going to make any money and rent rolls are down and vacancies are longer and my investors aren't interested and people are losing money and I'm going to make less and oh, this sucks..." [00:31:18] Then you're absolutely right. That is the situation that you're going to create for yourself. But if you want to look at the opportunity that is staring you in the face and say, "what can I do with this and how can I capitalize on this?" that is where millions are made. So you can choose what you do with this weird time that we're in right now. [00:31:38] I know what I'm going to do.  [00:31:40] Jason: You know, during the Great Depression, some of the greatest companies were made. It was the companies that decided to double down on their marketing efforts doubled down on their growth experts and not put their head in the sand and freak out that the world and the sky is falling and so choose your frame I think sums up what Sarah's saying. [00:31:59] I think it's great mindset. Choose your frame. Either you're going to believe in the opportunity and see all the positives. Why is this positive? Figure that out or you're going to view this as a threat, be scared, kind of tighten up, And you're going to watch some people make a lot of money and pass you by and stack a lot of doors. [00:32:19] There's going to be a lot of opportunity for growing a property management business. I think a lot. So, and if you want to capitalize on that, reach out to us at DoorGrow. And I think that's that's it for today. So until next time to our mutual growth, everyone. And if you are interested in connecting with us, you can reach us at DoorGrow. com or check out our free online facebook group community at DoorGrow club. com. And we'll give you some free gifts for joining. And hopefully you'll get on a call and chat with us and we can figure out if we can help you grow and scale your business significantly. So until next time, to our mutual growth. Bye everyone. 

If you are existing in your property management business but you aren't enjoying it, you might be in property management hell. In today's episode of the #DoorGrowShow, property management growth experts Jason and Sarah Hull explain how to escape property management hell. You'll Learn [01:19] How do you know if you are in property management hell? [05:40] How to escape property management hell [07:33] How do you know if you are in property management hell? [10:32] What does an operator do in a property management business? Tweetables “So if you are existing, living in your business and you're not enjoying it and it's frustrating… then you might be in property management hell.” “There's definitely something to be said about working hard. There's definitely a time and a season for this.” “We have to get to the next level, and what got you to where you are now is not going to help you move forward.” “You can still be miserable and have an entire team.” Resources DoorGrow and Scale Mastermind DoorGrow Academy DoorGrow on YouTube DoorGrowClub DoorGrowLive TalkRoute Referral Link Transcript [00:00:00] Jason: You will have more fulfillment, more freedom, more contribution, and more support in your business as it grows. [00:00:05] And this is the right way to do it. This will change your life. [00:00:09]  [00:00:10] Jason: Welcome DoorGrow property managers to the DoorGrow show. If you are a property management entrepreneur that wants to add doors, make a difference, increase revenue, help others, impact lives, and you are interested in growing in business and life, and you're open to doing things a bit differently, then you are a DoorGrow property manager. DoorGrow property managers love the opportunities, daily variety, and unique challenges and freedom that property management brings. Many in real estate think you're crazy for doing it. You think they're crazy for not because you realize that property management is the ultimate high trust gateway to real estate deals, relationships, and residual income. At DoorGrow, we are on a mission to transform property management business owners and their businesses. We want to transform the industry, eliminate the BS, build awareness, change perception, expand the market, and help the best property management entrepreneurs win. We're your hosts, property management growth experts, Jason and Sarah Hull, the founder and CEO and the COO of DoorGrow. [00:01:15] Now let's get into the show.  [00:01:18] Welcome everybody. So we were thinking about what to talk about today, and one of the things that I coached clients on this week in depth was this idea of how to escape property management hell. So let's talk about how to escape property management hell. So if you are existing, living in your business and you're not enjoying it and it's frustrating, you've got an entire team and you're wondering 'why won't they just think for themselves?' And you're stressed out and you're tired of dealing with all the escalated situations where your team couldn't handle it like tenants and owners, and you're still wearing a whole bunch of hats that you don't enjoy wearing, you're still doing a lot of stuff in the business that you really don't wake up in the morning and go, "man, I'm excited to do that thing today," then you might be in property management hell. This is not property management heaven. This is not the place you're supposed to stay. And so if you're not enjoying that we're going to talk about how to get out of that. And it's not that complicated of a process. We're not going to go into a ton of detail cause we don't have a ton of time. [00:02:20] Not as in depth as we would in coaching our clients, but we're going to give you the high level overview so you can understand that there is a light at the end of the tunnel. All right. So what do you notice with clients that they're doing and what's going on when they are in hell? What sort of frustrations and challenges are you hearing? [00:02:40] Sarah: Overwhelmed. They're overworked. They're crazy busy. Most of it is just busy work. [00:02:46] It needs to be done, but it's not high level things that a business owner would need to do. They're working lots and lots of hours. Sometimes it might be eight, 10, 12, 15 hours a day. Sometimes it's seven days a week. Usually it's at least six and then they do a little bit on the seventh day, but they don't really fully get time off and they're just responding to everything as it comes in and they're trying to handle everything and they're frustrated and they're just very stressed out.  [00:03:23] Jason: Yeah, I was talking with a past client who may end up, probably end up joining our mastermind program. I think we'd worked together four or five years ago, helped him with his website and some different stuff. And he's been using some of the stuff he learned and he was really excited to tell me how far he's come and he's like at 700 units and I think he was small when he came to me, I don't remember, maybe 50 or something, and so he's really excited about the progress he has. [00:03:50] Then he was telling me he's working 17 hour days, some days, like he's working these crazy hours and he's going through these cycles of growth and like working crazy hard and then stopping the growth so that he can focus on building up the business and operations and doing a lot of the onboarding of the properties and then he goes back into this cycle and he hasn't taken a legit vacation since he started the business. [00:04:17] And he goes on vacations, but he's on his phone the whole time. He's not totally available. And this is not a sustainable thing. Now he's just done it through sheer drive and will. To his credit, he's like, "nobody will outwork me." This is like a badge of honor for him. And he works incredibly hard and he's like, that's why he's had more success than any of his competitors is he's just willing to outwork all of them. [00:04:43] And there's definitely something to be said about working hard. There's definitely a time and a season for this. And if all of you or any of you are being lazy, work a little harder. Like do some hard work for a little while to get to that next level. But we want more fulfillment and more freedom. And I wasn't getting a sense from this gentleman that he was experiencing fulfillment and freedom. [00:05:03] To me, that sounds like hell. It's like a treadmill that you feel like you've created and you have to keep running on to keep the business going. And he's going to burn out. And you know, he even mentioned like it's affecting his health, it's affecting his body, you know, and it's probably impacting his relationships, you know? [00:05:21] And so a lot of guys get into this stage and I think women do it as well. Everybody does this in business where they get into this mode of growth and work and hustle. And that's how we get businesses going. We have to get to the next level, and what got you to where you are now is not going to help you moving forward. [00:05:38] You have to start to get out of the way. And so the way to escape this property management hell, this cycle of endless work and torment is we need to figure out what help do we need in the business? A lot of people go, "well, just offload stuff." Yeah, but how do you know what you actually should offload? [00:05:58] Because the big mistake people make is they go hire what they think the business needs and they keep helping the business. And this gentleman and many others I've talked to have an entire team and they're still stressing themselves out. You can still be miserable and have an entire team. Some of you listening are like, "yeah that's me. I've got an entire team and I'm miserable," right? So, how do we escape that? Here's how we figure out what you need. Because if we instead shift it to figuring out what you need, then this will be a game changer. So, the first thing we do is, we have our clients do a time study.  [00:06:30] We have a sponsor and our sponsor is Venderoo, which we're getting some great feedback on from clients. Tired of the constant stress and hassle of maintenance coordination. Meet Venderoo, your AI driven in house maintenance expert that handles work orders from start to finish. Triaging, troubleshooting, vendor selection, and coordination built by property managers for property managers to provide cost effective and accountable maintenance operations where every dollar is accounted for and every task is handled with unmatched reliability. Vendoroo takes care of the details so you can focus on growth. Schedule a demo today at Vendoroo, VENDOROO dot ai/doorgrow and experience maintenance done right. And I'll just add one of our clients had 80 work orders in his first day of turning Vendoroo, the AI thing on, he had 80 work orders closed out. Another client had 54 work orders closed out in their first day as well. [00:07:29] Like we're in this AI revolution. So I highly recommend you check these guys out. It's very cool.  [00:07:33] Okay, so back to what I was saying is here's the strategy. You do a time study. This time study will help you figure out what you're doing every 15 minutes and you're going to categorize your time based on whether it's tactical or strategic and you're going to figure out which things are your plus signs or your minus signs. [00:07:50] We have a whole process for this and a training on how to do this and you want to do this once a quarter. This will move the business forward more than most anything else that you could do. And it'll help you get out of the way. You do the time study, figure out plus and minus signs. Then you create a job description. [00:08:04] We call those R docs because each section starts with an R, ultimate Rdoc job description for yourself and your team members creates a ton of clarity. And so you get these Rdocs created, you create one for yourself, and then you highlight the things that you no longer want to be doing, or that are your tactical minus signs that are the things you're working in the business instead of on the business, which is strategic. And so then you take that and build out a new Rdoc for your ideal candidate and hire. And this needs to be a single personality type, not like, "Oh, I need somebody to do some sales stuff and some accounting stuff and some operations stuff." [00:08:41] No, those are weird people called entrepreneurs. Don't do that. Pick one realistic human being that's not entrepreneurial like a specialist. So that might be a really good executive assistant. And then you'll have a really good job description, move all the things on that job description that would be for that person. [00:08:58] And then you put that out to the marketplace. Now, if you want to do this correctly, DoorGrow hiring is the game changer. This is where you stop playing Russian roulette and you attract the right personality type for the role. So they will actually be good at it and the right cultural fit so that you will actually trust them. [00:09:15] It's not just about finding somebody willing to do the work or that has the skill, but you also need to find somebody that's intelligent enough to be able to learn and adapt to you and to be able to do this. And then if you start building your team this way, you will have a team built around the right person would because you're adjusting yourself every quarter, you're improving yourself every quarter, you're moving closer and closer to your plus signs and more of what energizes you, and then you're going to do this with all of your team members. You're going to have them do time studies and identify their strengths and what they enjoy doing, and your team will get better and better. And you will have more fulfillment, more freedom, more contribution, and more support in your business as it grows. [00:09:51] And this is the right way to do it. This will change your life. This is going to make you have a business that you actually enjoy being in that you're less and less involved in over time and that you're the only pieces you're still holding on to are the pieces you love. And so this is a business that is built to sell if you do want to exit because you're systematically exiting from the right pieces of the business. [00:10:15] And there's the right accountability. And then you need to get a really good operating system like DoorGrow OS, where you have a good planning system and you need to get a good operator to run this system and to run the business. And that will legitimately change your life. Having Sarah as an operator, changes my life. [00:10:31] Anything you'll add to this?  [00:10:32] Sarah: I think aside from the fact that people don't know what an operator is because everyone goes, "Oh yeah, I'm going to hire somebody for operations. And these are all the things they're going to do." They are not handling tactical work. [00:10:42] Your operator is not talking with tenants. Your operator is not talking with your clients. They are not involved in maintenance, rent collection, evictions, owner statements. They don't do any of those things. That is all front end, front line work. And your operator, no one will even know who your operator is because they don't talk to anybody in the business except for you and your team. [00:11:03] They're all back end. So they're very strategically involved in the business, which is very different. So they are responsible for the inner workings of your business and how things are progressing and moving forward. And are you guys running your strategic planning meetings? Are we on track for our weekly goals and our monthly goals, our quarterly goals, and most importantly, our big annual goal? Are we doing daily huddles? Are we attracting the right team members? Do we have the right team members? Do we have the right people in the right seats and the right roles in the business? If not, we need to make some adjustments. Do we have Rdocs and job descriptions for every single person? [00:11:47] Are they up to date? Are our processes documented? Are they up to date and are they actually being used? Or do we just have this library of processes that nobody ever looks at? And then we spent hours and hours wasting time because now nobody ever uses them or looks at them. Right? So hiring, firing, strategic planning, daily huddles, your team check ins... how are things going with your team? [00:12:11] If you don't know, and you're not regularly having these meetings, then you are missing out. Because your team will know things that you don't know, as soon as you get out of that role, and have somebody else fully in it. They're now going to know things that you don't know. So you have to rely on communication with your team to understand, "hey, is there some sort of cog that we don't know about now because I don't handle leasing anymore? But is there a big problem with leasing that we can probably shore up somewhere?" So, these are the things that your operator does. The operator and the CEO, they go together very well. They're like yin and yang. [00:12:51] One will balance the other out, but they work hand in hand, and your operator does all of the things back end in the business to make sure that the business is growing and running well, and that you have the right team. So, your operator, just so you know, has absolutely nothing to do with front end work. [00:13:09] They just kind of look over the people who do.  [00:13:12] Jason: They're not your property manager. They're not your maintenance coordinator. They're not your accountant.  [00:13:17] Sarah: No.  [00:13:18] Jason: They're not a lot of things. They're not your executive assistant. [00:13:21] Sarah: They don't do move ins. They don't do move outs. They don't talk to tenants ever. And they don't talk to clients.  [00:13:28] Jason: No. They will run your business and they will change your life, right? And this will free you up to be more of a visionary entrepreneur in your business, which is what the business needs. It needs somebody leading not working. Cool. Preach! Preach, Sarah. I'm like I'm going to let her cook. [00:13:44] She's going! [00:13:45] Sarah: I hear it because I hear it all the time, "Oh, I need an operator. Great. What are the things they're going to do?" [00:13:50] "Oh, they're going to handle my admin work. They're going to do my leasing." Not an operator. Right. Great, fantastic, that's the role that you need. [00:13:57] It's not an operator.  [00:13:58] Jason: Operator is not a worker. They're like, "I need a worker. I need a worker to do work." There's a little confusion there. Okay, cool. So, in short, operator is going to help with people, planning, and process in the business. We call those three systems that are key part of the super system. [00:14:15] So if this is of interest to any of you listening and you would like to get things flowing and working really well in your business and find these game changing people to build out your team so that you've got the right people to help you grow it, the right people to help you scale it, the right people to help you run it, then reach out to DoorGrow. [00:14:33] We would love to coach and support you and help you get your business to the next level. And that's it for today.  [00:14:40] Sarah: Oh, and if you're not yet in our facebook group, you should check that out!  [00:14:44] Jason: Oh, yeah DoorGrowclub.Com. Join our facebook group. All right until next time, to our mutual growth. Bye everyone. [00:14:52] 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!  [00:15:18] At DoorGrow, we solve your biggest challenge: getting deals and growing your business. Find out more at doorgrow.com. Find any show notes or links from today's episode on our blog doorgrow.com, and to get notified of future events and news subscribe to our newsletter at doorgrow.com/subscribe. Until next time, take what you learn and start DoorGrow Hacking your business and your life.

A lot of the property managers we talk to who want to grow say the same thing, “I just need more leads.” In this episode of the #DoorGrowShow, property management growth experts Jason and Sarah Hull discuss the 6 major leaks that property managers can have in their sales pipeline and why they don't just “need more leads.” You'll Learn [06:22] 1. Positioning [10:14] 2. Perception [11:19] 3. Presence [15:30] 4. Pricing [18:18] 5. Purpose [20:24] 6. Pitch Tweetables “Does it make sense to turn on the hose full blast if there's all these leaks?” “People want to work with a specialist. They don't want to turn over their biggest assets ever and their financial future to somebody that's dabbling in property management.” “If your reviews are good, it backs up everything that you say in your sales pitch.” “Are you clear on your personal motivations for why you have this business beyond just getting money?” Resources DoorGrow and Scale Mastermind DoorGrow Academy DoorGrow on YouTube DoorGrowClub DoorGrowLive TalkRoute Referral Link Transcript [00:00:00] Jason: Get these things dialed in and shored up and what you'll find is: you may not need nearly as many leads. [00:00:05] You won't have to spend nearly as much money on advertising or any money.  [00:00:12] Welcome DoorGrow property managers to the DoorGrow show. If you are a property management entrepreneur that wants to add doors, make a difference, increase revenue, help others, impact lives, and you are interested in growing in business and life, and you're open to doing things a bit differently than you are a DoorGrow property manager. [00:00:32] DoorGrow property managers love the opportunities, daily variety, unique challenges, and freedom that property management brings. Many in real estate think you're crazy for doing it. You think they're crazy for not, because you realize that property management is the ultimate high trust gateway to real estate deals, relationships, and residual income. [00:00:54] At DoorGrow, we are on a mission to transform property management business owners and their businesses. We want to transform the industry, eliminate the BS, build awareness, change perception, expand the market, and help the best property management entrepreneurs win. We're your hosts, property management growth experts, Jason and Sarah Hull, the owners of DoorGroww, and now let's get into the show. [00:01:19] Sarah: We wore DoorGrow colors today.  [00:01:20] Jason: Oh, we did. For those  [00:01:22] that can see us. We're wearing DoorGrow colors. It's not on purpose. Yeah. Green and blue. All right.  [00:01:27] Sarah: I wanted something easy. It was like, let me get a comfortable dress that looks nice, but it's comfortable. Ladies know what I'm talking about. [00:01:34] They're like, "yeah, those are awesome. That's this." [00:01:37] Jason: Okay. It's good to know. So we were talking about what we should talk about today. And one of the things that I've been doing on sales calls in conversations with potential clients is taking them through a diagnosis and diagnosing the front end sales pipeline of their business. [00:01:56] The challenge is a lot of people come to us that want to grow. We're called DoorGrow. So we certainly can help with that. We've been doing that for a long time. One of the things we've noticed though, is that a lot of times people think, "I just need more leads." They just think they need more leads. And some of you are just going to be listening to this, so I'm not going to do a drawing, I'm going to explain what I would usually draw, but I usually draw like a spigot, or a faucet, or whatever you call it, and a hose attached to this, and this long hose, and then a like a plant pot at the end of this hose that you're trying to water a little tree or something. [00:02:30] And I usually put fruit on it because that's your business and you want to get something from it. Like you want it to bear fruit, like make you money or something. Right. And so we've got this tree we want to grow and we've got this pipeline. This is our sales pipeline, this hose. And we think we just need to turn on more water. [00:02:46] Right. It seems to make sense. What I've realized though, over time is we used to do lead generation for property managers. Like that was like a offering that we had, a core offering that we had for our clients. So we would help them just turn on the hose, like full blast. We'd help them turn that on and they wouldn't be able to get business. [00:03:05] They wouldn't be able to get enough water to grow their business. Like it wasn't working and it wasn't the leads. It wasn't the lead generation necessarily. It was the hose. They had like all these major leaks that were preventing it. So over time, I started to see like, they'd be like, "well, it's not working." [00:03:19] I'm like, "well, you're not even answering your phone," or "you're waiting 24 hours before responding to a lead. And it's only good for like 15 minutes." And there was just all these leaks and problems. And there were some bigger, more macro level problems in their sales pipeline. [00:03:32] Like their pricing was terrible, so it was off. Or their branding was off. And so people were like, "well, yeah, but they look like a real estate company," or their website was awful and it would send traffic to their website and it was just leaking money. And so the fluid, if you will, that flows through the pipeline. [00:03:51] Is five currencies, time, energy, focus, cash, and effort. These are what you have to invest. And if you're shelling out a bunch of money, time, energy, focus, all of these things, right into the pipeline because you're just turning it on full blast, it's just going to leak out and you're just wasting all of that. [00:04:09] You're wasting time. You're wasting money. You're wasting your energy. Right. And it, and a lot of businesses are like, "I just need more leads." So I call this the leads myth. And so we found it to be effective is to start looking at the business and if they come to us saying, "Hey, we want to grow." [00:04:24] "Okay. How would you like us to help?" They're like, "we need more leads." [00:04:27] "okay, you may need more leads, but first, does it make sense to turn on the hose full blast if there's all these leaks?" [00:04:34] "What leaks?" Right?  [00:04:35] "Okay, well, let's take a look at your business and see if you have any of these." So we thought today we would get into some of these leaks so you can self assess and figure out, all right, how's my business doing? [00:04:43] We're going to do the quick, super fast version of this. And I recommend you set up a longer call with our team so we can go through this. Okay?  [00:04:52] Sarah: Oh, or if you want the short, shorter version and you're like, "Hey, I want to see it. It's visual." then go to YouTube on our YouTube channel. We have a video that we created about this and our hose just died and like, I think it froze over the winter and we went to go turn it on and everything was leaking. So then we were like, "Oh, Well, before we throw the hose away let's make a video because this is what we talk about all the time." [00:05:16] Yeah. So we did make a video. So if you want to visually see this and watch Jason get water everywhere and make a big mess, then watch a video.  [00:05:25] Jason: It's pretty goofy. So if you wanna laugh at me or make fun of me, that'd be a good one to watch. So just go to youtube.com/doorgrow and go to the playlists that we have and then go to funny videos and I'm sure you'll enjoy laughing at me and Sarah laugh at ourselves, especially. [00:05:44] All right. So let's chat about this, these leaks. So these are some of the things that may be preventing you from closing as many deals, and you may have plenty of leads, but you may not be closing as many as you could be. And so these are some of the leaks. So, there's six major leaks that we focus on in our Rapid Revamp class, and if you're interested in this class where we help you shore up all of these leaks so that you can more easily grow more quickly without even changing whatever lead generation stuff that you're already doing or what's working, this will increase the output of what makes it through the hose and to grow your business Okay, so the first leak at the very beginning, and these are all blind spots the most businesses have is Positioning and so in positioning, we focus on the brand branding And so what are some of the things related to branding? [00:06:37] Sarah: Well, the big one that we see a lot, and we did a video about this too is what is the name of your company? Is it something "real estate, realty, properties, investments, assets, solutions," things like that. So if any of those is how your brand name ends. then that could be a very potential big issue in your branding. [00:07:05] And you could be turning people off before they even decide to have a conversation with you.  [00:07:10] Jason: Yeah. People want to work with a specialist. They don't want to turn over their biggest assets ever and their financial future to somebody that's dabbling in property management but is primarily focused on real estate. [00:07:21] So if you have realty real estate in your name, for example, you have a significant leak here. So if a hundred percent flow through would be the ideal, you have maybe a 50% right at this stage. There's this there's loss. Is your name generic to the location? For example, you're Phoenix Property Management in Phoenix. [00:07:39] Or is it generic to the industry like property management inc? Sorry guys. Or real property management, right? These things are really difficult to remember right generic names. And that hurts word of mouth and it hurts people telling people about your business and all that kind of stuff, right? [00:07:55] So is it unclear that it's property management? Like Sarah mentioned, like maybe we're "Prestige Properties or Radiant Rentals." Radient Rentals, "oh, do you do bouncy houses and like chairs and stuff for weddings?" Right. So there might be confusion there in the marketplace, or do you have a overly common name? Could be a problem. Like lighthouse, just Google lighthouse property management, and there's like a bazillion companies all over the place that want to be a lighthouse. [00:08:19] And so they all get mixed up and confused, right? Because property management is a kind of a global competition. Even if it's only focused on a local market, right? You're getting investors from overseas sometimes you're getting investors from out of state. And so if they're trying to find you, "Oh, well, they said their name's light- oh man. There's a lot of lighthouse. I don't know." Right. And these are just some of the challenges with branding that we teach in our branding secrets and helping clean that up.  [00:08:45] Sarah: Yeah. And one of the worst things is if they're looking for you and then they find a competitor instead, or they find the same or a very similar named company, but they're nowhere near your market. [00:08:59] Because then what happens is you're now connected to this other company. Even if you're like, "well, I'm in Tennessee and this other company, yeah, but they're in like Nevada." Well, Oh, okay. You would think the distance alone would be enough to separate the two, however, we have to remember that sometimes people make mistakes and sometimes people don't read, right? [00:09:22] So if an angry tenant from that other company is like so fuming and they get on and they're like, "I am leaving a horrible review" and it hits your company just because you have a similar name and they didn't bother to read. Now we have issues.  [00:09:36] Jason: And there's lots of other challenges. You could have your name, like some clever misspelled name, like a barbershop called haircutz with a Z. [00:09:43] Sarah: Like my biggest pet peeve.  [00:09:44] Jason: Like there's lots of ways you can screw up branding.  [00:09:47] Sarah: Spell things correctly. Don't get cute.  [00:09:49] Jason: Or acronyms. Acronyms aren't super effective. Like PMI. Sorry guys. All right. So let's go to the second leak. So give yourself a rating on that. Like just a quick judgment, like on a scale of zero to a hundred, how effective is your brand in being memorable and in word of mouth and whatnot? [00:10:07] So maybe it's 50%. Maybe it's totally off in the category. Maybe it's worse. Maybe it's like 20, 30%. Next perception. This is reputation. How are you perceived online? What are your ratings maybe on Yelp, on Google, on Facebook? How many reviews do you have in relation to your competition? And what is your rating? So quantity diversity, do you have reviews on lots of channels? How do you compare to your competition in your local market? Because people are going to check you out. They're going to judge you. And if your reviews are bad, even if everything else you do is amazing, this can put, be a significant clamp in the hose. [00:10:45] And if your reviews are good, it backs up everything that you say in your sales pitch.  [00:10:50] Sarah: And if you have no reviews at all, this is also an issue. Yeah. So sometimes people go, "Oh, well, like I'm brand new. I don't have any reviews, so I don't have that problem yet." It's still a problem. It's just a problem in a different way. [00:11:02] Jason: So let's go to number three. So give yourself a rating on that. Zero to a hundred. Where are you at in relation to your competition? Are you the best reviewed company in your market? Are you like somewhere in the middle? Are you the worst, right? Or do you have no reputation, right? How are you perceived? [00:11:17] All right. So you have a number there. All right. Number three, presence. This is the website, right? Your online presence. So there's a lot of different roles related to the website. I'll, I can throw out a couple, a few real quick. If you really want to grade your website, and not just like how much does Google like it? [00:11:36] Not that if you want to grade your website, how much people like it, how effective it is for capturing business, right? How big of a leak do you have in the hose? Go to doorgrow.com/quiz and take our website quiz and grade your website. Do this, you might have a brand new, beautiful, amazing website and it's like just hemorrhaging and leaking money. [00:11:59] All traffic feeds to the website, right? Your reviews feed to the website. Everything goes there. Your ads feed to the website. Take a look at this leak and get your grade and see what it is. And we're happy to then get on a call with you and tell you why your website sucks, help you figure out like how to make it better. [00:12:16] So, couple of quick things. It should answer three core questions like above the fold when they first land on the page, what you visibly can see in on the screen should answer that there are three core questions, which is, "do you do what I need in the place I need it? What do you do and where?" And second, "why should I choose you to do it over your competition?" And then third is "what do you want me to do?" There should be some sort of call to action. Most websites don't even have those three really basic things, three basic questions that people have. So that's a great starting point And then there's other things like how many menu items do you have? [00:12:54] If you have too many menu items, it actually decreases conversion rates. Do you have like distractions like social media icons and different things trying to send people away from your website which can decrease conversion rates and getting business and leads. Do you have trust symbols and social proof and testimonials and things that increase conversion rates? [00:13:14] Do you have a lead capture form on the page? We've studied this for well over a decade. We've studied this the top website companies that target and focus on property management try to copy our stuff without understanding the psychology behind it and try and copy our designs. [00:13:33] I believe we build the most effective and the most beautiful websites in the industry. And so if this is an issue, DoorGrow can help you with this. So, talk to us and get a new website.  [00:13:44] Sarah: Before we move on, I just learned this yesterday, I think yesterday or the day before. So if your website was once amazing. [00:13:51] And you're like, "no, my website is great. It's so awesome." But it's old. Then it's not doing you the good that you think it is. And maybe at one point it was, maybe it was so fantastic. But now all of a sudden, if things seem like they dried up a little bit, it could be that it needs a little bit of a refresh. [00:14:10] And apparently the shelf life on a website is about two to three years and then it needs. To be redone.  [00:14:17] Jason: Yeah, this is true. I've forgotten about this. I'm totally aware of this, but I just, I forgot that other people don't realize this. And so websites have a shelf life just like fashion does, just like anything else does. [00:14:30] And so websites start to look stale or out of date or old and create the perception of being old too. So a lot of people don't perceive that their website is actually looking stale and looking old and causing issues for them, right? [00:14:45] And people will perceive you, "Oh, this company's more modern and we're up to date or fresh or is with it or gets it, and this company it looks like they've been in business forever, maybe. They're using old techniques and they don't know what they're doing, right? So make sure your business is no older than maybe two to three years. [00:15:03] It's probably time.  [00:15:04] Sarah: Not your business. Your website.  [00:15:05] Jason: Yeah, sorry.  [00:15:06] Sarah: If your business is three years...  [00:15:09] Jason: just get rid of it. So if your website, usually people will go until about five years. By five years, it's usually visibly painful, and this is usually where business owners reach out to us for a new website. [00:15:22] If your website is five years old or older, it's due. And you know it, like you can look at it and go, "this doesn't look fresh." All right. So good point. All right, next is pricing.  [00:15:32] Sarah: I love the pricing calls that we do. They're so good.  [00:15:35] Jason: It's such a magic trick. [00:15:35] Sarah: And also people get stuck here for a really long time.  [00:15:39] Jason: Yeah, so most pricing, just to be clear, is set by companies focusing on the worst people in the market. They're focused on the cheapos and they're focused on what they can capture through internet marketing, which are the worst leads. And so the cheapos are really price sensitive. [00:15:56] So it creates this sort of downward race to the bottom in terms of price. So, most people typically do a 10 percent in most markets. Maybe a little less than that in really high rent markets, or they'll do some sort of flat fee. So, Most pricing is not good and it's probably similar to what everyone else in your market is doing, and so you look the same as everybody else. [00:16:17] So there's unique methodology in doing pricing. And so we focus on our unique blend of what we call a three tier hybrid pricing model, which focuses on three different types of buyers psychologically and creates a proper incentive to get more high rent properties, less lower end properties and it lowers your operational costs, right? [00:16:41] Because the higher rent properties generally have a lower operational costs and they make you more money. Right. And so your pricing model is probably unknowingly incentivizing you getting on some of the worst clients and the worst properties and not helping you to set yourself apart from the competition. [00:16:58] So we've never had anyone really come to us with good pricing, never. And so we've always helped people clean this up. And then they close more deals more easily at a higher price point. And you might think that's crazy, but that's what we do.  [00:17:11] Sarah: And they tell us that!  [00:17:12] Jason: Yeah. [00:17:12] Sarah: We're not just saying it. [00:17:14] Like our clients tell us that they're like, "Oh, I didn't think I was going to do this and I didn't want to and I didn't even think it was going to work, so I figured I'd try it and then i'll just change it back when it doesn't work," And every time, they are so surprised and they love it and they're like "man I really wish I did this sooner." [00:17:30] That would have been so much better if I did this.  [00:17:32] Jason: They usually get a significant number of their clients upgrading to a premium tier so they're making more money off their existing portfolio right away. And so usually pricing's this magic trick we can pull out of our hat that we can immediately pay for if they have a decent number of clients. [00:17:47] We can immediately pay for our program and our program's now basically free, right? So let's get into the next one. So rate your pricing, if it's typical of everybody else then maybe you give yourself, if you want you can give yourself a 60 70 percent or something like that, but I would say it's a 50 percent because the profit margin difference can be pretty significant, right? [00:18:08] But give yourself some sort of rating if you're cheaper than most of your competitors give yourself below a 50 percent Like you're worse than everybody else. So give yourself a number there. What's your leak? All right next:  [00:18:18] Purpose. This is the most important thing that we take clients through. This causes not just a leak in your sales pipeline, but it causes a leak with your team and a leak with financials. It's one of the greatest profitability hacks. [00:18:30] It's one of our greatest. Sales hacks, and it sounds like woo fluffy BS, but purpose is the most significant thing that we do in companies. And our clients tell us this was the most significant thing that we did. So what do you want to say about purpose?  [00:18:45] Sarah: Yeah. So this is usually where we start in our rapid revamp and then, and only then can we then continue on with the rest of the class because everything stems from this. So if you're trying to fix your pricing and you don't understand your company culture yet, it's not going to make sense because you're going to have to redo your pricing. If you're trying to fix your website and your branding and your online perception, but you haven't figured out. the foundation of where all of these other things come from, then it doesn't matter because you're going to have to go back and fix it anyway, because you don't really have clarity on that. But once you get clarity on that, everything else becomes so much easier now.  [00:19:23] Jason: Yeah. So the way to score this is, some questions you might ask are do you have maybe three or four core values defined? [00:19:31] If you have a lot more than that, then give yourself a lower score because that means really, it means nothing. Do you have a clearly defined mission for the business? Are you clear on who you're targeting and is it clearly defined and written down? Like, how do they know what a good client looks like versus a bad one? [00:19:46] Right. Are you clear on your personal motivations for why you have this business beyond just getting money? That in a way that you could relate it clearly your personal why? Are you clear on the business's purpose or your team? Right? So do you have a ceo decision making guide so others know how you think on your team, right? [00:20:03] There's a lot of different things that deliverables in the purpose Weeks in our rapid revamp that we help businesses define, and it changes the profitability. It changes everything in the business. So based on these questions, give yourself a rating on zero to 100 percent and figure out where you're at. [00:20:19] And if you don't have a lot of these things defined, then give yourself a pretty low grade, right? Next is pitch. So purpose feeds into the pitch and so you need those things defined. But what's your sales pitch like? Is it basically just answer questions and then hope they sign up? [00:20:35] Which is bad. That's pretty weak, right? Or do you, for example, like us have a four phase process that's systematically like getting clear on what they need and breaking things down and then figuring out like how to deal with objections and et cetera. Right. What's your sales pitch? How effective is it? [00:20:53] Do you have visuals that maybe facilitate that, et cetera? Right. So if you feel like you have a high close rate, right. But it's just warm leads like a referral. You're you have a really high close rate, that doesn't mean you have a good pitch. That doesn't mean you're good at selling. That just means they were a warm lead, right? [00:21:09] So in dealing with colder leads or where it's competitive or they're looking at you and several other competitors, how good are you at convincing them to use you over everybody else? May help you see how effective your pitch is right on colder leads or more lukewarm leads, right? So give yourself a rating on pitch. [00:21:25] Anything else related to pitch  [00:21:27] Sarah: So I'll just one more time reiterate the company culture, you can't have a good sales pitch if you don't first know your company culture. Yeah. So if you're like, "Oh wait, like my pitch is so good. I can close anybody." You're missing your company culture and you do not have that piece defined, there is no way that you can have a great sales pitch, at least in the way that we teach it. So we have the golden bridge formula. You can not do the golden bridge formula if you do not first understand your why and your business why. You don't have those two pieces? You're not doing the golden bridge. And without the golden bridge, sales just gets hard. It just gets hard. And then it's like, "well, like I don't want to be pushy, but also I want to close deals and I have to sell people and like, I don't know, I'm in this loop I don't understand why I can't close things and like, this should be easier." And then people go and they take a bunch of courses to learn how to do sales better. [00:22:23] You can just have a better sales pitch.  [00:22:25] Jason: Yeah. Good point. So to sum all this up, all of these leaks are leaks in trust. And if in your pitch, for example, you are trying to sell property management, you're selling the wrong product. Nobody really cares about property management. That's not what they want to buy. [00:22:42] And so what they really want to buy is peace of mind or safety and certainty. They want to buy, they're buying their trust in you. They want trust. And so all of these leaks in the pipeline relate to trust. They're all trust leaks, sales and deals happen. You could write this down, tattoo it on your forehead. [00:22:59] Don't do that. Put it up on your wall. Sales and deals happen at the speed of trust. And so if you have any of these major trust leaks, you are just wasting time, energy, money, focus, cash effort. Right. And so let's get these leaks all shored up. It doesn't make sense to keep putting blood transfusions into somebody when they have their arm chopped off and they're just hemorrhaging blood. [00:23:22] That's pretty gruesome, but  [00:23:24] Sarah: yeah  [00:23:24] Jason: Stop the bleeding first. And then, "Hey, it makes sense now. Now that we've stopped this major bleeding, let's now take care of things. Right?" And so get these things dialed in and shored up and what you'll find is: you may not need nearly as many leads. [00:23:39] You won't have to spend nearly as much money on advertising or any money. Our clients don't, most of them don't spend any money on ads or lead generation, and they actually had doors faster than their competitors that are. And so this is the starting point. Get this stuff cleaned up. It's like sharpening the ax first, before you go and chop down trees, do the smart thing first and everything else becomes easier. [00:23:59] And this really is lubricating your entire sales process. Everything flows through a lot easier. And so you could double your deals flowing through without changing any of your lead sources that you've already got going right now, just by shoring these up. And so get these blind spots dialed in and reach out to us at DoorGrow. [00:24:15] And we'll tell you about a rapid revamp program where we tackle each of these leaks in two weeks, two weeks for each leak. And so it's a 90 day program. It's really rapid and it will transform the front end of your business forever. Okay. That's it. So you can find us at DoorGrow. com and until next time to our mutual growth. [00:24:35] Bye everyone. [00:24:36] 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!  [00:25:03] At DoorGrow, we solve your biggest challenge: getting deals and growing your business. Find out more at doorgrow.com. Find any show notes or links from today's episode on our blog doorgrow.com, and to get notified of future events and news subscribe to our newsletter at doorgrow.com/subscribe. Until next time, take what you learn and start DoorGrow Hacking your business and your life.

Join us for an insightful episode of the VRTAC-QM Manager Minute as Brittny MacIver and Sarah Clardy from the VRTAC-QM team share their expertise on case management systems. Brittny, an expert in Program and Performance within our Quality Management team, and Sarah, the Program Director for Fiscal and Resource Management, delve into best practices and the growing trend of states seeking to upgrade their systems. Learn about the nuances of state requests and the RFP process, and gain valuable knowledge to help you decide whether it's time to stay with your current system or make a move. Listen Here   Full Transcript:   {Music}   Brittny: Avoid over customizing the system. There's a lot of systems out there that are already available in VR agencies, and so if it works for that VR agency, there's a good chance the majority of the processes are going to work for your agency as well.   Sarah: Silos, how do we break down silos? And this process really can be a nice segue to combining program and fiscal together. I know we've said that multiple times, and I don't think we can say it enough. This process really is an opportunity to develop relationships.   Brittny: Be curious. Your agency may have a process that you're unsure why it exists. Some may say that's how it's always been. I think it's good to be curious, figure out the reason behind it, and see if there's a way that you can streamline those processes.   Intro Voice: Manager Minute brought to you by the VRTAC for Quality Management, Conversations powered by VR, one manager at a time, one minute at a time. Here is your host Carol Pankow.   Carol: Welcome to the Manager Minute. Today I'm thrilled to have two of my esteemed colleagues, Brittny MacIver and Sarah Clardy from the VRTAC-QM, joining me in the studio today. So, Brittny, how's it going for you?   Brittny: It's going great. How about you?   Carol: Awesome. I'm better for seeing your smiling face this morning. And how about you, Miss Clardy? How are you doing?   Sarah: I'm great. Great to kick off a new week.   Carol: Excellent. So for our listeners, Brittny serves on the program and performance side of our QM team. And Sarah is the program director for the fiscal and resource management side of our QM team. And both of these ladies have extensive experience with case management systems. And during one of our regular Core QM Team meetings, I asked the team, I'm like, hey, what are some potential podcast ideas? And Brittny said, you know what? There are a lot of state voc rehab agencies on a quest right now for a new case management system. Either your state is requesting you to do another request for proposal or you're just like, hey, is there something better out there? So with lots of new players that have entered the market, your case management system is a lifeline. And if it's not functioning optimally, it can really lead to some significant issues. So we just wanted to have a conversation today that can help to guide you through this journey with open eyes. So let's dig in. So of course our listeners always like to know, like how did you people get into VR? Everybody wonders, like what's your story? So I want to hear from each of you about kind of your journey into VR. So Sarah, I'm going to kick it off with you.   Sarah: So many of you know Ron Vessell, he's a staple around VR. Ron actually hired me back in the year 2000. I was a very green government accountant just starting out, didn't know what I was getting into, and they took a chance on a new, young professional. And so I did a deep dive early in my career and never looked back.   Carol: Very nice, I love that. How about you, Britt? How did you find your way into VR? You came a little different way.   Brittny: Yeah, I think it was definitely a unique path. I actually worked in criminal justice at the prison system as a counselor for quite some time. They were privatizing the position, which meant we were kind of losing benefits. We're no longer going to be a state employee. So I started looking around for other counseling positions. And at my time at the prison, I found that there was a lot of individuals with disabilities and a lot of obstacles that we had to address and assist with while we were there. And so when I seen the position at VR, I was very interested in it interviewed. And that's where I got my start about 14 years ago.   Carol: And which state was that in? Britt.   Brittny: That was in.Indiana.   Carol: Yeah. That's cool. I think that's great. So you worked with Teresa?   Brittny: Yes.   Carol: Very good.   Brittny: I always joke and say my four years at the prison. And then I have to clarify when I was working.   Carol: I love that. In fact, we had a guest last month that also had come up through the correctional system as well. It was really fun, but that definitely having that skill set behind you coming into VR is super important, really needed. So let's talk a little bit about your work. Both of you do for the QM. Just so our listeners have a little sense. And Britt, I'm going to start with you about that. Like can you give them a little flavor kind of for what you do in this TA world?   Brittny: Yeah, as you mentioned I work on the performance team. So really all things performance. But we help agencies address performance related needs. So this can be anywhere from training on performance measures to data analysis on performance data, reviewing policy procedures, internal controls and sometimes even assessing the system impact around performance and seeing how that impacts the reporting pieces.   Carol: Yeah, I love our performance team, the stuff you guys do, and you're so good at your analysis and really looking at taking that data and really digging in deep as to what's going on. So it's a very, very important piece of what is happening out there for our VR programs as we're delivering that technical assistance. How about you, Sarah?   Sarah: I have the great pleasure of leading the financial arm of the VRTACQM, and understanding that the VR award is the probably the most complex award within the grants management world. It really covers a wide array of skills and knowledge and isn't just financial based, it's also program based. So under the QM, we help agencies sort of manage the grant from the whole life cycle perspective, making sure that all the federal requirements are met, taking a look at individual state requirements, how those two things intersect, and we spend a lot of time, probably the majority of my time is actually spent in the period of performance arena, and specifically as it relates to this topic today with case management service systems.   Carol: Excellent. So, Brittny, you had mentioned the issue of people are looking for a new case management system. And I know as of late it feels like we've had at least a half a dozen folks saying, you know, we're doing a new RFP. We either have to for the state or we're going out for a new system. What advice do you have kind of off the bat for people who are considering venturing into this new RFP process?   Brittny: Yeah, I think before writing the RFP, I think it's important for the state or the agency to do some research on what systems are out there. A lot of agencies are writing an RFP based on what their current system does, and they end up with a very similar system. The process and all the hard work of getting a new system can be really exciting. It could mean new innovative features and easier case management process, which leads to improved efficiency, improve services and outcomes. You could find a system that would help with documentation times. You can reduce that, and then that way the counselor can spend more time with their participants. So I think just seeing what's out there and what's available to help you write that RFP is huge.   Carol: Sarah, how about you? What's your perspective on making sure those fiscal pieces are addressed as they are thinking about RFPing?   Sarah: Oh goodness. There's so many perspectives to consider here. I think first and foremost states need to understand period of performance. I feel like that's a term that we make really complicated. And it's really nothing more than just looking at the funding sources that are available and understanding the timeline that agencies can obligate and expend funds. So I think, first and foremost, understanding period of performance. The second key piece really is understanding state requirements. We have a lot of states that aren't either aware of what their state requires, or there are things that are in place that they think is required by the state. And when we start doing a deep dive into what that looks like, sometimes those things really aren't state requirements. It's something that somebody put into place years ago that everybody just thought was what was required. So I think understanding those two things. And then third, I would say understanding what your end game is when you're working with a fiscal and a case management system, and we're looking at just sheer fund accounting and tracking those funds all the way through and then being able to report at the end of that cycle. And so I oftentimes will tell states, if you kind of look at the end game, look at the reporting that's required at the end, it really kind of establishes the things that are necessary along the way in terms of system adaptations, structure, configuration.   Carol: So definitely I'm going to tie you two together when a state is going out and they're looking at doing the RFP, you want to really think about your complete process so that you've got all the right team members in place from the get go, which can't just be the program side of your house. And I remember us doing this back in Minnesota as we were going through the requirements. It's like, what are those fiscal people doing here? They're all important. Like you need all the pieces together, talking through how this system is going to work, how you're going to connect to your statewide accounting system. So that becomes really important. Now, I know I was on a call, I want to say within the last three, four months and we had a state say, yeah, we're thinking about RFP for a new system to go into place January 1st. And Brittny, I want to kick this to you. What is a realistic time frame if somebody is considering a new case management system, is it really possible to do that in, uh, maybe eight months or so or not? What do you think is a good timeline?   Brittny: I think this really depends on several factors as far as a timeline when considering a new case management system, typically it could take up to six months to develop that RFP. And it's really doing some background homework, seeing what's out there, doing a business process analysis and understanding your own business processes. But typically, I'd say depending on agency size, how many years of converted data you're looking at, converting it into the new system. And I know there's federal requirements, but there's also state requirements that are sometimes even longer than the federal ones. And then also if there's any interfaces. So if you have other systems that are connecting to your current case management system, this is going to make a huge difference, because now you've got a lot of different teams having to help out with the specifications and then also test the system. So you've got to think of their timelines as well. And then lastly just that preparedness piece. So how much work did you do up front on the RFP. How much have you analyzed your business processes. And like Sarah had mentioned, are these things that somebody put into place ten years ago, or are these things that are actually a state policy or a federal policy that you're aligning with? I think the typical timeline that I typically see is around 18 to 24 months for the full implementation once you sign in that contract. But again, that could range short or longer depending on that prep work and then that agency size and things like that.   Carol: So eight months is probably a little aggressive.   Brittny: Yeah very, aggressive yeah. But optimistic I like it.   Carol: I love it. So what are some pitfalls that we want to help our listeners avoid as they're kind of tackling this process? And Sarah, I'm going to kick that to you first.   Sarah: First and foremost. And I think the listeners are probably going to see a recurring theme here, as Brittny said, not just taking current system functionality and developing that into a checklist or using that to develop the specifications. I think really sitting down and outlining what are the requirements, what are the things that we're using right now? Where did that come from? And the possibilities going into this process allows a lot of opportunity to think outside the box and think about what are the things that systems currently aren't doing, or things that are requiring a lot more work right now where we could really get creative and do some really cool things. So I think avoiding the pitfall of just not spending that time up front to understand what it is that agencies need, and then also, again, bringing fiscal and program together to understand the requirements from a physical standpoint. A lot of times that is kicked to the finance folks in the House, we're still seeing in a lot of agencies a breakdown or a gap between program and fiscal, and there's a lot of danger and not bringing those two teams together to understand on both sides of the coin, what is it that we need to do? Oftentimes within that space is where a lot of the creative ideas come out and allow greater efficiencies within the agency and more internal controls.   Carol: Very good. Britt, what do you think about pitfalls? What are some things that we could help our folks avoid?   Brittny: Yeah, I once talked to a chief technology officer and he said the two main reasons why usually a case management system implementation fails is because of fiscal and data validation. So hitting those two pieces very hard, making sure that you're not only converting the data into the system, it's almost like that toy where you've got a round circle and you've got to fit it in the round circle. The data conversion doesn't always work like that, and sometimes you're trying to fit that round circle into a square peg. And that's because the way the systems line up. So making sure that you've got individuals on the front end in different roles, looking at that data and then also testing that RSA 911 to make sure things are mapped correctly and going in correctly before you go into production. At one example I've seen of that is significance of disability. And so one system may calculate significance of disability a little bit differently than another system. And even though they've got everything mapped together, doesn't always go hand in hand and can cause some major issues. The fiscal piece, I think Sarah mentioned that quite a bit, but just making sure that you're doing heavy testing and understanding how the system will work, especially when you go into production. Working in a new system, the biggest ones are dealing with authorizations that already have partial payments on it, draft authorizations, pending payments, amending an authorization, and vendor logic. These are all pieces that may be different in that new system. So making sure you're testing every angle and you're prepared for that transition. I think a third suggestion is just my personal preference would be to avoid over customizing the system. So there's a lot of systems out there that are already available in VR agencies. And so if it works for that VR agency, there's a good chance the majority of the processes are going to work for your agency as well. And sometimes those states like to over customize that system just because they want to have what they've always had. But that ends up being sometimes pretty expensive down the road, because then you're paying for additional testing and maintenance of that customization. So I'd be open minded to changing business processes, or see if you could find your business processes met in a different way and achieving that same result.   Carol: Yeah, I like it. I remember when we had our new case management system and it was built. We went in with all our partners, our WIOA partners, and so we had this kind of groovy new system, but it was supposed to meet all these different needs. Well, it gets complicated, but we couldn't forget about our field people because a lot of those folks in the field. So while you're talking to program, you know, a lot of times it's supervisors and different folks are involved. Having those direct field staff, your VR techs and your counselors who are inputting stuff every day and they're like, hey, this weird thing over here, you know, they may not talk techie, but they can explain the stuff that isn't working so well in getting all of those ideas right from them so they can see, hey, they really can help to impact and influence the system is important.   Brittny: Definitely.   Sarah: You know, Carol, along the lines of what Brittny just shared too, I think there's a caution there in terms of customizations that are in existing systems, whether it's an off the shelf system or a homegrown system. We have a number of agencies that have their own in-house systems. Sometimes there are customizations that work for a particular state or might work for a group of states, but it's not applicable to all states. Again, because we go back to those state requirements. And then sometimes when agencies implement that, it causes some compliance issues because of their own local procurement standards. So asking the question, you know, if they're developing those specifications and not just taking everything from what they're doing or is offered to them currently, but really looking at it with a cursory eye to determine, is this something that we need or we even can use because we're seeing period of performance compliance issues from some system functionalities that are in place that worked for other states that aren't necessarily a one size fits all.   Carol: I think one thing I've noticed too, and I just noticed from the periphery, you know, it's really statewide IT systems and the IT groups have been put together. You know, we see that consolidation happening where you may have had your own IT folks that you were dealing with, and now you have a State Department of IT or something. There's some other consolidated area that has put together different processes or requirements. So I think for some folks, if you're used to maybe the old way when you were entering into this process and maybe doing an RFP and you had more control over everything, you may have a little less because you do have now these sort of statewide IT system requirements. And so it's really important to get hooked up with those folks as well, especially for listeners who may have not done this for a while. Maybe, you know, it's been a long minute since you have looked at your case management system, and you were remembering back a decade ago when it was a little easier. You could just do something a little more at the drop of a dime. But I think the benefit that having those statewide IT groups is they have so much experience. And when they're looking at how they really address putting out an RFP and they can have a lot of their expertise to bring to the table to make sure this gets put together really well. You just want to remember that you may have some other things in play that you didn't have a long time ago. Just a thought. Alright, I know Brittny, when we were talking to you, had some ideas on cool stuff and I love cool stuff. Like, you know, if you're doing your case management system, you said, well, gee, don't, don't just recreate the same old thing like you want to put cool things in place. So do you have ideas like new technology or features or things people could include in their request?   Brittny: Yeah, I've seen dashboards where there's visual dashboards and graphs or pie charts that assist the counselor and case management. So seeing how many individuals they've got enrolled in an education program and how many of those individuals have earned an MSG in the last performance year. And this allows them to check those that haven't and reach out to those participants. I've also seen a central print and mail where the state's just actually the agency put a checkbox in there, and they've got an interface with a local company and that company, they hit the checkbox and everything gets bashed up that night for a letter or anything that they want to mail. And there's a mass every night they mail out all these letters. So that way the counselor could be anywhere. They could be at the school, out in the field, anywhere, mail out a letter, and not have to worry about printing something off and stuffing that envelope. I've also seen invoice payment systems. So systems where vendors can apply to be a vendor, they can document what services agree to terms, things like that. The agency can review them and approve them in there. And then that system can work back and forth with authorizations and payments. So an authorization could be drafted in the case management system could shoot over to this invoice payment system. That vendor can view it, upload documents, invoice against it, put reports and things like that in there, and they can communicate back and forth to one another. I've also seen states exploring various ways to integrate artificial intelligence and case management systems. So I know you did a podcast on one that was kind of outside the case management system, but I'm hearing a lot of states be interested in how to integrate it in the case management system, whether it's in case notes or informed decisions across. So I'm really excited to see what states come up with and how they're able to integrate that within. But I think that's a great idea.   Carol: I love that whole area of artificial intelligence. It was super fun when we did the podcast with Washington General, because they had that really cool piece that was, you know, an add on. It was kind of outside of the system. But boy, the staff love it. But there's a lot of possibilities. I know we were kicking around on the team about ways you could use AI within VR. I mean, when you think about the development of plans, even the way you speak about things, to make it more plain language, and I still I think people are so freaked out a little bit about AI and you go, gosh, it's all over. You know, it is in our whole world. It's when you're talking to Siri or Alexa, you know, every day you go to the airport and you're getting your eyes scanned to get through, Clear whatever you may do. It's just integrated into everything we do. I think that is a really fun, developing new area that has a lot of possibility for the case management systems. Sarah, did you have any ideas too, about any cool possible groovy tools? Maybe fiscally related? I didn't mean to put you on the spot.   Sarah: No, that's okay. We haven't seen as much innovation on the fiscal side, although I think that there are a lot of opportunities. I think, again, in the AI world, I think mapping that out, looking for the possibilities, it goes back to what I said earlier, just being an innovative thinker and looking at what are the challenges and efficiencies that we're battling and what are some of those possibilities that we can use to address that. Staff recruitment retention continues to be a challenge in our VR world and especially in the fiscal arena. And as staff look to bolster their internal controls and the program at large, looking for some of those opportunities. So I don't know that I have as many cool things like Brittny shares, but I'm hoping that we'll see those on the horizon.   Carol: Yeah, me too. I think there's a lot of possibility out there now. I know Sarah, you had developed a tool that coincided with the 2023 spring CSV conference because a lot of folks were asking like, okay, what do I do with my case management system and the fiscal requirements and all of that? Can you talk a little bit about that? Because even though we felt like we widely publicized it, people are still like what? There was a tool. I don't know anything about it.   Sarah: Yeah, absolutely. And I'm still excited about it. So we developed a fiscal technology checklist for case services last year in conjunction with the period of performance training that we offered at the conference. And we found that in our technical assistance to state VR agencies around this topic, there's a gap in communication between either the CMS companies and VR, or even if an agency has their own internal program, a gap in communication between the program and fiscal and whoever those IT experts are. So we took that opportunity to map out all of the areas to consider. And so when we're working with agencies under the VRTAC-QM to analyze their processes and look at how their systems are set up, there's a linear fashion and way of looking at that. For instance, is the system set up on a state fiscal year or a federal fiscal year? There's a lot of agencies that have a system set up on a state year that really doesn't make sense for reporting, and it's causing a lot of challenges on the financial side with producing reports for the RSA 17, for example. And they thought that that's the way they had to have it set up. There's very few states that have very state specific requirements that would necessitate that. So it's not that it never would work, but it involves sort of a deep dive into why do we have our systems set up and is that necessary? The other big piece are the budgets. How are budgets set up within the system? Does it map out to the available fund sources that are available to the agency? And then there's a ton of bells and whistles that act as internal controls in the back of a case management system that really dictate how the system behaves and helps the agency navigate through period of performance. And so it's going through a whole list of considerations to make sure that the agency is well equipped to manage period of performance, manage those different fund sources and make them able to do that reporting at the end. So it's a really good list. And honestly, as states are struggling with that communication piece, particularly with the companies that they work with or through the process to develop a new case management system, it's a very nice way of considering all of those different elements that need to go into either evaluating the current system or looking at a new system to make sure that it's meeting exactly what their state requires while still taking into account those federal requirements. So we're constantly reverting folks back to that list, and hopefully agencies are taking the time to sit down as a team and combining the program and fiscal staff to walk through that, to make sure that they understand all of those elements. And if they have questions, we have a number of trainings that we offer through the VRTAC-QM to assist with that. We've even had some agencies seek out that training before they start developing those lists for their RFPs, to make sure that they both understand from a physical standpoint what all those requirements are. So anyway, it's Fiscal Technology Checklist for Case Services. It is on our website, I'm sure. Carol, you're probably going to mention that and hint, hint it is available to the public. So I know that there's been some current CMS companies that have gone out and looked at that piece also, so that they can better understand and hopefully fill in the gap for that communication gap exists so that everybody's talking the same language and on the same page.   Carol: Yes, of course, I have to make a shameless plug for our lovely website. So you will go to vRTAC-QM.org and we have a top navigation header. You can go right to resources and everything's listed under the CSAVR Spring 2023 Session Recordings and Materials. And it actually was Session Two is where you can find that checklist. But if you scroll through you can actually listen to Sarah's session recording. And then you can see the checklist there as well, as well as all of our other awesome sessions from the 2023 Spring Conference. Oh, thanks for that. So how about other words of wisdom from you fine ladies? Because I think of you both as just like, oh my gosh, such powerhouses in the case management system. Brittny, I'm going to go to you first.   Brittny: I've got a few. I think the first one is to be curious. Your agency may have a process that you're unsure why it exists. Some may say that's how it's always been. So I think it's good to be curious, figure out the reason behind it, and see if there's a way that you can streamline those processes. I would also allocate staff specifically for this project, and I think we mentioned it already a little bit earlier. But looking at those projects subject matter experts and making sure you've got the right people at the table. So this is going to be administration, IT, but also your fiscal people, your front end people. It's really important to make sure that you have some direct service or direct field staff that are knowledgeable and have a long agency history that you can integrate into that project as well, and they can provide feedback. I would also have a designated project manager that could be somebody. You within your department, or that could be somebody that you decide to contract out. But I think it's important that they have that project management experience because it is a giant project, and it is going to take quite some time to get from that RFP contract to implementation. I'd also weave in changes as much as you can. So during the project, you'll start to have the opportunity to see the differences between the two systems, your current one and your new system. And so if there's any way that you can weave in changes early and often, this will help that transition for staff much, much easier. And then also as you're preparing or updating revising business processes, that also helps with that piece of it. I've seen states do statewide quarterly demos to kind of show staff the new system and help them kind of process that change along the way. And lastly, I would definitely emphasize not to overlook accessibility. I'd pull in your accessibility users early to begin testing the system, and then also integrating those accessibility terms into training documents. I think one thing I learned is that using language accessibility language is huge. I couldn't imagine trying to learn a new system and somebody saying, use a dropdown box. But yet my system is calling it a combo box. So using that terminology and making this transition much easier for all staff.   Carol: Awesome points. I want to highlight a couple, that be curious. I can't emphasize that enough. There are so many agencies where I'm going to call it urban Legend. You're doing something because everybody always says, RSA said. You have to do that and RSA will come out. I've been in monitoring. They're like, we never told you that. Whatever that is in your system, you made that up like you made that happen. So I love that being curious because you want to ask questions. A lot of times you just go with the flow. You know, somebody put it in play 20 years ago and then you just keep bringing it forward. So I love that. And definitely when you talk about dedicating staff, you want to make sure you dedicate those staff, but you also want to think about all of the other roles that have been assigned to that person. You cannot put them as the project manager of this whole project, and they're still maintaining all their field services duties and doing all the other stuff, because this really is a full time job. And I know I'm going to apologize right here to Natasha Jerde. We had her as a project manager for our new case management system. At the same time, she's, you know, rewriting our policy and procedure manual and doing a million other things because I just had zero clue at how much went into this. And that was really it's really terrible. And I've actually seen some of the staff across the country burn out. We've had people retire early. They're like the case management system process killed me. So when you're dedicating staff, please do give them some time to do it. And don't expect that they're not going to work an 80 hour workweek because that is not so fabulous. But I loved your points, Brittny, those are great. How about you, Sarah? Any words of wisdom?   Sarah: Yes, thank you. I think we constantly hear from state agencies about silos. How do we break down silos? And this process really can be a nice segue to combining program and fiscal together. I know we've said that multiple times in our discussion today, but I don't think we can say it enough. This process really is an opportunity to develop relationships and I know even from the agency that I came from, the introduction that I had to the program side was through a new case management system conversion. And at first I showed up at the table. And Carol, like you said earlier, people were like, who invited her? Why is she here? Does she need to be here? People wouldn't talk and share ideas. And then as we both committed to developing that relationship and understanding one another better, not only did we end up with a quality product, but we had quality services, we had better management and leadership within the agency. So looking at it as an opportunity sort of through that lens, engage the folks in the field as well. Sometimes as leaders, we tackle these types of projects and we think the folks in the field are too busy. And really the best ideas can come from our counselors and those individuals who are supporting in those roles our field staff, our fiscal agents. And I know we have a separate training on that that we offer VR agencies, but engaging them in that process and getting their ideas on, hey, what's working and what's not working? What are the challenges that you're facing so that as you are curious to Brittny's point, you're taking into consideration maybe some of those wins that you can secure on the other side and maybe cut out some process or things while still meeting those requirements and engaging in those efficiencies. The other thing I would offer, and we're having lots of discussions now about fiscal forecasting and spending strategies within VR agencies, as VR agencies are getting over the hump of Covid and taking a look at what their spending looks like, the case management system really is a system of record. And as we look at the statewide accounting system and in its function, we can't ignore the case management system and the role that it plays in navigating through all those fiscal requirements. And so if we think about the CMS sort of as the VR checkbook, and when we are authorizing for services and obligating funds, not only are there requirements around how to do that and how to capture that, looking at the individual sources of funds that we have available, it really is a way to capture those obligations within a checkbook so that we can take a look at any point in time from a leadership standpoint, what is our financial position? And so being able to look at how much do I have in my 23 carryover checkbook and how much do I have in 24. And plan ahead so that I can make decisions around re-allotment and I can think ahead so that we're not leaving funds on the table and lapsing funds at the back end of our of our award. It really is important that we look at how we capture all of that in the case management system in a way that allows us to continue managing our programs with a strong fiscal focus. So tying all of that in is also important at a higher level, so that we can use the data to make quality financial decisions.   Carol: Well said, well said. So in case our listeners want to get a hold of either of you, would you mind sharing your email address, Brittny?   Brittny: Yes, definitely. My email address is bMacIver So m a c I v e r@sdsu.edu. It's also available on our VRTAC website. If you go to our staff you'll see my email address there as well.   Carol: Excellent. Sarah, how about you.   Sarah: Yes thank you. It's sClardy. so, that's s c l a r d y at Sdsu.Edu.   Carol: Thanks so much I appreciate you both joining me today. Have a great one, you guys.   Brittny: Thanks.   Sarah: Thank you.   {Music}   Outro Voice: Conversations powered by VR, one manager at a time, one minute at a time, brought to you by the VR TAC for Quality Management. Catch all of our podcast episodes by subscribing on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts. Thanks for listening!

As property managers you likely know a little bit about mortgages. But do you know about non-QM loan strategies and how your clients and investors can utilize them? In this episode of the #DoorGrowShow, property management growth experts Jason and Sarah Hull sit down with Matt from Nexa Mortgage to talk about using non-QM strategies to unlock your portfolio's potential. You'll Learn [05:46] QM loans VS non-QM loans [16:14] Why Jason and Sarah went with non-QM [22:07] Which one should you choose? [26:46] Why should property managers know this? [32:23] What about long-term rentals Tweetables “If you have a great manager, it makes sense to get as many properties as you possibly can, knowing that they are in good hands and they are being taken care of because all you're doing is printing money.” “If you have a way that you can help your investor clients get what they want, which is more deals, it's a win.” “If you are a property manager, you should also be an investor in real estate.” “It's great to manage properties and let's do that and build wealth ourselves.” Resources DoorGrow and Scale Mastermind DoorGrow Academy DoorGrow on YouTube DoorGrowClub DoorGrowLive TalkRoute Referral Link Transcript [00:00:00] Sarah: He said, "I am not joking. I had to submit over 100 documents to the company in order to just see if I'm qualified to get this additional loan. And he's like, I just feel like there has to be an easier way." And there is, but sometimes people don't know about that.   [00:00:20] Jason: Welcome DoorGrow property managers to the DoorGrow show. If you are a property management entrepreneur that wants to add doors, make a difference, increase revenue, help others, impact lives, and you are interested in growing in business and life, and you're open to doing things a bit differently, then you are a DoorGrow property manager. [00:00:39] DoorGrow property managers love the opportunities, daily variety, unique challenges, and freedom that property management brings. Many in real estate think you're crazy for doing it. You think they're crazy for not because you realize that property management is the ultimate high trust gateway to real estate deals, relationships, and residual income. At DoorGrow we are on a mission to transform property management business owners and their businesses. We want to transform the industry, eliminate the BS, build awareness, change perception, expand the market, and help the best property management entrepreneurs win. We're your hosts, property management, growth experts, Jason and Sarah Hull, the CEO and COO of DoorGrow. Now let's get into the show.  [00:01:23] All right. And today we're hanging out with Matt Dean of Nexa Mortgage, and we're going to have an interesting conversation about financing and loans and I don't know, and some other stuff, but Matt welcome to the show.  [00:01:36] Matthew: Good morning. [00:01:37] Good morning. Thanks for having me.  [00:01:38] Jason: It's good to have you. So give us a little bit of background of how you got into the whole real estate industry and give people a little bit of background on you.  [00:01:49] Matthew: Sure. So, after I graduated from college, which I went to college in Missouri, I ended up moving to Austin, Texas, and one of the first jobs I got was with a commercial finance company and that landed me in Lakeway, which is where I reside now, and have been for over 15 years. But the commercial finance company that I worked with was was a fairly new company that came in from California. The owners Had a mortgage background and had gotten into this commercial finance division. [00:02:15] They had sold off a couple of mortgage companies opened up this division and Lakeway. They were also land developers and commercial finance guys. So they saw a lot of opportunity out here and opened up this company. So anyway, I got in on the ground floor. They were relocating the company here and had a couple year run with that. [00:02:31] And then in early 2000, the .Com kind of came in and blew up that whole industry. So what we were doing was commercial finance, equipment finance really, and at the time it was a lot of computer equipment and I was working with a lot of Dell sales reps that were taking over some of their overflow that Dell didn't want to finance. [00:02:49] So, when all that happened, and it blew up the owners who had the mortgage background really saw that "hey, we're going to see a refinance run here. The market's going to crash rates are going to come down. There's going to be a run." And so they immediately just flip. They had a mortgage company here, but it wasn't early. It was dormant. Yeah. And they flipped it open and and just started building that company out. And so that's ultimately how I got into the mortgage business. And, right after that, we had this really big refinance run. We grew that company very quickly to about 35 employees where we were doing 300 to 400 loans a month with a fairly small company. [00:03:27] And that just, jump straight in and learn the business. And so then in about 2007 ish, 2006 ish, I really got exposed to the investment world, so to speak. I got partnered up with a real estate brokerage here in Austin that focused on investment properties and primarily what they were focusing on was duplexes. [00:03:47] And so that year in 2006, I believe it closed 152 duplex transactions, and it was mainly California investors coming into Austin. And it really just changed my whole perspective of the mortgage industry as opposed to first time buyers or veterans, which I enjoy working with all those folks, but the commercial or the investment world, it's a different animal in that it's less emotion and more about business. And so I really just gravitated more to working with investors, started buying properties myself managed a few properties myself and then, evolved from there. But I worked with that same group and Lakeway for about 12 years and then moved around a couple of places and work for a builder and and a couple other companies. [00:04:29] But anyway, that's how I got in it, got started.  [00:04:31] Jason: Yeah, so you've seen it from a few different angles than the whole real estate investment industry, sounds like. [00:04:37] Matthew: Yeah, I've been through a few of these cycles of ups and downs. Obviously the refinance run early on was, really interesting, but a lot of good, easy money on the table, so to speak, but then we had the crash, which was a very difficult time for a couple of years, although, Austin weathered that storm pretty well relative to a lot of other areas of the country. [00:04:56] So, even though our volumes were down, our real estate didn't see as big of an equity loss and the job market here in Austin's always been really strong. So, it pulled us back out of it fairly quickly. We're in a situation now where rates are high and property values have gone up. [00:05:11] And it's a challenge for some folks here to purchase. A lot of folks are just priced out of the market and can't afford it. And property taxes aren't helping that situation.  [00:05:19] Jason: Yeah,  [00:05:20] Sarah: It's so pricey here. So pricey.  [00:05:22] Matthew: But we're starting to see a little bit of pull back on the values and the houses. It's a little bit more of a buyer's market now, but it still needs to come down a little bit, I think in my opinion, it's to balance the market again.  [00:05:34] Jason: Interesting. So the topic today is unlock your portfolio potential, non QM strategies for real estate investors. And for those that don't know what QM is, which I don't. So educate me. What's QM?  [00:05:47] Sarah: So I handled all of this stuff and Jason got to the closing table and he's like, "I'm an owner in the LLC, right?"  [00:05:54] Matthew: It's like, yeah, I barely talked to you along the way, but anyway, yeah, so let's talk a little bit about QM and how that all started. So, after the real estate crash in the 2006, 2007, eight ish area the CFPB was formed a consumer finance protection bureau, which took over the regulation with the mortgage industry. [00:06:12] It took them a few years, but in 2014 they implemented what was called TRID, which you may have heard that word, but it was where we got rid of the good faith estimate and integrated the new loan estimate and closing disclosure took over. And at that same point in time, the regulations came out and then classified conventional loans or reclassified them as qualified mortgages. [00:06:35] What that means really is the CFPB was trying to put protections in place to protect consumers and also strengthen guidelines to make sure that people or buyers had the ability to repay. So what that really meant was additional restrictions on ability to repay, debt ratio requirements, reserve assets, et cetera. [00:06:55] So, if you do a conventional loan, which is Fannie, Freddie. Those are considered qualified mortgages. They have additional protections in that you're maxed at the amount of fees you can charge a buyer. The APR has to be within guidelines within a maximum. So all those things are really for consumer protection, right? [00:07:14] At the same time, what caused the market crash before was what subprime mortgages. And so at the time, subprime mortgages initially had a place in the market. They really were good for investors because investors were putting money down, they had good credit typically, and they had reserve assets. [00:07:35] When the market shifted, and they started using subprime loans to qualify buyers for primary residences that really had no business buying homes is where it got in trouble. So after QM was announced or came out with CFPB, then they also had non QM loans. What that means is any loan that falls outside of the qualified mortgage guidelines, for whatever reason, can still be funded or it would fall within non QM. [00:07:59] Non QM just meant if you're a lender who does those type of loans, you're now required to hold additional reserve assets in your bank or your mortgage company per loan to cover for the potential higher risk and default.  [00:08:12] Jason: Okay.  [00:08:13] Matthew: And it took a few years from 2014. The market started to come out with products in 2015. [00:08:18] The industry was really not sure how to handle it. A lot of banks didn't want to even dive into it. And then it started to evolve. And "okay, there's a big market here." So now it's one of the fastest growing segments of the market and banks have realize or figured out how to meet the ability to repay guidelines with alternative methods, right? [00:08:41] So you don't have to have W2s and tax returns and pay stubs, which a conventional QM loan would require. Now, they look at different factor, like, 12 months business bank statements. I can look at a CPA prepared profit and loss statement, I can look at just the rent income on the property and that's what's classified or called DSCR. [00:09:03] And then also it's asset based loans where we just look at the asset and we turn the asset into a revenue stream. So that's really how non QM started and really what it is. It's just an alternative way of qualifying the mortgages that falls outside of the Fannie Freddie conventional type of loans. [00:09:21] Jason: Got it.  [00:09:21] Sarah: So what does that mean for investors? Because we have some investors that listen to us and we have some property managers who work with investors. So what would that mean for an investor that is looking to get into more investment properties?  [00:09:39] Matthew: Yeah, absolutely. So, the challenge that a lot of investors run into is a lot of them are self employed and a lot of them start accumulating property. [00:09:48] So if they fall into either one of those categories, either they're self employed. Or they've accumulated a lot of properties or both, right? The challenge becomes with qualified mortgages is from an income perspective, right? So good CPAs are going to try and shelter income for self employed borrowers and for investors by showing, minimal profits or minimal or losses on their properties. [00:10:11] And so, as investors start to accumulate more properties, it becomes more challenging to qualify for conventional loans, because for every property on a conventional loan, Fannie and Freddie want additional reserve assets. So that means you start getting 6 properties, you need assets for each one of those properties on top of down payment funds for the purchase property and the reserves on that property. [00:10:33] So, from two perspectives, either an income perspective, where we have a challenge again, a self employed borrower shows losses on his tax returns for the last 5 years by design, because he doesn't want to pay taxes, or we've got multiple properties also showing losses when I'm looking at income on a conventional loan basis, I have to use the income from the tax return. [00:10:52] So losses can be a problem. Also, the reserve requirements, so, taking into those two scenarios, you've got a self employed borrower that, let's say they, they have gross revenue of half a million dollars, but they're showing losses of, 50-60-70,000 dollars. We're just looking at 12 months bank statements in that case, which gives us gross revenue and then we back out of a factor of say, 25 to 30 percent for taxes and we use that as revenue or income to qualify. If we have an investor that, let's say, not necessarily self employed they have multiple rental properties that are basically just, showing losses and now their income is diminished to where they can't qualify. [00:11:32] Then we have the debt service coverage ratio programs. Like, we utilize with your property where we're looking at just the rent on the property. Right? So the rent the market rent or the short term rental just needs to cover the principal interest, taxes, insurance and fees. And so those are 2 products that we use and that's really how, I would say it helps investors in those scenarios. [00:11:54] The other products that we could look at are P& L products meaning that ACPA provides a P& L statement, and then we can use that income, or if they have significant assets just in investment funds and whatnot, we can turn that into a revenue stream. But the bottom line is it just eliminates the need for W 2s, tax returns, or pay stubs, and we look at other alternative income sources to qualify. [00:12:18] Sarah: It's funny. I was actually on Instagram the last week, I think. And there's this guy, he has a very large account and I can't remember his name. And he's very big on investing in real estate. And he said, "guys, like, I just need some help. I like I'm going through this whole process and you jumped through 10, 000 hoops." and he said, "I am not joking. I had to submit over 100 documents to the company in order to just see if I'm qualified to get this additional loan. And he's like, I just feel like there has to be an easier way." And there is, but sometimes people don't know about that. I still talk to investors and property managers and they don't know. [00:13:02] They're like, "I'm just too conventional. That's like what you do. That's like the normal thing that we're all trained and used to doing." So just knowing that there are other options that don't require all of these crazy hoops to jump through and all of this documentation and lots of red tape and underwriting. [00:13:22] It's not that it's eliminated. It's just that it's a lot easier of a process and especially if you're a savvy investor that takes a loss on your taxes, just because your tax return shows a loss, it doesn't actually mean that you're losing money, right? So there's a big difference there. So that plays a big part too. [00:13:43] Matthew: Yeah, there are investors. Sorry. I didn't mean to jump in there, but there are definitely investors that lean on that from a documentation standpoint. Right? They've been down this road. They have multiple properties and more properties, you have the more documentation you need to provide to try and qualify for those conventional loans and it just becomes more and more challenging. [00:14:00] And, even more so if you have a loan officer on the front end of that's trying to originate a loan, that isn't really versed in investment properties and doesn't know how to underwrite the tax returns, they can get in trouble. They look, "oh, I got good credit. I've got down payments." But when you try and pull together tax returns and the income from multiple properties and business losses and this and that, it becomes very complex. And it's honestly, a lot of loan officers don't even know how to look at that correctly. And so they just throw the file up. It goes to underwriting. And then 2 weeks later, they've got a problem. But I just closed a deal actually yesterday and it was ended up going non QM short term rental. And the gentleman is great credit owns his own businesses, owns multiple properties and schools here, but the documentation, because he owns, like, 8 companies and probably 7 or 8 rental properties, and he had a partner in this particular property that, It became so complicated with trying to pull some of that stuff together and also with the partner who wasn't necessarily as strong as him where it just made sense for us to go short term rental and move on. [00:15:07] And that's what we did. So we just made it easy. He was happy that he didn't have to continue to jump through all those hoops. And we were able to get the property done and close in about two and a half weeks.  [00:15:17] Jason: You said it made sense to go short term rental. You meant to go non QM. Is that what you meant? [00:15:21] Matthew: To go non QM. Yeah. We went short term rental income, which is non QM to qualify the income on the property. This happens to be a short term rental down on the Comal River and it's got great income. It just he had a private money loan on it when he purchased it needed to refinance the note was coming due and he just has a very complex financial situation. [00:15:43] And he got involved with a partner on this property that also created some challenges with that particular situation and just made it a lot easier to use him and go non QM short term rental income only and just get it done.  [00:15:54] Jason: So, would that be a DSCR loan going on the short term rental income? [00:15:59] Or is that different?  [00:15:59] Matthew: Yes, it is technically a DSCR loan, which means debt service coverage ratio. And this is what we utilize with your property as well, by the way. we're looking at either long term rents.  [00:16:10] Jason: We should tell that story, by the way, everyone listening has no clue. [00:16:13] Sarah: I know, right?  [00:16:14] Jason: Why don't we have Sarah explain like why we went this route, how we ended up talking with Matt and like how this all worked out.  [00:16:21] Sarah: Okay, let's do that. So, Jason, oddly proudly, he's like, "I've never owned a rental property and I've never managed a rental property. And I do this now." And I said, "this is nothing to be proud of. Like you're 46, you should own things. You should have assets." So like I, on the other hand, like I had, in my twenties, I started investing in real estate. So, Jason and I for a while have been saying like, "when are we going to get one together?" [00:16:48] Because we didn't have one yet and he never had one.  [00:16:51] Then also our circumstances in life have changed a little bit. And we thought " we need an additional property at this point." And we were in a unique situation where right now in Austin, I'll just start by saying long term rental is hard to make it make sense financially. [00:17:10] You're probably not going to cashflow.  [00:17:13] Jason: Yeah.  [00:17:13] Sarah: Not right now. Anyway, it's just, it's really hard because prices are high. And interest rates are also high. This is where we are. So we couldn't have possibly done a long term rental anyway, because we needed the property to have some personal use on it. [00:17:28] And we decided, "Hey, let's also use it for some of our DoorGrow events." Because every time that we do an event, We pay somebody else.  [00:17:37] So let's pay ourselves through that. So for that reason, it only can really be used as a short term rental property. So we decided, "Hey, there's these kind of three components." [00:17:48] And I'm really big on asset protection, meaning I need the property to be owned and deeded and financed in an LLC. So originally I was working with another agent. We've worked with him before on our primary home. He's a really great agent. I had asked him about, "can we fund it in the name of an LLC?" [00:18:09] And he said, "no you can't do that. It doesn't really work that way." And it seemed like he was just trying to talk us out of it. I even talked with that he typically uses and that we used on our, Home that we live in. And he said, "Oh no, yeah, we don't do properties in the LLC. It'll be in your name. And then after closing, we could do a quick claim and then like change the deed and put the deed in the LLC name." And I said, "okay, what about the mortgage?" And he said, "no. The mortgage stays in your name." And I said, "I'm out." Like that is where I'm out. You're piercing the veil. [00:18:44] All of my personal assets would now be exposed and on the line. And that completely defeats the purpose of having an LLC. And he was like, yeah, we just don't do that. I really don't think that's going to be a problem. So I said, "okay, do you know anybody now he's been in this business for like 20 or 30 years?" [00:19:02] "Do you know anybody that can do that?" And he said, "Oh, not really." So that was time to start looking for somebody else because I know that it can be done. I've done it in Pennsylvania. So there's no way that Texas can't do this. Texas is far ahead of Pennsylvania in a lot of different ways.  [00:19:19] Jason: So we found another agent. [00:19:20] Sarah: So we found another agent who then referred us to Matt and he said, "Hey, I know a guy. He's really great. And I'm pretty sure he can do what you need." So I said, "great. What's his information?" I had a conversation with Matt and he's like, "Oh, well, yeah, we can do that." And I said, "so you can put the loan in the LLC. Not my name, the LLC. He said yeah, we can do that." Like it was easy. So it can be done. Sometimes you just have to look around a little bit. So that was how our deal was structured. So we went non QM and we ended up doing, since it is a short term rental, we went DSCR so that the rents would cover essentially your PITI. [00:20:00] And this is how we made our deal work. So we closed PITI. [00:20:06] Jason: PITI for the listeners is...  [00:20:07] Sarah: principal interest taxes insurance. [00:20:11] Matthew: Yeah, so, I know that was how our conversation started was, " can we do this in the LLC?" And we walked through that and the pros and cons a little bit, I think, and that's one thing that conventional QM loans don't really not really, they don't allow that. You cannot fund in an LLC. [00:20:25] Now, what happens is a lot of people like you were advised, "hey, fund it in your name, slip it to the LLC later." That can cause some problems because Fannie Mae does have due on sale clauses in their loan documents. So, technically, if there's an ownership change, that note can be called due. Typically, you can just flip it back into your name and stop that process, but it becomes a cat and mouse game back and forth if you have a servicer that's trying to, exercise that for some reason, it doesn't happen very often. It's not a very high risk, but it's definitely something you need to be aware of. On the non QM side, the lenders want these, or most of them prefer them to be funded into LLCs because non QM as a whole is considered business purpose lending. [00:21:11] It falls outside of the consumer protection, finance protection Bureau oversight. So, it's considered or classified more of like a commercial loan. And so most of them require, or want you to fund into an LLC. There are some that will do them in their personal names. It's interesting. They follow more of a conventional loan program, which I'm not really sure I understand, because they issue a closing disclosure and they look at loan estimates, even though it's considered a non loan. So they just handle a little bit differently. Those companies will allow you to do it in your name and some of them are doing a lot of those companies are also doing primary residences under a non QM basis. So bank statement products for somebody who may be self employed also trying to buy a primary residence. That's where I see it more. Most of the the LLC stuff is for investors and those lenders are going to. Really prefer or require it to be in an LLC. [00:22:07] Jason: Got it. Okay, cool. So what should investors know in order to make the decision as to which way they should go? Like, how do you make the deciding factor? Like, what are some of the things that kind of weigh into this?  [00:22:20] Matthew: Yeah, I think really it's a conversation initially of can they qualify for a conventional loan? Do they understand what non QM loans have to offer? A lot of investors aren't familiar with the details of non QM loans, how they work, how they can help them. So it's really an education conversation of, what options we may have available. Right? I would always start with the conventional loans typically and, see if we can qualify. If you can go that route and you're putting 25 percent down you're going to get a little bit better interest rates. And then you don't have some of the other key factors that come with non QM loans. So most non QM loans do have some sort of prepayment penalty because they're selling these to a secondary hedge fund investor that wants a minimum return. So, in most cases, you're going to have a prepayment penalty in a conventional loan. Stay out of point. A QM loan legally cannot have a prepayment penalty. [00:23:14] So there's a big difference there. But as far as qualifying them, it's a really, like I said, an education and a conversation about what their profile looks like. Right? They self employed. Do they own multiple properties? Are they showing losses or profits on those properties? And then, really documenting that, 9 times out of 10, what I'm told on a verbal conversation doesn't match what I get on the documentation that way. [00:23:38] "Oh, my business makes this," but they're talking about gross revenue, not net income. They're talking about gross rent amounts, not the net income they're showing on their tax returns. So it needs to go the next level. But that initial conversation may determine quite quickly that, hey, we need to go non for what reason or, because they want to fund it in an LLC, because the property is really a short term rental, but it doesn't but they don't have any history of short term rental management. [00:24:07] And let's talk just a little bit about, how you look at the short term rental. I know that's what we were talking a little bit about before we talked about your loan, right? So there's 2 ways to look at that short term rental and it's either from well, the rental income short term or long term can either come from an appraiser. [00:24:23] Or from a software program that some lenders are now using. So a lot of lenders will lean on a typical, appraisal to an appraiser to come up with whatever that market rent may be. And like, like, you said, it's difficult to cash flow properties in Austin or in Texas. On long term rents simply because the property taxes have escalated and now with higher interest rates. [00:24:48] So a lot of times, the short term rental is really from a lending perspective an easier way to qualify the property for 1. But we do have the ability to look at it from two different perspectives and this is what we utilized on your loan. So I'll just talk about a little bit. So I have a couple lenders that will look at the short term rental from a software perspective. [00:25:05] Right? So in your case. When we had the discussion, it was really a matter of, yeah, "I really want to put 20 percent down. I don't want to put additional money down. That would be more important to me than a little bit higher interest rate. Right?" And so, when we look at different lenders that may be leaning on an appraisal. [00:25:21] I don't know what that number is for 2 weeks and me personally I feel like appraisers, especially in the short term rental market. Are a little bit lazy and sometimes they just don't have the data. So what happens is I submitted to the lender based on an 80 percent loan to value. And then all of a sudden, my short term rental income comes back low or lower than what we may have expected. [00:25:42] And now that's requiring you to put an additional 5 percent down to meet their guidelines of a debt service coverage ratio less than one or go no ratio, right? We still have an option, but the option is going to require you to put a little bit more money down. And so. Again, we have two ways to look at it either an appraisals given us that number or with some investors. [00:26:00] And this is why I like working with some of those in that case. Like I said, your most important factor is 20 percent down. so I took it to a lender that gave me that short term rental number within 48 hours. They ran it through their system. They gave it to me immediately and said, "this is where we should be." As soon as we submitted the loan to underwriting within 2 days, we had an approval and this was confirmed short term rental amount. We didn't have to wait on the appraiser and it didn't matter what the appraiser's opinion was. They already confirmed what we were going to use, which confirmed that I could get your loan approved with just 20 percent down. So, that's a preferred method in a lot of ways, especially if we're trying to keep that 20 percent down number. [00:26:38] If we have somebody that's putting 25-30 percent down, then it's. A little bit less relevant and we can, decide what option might be best for them at that point.  [00:26:46] Jason: Got it. So why should property managers who are constantly wanting to do more deals, help more investors, why should they have somebody like Matt in their back pocket? [00:26:57] Sarah: Oh, that's such a good question. Well, I want to think of it kind of twofold. One, I feel like if you are a property manager, you should also be an investor in real estate. Real estate agents just by having access to the MLS. No, that's not where all deals come from. I know that, but just by having access to the MLS and the connections that you have as a real estate agent and property manager, there's no chance that you don't come across amazing deals all the time. [00:27:23] There's no chance. So capitalize on that.  [00:27:26] You should also be an investor yourself. It's great to manage properties and let's do that and build wealth ourselves. Yeah. So that's number one. But number two is if you're like, "well, I like, I don't know, I'm unsure, or maybe I have one property or two properties and I don't know if I'm ready to continue to build a portfolio." [00:27:46] Or you're like, "Hey, I have X many properties and I'm happy right here. I don't want any more." I don't know why, but maybe you are. So if that's the case and you have investor clients that very likely would love to get into more deals themselves. And it would be great for you because now if you have an investor and they manage five doors, but that same investor can now manage 10, 20, 38. [00:28:11] That's fantastic because now your business is growing. So if you have a way that you can help your investor clients get what they want, which is more deals, it's a win because yes, the savvy investors, they're always looking for more deals. Jason's hooked now. He said to me, we closed and he was like, "how do we do another one? like, how do we do another one?" He's like, "how fast can we do another one? Like Sarah, is it possible if we do like one property a year," right? And he did. Yeah, he did. There's a lot of investors like that because once you get it. Once you really get to see all of the benefits and just how freaking beautiful it is to be a real estate investor and make money and get all of the tax benefits that you don't get in almost any other sector. [00:28:54] It's amazing. So why would you not want more of that? So if you're a property manager, it would make so much sense for you to just be able to educate your investor clients. "Hey, have you ever thought of picking up more properties?" The answer probably is going to be "yes," especially if you're doing a great job for them as a property manager. [00:29:14] Because that's a tricky part is, "well, I could buy a bunch of properties, but who's going to manage them?" If you have a great manager, it makes sense to get as many properties as you possibly can, knowing that they are in good hands and they are being taken care of because all you're doing is printing money. [00:29:30] So if you want to grow your portfolio by adding additional deals to the clients that you already have. It's like so simple, right? Why would we not do that? So having options. that not everybody knows about. It's fantastic.  [00:29:47] Jason: So in short, this just gives them a lot more options to work with because investors want to invest, and they may think, "Oh, well, I've only got this much down or I can only do a conventional, I can only do it this way. I need to meet certain criteria" or "I've just declared all these losses."  [00:30:04] Sarah: "Like I have too much debt." Maybe their like debt to income is a little maxed out because we're, keeping up with the Joneses. This is so normal, right? So that and Matt's laughing. He sees it all the time. [00:30:15] I bet he's like, "Oh, we went a little too high on that one." [00:30:18] there's good debt and bad debt though as well, right?  [00:30:21] Correct. However, if you own five properties or six properties or seven properties, every additional property that you have that is leveraged, meaning that you have a mortgage on it, that's counting against you and your debt to income ratio. [00:30:35] Jason: Right. So it gets harder and harder using conventional to get into more property.  [00:30:40] Sarah: Unless you're the Fed and you can just print money.  [00:30:42] Jason: Well, I don't know if they're buying  [00:30:44] Matthew: a lot of money.  [00:30:44] But you bring up a good point and just to clarify when we do a debt service coverage ratio program, I'm not looking at any of your debt. [00:30:52] I'm not looking at a debt ratio calculation at all. And if you own multiple properties, I'm not even looking at any of those other properties for any sort of rent, income, verification, mortgage, anything. This one is a business, right? Correct. It's it. Well, it's just debt service coverage on that subject property, right? [00:31:10] Does the rent cover the note? And do we have enough money for down payment and reserves on that property alone? We don't look at reserves for those additional properties like you would a conventional. So you got five properties. I don't care about reserves on those. I'm only looking at the subject property. [00:31:24] So, yes, debt to income is a big factor and I think, if we're talking to property management companies, it's really just an education or a knowledge of what potentially could be out there. Right? Like you said, they have opportunities to buy all the time. I would think that the savvy property manager is going to scoop those up if they can, but are they aware of these programs? [00:31:44] Or do they think that? "Oh, my debt to income is too high or I have losses on my tax returns that I'm going to have trouble qualifying." And then you also have your network of investors that you manage those properties for that potentially are looking for additional doors, but they're not aware of these programs in some cases. [00:32:00] So, yeah, it's just a matter of, I think, education and just getting the information out there. So that some of these people know what options are available.  [00:32:09] Jason: Well, it sounds like it shifts the conversation from, "can we?" Yeah. Maybe it's a no, in their thought, in their mind to "how can we?" Like, there's other creative ways that things could be done instead of saying, "Oh, it's gotta be this one way we've always done it. That's the only way." So, what about for long term rentals? Which like some of the investors listening and a lot of our clients listening may not do a short term.  [00:32:32] Sarah: You can still do a non QM on a long term, especially in Austin. Now, other markets, you might find a cashflow. Like I have a cashflow property in Pennsylvania. [00:32:40] It's a rare gem guys, but in Austin, it's hard to get something to cashflow, especially right now.  [00:32:47] Matthew: Okay, so there's two ways to look at it again. There's, or I guess, multiple ways to look at it. Not just two, but bank statements if I'm looking at it. So, if they're self employed, and they have a business that we can lean on the bank statements, right? [00:32:59] That's my income qualifier and no longer care about that negative potential cash flow on the property in the rent. Right? So that's one way. If I'm doing debt service coverage and I'm looking at long term rental, I have a client that wants to long term rented. They're not going to be comfortable stating short term rental on the application. [00:33:17] They really have no desire to do that. Then I have to look at the short term rent. Now, what that's typically going to end up, at least in Austin, what's typically going to end up happening is that property is going to have a problem cash flowing at 20 percent down or 80 percent equity. Right? So what happens is it now pushes us to. [00:33:34] A bigger down payment, a larger down payment, 25 percent 30%. And then we have the options with those lower loan values to do either no ratio or lower debt coverage ratio loan programs. Right? So. If it falls below 100%, meaning 100 percent rent coverage with PITI coverage which principal interest taxes, insurance and HOA fees all come into that play. But let's just say it's a little bit short. I've got a PITI of 2000 dollars of my rent's 1800. well, the lender is going to do one or two things. Are you going to say, "well, we need more down to get that to 100%." Or "we're going to reclassify it as a higher risk and we'll do, some of them will go down to 75 percent debt coverage, but it's a little bit higher rate." [00:34:18] Or "we have to go to a little bit larger down payment and go no ratio, right?" No ratio means we just eliminate that altogether. And it's typically 30 percent down. So, we have options to look at but it is definitely a little bit harder if we're looking at long term rents simply because it's harder to cash flows at 20%, unless again, unless we have larger down payments or larger equity positions, for refinances to soak. [00:34:42] A lot of these let's talk about that too, you have some of your property management clients that may want to purchase more properties where they could extract equity out of these homes to use to purchase more property. So there's a lot of the refinance going on with those properties to under a non QM basis, because they again, they can't qualify for a full doc for whatever reasons. [00:35:03] Right? But there are options to pull cash out under a non QM basis and utilize those funds to reinvest.  [00:35:09] Jason: Got it. So say they've got five, 10 properties, it's getting really difficult for them to qualify for a QM loan. They could maybe pull some equity out of their existing properties, do like a cash out refi, and then use that money to fund a bigger down payment to do a non QM scenario. [00:35:28] Matthew: Absolutely. Absolutely. The challenge right now in the market with refinances in general is a lot of these people have really good rates on those properties. And so they don't necessarily want to refinance and lose that low rate understandably. Right? So. In other states, you have a the ability to do HELOCs or he loans, which are second liens, Texas, it's a little bit limited. [00:35:47] There's not as many products available, especially on the investment side. There are ways to extract some of that equity and reposition it to be reinvested in other investment opportunities. And I will say that we do have the ability to do the same type of loans on small commercial properties. [00:36:04] Like, up to I've got one lender that kind of specializes in that small commercial that goes up to 24 units. So, between 5 and 24 unit apartment buildings, we're also looking at a non QM type debt service coverage loan, which is what commercial loans look at in general anyway. Commercial loans are based on cash flow, right? [00:36:23] It's all debt service coverage based on that. But in that small apartment complex arena, you've got a lot of these kind of more residential lenders that are focusing and specializing in it. Because it's a piece of the market that's left out, right? Your commercial lenders don't want to touch something that's a few 100, 000 dollars. They have minimums of 5Million dollars, 3Million dollars. And so you have these smaller properties that are great investments in some cases that also have challenges getting loans, not because of the property, but because of the size of the loan.  [00:36:55] Jason: It's just not big enough for him. [00:36:56] So Matt what areas do you cover personally? And then how do people find somebody like you, how did they find somebody like you? Like, this was a challenge we had to ask around what do people look for to find somebody that can help them with some more creative options?  [00:37:11] Matthew: That's a good question. I wish more people would know how to find me. So maybe you can help me with that. But yeah, it's just, it's interesting. There's a lot of loan officers that just don't, I guess maybe they're scared of the non QM space. They don't understand it. They're scared of change, so to speak, and so they just go, "I've never done that. And I don't know anything about it and they don't want to learn about it." it's the fastest growing segment of the market right now. Fannie Mae is pushing a lot of the paper towards non QM from a risk perspective. They want to get away from it. They're making investment rates in terms unattractive, so to speak, so they're offloading it that way. But, I think it's really through the real estate agents is probably the best way to get in touch with somebody like me, if they're familiar with it. But what's interesting is even your agent from McLean that I work a lot with Brett. [00:38:00] He wasn't 100 percent versed in these products either. So. Fortunately, he got me, right?  [00:38:05] Sarah: Yeah. Thank you, Brett.  [00:38:07] Matthew: But, yeah, as far as if you have somebody that's questions, I'm always available to potentially educate people in regards to these programs. As far as where I do business, I'm legally licensed in Texas and Arizona, meaning national mortgage licensing, which is the, the CFPB license. [00:38:22] Now, with non QM loans about 35 states don't require you to have a license within that state. So I can do non QM debt service coverage all these type of loans that we talked about in about 34 different states. Just with my national license and because they consider a business purpose use, it's classified as a commercial loan in those states, and they don't have these overbearing laws like California does or Nevada. So there are some states that it's difficult unless you want to jump through a bunch of hoops to do it. And unless there's enough volume, there hasn't made sense for me to do it. [00:38:55] I just focus on the ones that I can, which is a big piece of the country and we can help folks in those 30 some states, 34 states, whatever it is.  [00:39:03] Jason: So there's maybe 15, 16 states that you can't cover.  [00:39:06] Matthew: It's the New York the Pacific Northwest and California, most of the middle of the country around Texas we can do. [00:39:14] I know you, you referred me to somebody in Utah the other day, they happen to be a state that requires licensing, but their licensing is pretty reasonable. So, if there was an opportunity or a reason, for some volume to come out of there, I could get licensed fairly quickly. [00:39:28] And some of these states, because I already hold a national license within them. I passed the test for that, which means you just have to take the state piece of that exam to then get licensed. Be able to do loans there, which is fairly simple. And as long as you're not in New York or California or somebody that has these crazy laws,  [00:39:44] Sarah: What's to invest there anyway, come on, like squatters and all this, like? [00:39:48] Matthew: I know, right? [00:39:49] I don't know how everybody does loans in New York. I hear it takes 90 days to close a loan.  [00:39:54] Jason: There's plenty of investors in those markets. I'm sure people listening. All right. Cool. Well, Matt, it's been great having you here on the DoorGrow show. Appreciate you being our guest. How can people find you or get in touch with you? [00:40:06] If they're wanting to reach out and find out if they're one of those 34 states.  [00:40:10] Matthew: Well, my number if you want my phone number is 512 415 6142. You can Google Nexa my name. I think if you Google my name and Nexa mortgage that come up quite a bit on the Google nexahomelending.Com is my personal website. [00:40:27] That's probably the two best ways to reach out to me just text or email and I'm more than happy to help you in any way that I can.  [00:40:34] Jason: Perfect. Well, it sounds like this is at least a key or just a tool or an idea that every property manager listening should probably have in their back pocket. [00:40:44] You should have some sort of connection to a more creative lender than you may have currently. And so, connect with Matt or maybe, I don't know, start Googling non QM lenders in your market. I don't know, but find somebody or ask around to some real estate agents, but see if you can get somebody that can help with getting some of these deals because investors, they have money, they have equity and, but they're not doing deals and they want to probably do more deals and they just need somebody creative enough to help them find some solutions or interesting ways to make it happen. [00:41:13] So, all right. Well, again, Matt, thanks for being on the show. Appreciate you.  [00:41:17] Matthew: My pleasure. Thank you very much for having me.  [00:41:19] Jason: All right. Well, everybody, if you are interested in growing your business, your property management business, reach out to us, you can check us out at doorgrow.Com. And until next time, everybody to our mutual growth. Bye everyone.  [00:41:30] Matthew: Great. Thank you. Talk to you guys soon. Bye. [00:41:32] 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!  [00:41:59] At DoorGrow, we solve your biggest challenge: getting deals and growing your business. Find out more at doorgrow.com. Find any show notes or links from today's episode on our blog doorgrow.com, and to get notified of future events and news subscribe to our newsletter at doorgrow.com/subscribe. Until next time, take what you learn and start DoorGrow Hacking your business and your life.

If you have been struggling to grow your property management business, you might have been prioritizing the wrong things… In this episode of the #DoorGrowShow, property management growth experts Jason and Sarah Hull discuss how having the right priorities and getting support helps with business growth. You'll Learn [01:30] Are you prioritizing the right things? [08:30] Why you CAN'T do everything yourself [20:20] How prioritizing safety might hinder growth [27:30] Why you should be willing to take risks [30:50] Prioritize results and get those results Tweetables “You may have all the right priorities. They're just in the wrong order.” “I think a lot of times we hold onto things simply because ‘we want it done right' means ‘done according to my set of values.'” “Pain's an inevitable scenario if you keep trying to do the same thing and expecting a different outcome.” “You can either have your excuses or you can have 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] Sarah: Isn't that the definition of insanity? It's doing the same thing over and over and over and then expecting a different result. [00:00:06] Jason: I think that's what creates insanity. Like, pain's an inevitable scenario if you keep trying to do the same thing and expecting a different outcome.  [00:00:14] Welcome DoorGrow property managers to the #DoorGrowShow. If you are a property management entrepreneur that wants to add doors, make a difference, increase revenue, help others, impact lives, and you are interested in growing in business and life, and you're open to doing things a bit differently, then you are a DoorGrow property manager. DoorGrow property managers love the opportunities, daily variety, unique challenges, and freedom that property management brings. Many in real estate think you're crazy for doing it. You think they're crazy for not, because you realize that property management is the ultimate high trust gateway to real estate deals, relationships, and residual income. [00:00:56] At DoorGrow, we are on a mission to transform property management business owners and their businesses. We want to transform the industry, eliminate the BS, build awareness, change perception, expand the market and help the best property management entrepreneurs win. We're your hosts, property management, growth experts, Jason and Sarah Hull, the founder and CEO and the COO of DoorGrow. Now let's get into the show.  [00:01:25] I did the intro right this time I think. I didn't screw it up. We could just have it prerecorded, people. You never know what you're going to get. Okay. So I was thinking about what we could talk about this morning and I've been doing some reflection and some study and the topic that just keeps coming up in my mind is prioritization and priorities. [00:01:44] In fact, I'll probably talk a little bit about that and do an exercise with some of the cool people that are coming to DoorGrowLive. Cause I really think if you're not experiencing growth and you're not having the success that you want, you're not getting the results that you want in business and life, then it's pretty simple. It's just that your priorities are out of alignment with you getting the results that you want. And you may have all the right priorities. They're just in the wrong order. And so you're prioritizing something over the thing that if you prioritize would give you the results that you actually want in your life. [00:02:20] And so I was thinking about this question and I threw it out to Sarah while she's getting ready this morning. And I said, "what are people prioritizing over growth?" Because the people that come into our program, the work with us, they get great results. They are different. They're prioritizing growth over certain other things. [00:02:39] And so people that don't work with us, why do they not spend money on coaching? Why don't they invest in coaching? And so why don't we go to Sarah and find out, what do you think? Why are people not spending money on coaching? Like where entrepreneurs at in their journey that mentally that's preventing them from spending money on a coach, moving the business forward or working towards growth? [00:03:05] Sarah: Well, I think there's a few reasons that this could be the case. And one might be that people don't even know what a coach would do, right? Like, "how would a coach help me?" And some people might not even be aware that that's an option.  [00:03:22] Jason: Got it.  [00:03:22] Sarah: I wasn't for a very, very long time. Even when I was running my business, I didn't know, "Hey, there's people that will help you." [00:03:30] Jason: Okay. That's fair enough. So what cracked your mind open to the idea or possibility of coaching?  [00:03:38] Sarah: Well, honestly, it was you. You're really big on coaching. I had never had a coach in my life. Ever. And when you and I had moved in together, you are so big on coaching and you do a variety of different types and styles of working with coaches. [00:04:00] And some of it is mastermind style and some of it is one on one and some of it is event type. And I realized, "wow, this is really great." Like, I just did not make that connection and realization that there are people who genuinely want to help other people succeed in life and in business.  [00:04:21] Jason: So I want to clarify what you're saying. [00:04:26] Clarify something. Some people listening will hear, "Oh, Jason's into coaching. Yeah, we know he coaches people. That's what he does. It's what he's trying to sell." And what you're saying is you saw me getting coached.  [00:04:38] Sarah: Oh yes, working with coaches.  [00:04:39] Jason: Working with coaches, joining masterminds. Like I'm the student.  [00:04:43] Sarah: I knew what you did when obviously when I met you.  [00:04:45] Jason: Yeah.  [00:04:46] Sarah: But I also saw you embody that and you work with a lot of coaches yourself. And in seeing you and the business, our business, work with coaches, that was something I was like, "Oh, wow. Okay. That helps a lot." Because coaches, especially when you work with a coach that's been there, done that... because there's a lot of coaches that they don't really know. They're like, "well, this was a great theory." But when you work with a coach that has. done the thing and gotten the result and had that experience and now they can talk about it and they can share their experience and they can share their knowledge and they can say, "Hey, I tried this and it didn't work. So avoid this," and "Hey, this got me in some hot water, so definitely don't do that," And, "this was really successful and here's how I did it and here's why I did it this way. And I kept testing and refining." And then they can share that knowledge with you. And when I started experiencing that in DoorGrow, With the coaches that we worked with, that was something that I was like, "Oh, well, that would have been nice to know." [00:05:52] Jason: And Sarah learns super fast. Like I've always been super impressed by how quick you adopt new information or new ideas. Like most people I think it takes a while for people to absorb certain things, but some things you're just like, "yeah." And you're like, "let's do coaching." [00:06:05] And we've tried lots of different coaches out together. Like some not good.  [00:06:09] Sarah: Some are not good.  [00:06:10] Jason: Right. It's like a...  [00:06:12] Sarah: colossal waste of money.  [00:06:14] Jason: Some really good.  [00:06:15] Sarah: Some really good.  [00:06:16] Jason: Some we weren't ready for. We just like didn't have the capacity or the bandwidth to work with them.  [00:06:21] Sarah: Mm hmm.  [00:06:22] Jason: We just had so much going on. [00:06:23] Like we took on too much. Maybe we had too many coaches at a time, something like this. Right. Even right now, like I'm onboarding and I'm coaching and training two new sales team members, plus my son in learning setting and sales. But I went and got outside help. So I have a coach right now that's coaching me and them. [00:06:45] And then I'm spending each day coaching them, but each week we're meeting with a coach and he's an expert in sales and he's helping us go to another level and work on scripts and work on our communication, work on language. And that's been really helpful. I'm always leveling up my skills. [00:06:59] And I think it's important to never get comfortable. And I think for me, I just try to imagine like if I didn't have coaches or mentors and I'm every day trying to like coach people and sell coaching to me, that would feel like a gross lack of integrity. Feels like I'd be grossly out of alignment, and a lot of the coaches that we have, I found them through coaching programs that we were in with them. Right. And so I know that they believe in coaching and they're in integrity. And I know that they're in the areas, at least that I am seeking help in, they are ahead of me in that game. And and so I can trust them. [00:07:39] There's evidence they can help get results and they've given some value already. And so I'm like, "okay, I should, we should work with them." And I think that's one of the challenges. And so everybody out there, if you're like, " why am I not spending money on coaching or why don't I have a coach?" [00:07:52] I think there's a lot of reasons for that. But I think just as a side note, if you're going to get a coach, don't work with a coach that doesn't have a coach , right? If they went through one program one time, they're like, "I went through this coaching program and got a certificate one time." Then do they really believe in coaching? [00:08:10] No. They just believed in getting the appearance of being a good coach and they're not actually a coachable person. I believe in order to be able to coach others, you have to also be coachable and being able be able to learn. I learned a massive amount just by coaching, coaching clients and supporting them. [00:08:29] And so let's get into what people maybe are prioritizing instead of growth. If they're not growing. Because some people are listening to this and they're like, "well, I've been stuck at the same number of doors I've been at for like two, three years." So what priority might be off or what are they prioritizing that's different? [00:08:45] What might be off? What are some of the things they're prioritizing?  [00:08:48] Sarah: I think one of the big things is this need to control everything. And I understand because I am a control freak. I get it. And for a long, long time, I had always said, "if you want something done right, you have to do it yourself." [00:09:08] So, why would I ask somebody else to do this thing, and then I'm just going to have to go check and see if they did it the right way? And "oh, they made a mistake, so now I have to... it's just easier and faster for me to just go and do it myself!" Right? Instead of teaching somebody or training somebody or just asking them to do it, but then really secretly I'm going to go and check and see if they actually did it. [00:09:28] So delegation for me was very hard for a very long time. Because I am very detail oriented, and very OCD, and very organized, and I'm very particular in how things get done. So, I believe there's a right way, and a wrong way to do just about every task that there is.  [00:09:49] Jason: Yeah, that's very, very INTJ thinking of you. [00:09:53] But I'm not incorrect. Most of the time, you're not, right? And so, if you want it done right, you do it yourself. Is that true? Sometimes, right? Like there's a lot of situations where that's true. The challenge is: could it be possible that if somebody else did it, it could be done better than you? [00:10:12] Right. That could be true too. And so I think getting a coach is you start to recognize where you might have gaps and the ultimate evidence is our results. If we're not getting the results that we want, then maybe we're not the person that should be doing that thing. Because we're not getting the results and we're doing it. [00:10:29] So it's us, right? But yeah, I think that's a belief that a lot of people have in the beginning. "I want it done right." And I think a lot of times we hold onto things simply because "we want it done right" means "done according to my set of values." There's lots of different ways to do something and the outcome could be similar or could work or could be positive, but we have certain values that we want it done in a certain way to be the right way. [00:10:54] The right way. Yes. And INTJs very much feel there's a right way and a wrong way for everything. The challenge is a lot of times, if we're super rigid and believing we always have the right way, we can't see around corners. There's certain personality types, though, that can see a lot more opportunity and a lot more variety of options. [00:11:13] And they usually can crack those strong J's brains open, that are judging, to some new ideas and new possibilities. And eventually they'll adopt those, right? And so that's, I think where we have a nice balance in our relationship is you're usually right. A lot of things and very strategic brain and can figure stuff out and you're like, something's off here. [00:11:35] You're very intuitive. And and usually right when you're like, "something's not right here." And then also, I'm very good at seeing alternatives, other possibilities, and exposing you to some other options or some other ideas.  [00:11:48] Sarah: Yes. And you're also very good at human emotions.  [00:11:52] Jason: Oh. [00:11:52] Sarah: I'm not good at human emotion. [00:11:54] Jason: Right.  [00:11:55] Sarah: You're like, "well, you can't do that because it'll make people feel like this." And I'm like, "so?" [00:12:01] Jason: Yeah, yeah, this is a constant frustration. You're like, "why won't people just do what I told them to do when I just tell them one time in a very succinct way, exactly what I want?  [00:12:11] Sarah: Right? Like I have all the answers, just listen and then do what I tell you to do! That's it. Like, it's so easy. I feel like life would be so much easier if you just listen. [00:12:22] Jason: And so the one advantage, one of my maybe few advantages over you cognitively maybe is the idea that I can empathize a bit more with other people and I can figure out what would it take to get this installed into their brain? [00:12:38] What would make this digestible for them? What would make this palatable? What would make them able to adopt or absorb this idea or to remember this idea or for this to work? And you're like, "just tell them!" Because I can just tell you and you get it. And you'll get annoyed if I start to explain and use analogy. [00:12:53] Sarah: I got it, I got it.  [00:12:55] Jason: Yeah.  [00:12:55] Sarah: Give me the thing that I need.  [00:12:56] Jason: Those things are very effective. I got it. Other people.  [00:12:58] Sarah: And now I'm going to go and do it. That's how I work.  [00:13:01] I think other people work like that too, but sometimes they don't and it's crazy to me! I don't... crazy!  [00:13:07] Jason: So I think one of the things that people prioritize over growth sometimes is that self struggle. Like there's people that value doing it themselves. [00:13:17] Like even as a little kid, my daughter, Madi, I would try to tie her shoelaces and she didn't even know how to do it! And she would say, "no, I do it! I do it!"  [00:13:25] Like she wouldn't let me do it.  [00:13:26] Sarah: Hey Madi.  [00:13:27] Jason: Madi edits our podcast, so she'll see this. She wanted to do it. And I'd be like, "okay." [00:13:32] And she's just sitting there struggling. But she was determined and eventually she figured it out and eventually she might be frustrated enough to allow me to help her. Right? And sometimes we have to allow people to struggle, but a lot of times we're self struggling and it's self imposed and we're not having success in our business or success in growth or adding doors or making more money or retaining clients or whatever it might be. And we're so stuck on this idea of self struggle, which is DIY, right? "I'm going to do it myself." and I've been this guy. I'll watch YouTube videos. I'll read books. I will figure it all out on my own. [00:14:06] " I'm smart enough. I can do this." And what I want to say to everybody listening, that that's you. You're right. You're totally right. You are smart enough to figure everything out eventually, it's just going to take you probably a decade longer than somebody that goes and gets coaching or gets helped. And I've been that I've done that. [00:14:24] Jason: I've spent like a decade doing stupid stuff. I'm in my forties. I've spent at least a decade doing some things and struggling with some things before I got help with it. And the amount of time somebody that already has succeeded at this or knows what works can collapse for you in the experimentation, in the struggles, in the financial risks, in the time wasting is pretty significant, like dramatically significant. [00:14:48] I've had mentors... I have one mentor. I paid him three grand a month and it was the biggest expense ever. Like I signed up for this coach and I immediately was like in a short period of time was making 30 grand more a month. That's a pretty decent return. Right? And I would have been stupid to not have done that, but it was a calculated risk. [00:15:07] At the time I was in a dysfunctional marriage and my wife at the time cried when I told her I was spending three grand a month, and we've spent a lot more than three grand a month on some of our coaches and mentors.  [00:15:19] Sarah: At the time three grand was a lot and it was scary.  [00:15:21] Jason: Oh, yeah.  [00:15:22] That was my first dive into high ticket coach. Yes. Working with the coach.  [00:15:26] Sarah: Yes, and I think the other thing to point out too about working with someone else is that It's not always about, "well, I must be bootstrapped. I must do it myself. I'm going to figure it out. I'm going to do it all. I don't need any help." [00:15:40] Sometimes it's not even that sometimes it's, you just think things are really good because we hear that sometimes. Not all the time, but sometimes like, "Oh, things are pretty good in the business," but you don't know what you don't know.  [00:15:51] Sometimes you just don't know what you don't know. And you think, "well, if things keep going the way that they are right now, that's okay. Like, maybe it's not my dream situation, but I'm also not really hating my day to day. And I'm not in this massive struggle." So I'm like, "things are okay. So do I actually need help? And do I need to reach out and work with someone?" And a lot of times, even if you think things are pretty good, and " maybe I don't need help." And you're right. You maybe don't need help. Perhaps you just need help to see what else is possible for you. [00:16:31] Jason: And they may not need help. They may not need it. If you're smart and you have big goals and you want to move forward quicker, then maybe you would want it, right? You would desire it instead of feel like this needy energy, like, "Oh, I need this." I think that's sometimes what limits us is we don't want to feel like we need something. [00:16:48] We don't want to admit we need something because it's a gross energy to be needy or to need something. It almost feels victimy to some people. I think when we have goals and we know what we want and we see that other people can help us, it becomes a little bit more natural for us to be able to do that. [00:17:03] Sarah: And I also think, this is another gripe I have with our lovely education system, is that in school, you are taught, "do it on your own." [00:17:13] "Don't look at other people's. Don't cheat. Don't ask your neighbor." If you're stuck, you pretty much ask the teacher. Refer back to your lesson and figure it out. When you're taking a test, you can't go "hey Joe, I don't know what number 13 is. You know what number 13 is?" You're not allowed to do that.  [00:17:32] Yeah, like getting help is wrong.  [00:17:33] It's wrong, right! So just have it memorized and regurgitate it. So take the information in, memorize it, and vomit it back up on a piece of paper, and then I will give you a passing grade. In the middle of a test, are you able to raise your hand and say, "Hey teacher, I had a question. I'm stuck on this. I don't really understand this. Can you please help me arrive to the answer?" No! No, you cannot! So in school, they teach us the self reliance. And I do believe that that is a very positive thing in one way. And in another way, it hinders our growth. Because in business, you should rely on other people so that you can get better results and go farther faster.  [00:18:17] Jason: So I think also what school teaches us, the way school is set up is there's this one guru expert at the front of the room that we have to listen to all the time. [00:18:27] And so we learn to be reliant on the leader for all the answers. And sometimes the leader doesn't have them, right? Sometimes they don't know. Sometimes they have blind spots. Everybody's been a student when they've called their teacher out on something that was off or wrong, right? Or seen that happen, and they lose that credibility. And teachers just usually don't tolerate that very well. They don't like being seen as having flawed thinking. Having a wrong idea or being wrong. And so there's this sort of authoritarianism that's like involved in schools. It's like, trust the authority, trust the leader, be this blind, dumb beast and let them lead you around. And that's like the Bible and book of revelations talks about the mark of the beast and the hand and the forehead. And maybe it's just your thoughts and your labor just being controlled by outside unearned authority. And people should earn. their authority, right? I work with coaches because they've earned authority, not because they just told me like somebody like put a gun to my head or forced me or I was in a school system and they said I had to do it this way. [00:19:30] So I think the irony of self struggle or DIY is that A lot of you are frustrated and thinking "I've got to do everything myself," but then you are probably because of that energy that you are being and creating in the universe and just how you show up with other people, you probably are really triggered and really frustrated with all the people that you encounter that think they could do a better job themselves. [00:20:00] Because you have the same energy or problem as them, and so they trigger you. So if you're running, you're butting your head all the time with these DIY people in the industry, people that are trying to self manage their properties or people that are trying to micromanage really self manage through you to get you to do the work, it may be because you're carrying this belief of self struggle or doing it yourself. [00:20:22] So just something to chew on. So another challenge that I think why people don't spend money on coaching or what they're prioritizing maybe over growth is there might be prioritizing safety or ease or comfort. And so what do you have to say about that?  [00:20:38] Sarah: So you have to get uncomfortable if you want results. [00:20:42] If you want results that are different than what you're currently getting, you can't take the same actions you're taking now and expect to get different results. I think, isn't that the definition of insanity? It's doing the same thing over and over and over and then expecting a different result. [00:20:57] Jason: I think that's what creates insanity. It stresses people out and makes you start to go crazy a little bit. That's a pretty painful. Pain's an inevitable scenario if you keep trying to do the same thing and expecting a different outcome. Now, everybody, as we age, we tend to move towards more and more comfort. [00:21:14] I saw a video the other day. I think it was Gary Brecka, this health guy. He said that after the age of 30, most people will never do another sprint again in their life.  [00:21:24] Sarah: Well, I don't want to sprint. If I'm sprinting, y'all better follow me because...  [00:21:27] Jason: right. That's what people are saying. Like, they're like, "yeah, I don't want to. That's uncomfortable. I don't want to be cold. I don't want to be too hot." Comfort is he like described as is what leads us towards death ultimately. We want to be comfortable. We don't go work out at the gym. We don't build muscle, which affects our cognitive functioning later in life. It makes our bones more brittle. We then have a broken bone and like like we're hospitalized till we die right in our later years if we don't do the right things And so we're always seeking comfort and ease, and when we're always seeking comfort and ease, we shift the weight towards others. We Become, what I would kind of phrase as a victim or a blamer. We're a victim. We blame other people. We're complaining about our circumstances constantly, right? [00:22:17] And instead of doing work or taking action or doing the things that are uncomfortable. And I think there's this stoic phrase that from, I don't know, one of the cool guys that is involved in stoicism or whatever, but the idea is "hard choices, easy life. Easy choices, hard life." [00:22:34] And a lot of people, I think could go, "that's true." I've seen some people make some easy choices, choices towards comfort, choices towards ease and their life's pretty difficult because they've avoided doing the hard, uncomfortable things, having the hard, uncomfortable conversations with people they should have, doing work, working hard to get the outcomes and a life of greater ease and comfort, right? [00:22:55] And so I think if you prioritize ease and comfort over growth, what's going to happen?  [00:23:00] Sarah: Not much.  [00:23:01] Jason: Well, you're not going to grow, right? Because growth isn't necessarily about ease and comfort, right? And so, even in nature, if we take a fruit tree or a bush that produces some sort of, fruit, whatever, if we cut that, tree and trim it, it will then yield a bigger result. [00:23:19] And sometimes if it's overgrown, it can't even produce fruit very effectively because it's too busy feeding everything else, all the branches leaves. So trimming it allows it to produce more fruit. And we're similar in that we need some friction and some intentional discomfort in our life and action in order to produce or bear fruit, in order to get the things that we want in life. [00:23:42] Having uncomfortable conversations creates greater peace in our relationships. Being willing to take action in our business allows us to have more freedom, more revenue financially, and to be able to take care of our team and ourselves better. And so we can't be a victim and a blamer and complain about the market and complain about COVID and whatever your stupid excuses are, whoever's listening. [00:24:04] If you've got all your excuses why you're not growing, you can either have your excuses or you can have results, but you can't have both. So which one would you rather choose? Right? And there's a lot of people that would rather choose their excuses because it allows them to not do anything. It allows them, "well, the market's tough, so I just might as well not do anything." [00:24:23] Like right now, real estate agents, some are like, "oh, real estate market's tough. Can't get deals." Right? And then there's people that are still closing a bunch of deals and making plenty of money. And so our beliefs and our mindset and how we prioritize things shifts things. And so are you prioritizing ease and comfort? [00:24:40] Sometimes it's not even about our own ease and comfort. Well, maybe it is. Sometimes people won't join a coaching program because their spouse doesn't want to spend the money or their business partner doesn't want the business to grow. We see that like they're an operator personality type. [00:24:54] They're not really focused on growth and they're like, "no, we have good, stable, residual income. Like why rock the boat? And I'm getting 50 percent of the revenue," or whatever I've seen. And they're like, "why change anything? Don't disrupt my comfort here." And the other person's like, "let's have more doors. Let's go crazy. I'm a visionary." [00:25:12] And the operator personality type's like, "yeah, but that would make my life worse. I don't need more money. I'm comfortable. Don't mess up my comfort." [00:25:21] And sometimes the business visionary, or if it's with your spouse, we're not having that uncomfortable conversation with them because it means rocking the boat. [00:25:31] It's uncomfortable. It means there might be a fight. It means you might get screamed at or get some angry emotion thrown at you. In some scenarios. And so I think it's really important to connect with deep down. Like, what do we really want? And what really should we be doing that we just know is right for us and being willing to step into that discomfort. I made some very uncomfortable choices in my day in order to get to where I'm at now. And sometimes it involved me having to look stupid in front of a group in a mastermind. Sometimes it involved me having to have uncomfortable conversations in relationships or even to end relationships. [00:26:10] That's super uncomfortable. In order to move forward and do what I felt I was called to do or what I felt deep down. What I think is also interesting is more people are a lot more comfortable with those that are willing to do uncomfortable things and speak uncomfortable words. [00:26:29] It makes everybody feel safer because they can trust that person. You can't trust people that are always focused on ease and comfort. I don't think they're as trustworthy of people because part of life in order to have integrity, in order to be honest, in order to work hard, in order to benefit the people that you have a fiduciary duty or responsibility to benefit like clients, you have to be willing to do the uncomfortable things. [00:26:53] Otherwise, you're shifting all the discomfort on to everybody else. "Everybody else around me has to be uncomfortable so I can have comfort." And that does not create great relationships, safety, or create a good client or business relationship in the longterm. So that's my soapbox about that. All right. [00:27:09] So, another reason people don't prioritize that they don't prioritize a growth is they might be looking at the short term. Maybe it's related to comfort. Maybe it's related to just, "I need to make sure I have cash now and they're giving up the longterm, maybe more cash later, maybe a bigger business later." Any thoughts about that?  [00:27:28] Sarah: This was your thing.  [00:27:29] Jason: I've run into this where I've talked to people and they're like, "well, I don't know. I don't have a lot of money right now," I think this is where you need to be willing to take a risk and bet on yourself. [00:27:37] Find a system that's proven. We've got plenty of case studies and results to show that our stuff works. It's all proven. It all works. What I find is the only real question people need to figure out is, are they willing to work? Do they trust themselves? Are they willing to bet on themselves? And a lot of people don't. [00:27:53] A lot of times we've struggled to even do the little things that we've told ourselves that we were going to do. And so we're out of integrity and we don't trust ourselves anymore. Like, "I'm going to work out at the gym tomorrow. I'm tired." Right. We've all done that. I've done that this week. Right. I did work out this morning though. But we've done that. We've all done that. And so it's the making these little movements of taking action towards our own integrity. Like I'm going to do this. And then I do it learning to trust ourselves again. And the one person you can control is you. And so when you have strong trust in yourself. [00:28:28] Very few things are supremely risky because you're betting on yourself, especially if you're getting support to become better. And so, it may be a cash investment now, but if you can see there's a system and you can see there's results, then maybe the risk is worth it. You should get an ROI if you do the right actions, if it's a proven system. So I think those are some of the things. So why don't we look at the reverse real quick, and then we'll wrap up.  [00:28:54] The reverse would be what are our clients like? What's different about our clients? What do they prioritize that made them decide to work with us? What are they prioritizing differently that said " why would I not spend money on coaching? I should totally do this."  [00:29:08] Sarah: Yeah. Well first I think they believe in their ability to do it.  [00:29:13] Jason: Hmm.  [00:29:14] Sarah: Because if you don't believe in yourself, there's nothing that you're going to be able to do. No coach can help you. You've got to figure that out first. So they believe in themselves and they are also committed. [00:29:27] And I think that is something that sometimes people are lacking. It's, they're just lacking a actual true commitment.  [00:29:37] Jason: So commitment, I feel like is, maybe it's a choice, but I feel like it's also an outcome of choices, right? So what are they choosing to prioritize? You think that maybe makes them more committed? [00:29:49] Sarah: You're so cryptic today. You're like, " what are they choosing?" Like...  [00:29:52] Jason: well, I don't know, this is an interesting question I think to chew on.  [00:29:55] Sarah: What makes people more committed?  [00:29:56] Jason: Why are some people committed and some people are not? We're talking about priorities today, so I'm thinking, what are the priorities that they have that leads to being strongly committed? [00:30:05] Sarah: It's either you're in it or you're out. It's like a pool. You're either in the pool or you're out of the pool. Yeah. That's it. You, like, you're either wet or you're dry. That's it. You can't like, "well, I've got a toe in the pool." Like it doesn't work. It doesn't work in business. [00:30:19] And if you're finding that, "well, like I have my foot in the pool a little bit, I'm going to pull it out if I have to pull it out," that business will forever be hard. You have to either go all the way in or go all the way out. Because if you're in the middle, it is difficult and it will remain difficult. [00:30:37] Jason: Yeah. It's really painful to be in between.  [00:30:40] Sarah: So either jump in the pool or jump out of the pool. Neither one is wrong.  [00:30:45] You might go, "I hate this pool. I don't like it." Great. Then find a different pool.  [00:30:50] Jason: So in chewing on this, I think in looking at myself when I'm fully committed to something, it's because I have prioritized the outcome. [00:31:00] The outcome is clear enough and important enough and motivating enough that I will do whatever it takes to get that outcome. That's when I'm fully committed to something. I'll do whatever it takes to get that outcome because I know what I want. That's one of the things is our clients know what they want. [00:31:17] Like they know that there's outcomes that they want. You mentioned, they believe in their ability to do it, to learn, to take action. And so they are a hundred percent committed. If you're committed to something and you don't know how to do it, you'll figure it out because you'll do whatever it takes. [00:31:34] You will struggle. You'll do go through trial and error. You'll fail. You'll make mistakes. And I think that's another thing is our clients believe in their own themselves enough to be willing to make mistakes. Whereas some people prioritize not looking bad or not making mistakes. And so they don't take the action. [00:31:51] They were like, "I need it all to be perfect and to know how to do everything before I do it because I don't want to be embarrassed or look stupid." And so I think some of our most successful clients are willing to just try stuff. They're just willing to do it. They don't have this need that they have to look so smart or whatever. [00:32:07] And sometimes those people struggle the most, right? Sometimes they are super smart, but they have to look good and look smart all the time. So I think in short, our clients prioritize growth, they prioritize learning, they prioritize taking risks, experimenting, and this is why they are able to move forward. [00:32:26] So hopefully this episode helps you reassess some of your own priorities. Like if you're not getting the results, make a list of what your priorities are and figure out like "what am I prioritizing currently that's leading to my current results?" Because if you can't see that, then you can't change it. [00:32:40] And as soon as you can see it and you shift your priorities, "well, I need to start prioritizing this." Maybe you need to start prioritizing action. Maybe you need to start prioritizing your health more. Maybe you need to start prioritizing learning more. Whatever it is, in order to get the outcomes that you want. [00:32:55] But if you're not getting the outcomes you want, your priorities are off. And hopefully this is an opportunity and an invitation for you to introspectively figure that out. And I hope that was beneficial.  [00:33:05] If you're struggling with any of this and you want some help getting clarity figuring out your priorities figuring out what you need to do in order to grow, you have a blind spot, you can't see it... like you need some external perspective, we all have problems we can't see. [00:33:20] And if you're not getting the results, you lack some knowledge. You lack some insight. And so reach out to us at DoorGrow. One of our growth consultants can help you figure this out, help you figure out where you might be stuck, what you need to get to the next level. [00:33:33] And you probably have some garbage or junk beliefs that are preventing you from being able to take things to the next level. And once those are out of the way, you're golden, right? So until next time to our mutual growth. Bye everyone. [00:33:46] you just listened to the #DoorGrowShow. We are building a community of the savviest property management entrepreneurs on the planet in the DoorGrowClub. Join your fellow DoorGrow Hackers at doorgrowclub.com. Listen, everyone is doing the same stuff. SEO, PPC, pay-per-lead content, social direct mail, and they still struggle to grow!  [00:34:12] At DoorGrow, we solve your biggest challenge: getting deals and growing your business. Find out more at doorgrow.com. Find any show notes or links from today's episode on our blog doorgrow.com, and to get notified of future events and news subscribe to our newsletter at doorgrow.com/subscribe. Until next time, take what you learn and start DoorGrow Hacking your business and your life.

Join us for another episode on the Humane Marketing podcast as we explore how to ethically partner with AI, with our guest, Naully Nicolas. We talk about Naully's journey into the world of artificial intelligence, the crucial ethical and legal considerations surrounding AI implementation, and how AI empowers us to work smarter, not harder. Naully shares his PLATON framework, inspired by Plato and infused with philosophical principles, guiding us through the pillars of legality, accountability, transparency, objectivity, and neutrality. Together, we envision the future of AI and work, inspiring us as Humane Marketers to embrace technology with empathy and mindfulness, shaping a future where humanity thrives alongside innovation. What we addressed in this conversation: How Naully got interested and started with AI The ethical and legal considerations of AI How AI enables us to work smarter not harder Naully's PLATON framework, based on Plato and philosophical considerations (principles, legality, accountability, transparency, objectivity and neutrality, because in French Plato has an N at the end) How Naully sees the future of AI and work and much more... --- Ep 187 whole episode Sarah: [00:00:00] Hello, Humane Marketers. Welcome back to the Humane Marketing Podcast, the place to be for the generation of marketers that cares. This is a show where we talk about running your business in a way that feels good to you, is aligned with your values, and also resonates with today's conscious customers because it's humane, ethical, and non pushy. I'm Sarah Santacroce, your hippie turned business coach for quietly rebellious entrepreneurs and marketing impact pioneers. Mama bear of the humane marketing circle and renegade author of marketing like we're human and selling like we're human. If after listening to the show for a while, you're ready to move on to the next level and start implementing and would welcome a community of like minded, quietly rebellious entrepreneurs who discuss with transparency what we're doing. Works and what doesn't work in business. Then we'd love to welcome you in our humane marketing circle. If you're picturing your [00:01:00] typical Facebook group, let me paint a new picture for you. This is a closed community of like minded entrepreneurs from all over the world who come together once per month in a zoom circle workshop to hold each other accountable and build their business in a sustainable way. We share with transparency and vulnerability. What works for us. And what doesn't work so that you can figure out what works for you instead of keep throwing spaghetti on the wall and seeing what sticks. Find out more at humane. marketing forward slash circle. And if you prefer one on one support from me, my humane business coaching could be just what you need, whether it's for your marketing, sales, general business building, or help with your big idea like writing a book. I'd love to share my brain and my heart with you together with my almost 15. Years business experience and help you grow a sustainable business that is joyful and sustainable. If you love this [00:02:00] podcast, wait until I show you my Mama Bear qualities as my one-on-one client, and find out more at Humane Marketing slash coaching. And finally, if you are a Marketing Impact pioneer and would like to bring Humane Marketing to your organization, have a look at my offers and workshops on my website. Humane dot marketing. Hello, friends. Welcome back to the Humane Marketing Podcast. Today's conversation fits under the P of partnership, I'd say. We're partnering with AI. If you're a regular here, you know that I'm organizing the conversations around the seven P's of the Humane Marketing mandala. And if you're new here and this is your first time listening, well, A big warm welcome. You probably don't know what I'm talking about, these seven [00:03:00] P's in the mandala. Well, you can download your one page marketing plan with the Humane Marketing version of the seven P's in the shape of a mandala at humane. marketing forward slash one page. Humane. marketing forward slash one page. That's the number one and the word page. And this comes with seven email prompts to really help you reflect on these different P's for your business. For this conversation about partnering with AI in a humane way, I brought in my colleague, Noli Nicola. Noli is renowned Digital transformation consultant with over 16 years of experience in I. T. engineering and 12 years in marketing specializing in emerging technologies like web three, the metaverse and A. I. Noli provides pragmatic advice to business leaders. Particularly in [00:04:00] SMEs, navigating the complexities of the digital age. His stoic philosophy combined with a profound understanding of the digital landscape makes him an invaluable guide for companies seeking strategic opportunities in technology. So what we addressed in this conversation with Noli is how he got started and Interested in AI, the ethical and legal considerations of working with AI, especially as a humane marketer, how AI enables us to work smarter and not harder, Noli's framework based on Plato and philosophical considerations. Principles, legality, accountability, transparency, objectivity, and neutrality. Because in French, Plato is Platon and has an N at the end. [00:05:00] So that's where the neutrality comes from. And then also how Nolly sees the future of AI and work and so much more. So I'd say without further ado, let's get into it. Hi Noli, how are you? Como ti va? Naully: I'm fine, and you? Sarah: Yes, I'm great, thank you. You're in the middle of a move, so very stressful. We can't really use AI to help us move yet, or can we? Naully: Yes, I also I hope I use AI maybe for to do the planning for my moving, so it was quite useful. Sarah: Oh, wow. You'll have to tell us more about that. But yeah, I'm glad to have this conversation in between trips and moving boxes and things like that. Because yeah, we're, we're super excited to have you come and teach an in depth workshop on May 1st. [00:06:00] And, and this is just kind of like a teaser and I'll ask you some questions that we then also have more time to go in to on, on May 1st. And so. If you're listening to this and feel like, Oh, I want more of this content. And please join us on May 1st that it's a 90 minute workshop, humane. marketing forward slash workshop, but let's dive into it. And I'll, I'll just kind of start with how did you get into AYA, AI NALI and, and, and like, what does it represent for you in this day and age? Naully: How I discovered AI, I would say it's a normal step in my long career because I've been working for almost I would say 19 years into the IT universe. So, and also since my childhood, I was very curious, I like to dismount my own [00:07:00] PC and remote the remote again the PC. And it's also. On my personal view, I was there during the, the passage between the old internet, which was the I would say the effects of Minitel for some, and let's say the first browsing on internet. So it was like into the nineties, I think, around, around this era. And Then I work in IT for almost 20 years and I saw the progress. Also, I saw the constraint also of let's say the digital world. And I discovered AI when I was, reading a book, I would say it was not only, I would say sci fi books, but also I would say it was, I came across a book, so I don't remember the name and I was sure that in the next step of our digital world will be the AI. And And I was able also to sense [00:08:00] the switch between the, let's say, all the world. And I'm not that old, but the way that we interact with the computer and the new way that we are in this AI universe now. Sarah: Do you feel like we're completely there in the AI universe or we're still like at the very beginning of it? I Naully: think we are in the beginning because most of them. Approach that we have is only true chat, GPT and code and song, but I think it's only the tip of the iceberg because maybe your audience don't really make sense, but we're already using AI in every day. So, for example, for in Spotify, for example, it's an algorithm, it's not AI per se, but we are using the data, right? Yeah. Like when you're browsing on Netflix or something. It's a kind of [00:09:00] AI, which is gripping you the best show after you finish one. I'll tell you how you finish this show, there's also this one in which you might be interested. So, Sarah: yeah, so it's, it's kind of this blurry line between algorithms that are kind of gearing us towards where they want to go. And then also. Yeah, AI for like what you said, planning things like a move and, and probably if you can plan a move with AI, you can also plan a vacation with AI. Like you can do so many things and, and we'll get into some more of that. But I think when I brought up the topic of AI and. You know, Chachi PT is kind of the most note one right now. In the humane marketing circle, our community, there's a lot of I wouldn't, maybe a day, a day wouldn't say it's fear, but I think it's fear or [00:10:00] hesitation. And then there's also all these ethical considerations, which. Obviously are very important for someone who's doing humane business and humane marketing. So, yeah, what are some ethical considerations we should keep in mind when, when we're going down this road of using AI in our business? Naully: I would say if we talk in terms of fear, I can say we have the same when I would say the first software network appears. So because some people are afraid to me on Facebook, never, never, never, never. Some people switch to to Facebook anyways, but I think the thing different with AI is the fact that they can aggregate a lot of data, which are mostly it's a personal data. And also the carry things is they can be more [00:11:00] personalized that before, because I would say before we look up information into Google, but now we can create our own, I would say chat GPT with in every sector, for example, but I can create a personal coach GPT, which contains all my Let's say, personal view or approach that no other coach can have. And there is the main, let's say, reflection about what, what are stored, those data, because now we can put, let's say, more personal data, like the, the people that we have interaction with, name, date, address and so on. And those that are located in country who are less more, I would say, regarding internal flow. For example, in the US, we have the Patriot [00:12:00] Act, in which any federal agency can look into those data without asking you. So that's why in Europe they have the G-G-D-P-R. Sarah: mm-hmm . Naully: And now they in, they want to enforce the EU Act in, which is a kind of G-E-D-P-R for ai. So it's to determine which is the good usage of AI and which is the, would say risky usage of hair. Sarah: They're trying to kind of come up with laws. They're catching up, really. They have to catch up. Yeah, because there Naully: is some issue, for example, with AI using for credit score, for example, because we have to we have to determine who is responsible for these tools. Sarah: It Naully: is the developer. It is the person who is using the tools. Or this is the user, [00:13:00] Sarah: right? Naully: So I would say the same, like if you buy a car, there is a responsibility. It's the one who drives the car, that's the car manufacturer, Sarah: right? Naully: So, Sarah: so the Naully: ethics is the main, I would say the main point of ethics in AI is to determine the responsibility. in the creation and the use of those tools. Sarah: Right. Yeah. Because I think the one thing to keep in mind is that you can always go. Either way, right. You can use AI for good, or you can use AI for evil. And that's what we're all afraid of. When we talk about, oh, AI is going to take over, the robots are going to take over, well, we're afraid of things going in the wrong direction. And so is that what they're now trying, trying to kind of come up with legal responsibilities of who's [00:14:00] responsible for what? Naully: Yeah, I, as I said before, it's. It's not perfect or ideal, but it's better than nothing because at least we have a framework in which someone can and which some people can refer to, so it's not the wild, wild west in terms of AI, so there's some moral, moral and legal framework. In the use of AI, Sarah: right? Is this what happened after Elon Musk and a bunch of other people sent that open letter? Was that in response to that or kind of happened Naully: anyway? I think it's that. But also there is the thing that. They don't want to this kind of tool to be out of control because things can go badly and we can see in country like China that are using AI not. In the right use, [00:15:00] mostly for surveillance of their steel. And I think the country in Europe, they don't want to that rule. So, so, and I think also there is some moral issues of also, of kind of still. Sarah: Right, right, yeah, it's interesting because everything happens so fast that governments and legal people, they, they have a hard time catching up with everything because that's, that's from the old paradigm. So it's just like very slow and admin heavy and all of that. Right. So you think there is ever going to be a point where. They're on the same page and they caught up. Well, Naully: there is now, I think, more and more countries are, I would say, are just according to the same principle, because I think there is, I would say, there is some universal [00:16:00] principle that you will find anywhere in the world. It's the world of justice. Sarah: I think Naully: everyone want want to be as the Stanford justice, and also to have the opportunity to questions also the AI, because it's like, Well, you're, let's say, in your common life, you're also the right to question if you're arrested by a police officer, you have the right to, to have a lawyer and also to to be in a tribunal. So it should be the same also when we use AI for this, I think it's the kind, it's the same. Universal principle that you can find in any country from Switzerland to France to Peru, anywhere. So, Sarah: yeah. Yeah. Okay. So we went in a bit big picture in terms of, you know, what needs to change in a society on the legal aspect, the justice aspect for us in order to, to [00:17:00] work with AI. But now if we take it down to our entrepreneurial level, how can we. integrate in, you know, AI in our businesses in a way that is. Ethical and makes us work smarter and not harder, but also stays away from like, the one thing that I don't like about AI is, is this push towards even more productivity, toward even more working and, you know, more hustle. And I'm like, well, no, I think that's getting it wrong. It's like, we have this amazing tool that helps us actually. Work smarter, not harder, but then freeze us with more time to be more human. That's the way I look at it. So what are some practical ways that you have worked with entrepreneurs that they use [00:18:00] AI to work smarter and not harder? Naully: But the first thing that I told my. Entrepreneur is that AI is not there to replace you, but to help you. So you should consider AI as a tool because AI is not perfect because by extension, AI was created by a new man. So the human is not perfect per se. So also AI are subject as we call hallucination because. Yeah, it's predicting, let's say, words, it's not contextualizing the words, so you have also understand the limits of the AI because it can be considered as a magic tool can rule, but you have also to understand that AI has also its own limits. So you won't, you won't pass you in any ways, you will simply help you [00:19:00] maybe in turn now in term of workload, I would say that. AI is a good tool if you want to, I don't know, manage your content. For example, if you are someone who loves to write content, it could be a good assistant, but it won't replace you to create your content, but also it can help you to I don't know, create a content schedule for the next two, once a month, next two months. And then you can schedule those contents and then you can sort of manage your day to day life also easier because you already create your content for the month for the next two months. So you can maybe take a day off because usually before you took, well, I don't know, one week to create your content, to write it and publish it. And those, I would say, save time, you [00:20:00] can save it elsewhere. Sarah: Yeah. Yeah. You can actually invest it in the human relations, right? Yeah. Have, have coffee with a friend or something like that. Yeah. Yeah. And I like how you said you can help you, it assists you, it can help you with brainstorming ideas and, and give you content ideas you know, never ending lists of content ideas. Yeah. And it can then even help you, guide you through writing it. But I think we should not just rely on AI to now take over all the writing because knowing you and what you write, I would definitely be able to tell, I think, if all of a sudden it would just just be AI writing it. Yes, you can train it to a certain extent probably to, you know, have talk like you. And that's what I'm experimenting with as well. But then I [00:21:00] still. Go in, like I still am the manager, right? And AI is the assistant and then I have to change it and make sure it speaks like I do. So I think that's really important to understand because What we see a lot out there is like these bland sounding things, right, that you can tell, oh, this is just like, you know, AI created content that has no humanness and no personality to it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And then Google actually just said that they're starting to punish the pages on Google that are only content, I mean, AI created. So that's a, that's a good good move from them. Obviously they're a bit scared as well, I think, but yeah, I think that's a good move. So where would we, would you tell. Actually, before, before that, I, I [00:22:00] know you have this framework based on Blayton. Yeah. And, and so I, I'm just wondering if you could explain a little bit. Your approach to philosophy and AI, because that kind of, from hearing that, that kind of sounds like an, it's, you know, an oxymoron, like how do those two go together? But Naully: tell us more Sarah: about it. Naully: Yeah, for sure. So I, I, I'm always being, I would say I'm a huge history buff. So I always has book in my house and I love read books about history and all kinds of books could be philosophy, psychology, and I found that philosophy was a good way to be grounded in what we are doing and all what we are thinking, especially in this time with everything is going so fast and we can be so lost [00:23:00] rapidly. And during my one of my reading, I came across a biography of. Plateau, which is plateau in French. And I was thinking that maybe we could use some aspect of the story, story season, but in how we approach technology, because sometimes we are using technology because we have. We are using it, but we don't really think what we do with it project. So that's how I came up, I came with this idea of Platon, which is put in French. And the first, let's say P is for principle in the wishes. What are the, the principle that I put it in my content, it could be also in my content or the principle that on why I'm using the ai. So it ask me to [00:24:00] myself when I'm using a tool, which could be charge GPT and some to ask me what are the consequence of using this tool if the tool are, I would say. Ethically based or the people are treated, I would say, correctly or humanly. And then the L can stand for legality. Maybe it's more about when I'm using an AI tool is my content is not under, it's not copyrighted by someone else. And actually, there is a huge debate about AI, because mostly they are using data scrapped from the internet, and most of the data are copyrighted. Sarah: So, Naully: so you need to ask yourself, is the thing that I'm using is completely legal or not? Then there's the A, [00:25:00] which is for accountability, which I have to be concerned that I'm using a AI tool. Don't say that if for example, if I'm putting wrong information, because I use AI tool, I have to count accountable after I, that I put, if I use, for example, if I'm using a AI tool like me Journey, maybe I should be aware that maybe I'm using copyrighted. Image from illustrator and maybe if needed, but who put any annotation when I'm using those kind of image also to be transparent and the T for transparency. So for example, is to be transparent in the use of AI tool, especially if you're working for a journalist. You have to say that for example, that I, this part or this part of your article has been [00:26:00] written with the help of AI2 or this image has been modified by the AI2. For example, recently there is a journalist who made a Documentary about the young in Iran, and it's instead of using blurred image, they use the, he praised the faces of the person who are being interviewed with AI generated image. So, so they made a disclaimer saying that those people faces have been generated by AI. So, and O stands for objectivity. So you have to be like concerned or so, but on why you're using the AI in your marketing. It's of course, the N stands for neutrality, which it says that it's mostly when you're would say. Using AI to in marketing, it's saying that you are [00:27:00] using the tool, not in a harmful way. So you should be conscious that you are not using the tool to do arm on or give false information. Sarah: I love, I love that. I love these words. Let's so principles, legality, accountability, transparency, objectivity, and neutrality. Yeah, they, they sound very humane, like, you know, they're very humane words and it's, it's a really good idea to, yeah, to go into AI with these considerations, right? To, to think about that deeply And, and we'll talk more about that in the, in the workshop and, and I think you have some you've created a game, so I look Yes. Yeah. Taking some questions from that game around that framework. Yeah. So in terms of where we're going with this, because like you said, it's just, you know, the kind of like, we're just seeing a tiny [00:28:00] bit of the iceberg right now. So where do you think. We're heading in terms of entrepreneurs using AI, how is it going to take over more of our, yeah, workload and what so many people like last year, this year, I don't hear it so much anymore, but so many people were afraid of AI taking over their jobs. So, so yeah what do you see as future development? Naully: I think also people fear what they don't understand also, because really new is like the first internet came up. We had the same fear because people didn't know how. How to use it, what it is really, because, and I think it's, there is a lot of work in terms of education, in terms of educating people, because, I won't say it's difficult to stop technology. [00:29:00] So then it's better to. Learn it with it. That's to fear it. So I think also it's it asks us to maybe to embrace the change because a lot of people don't like to change. Also, and for some people change bring fear because fear, but maybe they have to, if they work for a job, like, I don't know, like service job for like the 10 last year. Maybe they need to go to school again. So maybe they don't have the money or don't have the energy or maybe they're near from the retirement. So they ask, they ask themselves why they, that I need to go to school because I just have to five years to work, then I will be able to retire. And I think, I consider we are on a good path. It's not the perfect one, because at [00:30:00] least we are not into the apocalyptic one, the one we can see into the movie, because I think we can, we are able to see the fear. Also, there is some people who are pro, some people are against. I think neither side does. The monopoly of a reason and for now, I think it's in, in between, I think we should be in both sides. Maybe you have fear of maybe this technology, but also we can embrace technology because maybe they can help us to with our current, I would say. On environment issue, for example, or or maybe with a social issue also. So I think it's there's a lot of challenge for this technology and it's difficult to say what happened in five years, 10 years because they're in a few months, every, every two, every [00:31:00] two weeks, the new AI app. So it's difficult to say what, what the future brings. Sarah: Yeah, it will happen so fast though, right? Like that's the main thing with this AI technology. It's like, like I remember when Chachi PT came out, well, it's been already out, but nobody talked about it. And then within, let's say three weeks, everybody was talking about it. And so that's probably going to happen again with the next thing and the next thing, and the next thing, and. And what I like that you said is like, yes, we're on the right path because it would be probably really spooky if there was no fear at all like that. And I think that's kind of where Elon Musk and the gang, they got a bit freaked out because they're like, whoa, like this is going too fast. So they backed up a bit. And, and so I think that's a healthy. [00:32:00] kind of relationship to, to something new that, that we need to learn to live with. And so I appreciate that. Naully: I think it's I love to compare AI like the yin and yang. Sarah: Mm. Naully: It's like it should be equ equilibrium between those two. Sarah: Yeah. Mm-Hmm. Naully: it can be good, it can be bad. I think it's a mix of, can be cannot, it can be not. Also fully and utopia. Or fully a dystopia. Sarah: Right. Naully: I think it should be both at the same time, so. Sarah: A little mix. A little mix. Naully: I think it's like, I think I think it's like us. I think we, there is some day we are full of energy. Some day we are just, we just want to lay in bed all day. And I think it's this the circle of life also, we have your spring, summer, autumn, [00:33:00] winter, I think it's a cycle. So, Sarah: yeah, and you're right. I mean, it's in the end it's created by humans. And so it's still the humans that influences AI. And so if humans. Right now you can't say that humans are all good. Like we're in one of the biggest messes that we've ever been in. And so how can we expect the AI to just be beautiful and loving and all of that. So I feel like if we're working on becoming better humans, then the AI. We'll follow that trend. So that's, yeah, that's kind of my thought on that, but yeah, any, any closing thoughts that you have, that you, like what you're going to talk about on the workshop, maybe give us a, a little sneak preview of, of what we're going to do there. Naully: I [00:34:00] think we are, we are going to the. Ethics of AI and also the the ground base also of ai, which is which, which is where is it is and which is, is not, mm. Sarah: Right? Yeah. And then also doing some, some breakout rooms, right? And, and, and also, yeah, working on, on different, Naully: so we'll do some workshops and, Mm-Hmm, , all the, the, the pattern framework is working. Sarah: Yeah, I, I look forward to that framework and the, and the questions from that. So yeah, exciting. So yeah, again thank you so much for coming on, Noli. And if you're listening to this and you're interested in AI, but you're just a little bit also afraid of, you know, how does it work in a, in a business that is supposed to be humane. In marketing, that is supposed to be humane. Well, I invite you to join us for this workshop on [00:35:00] May 1st with Noli, because we're definitely going to approach it from the humane side of things. So, Naully: I just say, I just want to say that you mean it's always in loop AI or Sarah: not. Say that again. I didn't. Naully: I would say the AI human is always in the loop or not. So, yeah, Sarah: yeah, that's, yeah, that's nicely said. So yeah, do join us on, on May 1st go to humane. marketing forward slash workshop to reserve your seat and Noli and I look forward to having you there. Thanks so much. You're there. Yes. Thank you. Thanks for coming on to the podcast as well, Noli. I hope you got some great value from listening to this episode. Please find out more about Noli and his work at nolinicola. ch and [00:36:00] join us on Facebook for a 90 minute workshop on May 1st in the safety of our community, the Humane Marketing Circle. Members can attend these workshops for free, but you can join us with a pay what you can amount between 15 and 27. Find out more and reserve your spot at humane. marketing. com. And if you are looking for others who think like you, then why not join us in the humane marketing circle? Find out more at humane dot marketing forward slash circle. You find the show notes of this episode at humane dot marketing forward slash H M 1 8 7. And on this beautiful page, you'll also find a series of free offers. Such as the Humane Business Manifesto and my two books, Marketing Like We're Human and Selling Like We're Human. Thank you so much for listening and being part of a generation of marketers who [00:37:00] cares for yourself, your clients, and the planet. We are change makers before we are marketers. So go be the change you want to see in the world. Speak soon.

Are you a property manager? Do you hire property managers? Can you answer the question: what is a property manager, and what do they do? In today's episode, property management growth experts Jason and Sarah Hull discuss what a property manager is and what they should be doing in a property management business. You'll Learn [01:14] Million-dollar question: What does a property manager do? [06:25] Siloing information to protect your business [10:26] Hiring specialists instead of people who can “do it all” [12:20] What should a property manager's role be? [16:31] Property managers as client success experts Tweetables “There's a lot of confusion as to the definition of a property manager in the property management industry.” “When your company grows, what we're going to hopefully have you do is shift into specialists, so that you won't have a property manager that just does everything.” “Effectively cloning yourself or duplicating yourself in the business usually means getting 10 people, not one.” “It's not hard to be exceptional in property management.” Resources DoorGrow and Scale Mastermind DoorGrow Academy DoorGrow on YouTube DoorGrowClub DoorGrowLive TalkRoute Referral Link Transcript [00:00:00] Jason: Business owners, we need to stop trying to find people that can do everything. We need to find people that are really good specialists.  [00:00:08] Welcome DoorGrow property managers to the DoorGrow show. If you are a property management entrepreneur that wants to add doors, make a difference, increase revenue, help others, impact lives. And you are interested in growing in business and life. And you're open to doing things a bit differently, then you are a DoorGrow property manager. [00:00:28] DoorGrow Property Managers love the opportunities, daily variety, unique challenges, and freedom that property management brings. Many in real estate think you're crazy for doing it. You think they're crazy for not because you realize that property management is the ultimate high trust gateway to real estate deals, relationships, and residual income. At DoorGrow, we are on a mission to transform property management business owners and their businesses. [00:00:56] We want to transform the industry, eliminate the B. S. build awareness, change perception, expand the market and help the best property management entrepreneurs win. We're your hosts, property management, growth experts, Jason and Sarah Hull, the owners of DoorGrow. Now let's get into the show.  [00:01:13] All right. So one of the things that's come up, we just did a DoorGrow boardroom event. [00:01:18] And one of our clients that was there was like, "I need to hire a property manager." And we're like, "okay." And what we noticed in talking there and going deeper and digging in deeper is that there's a lot of confusion as to the definition of a property manager in the property management industry. [00:01:37] Sarah: Yeah, it's like a catch all.  [00:01:39] Jason: So the challenge is it can mean just about anything.  [00:01:42] Sarah: Yeah. The definition of property manager is: "do anything and everything that the company needs."  [00:01:49] Jason: And so I've noticed this for a while. we've had a lot of clients and they'll say, "Oh, I need another property manager," or "I need to hire a property manager." [00:01:56] "I need to get a property manager." And it always means something different. So like some people think a property manager does everything, and this is the portfolio style property manager. They're like, "they need to go get business." And so they're a BDM, they need to handle and do some of the bookkeeping accounting stuff. [00:02:17] They need to do maintenance coordination. They need to do the leasing. So they're trying to find somebody that's basically an entrepreneur. They can do everything that's probably going to run away and steal half their business. Right. Which happens. It's happened quite a bit. I've seen it. And that's, I think the wrong way to build a property management business, it's the wrong way to hire and build your team. [00:02:36] So let's figure out. What is a property manager? What is it?  [00:02:41] Sarah: Love it.  [00:02:41] Jason: What are your thoughts?  [00:02:42] Sarah: Well, so I think that there's an important distinction, especially when it comes to the size of your company. So in the beginning, When it's just you do everything. It's all you, you, and then you some more. [00:02:58] And I think this is why then when they go to hire a property manager, they're like, "Oh, well I did everything and I want to replace myself. So I need a property manager to replace myself and then they're going to do everything because I did everything." So in the beginning. When you are in the day to day and it's just you and you haven't built a team yet and you're functioning as the property manager because you're in the day to day and the tactical work, yes, you are technically a property manager. [00:03:26] And then when your company grows, what we're going to hopefully have you do is shift into specialists. so that you won't have a property manager that just does everything. You'll have people who are really good at the one thing that they do and will be able to then segment the business and split that out into multiple roles instead of just having a property manager that does everything. [00:03:56] Everything. Yeah. So I created a Facebook post, cause  [00:04:00] There was some heat on that post. Well, I like this. I don't know if you read the comments.  [00:04:03] Jason: I like to stir the pot a little bit. For those that are watching this on video, this is what it looks like, right? So join our Facebook group, go to doorgrowclub. com, get in there. So I said, if the property manager role on your team is not your maintenance coordinator, operator, bookkeeper, leasing agent, then what is their role? And so people are like "define operator, like what's an operator?" So then I was defining what an operator was, but Michelle Miller, shout out to Michelle, she commented. She said, "in other words, if they aren't doing everything, what are they doing?" Right. Brian Nelson said "delegator." And I like that. That's I think  [00:04:39] Sarah: I don't like  [00:04:40] Jason: that.  [00:04:40] I like the idea that they are not the person that's doing all this stuff. Maybe they're orchestrating, maybe that's what they're doing. [00:04:47] They're maintaining the relationship with the owner. Sean Foster, he says "PM's number 1 job is to be the middleman between the owner and the tenant advising and the correct path of the most profitable investment." [00:04:56] And "but that one responsibility branches off into another 20, doesn't it?" [00:05:00] And then, "depends on the systems." There's a little dialogue going back and forth there. So if you do property management, you manage the property. And to manage the property, you're doing leasing, maintenance, inspections, all this stuff. But that doesn't mean that the property manager in your business is doing all this stuff or should be. [00:05:17] Usually you don't want somebody that's a jack of all trades and a master of none trying to do stuff. And if they're actually good at everything, they'll probably just go start their own business. And I think that's the other challenges that we often mistakenly fall into this clone myth. And this was what was going on with our client at the DoorGrow boardroom event. [00:05:35] He thought, he's like, well, "I was a property manager at another company for a while. Now, I have my own business and I'm doing all everything and I need to go hire a property manager and I was doing everything at that company. I'm doing everything in my own company. Now, I need to go find somebody else to do everything." [00:05:50] And when we finally identified this. I call it the clone myth. We think, "I just need to go find somebody just like me. I need to clone myself." Effectively cloning yourself or duplicating yourself in the business usually means getting 10 people, not one. Like 10 different hats, 10 different specialists in the business. [00:06:07] And so just want to address the clone myth real quick. So I think we want to find a way, I think in the industry, it might make sense to eliminate the term property manager. If they're not actually the one doing all of the little pieces, unless you're portfolio style. So what are your thoughts on that? [00:06:25] Sarah: Well, I think the other thing too, that I want to bring up about him at the boardroom event is he's like, "I need a property manager and they're going to do everything. And I do everything. And I also did everything at my other company when I worked for them as a property manager. So I need one. How do I make sure that they don't just steal my business and steal my clients and walk away though, because they're going to be doing everything? [00:06:48] Jason: Yeah.  [00:06:48] Sarah: And that's a really good reason to not have them doing everything.  [00:06:52] Jason: Most business owners eventually figure out you need to silo information. So for example, when I ran a web design agency, I had an intranet where all the information was stored and I had how I sold, how I found clients, like all this was built out in the intranet. [00:07:07] All the sales related stuff. And then I had all of how we build the websites, how we put them together, all this kind of stuff. And I would hire web designers to build the websites and to do work and they would get access to the intranet. They would read the sales stuff and then figure out how to get their own clients and then they would quit. [00:07:25] I kept having them leave and they're like, "Oh, well, I've got so much business. I don't have time to do your projects now." And I was like, "what?" it happened over and over again. So I was like, "okay, something's going on here." So then I realized I needed to segment the information because the stuff that I figured out was pretty effective and pretty valuable. [00:07:40] Sarah: And essentially you were paying them to train them to then run their own business and not work for you anymore.  [00:07:47] Jason: What a deal. So, okay. Yeah. So then I started siloing that information. And so I think I think I shared a TikTok or a reel or something with you where a guy was talking about siloing the information and he was talking about sales and manufacturing and a product business. [00:08:02] And if they know where to source all the manufacturing stuff and they know how to acquire business, they don't need you anymore. So he had to segregate that information. I was like, that's the same thing. You need to segregate knowledge in your business. Your goal is to hire specialists on the team, not generalists that can wear multiple hats. [00:08:22] You're the business owner. You have to wear every hat in the business that is not currently worn by somebody or is not being done properly. You have to step in. It all falls on you. That's the job of the CEO, right? You have to do it. If you have a good operator, then they step in and some of that stuff, too. [00:08:40] You have to do stuff that's uncomfortable.  [00:08:43] Sarah: Well, let's just pause for a moment. Your operator is not going to do your day to day stuff in property management.  [00:08:47] Jason: They shouldn't do your day to day stuff. It sounded like. A lot of people get confused.  [00:08:50] Sarah: I know what you were trying to say, but people are going to hear that and go, "Oh yeah. And then my operator is going to do everything."  [00:08:55] Jason: I just wanted to include you. I didn't want to say you don't do the hard stuff too.  [00:08:59] Sarah: I do the hard stuff when I have to.  [00:09:01] Jason: Yeah.  [00:09:01] Sarah: Until we can hire somebody else to do it. Because I hate doing it. I hate certain parts though, then we hire somebody and they do it much better. [00:09:11] Jason: Yeah. So I think it might make sense unless you're portfolio style, which I'm not a real big fan of. I think there's a lot of downsides to portfolio style management. I think it's really rare that people are good at everything. And so I think it's a lot more effective to get somebody that's a really great maintenance coordinator that can handle maintenance for probably thousands of units, right? [00:09:32] If they really know their stuff and have the right systems and tools and you can take that off of your property manager's plates. You need probably accounting or bookkeeping or a team that helps with that kind of stuff. There's vendors that can help with some of those pieces, especially if you don't enjoy, or aren't good at that piece, there's a lot of available resources, but if you get specialists that are really good, they will surpass your ability in that particular category. [00:10:00] Sarah is much better running the planning system that we have DoorGrow OS, running the operations of the business than me, I just like, when I was doing it between having operators I just stopped planning. I didn't want to do the meetings. It was, "anybody stuck? Let's move on. And now it's meticulous and it's detail and we're moving forward. [00:10:19] And everything's focused and we're hitting all our goals and we're making progress. Right? Because I have a good operator. So I think the business owners, we need to stop trying to find people that can do everything. We need to find people that are really good at specialists. So, I met with this entrepreneur a while back named Joe Abraham. [00:10:39] He gave this cool Ted talk that I liked and I checked out his book and I took his online quiz and he has a book called entrepreneurial DNA and he created this score similar to an assessment like this, but it's BOSI. B O S I. And it talks about the four different types of entrepreneurs, which are builders, opportunists, innovators, and specialists. [00:11:01] And you need to figure out what you are, the book talks about, and then build the right team around you. So, historically, I was more of a specialist, which means I'm dedicated my craft for over a decade to coaching and supporting property managers, right? And like figuring out how to grow businesses and then I'm an innovator. [00:11:17] I like to take in lots of ideas and formulate new ideas and create stuff and that sort of thing. So more of a specialist, innovator and specialist, and most of the coaches and mentors I've hired have been builders. Builder, innovators, stuff like that opportunists are always looking for the next way to make money or the next vehicle or this sort of thing. [00:11:38] Think like Ray Kroc, who took the McDonald's brothers', intellectual property, because they were innovators and specialist, and he blew it up and he was a builder and an opportunist so, opportunists make great salespeople. For example, builders make good CEOs. And so I wanted to be a better CEO. [00:11:56] And so I've worked with a lot of coaches to become more and more of a builder to develop that skill set. And I'm getting better. Better and better. So, so I think we need to as entrepreneurs figure out what are our strengths and then what are we lacking? If you need to get around maybe coaches that can help you with with some of the gaps that you have in your own personality or your own knowledge base, then that can help you get to the next level. [00:12:20] All right, so I think if we could eliminate the property manager term from those that are not portfolio style, then what would a property manager that people typically think is a property manager do if they're not the maintenance coordinator, they're not all these things What do you think?  [00:12:34] Sarah: Yeah, I think you can still call them a property manager. [00:12:37] I'm not against the term like you're like, "eliminate! Anti property manager term and industry!" I just don't think that's going to happen Okay. I do think though once your business grows and gets large enough you can have one person or team to do the maintenance coordination, and then that piece is handled by the maintenance team. [00:12:58] Then you can offload the leasing part, right? They're going through, maybe doing showings if you still do those, or at least going through applications and moving people along doing the move ins. Dealing with move outs and starting that whole process, kicking that off. You might have a leasing person, or a leasing team, and then the accounting piece, like your property manager probably should not be doing accounting. [00:13:20] You should have somebody who is really good at accounting to do the accounting. And if that means you need to have a service, do it for you. That's fine. Just make sure that they're a really good reputable service. And there's someone that can hopefully like triple tie out your books and make sure everything is correct. [00:13:36] And then you, here's the big thing, you still have to monitor it. Don't just hand it off and say, here, please go do this thing. And then just sit back and never look at it and hope that it's right. Because I've seen that a lot where people go, Oh, like I haven't done the bookkeeping. I have somebody else do it. [00:13:52] And then they start investigating because there's a one little issue and they start to pull the thread. And it's like, when you pull the thread of the sweater and it just all unravels. Okay, so don't do that. Don't do that. But then your property manager can be more like the person that deals with the relationships of between like clients and tenants. [00:14:13] Right. So we're bridging a gap.  [00:14:15] Jason: So then technically they're more of a relationship manager, right. They're managing relationships. I think a big gap that we don't see a lot of in the property management industry, that's super common in every other industry is the category of client success. And the category of client success, their whole goal is to retain customers to keep customers, make sure that they're happy. [00:14:38] And so I think that's the role that some people might say, "oh, that's the property manager" is they need somebody that's just focused on client success, loves on the clients, takes care of the clients, makes them feel valued. Maybe meets with them annually to make sure that everything's looking good financially. [00:14:53] Sarah: Portfolio review calls.  [00:14:55] Jason: Portfolio reviews. [00:14:56] Sarah: I love those. I will harp about that all day long. If you're not doing them, do them.  [00:15:00] Jason: Yeah. So, client success in a lot of industries. I've heard some of our coaches and mentors describe as your other sales team. Right. You've got those that sell people in, like your business development, your BDs, your business development managers, your BDMs that bring clients into the business, but then they are not responsible for retaining the clients. [00:15:22] And you think you retain clients just by doing maintenance coordination and just by doing leasing, but these things don't really develop or solidify or build the relationship. If you screw those things up, then you're bound to probably lose clients. And so that's the bare minimum.  [00:15:36] Sarah: No one is going, "Oh my God. This leasing team is so amazing. I'm never going to leave." [00:15:41] Jason: Right.  [00:15:41] Sarah: They just expect the leasing to be good because it's what they signed up for when they hired a property manager. Right? They're not going to go, "Oh my God, I can't believe they got this maintenance thing done so so fast. And it was done in two hours and it was amazing. I'm never going to leave." [00:15:57] Jason: So Gallup organization wrote this book called first break all the rules. And then it has this customer satisfaction pyramid. And at the lowest level, there's the lowest two levels are availability and accuracy. So these are the two things that if you're always available and you're always accurate in what you say you're going to do and you do it, people just don't even notice. And so it's not hard to be exceptional in property management. If you do that, it's expected and demanded.  [00:16:24] Sarah: So this is like all the tactical stuff that we do.  [00:16:27] Jason: Yeah.  [00:16:27] Sarah: It falls into this.  [00:16:29] Jason: Yeah.  [00:16:29] Sarah: It's just expected.  [00:16:31] Jason: So the next level, if you really want to have great client, customer service and great client interactions is partnership and then advice. [00:16:40] And this is where I think a property manager can really add value. This is where they are really a client success role where they're retaining clients. They're improving the relationship and the value that people see in the relationship and in the longevity of staying a client of your particular business, when there's plenty of others that could do it, they can manage their property. [00:17:00] You have team members that are managing the relationship and focusing on client success. So maybe there should be some client success managers in property management and less property managers. As far as terms go.  [00:17:13] Sarah: He's really trying to get rid of that term.  [00:17:15] Jason: I don't know. It's just, it's so ambiguous. [00:17:17] Sarah: That's why. So when we were creating R docs, like all of the job descriptions for different roles, he's like, "I want there to be an R doc for every role in property management business." And I said, "okay, I can create it." Here's the problem. The problem is that if I create one for an assistant, it's going to be different from company to company. If I create one for a property manager, there's going to be some similarities, but there's always going to be things that are different from company to company. So there are great templates, right? And it's they're, it's amazing. And then you just delete the things you don't need and add anything you do need from there. There's nothing that's uniform. There's so much that's different from business to business. We all do the same thing. We're all property management entrepreneurs, but the way the ins and outs, the inner workings of our business, there's a million different ways to do it.  [00:18:10] Jason: We did define those Rdocs though. [00:18:12] We have Rdocs for each of the major roles. I think yeah, I think having recognizing that. You need a client success person to maintain the relationship. You need a maintenance coordinator. You need if all these things are segregated and you get really great specialists in each of these areas, then yeah, you're going to have a much stronger lifetime value of your client. [00:18:33] You're going to make a lot more money. So I think that's important. Anything else we should talk about related to property manager?  [00:18:39] Sarah: I think that covers it.  [00:18:40] Jason: All right. So figure out and I'm curious, go ahead and find my post in the DoorGrow club group, or go post or comment in the DoorGrow club community. [00:18:51] I'd be curious to hear your thoughts. What do you feel a property manager is if you don't do portfolio style? What are your property managers doing? How do you define that role? And are they really managing properties? Are they really managing people? Are they really customer success? Are they really supporting and taking care of owners? [00:19:08] Or do you think they're taking care of tenants and like maintaining a relationship there? So, all right, I think that's our interesting conversation for the day for the DoorGrow show and do you want to give them a call to action? That's a good call to action for the end of the show here? [00:19:23] Sarah: Oh, well, we have a few events coming up. So go and check out our events that we have coming up. Don't miss DoorGrow. It's going to be a big one. [00:19:31] This is like our big conference. We do it once a year. It's here in Round Rock, Texas on it's a Friday and Saturday, May 17th and 18th. And our theme this year is creating opportunity from uncertainty. So we have a lot of great topics, a lot of great speakers lined up for you guys. And I've got something special in the works that I haven't really released yet, but It's gonna be really cool because we've never done anything quite like that before  [00:19:57] Jason: Yeah, all right. [00:19:59] Cool. All right. Well on that note Until next time to our mutual growth. Bye everyone. [00:20:03] 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!  [00:20:30] 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. Until next time, take what you learn and start DoorGrow Hacking your business and your life.

If you are a property management entrepreneur, you have likely been your own salesperson or BDM at some point. Eventually, every property management business owner will need to hire a salesperson and develop different growth engines. In this episode of the #DoorGrowShow, property management growth experts Jason and Sarah Hull talk about their BDM Bootcamp event You'll Learn [01:52] What is a BDM? [03:00] Get your BDM Ready for BDM Bootcamp [08:42] You Need a Sales Pipeline! [14:26] Benefits of In-Person Events Tweetables “It's not the growth strategy that's the problem. It's that there's multiple stages in a pipeline for each growth engine, and you are not identifying the leaks that exist in this pipeline.” “Your pipeline will literally never ever work if you don't even have one.” “If you're not working the pipeline and you don't know the different stages of a pipeline, you're just guessing, and you're just hoping.” “You need to get to the real pain and related that you need to get to the real pleasure, like what they really want. Nobody really wants property management” Resources DoorGrow and Scale Mastermind DoorGrow Academy DoorGrow on YouTube DoorGrowClub DoorGrowLive TalkRoute Referral Link Transcript [00:00:00] Jason: It's not the growth strategy that's the problem. It's that there's multiple stages in a pipeline for each growth engine and you are not identifying the leaks that exist in this pipeline or you're tolerating drop off at one of these stages.  [00:00:17] Welcome DoorGrow property managers to the DoorGrow show. If you are a property management entrepreneur that wants to add doors, make a difference, increase revenue, help others, impact lives, and you are interested in growing a business and life. And you're open to doing things a bit differently, then you are a DoorGrow property manager. [00:00:36] DoorGrow property managers love the opportunities, daily variety, unique challenges, and freedom that property management brings. Many in real estate think you're crazy for doing it. You think they're crazy for not because you realize that property management is the ultimate high trust gateway to real estate deals, relationships, and residual income. At DoorGrow, we are on a mission to transform property management, business owners and their businesses. We want to transform the industry, eliminate the BS, build awareness, change perception, expand the market and help the best property management entrepreneurs win. We're your hosts, Jason and Sarah Hull. [00:01:15] Now let's get into the show. All right. So today we're going to be talking about BDMs.  [00:01:24] Sarah: Yeah.  [00:01:26] Jason: In honor of this event that we have coming up, which is. Going to be super cool. I don't know that there's been anything like this. That's been as cool as this that's existed in the property management space, maybe ever. [00:01:39] There's a lot of people that talk about BDMs, but there's very few that are actually getting BDMs to get great results. And we're going to be hosting a BDM bootcamp. And so Before we go any further, every time I start talking about BDMs, as if everybody knows what it is. I just talked to a guy with, I think, 800 doors the other day. [00:02:00] He's like, "what's a BDM?" I was like, man, okay, I need to make sure I explained this. BDMs are business development managers. Sometimes they're called BDs, business developers and they're salespeople for property management. That's what people will call them, right? Business development can happen in any industry. [00:02:18] But the reason we use the phrase BDM in property management is because property management is closely connected to real estate. And whenever you mentioned sales, people get it confused with real estate brokerage sales type of stuff. And that's why. Now everybody knows what a BDM is, and we're going to be talking a little bit about that today. [00:02:37] Sarah: Okay.  [00:02:38] Jason: So anyone listening to the show, you better know what a BDM is from now on. That's it.  [00:02:43] Sarah: There's a quiz at the end.  [00:02:44] Jason: What is a BDM? Did you get it right? If not, go back and start this episode over.  [00:02:49] Sarah: Try again.  [00:02:51] Jason: Okay. All right. What do we talk...? Do you want to like tell them about the event? [00:02:56] What do we want to talk about?  [00:02:58] Sarah: Yes. Tell them about the event. So we are launching a BDM bootcamp. So there's a lot of companies that promote getting BDMs. And there's a lot of companies that promote getting BDMs and then spending a bunch of money to run ads and get leads and pay for leads and then have the BDM work the leads. [00:03:21] And then if you just want the BDM to close more deals, it's simple. All you have to do is spend more money and buy more leads. Which is really expensive and wildly ineffective. So we have strategies that BDMs use...  [00:03:35] Jason: that actually work  [00:03:37] Sarah: ...that are free, or at least very inexpensive. [00:03:40] You might have to pay for lunch. That's okay. You get something out of it too. And we've decided that we're going to launch a BDM, aka salesperson, boot camp. It's going to be a one day training. And we've never done anything like this before. For those of you that are current clients, there's some trainings on DoorGrow Academy. [00:04:01] We run every wednesday, our growth accelerator calls, but it's hard to amass all of this information that Jason and I have learned about sales over the last, what, 20 something years and put it in a course. Or talk about it on a one hour call. It's darn near impossible, right? So what we wanted to do is we wanted to take some of this information and spend one day going over all of it. [00:04:31] Now, this is very likely going to end up being a series because we can probably talk about sales and strategies and tactics and how to improve your scripts and what to say and like NLP language and filler words and all this good stuff, we can go over this for probably days on end. So what we're doing is this is very likely going to end up being a series, but we're going to launch the first one in April, so for those of you that are watching live, you all have a chance to get in on that for those of you that are watching this recording is will probably be released after the event, but don't fret because  [00:05:11] Jason: you may have missed it.  [00:05:12] Sarah: You might have missed it. Oh, man.  [00:05:15] Jason: Maybe you should get in our Facebook group and pay attention to the live streams. [00:05:19] So you don't miss stuff.  [00:05:20] Sarah: Sometimes we do some cool things that you need to know about right now.  [00:05:23] Jason: The Facebook group, go to doorgrowclub.Com apply. We reject 70 percent of the applicants, which is why the group is good.  [00:05:31] Sarah: Okay.  [00:05:32] Jason: Okay.  [00:05:32] Sarah: Anyway. So that was our shameless plug. All right. No, right. Go ahead. [00:05:36] If you've missed it. Yeah, we don't have a word from ourselves yet. That's a great idea. Who wants to sponsor this podcast? We'll plug you on every episode. Talk to me, baby. So anyway, if you've missed it. Sad for you, but don't fret because there's going to be more of these. This won't be a once and done thing. [00:05:55] So for those of you that are listening now and or hear the information before the event, then this is going to be for you. So here's the information. It will be Thursday, April 11th. So this is also open to anyone on your team who handles sales, meaning it might be you, it might be somebody else. You may have multiple people on the team who handle sales. So if you would like Jason and myself to train your salespeople for a day. This is a really great opportunity for you because that's exactly what we're doing. [00:06:33] So do you want to tell them a little bit about what we're talking about? Or do you want me to do that?  [00:06:38] Jason: I'll go ahead. So we've seen a lot of problems with businesses growing. And so if you, have a BDM or if you are the BDM, you're the business owner, you're the one that closes deals and you are not adding at least a hundred orders a year, hopefully through organic methods instead of wasting a bunch of money on advertising to get cold crappy leads, we're going to give you the strategies, we're going to focus on some different growth engines talking about those. We're going to get into specific pipeline stages because what I often identify is that it's not the growth strategy that's the problem. It's that there's multiple stages in a pipeline for each growth engine and you are not identifying the leaks that exist in this pipeline, or you're tolerating drop off at one of these stages. And not making progress and so we're going to help you identify where the leaks are if you've started building some of these growth engines, you may have started doing things like trying to do realtor referrals and it's not working very well. [00:07:39] You're not getting easily 10 doors a month from that. You might maybe you've heard of our neighbor strategy and you're not getting referrals from that. Maybe you've heard of some other of our strategies, it's not working. And if you haven't heard of these, then you might want to show up, but we're going to talk about the different stages. [00:07:55] We're going to talk about what maybe is affecting things at different stages. This will be very tailored to those that are in attendance. We want to help you move your business forward significantly. And sometimes there's very simple tweaks that could be done at each of these stages that opens the floodgates. [00:08:10] So you have a lot more flow through the pipeline, which means more deals and more money.  [00:08:15] Sarah: Yeah. So back up because you skipped to topic number two, which is cool. We can do two and then one and then three and then four, but that's fine.  [00:08:21] Jason: They're not numbered.  [00:08:22] Sarah: They're not, but they are in order on the document. [00:08:24] Jason: Okay.  [00:08:25] Sarah: Yeah. [00:08:25] Jason: So Sarah's an operator and everything has to be done a certain way. There is a right way for operators.  [00:08:32] Sarah: There's a right way to do literally every task on the planet.  [00:08:34] Jason: I'm talking to the business owners and they care most about what is interesting or different, but...  [00:08:42] Sarah: yes, and I understand, but your pipeline will literally never ever work if you don't even have one. [00:08:50] Jason: That's true.  [00:08:51] Sarah: Or you don't know the stages of a pipeline because a lot of times, and I bet this happens to you too, but it happens to me when I ask people, okay, "what does your sales process look like?" [00:09:00] " Oh, I talked to somebody." "Okay, great. And then what?" "Oh, and then I send them some information." "Great. And then what?" [00:09:05] Jason: "I wait." [00:09:06] Sarah: "Oh, then I wait." "Oh, okay. Like, do you call them again or do you check in or do you like set up another call?"  [00:09:13] Jason: "Or I follow up in a way that I look needy and creepy?"  [00:09:16] Sarah: Sometimes the answer is yes. And then sometimes the answer is no, but even if they do follow up or have another call or check in again, somehow, then my next question again is "okay, and then what?" And then they go, "oh, and then I just wait." So essentially what happens is you have no pipeline. Okay. And you don't know that you don't have a pipeline, but you don't have a pipeline. [00:09:35] And that means if you're not working the pipeline and you don't know the different stages of a pipeline, we're just guessing, and we're just hoping. We're going, "I don't know. I keep talking to all these people, but nothing seems to be closing. And I don't understand why," because you don't have pipeline stages. [00:09:49] Jason: Okay.  [00:09:49] Sarah: So you got to need a pipeline.  [00:09:51] Jason: So we'll teach you how to build out the pipeline. We'll talk about the different stages that need to exist. And then it'll be a lot more clear and we'll talk with you about how to build that out in your CRM of choice. So you'll understand the principles. [00:10:04] You can go apply this to whatever CRM you use, whether it's DoorGrow CRM or lead simple or whatever else is out there. Okay, I'll go to number three now that we're back in order. Okay. All right. Number three, [00:10:19] Uncovering your client's pain points. So superficially people think they know the pain of their target audience. So they want their property manager. They don't want to have to deal with managing the rental property. That is not the real pain that gets you to close deals that you have to go a lot deeper than that. [00:10:36] And so we're going to talk about how to disarm people, how to not come across as super salesy, how to create authentic communication and an authentic relationship where they believe that you can help them and how to get them to open up about what the real pain is, the real stress of the real emotion that might be motivating them to have a conversation with you. [00:11:00] And one of the biggest problems we see in sales is that a lot of people don't take time to identify what the real pain is. The pain often has not really anything to do with the rental property. It's something going on in their personal life. And so you need to figure out how to connect to that. [00:11:16] And for some that's like, "Whoa," that's like, "I don't know how to do that. That'd be weird or awkward," but you need to get to the real pain and related that you need to get to the real pleasure, like what they really want. Nobody really wants property management, right? Just like if you're booking a trip to Hawaii. [00:11:34] Property management is the flight to Hawaii. It's not the paradise. It's not the outcome that they're hoping for. It is property management. So we want to sell the trip. We want to sell Hawaii, not the flight there, right? Which is property management. So we'll talk about also getting towards the, not just the pain, but the pleasure. [00:11:54] Those are the 2 ingredients you really need to know and uncover in order to close the deal. And so if you're not closing deals, it's probably because somebody else is better at that than you. You're one of your competitors, or they're just going to go with the cheapest company because you haven't really created a connection. [00:12:11] And so they think you're a commodity. You do everything everyone else does. And so that we'll get into that. All right. So good?  [00:12:18] Sarah: That was good.  [00:12:19] Jason: Number four, reviewing and improving your call scripts to book more appointments and close more deals. So we want to like, take a look at what are you saying? And you may think, "I don't have scripts. [00:12:30] I'm just awesome. I just wing it every time." I guarantee 90 percent of the time, you're saying similar things, dealing with objections in similar ways. And so you have a script. It just probably isn't a very clearly defined one, which means it's probably not a very good one because you haven't taken an objective look at it to optimize or improve it. [00:12:50] And so we're going to take a look at some scripts that are effective and figure out ways to improve your scripts. And sometimes it's not even about what you're saying. It's about how you say it. And so we're going to focus on some of the magic that comes with how you communicate with people. I've got clients that are not salespeople, like no real training in sales, terrible at sales. And they're crushing it because they know how to be authentic. They are communicating in a way that's disarming and they're just being helpful. And so we're going to talk about some of that stuff. How to close more deals. Some of you that are so good at sales, you're super salesy, you like cut your teeth as a baby in real estate and like you're a shark, like we're going to help you figure out how to undo a lot of that mess so that you can create more trust and sales and deals happen at the speed of trust. [00:13:44] And so we're going to help you close more business, which will make things a lot better. Okay.  [00:13:50] Sarah: That's what we've got. All right. That's our agenda. And if this sounds interesting to you, now, our hope is that once you come to this event, you'll obviously get a lot out of it and learn a lot about sales that we just typically can't cover on a one hour call. [00:14:07] It's just, it's too much. I can talk about 1 of those things for more than an hour. Right? Once you come to this event, you'll learn a lot and you'll be able to immediately implement these things so that very quickly, you will start seeing some changes and some positive results and momentum.  [00:14:24] Jason: So why do this in person? [00:14:26] So let me talk about that. One of the things we've noticed in DoorGrow's, I'm starting to call it the real bubble. And so there's this mentality, I think, unconsciously in our brain. So when we're doing stuff on zoom calls and zoom meetings, which we do a lot of cool stuff that way DoorGrow, but we've noticed that when we get people in person for the first time they meet Sarah and I and realize we're real human beings. [00:14:48] We're not just something on video and that we're real and they can like hug us. And like we touch right? Like then something shifts in their brain that everything else they're saying is real. When they start to meet clients that they've seen on some of the Zoom calls, sharing their wins and talking about crushing it and adding doors. [00:15:07] They're like, "Oh, these are real people." And then the brain shifts and they start to connect that, "Hey, if they're real, and this is real and they're getting real results and they're like me, I'm a human, like I can do this too." And all of this stuff is actually true, impossible. And so we've noticed a shift in clients once they come to DoorGrow live, which is coming up in May, or they come to one of our in person events. [00:15:32] And so we want to do this in person because there's something magical about in person that content and information is absorbed. A lot more easily. There's also that sort of kinesthetic aspect that we're there physically but the learning is a bit more experiential. We'll be able to maybe even role play, go over some scripts, talk, like, say things. [00:15:52] It's just a bit more real than just seeing something on video or watching a video replay or something like that. And so come pierce the real veil with DoorGrow and realize the real magic that exists.  [00:16:03] Sarah: All right. Yes. And at this point you guys might be wondering all right, so this sounds pretty good. [00:16:09] I think I might be interested. What do I do? Contact me. Don't contact anybody else on the team. They're not even going to know what you're talking about. Just contact me so you can get in touch with me. It's Sarah S-A-R-A-H. If you go to our website and you end up talking with somebody else on the team, they will point you in my direction and you can get registered that way. [00:16:29] Now, tickets for this will be 1k per person. You can have as many people on your team attend as you would like. So if you have 3 BDMs and you want to send all 3. If there's just one or two, maybe that you want to send or you want to come check it out yourself, go ahead. But you'll need to let me know now spots are going to be limited. I don't even have 20 spots. I actually need to go back and confirm how many I have left because I know we had some people interested. But the price for this will be 1k per person. And I know that the price will not stay. At that rate. [00:17:03] So we're launching it and we're doing something special with the price. So for now, take us our one case. So get in while the cost is low.  [00:17:12] Jason: There you go. All right. You will easily offset the cost of doing this. For most of you, that's like getting one more deal, right? So lifetime value for most of your clients, probably a lot higher, like maybe 10 times. [00:17:27] Maybe 20 times higher if you can keep them a while, right? So this is a no brainer. This is very easy and we can get your BDM adding a lot more doors. So just like some client results, we've got clients that are easily some BDM are adding 200- 300 doors a year organically without paying for any SEO or pay per click or content marketing or social media marketing or pay per lead services like APM and they're able to grow and scale their business quickly through organic methods. [00:17:56] Sarah: And we have some clients that turn business away every single month because they just cannot.  [00:18:02] Jason: Get pickier and pickier.  [00:18:03] Sarah: Yeah, they're backlogged. And then they ask us on the calls what do I do? Like, "I don't want to say no, but then I can't take on this many." And we're like, "now you have a waiting list and you can take on X money per month." [00:18:14] And if they can't come on this month or they missed that deadline, then roll them over to the next month. If they qualify.  [00:18:20] Jason: Okay. All right. So that is BDM bootcamp. So check out BDM bootcamp, reach out to sarah@doorgrow.Com. Sarah with an H.  [00:18:28] Sarah: Yeah, if you spell my name wrong, I'm not talking to you cause I won't get it. [00:18:32] Jason: Okay. That's your punishment.  [00:18:34] Wow. Okay.  [00:18:35] Sarah: So don't forget my H because everyone does.  [00:18:38] Jason: Just email me. I'm nicer.  [00:18:40] Sarah: He never checks his email. Don't email him. That's true.  [00:18:42] Jason: My assistant does. Don't do it. All right.  [00:18:44] Sarah: You'll never hear back the black hole.  [00:18:46] Jason: No, my assistant's good. She'll take care of it. I just won't see it. [00:18:51] She'll tell me about it if it's important. All right. For those of you that are wanting to join a community, be part of something awesome, reach out to us. And so you can learn more about DoorGrow Mastermind. You get access to some of the coolest stuff and to be part of the coolest community of the most growth minded property management business owners in the industry. [00:19:11] And we can help you get your business to the next level. So whether it's scaling operations, whether it's figuring out how to grow, whether it's cleaning up the front end of your business, getting your website and your pricing, right, all this kind of stuff. So we can help you. All right. Check us out at doorgrow. com until next time to our mutual growth, everybody. Bye for now. [00:19:33] 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!  [00:19:59] At DoorGrow, we solve your biggest challenge: getting deals and growing your business. Find out more at doorgrow.com. Find any show notes or links from today's episode on our blog doorgrow.com, and to get notified of future events and news subscribe to our newsletter at doorgrow.com/subscribe. Until next time, take what you learn and start DoorGrow Hacking your business and your life.

Today, we will learn how Easter is celebrated in the United States and Australia. We will hear Tom and Sarah's conversation about their plans for Easter this year. And with a point-of-view story, you will learn grammar in context without memorizing boring rules. Hi! Thanks for joining me for another episode of the podcast. I'm Georgiana and my mission is to help you improve your fluency. If you want to support me, please share the podcast with your friends and family. It would mean a great deal to me. Thank you! Remember that you can get the text of this episode on my website SpeakEnglishPodcast.com Okay! Let's start! Tom, from the United States, and Sarah, from Australia, were catching up on a video call before the Easter holiday. As they started chatting, they quickly realized they had different traditions and plans for celebrating the holiday. Let's listen to their conversation: Tom: Hey, Sarah! Happy Easter! Sarah: Happy Easter to you too, Tom! I hope you're doing well. Tom: Yes, I'm doing great. So, what are your plans for Easter this year? Sarah: I plan to attend church and celebrate Easter with my family. We usually have a big Easter dinner and spend time together. Tom: That sounds lovely. I'm also planning to celebrate Easter with my family. We usually have an Easter egg hunt and decorate Easter eggs. Sarah: Oh, that's a great tradition. We also decorate Easter eggs but don't have an egg hunt. Tom: That's interesting. Every family has their own traditions. Sarah: Definitely. What other traditions do you have for Easter? Tom: We usually go to church and have a big Easter brunch. We also exchange Easter baskets filled with candy and small gifts. Sarah: That sounds like so much fun. We don't exchange Easter baskets but give each other Easter cards. Tom: That's sweet. Do you have any special Easter foods that you eat? Sarah: Yes, we usually have ham, deviled eggs, and hot cross buns. Tom: That sounds delicious. My family has roasted lamb, mashed potatoes, and asparagus. Sarah: That sounds amazing. It's interesting to see how different cultures celebrate the same holiday. Tom: Yes, I agree. Speaking of cultures, I heard Easter is celebrated differently in Australia. Can you tell me more about that? Sarah: Sure! In Australia, Easter is also a Christian holiday that celebrates the resurrection of Jesus Christ. However, since it's celebrated in the fall season there, it's more of a harvest festival. We also have a lot of outdoor activities like camping and hiking. Tom: That's so cool. I didn't know Easter was celebrated as a harvest festival in Australia. Do you have any special Easter foods that you eat? Sarah: Yes, we have hot cross buns and chocolate eggs, just like in the US. But we also have meat pies, seafood, and others. Tom: That sounds amazing. I'll have to try them sometime. Sarah: Definitely. Maybe we can exchange some Easter foods and try each other's traditions. Tom: That's a great idea, Sarah! Sarah: Ok! I'll see you later. Happy Easter! Tom: Happy Easter!

We get the question all the time, “What does DoorGrow even do?”  In this short and sweet episode of the #DoorGrowShow, property management entrepreneurs Jason and Sarah Hull share what they do, why they do it, and how to get in touch. You'll Learn [03:09] Most property managers suck [05:03] Don't kill your momentum! [08:35] We can make the industry better together [10:43] You might be the problem in your business Tweetables “We want to make sure you have a business that you enjoy doing stuff in.” “If you are not adding at least minimum a hundred doors a year, your business is broken.” “If you're doing what everybody else does, you're probably getting the same shitty results that everybody else is getting in this industry.” “The bar is so low in property management that, the phrase ‘a rising tide raises all ships,' I think a rising tide would just drown several ships.” Resources DoorGrow and Scale Mastermind DoorGrow Academy DoorGrow on YouTube DoorGrowClub DoorGrowLive TalkRoute Referral Link Transcript [00:00:00] Jason: If you're doing what everybody else does, you're probably getting the same shitty results that everybody else is getting in this industry.  [00:00:07] Welcome DoorGrow property managers to the DoorGrow show. If you are a property management entrepreneur that wants to add doors, make a difference, increase revenue, help others, impact lives, and you are interested in growing in business and life, and you're open to doing things a bit differently, then you are a DoorGrow hacker... or property manager. DoorGrow property managers love the opportunities, daily variety, unique challenges, and freedom that property management brings. Many in real estate think you're crazy for doing it. You think they're crazy for not because you realize that property management is the ultimate high trust gateway to real estate deals, relationships, and residual income... and to becoming a better investor yourself and getting rental properties. 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. [00:01:02] We're your hosts, property management growth experts, Jason and Sarah Hull, the owners of DoorGrow. Now let's get into the show.  [00:01:10] All right. So we're going to make this a short episode today because I just didn't want to do it. I didn't want to do it. Like, honestly, like there's some days that I'm just like, "I don't want to do the podcast. Like, can we just get on with doing the stuff that I Like we need to get done in the business, right?"  [00:01:26] Sarah: Let's be realistic. There are some days that we don't feel like doing anything. That's normal.  [00:01:31] Jason: Right? That's business, right? I'm sure a lot of you wake up sometimes and you're like, "I do not want to do this today." [00:01:37] Yeah, so we want to make sure you have a business that you enjoy doing stuff in. So we'll have a quick conversation. So what we were going to talk about is what?  [00:01:45] Sarah: Oh, why do you do this to me?  [00:01:46] Jason: Okay, what we were going to talk about, we're going to talk about just real quick. Let's answer the question. [00:01:52] What does DoorGrow do? So we get this question all the time. Cause they're like "DoorGrow? You help grow and we grow doors? And like, what does that mean? How do you do that? Do you guys get us leads? Are you an advertising company? Like, what do you do? So what we do, the shortest answer I could give you is we help companies grow rapidly while eliminating their marketing or advertising expense and budget. [00:02:15] And I know that sounds crazy. So we're helping you not have to waste time doing cold lead marketing or advertising. You might think SEO or pay per click on Google or content marketing or social media marketing or whatever is the secret to getting all the business and growing your business and getting your hopes and dreams to come true. [00:02:35] And a lot of you have been spending a lot of money doing that, and it's not really working super well. And so what we do is we help you figure out how to grow effectively. We also help optimize businesses for growth. So a lot of times you're trying to grow, you're trying to do a bunch of stuff to get leads and to get doors and to get business, but you have all these blind spots that are eating up and causing you to lose and miss out on deals that you can't see. [00:03:01] It might be that you have your branding is off. Your reputation stuff is off. Your sales pitch is off. Your pricing stuff is off. If you're doing what everybody else does, you're probably getting the same shitty results that everybody else is getting in this industry. And most property management companies suck. [00:03:17] Most of you listening know this is true. You look at your business and you think, "we're pretty good, but all the other companies suck." And most property managers I talk to that are starting a property management business. They, I say, "why are you starting a business?" And they say, "I'm an investor, and I've tried to use other companies in my market, but they all suck." The bar is pretty low. The bar is so low in property management that, the phrase "a rising tide raises all ships," I think a rising tide would just drown several ships. Like I think they would just sink because they're just sitting on bedrock. [00:03:48] There's a lot of bad companies. And there's a lot of miserable property management business owners. This is not an easy business or industry. I know this is true. I've talked to thousands of property managers. I talked to property managers every week that are miserable every week on sales calls. They like get on a call with me and they're like, "I am not enjoying my business. I am struggling. I'm frustrated," and it's because they are trying to wear all the hats or they have team members that are not really making them feel safe, not really taking everything off their plate in particular roles. And so they still have to be involved and wear hats they don't enjoy it. They don't want to keep doing so. We help you get your team in alignment. We help you get your ops in alignment. We help you get your profit margin healthy. We are helping our clients crush it. And if you are not adding at least minimum a hundred doors a year, your business is broken. You do not have effective growth. That is not difficult to do. We've got clients adding a hundred to 200 to 300. And if any of my clients are listening, if you are not adding at least 100 doors a year, you're not listening and doing what we tell you to do. So we've got clients that are crushing it. The other thing that we do is on the operational side. [00:05:03] Like, if you keep stopping your growth and adding doors because you're like "we've got a whole bunch of business coming on. And now I got to focus on operations." You have to stop pausing. And so you have to stop stopping growth in your business. I see this all the time, even with some of our clients, they start growing really rapidly. [00:05:19] And they're like, "Oh my gosh, I got to like, stop growing. It's too much. I'm adding too many doors. It's getting painful. It's getting uncomfortable." If you stop, here's the challenge, what I've seen. What I've seen is that if you stop growing right now, you then cannot get things going for at least a quarter or two. [00:05:36] And then like a sales slump takes about a quarter to get out of. So you lose almost a year of momentum and growth just by stopping growth to focus on ops or to focus on fulfillment or focus on onboarding all these new clients, right? So you have to stop stopping because if you do this, you start growing, it gets uncomfortable and then you stop. [00:05:57] And then it's months to a year of growth, and then you start trying to build it up and get growth going again, and then you stop again, I see companies that do this, and what happens is your churn rate starts to match your growth rate, and so you end up with a business where you've been stuck at 50 or 60 units for like 3 years, or you've been stuck in the 2 to 400 unit range for like 3 years or more, and you can't figure out how to grow or get ahead. [00:06:24] And if you aren't stopping and you're still stuck at these stages, then your business has some serious leaks in it. And these are so solvable, like on the other side of this, it's so solvable. You could have such a better life. You could have more time with your family and kids. You could feel like you're actually making progress and not burning yourself out. [00:06:46] You could be getting out of the stuff that's burning you out and you could start to like have a real impact. You can have the day to day that you want to have. This is all doable. You can be miserable in a business with a thousand doors. You can be miserable in a business with 50 doors or 10. [00:07:05] Sarah: I'm totally overwhelmed. I'm like, "Oh..."  [00:07:07] Jason: or you could like be having like space and time and taking care of yourself at any stage or level at 50 units or at a thousand plus units. And we need to shift your mindset and build the right business around you. So if you're dealing with some of these challenges, you've been stuck in struggling for a long time, you need to stop doing what I've done in the past and being stubborn and thinking you can solve it all on your own. [00:07:33] If you just watch enough YouTube videos or read enough books or go to enough NARPM conferences, and you think you'll just figure it out when all you end up doing is heaping more ideas that are just wasting time. And distracting you from what you actually need to do, which you can't usually even see. [00:07:51] You need some outside perspective because you're too close to the fire and you just keep burning yourself. All right. That's my soapbox.  [00:07:59] Sarah: There. Yeah. Tell us how you really feel today, would you? Don't hold back! [00:08:03] Jason: Don't be stupid. Get help.  [00:08:05] Sarah: I was talking to you.  [00:08:06] Jason: People! Okay. All right. Yeah. And I've talked to so many property management business owners over the last decade, even the last week. [00:08:14] And I get really excited when I talk to people with problems because I know how easy it is for us to help them solve these problems. And if everybody knew how easy it would be for us to help them make progress and get their business moving forward, every property manager be signing up for a mastermind. [00:08:31] Everyone would because I bet a lot of you are frustrated and not happy there shouldn't be as many crappy property management businesses in this industry as there are. There just shouldn't. There's no need for that. We need to make the industry better. If we make it better, it gets better for everyone. [00:08:49] If your neighboring property managers all start doing a great job, your business and you start doing a great job, you will get more business. There's only 30 percent market share roughly. There's tons of available potential market share. There's no scarcity. There's no like, "Oh man, like there's nobody I could get as clients." [00:09:07] There's none of that. There's tons of available business, but the bar is so low and property management has such a bad reputation because there's so many crappy companies because they're doing stupid stuff that is not helping them grow, have revenue, have profit margin, and they're making lots of mistakes. [00:09:24] And because everybody else is doing that, it's like normal. So it's not hard to be exceptional in this industry just by doing a decent job. It's super not hard to be exceptional. Like there are so many companies don't even answer their phones. There's so many companies that don't even communicate with their owners ever. [00:09:45] There's so many companies that like don't even do inspections. There's so many companies that have their trust accounts, like absolutely mismanaged, right? That it's so simple and easy. You just need to be accurate and available and you would surpass 90 percent of the property management companies out there. [00:10:02] And then if you're one of our clients, we go way beyond that. We then start to make you a really great legitimate business that would be a great business in any industry, right? But in property management, the bar is really low. So if you want to be exceptional and start stealing all the market share and getting lots of business, that's not hard to do because the bar is so low in almost every single market. [00:10:23] It's not difficult to be exceptional. So that's my message for today.  [00:10:27] Sarah: So give us a call. If you aren't happy in your property management business, if you feel like you can be doing less of the day to day, if you feel like you're overwhelmed and you're stressed, and maybe you're just not really in love with this business, we can help. [00:10:42] Jason: Yeah. If you're not growing fast enough, there's something wrong in the business and the problem is probably business owner. It's probably you. And that's the thing. Like, we have to take extreme ownership as business owners. We have to recognize that. "Oh, the business is a problem." If you're blaming your team, you pick that team, right? [00:11:01] If you're blaming your systems, the problem is you pick those systems. If you're blaming the market, then you're just making excuses because I'm sure somebody else could crush it in your market. We've heard all of the excuses. The only real honest thing that you can do is take ownership. Extreme ownership, [00:11:18] it's a great book, read extreme ownership. The problem is you. And if you own that problem, then you can actually change it and solve it. And we're here to help you do that. And we will help you see that this is all fixable stuff. All right, I think that's our episode for today.  [00:11:33] Sarah: All right. [00:11:34] Jason: Anything you want to add?  [00:11:35] Sarah: Nope.  [00:11:36] Jason: Okay, then reach out to us at doorgrow. Check us out at doorgrow. com. Get on a call with me. I want to talk to you. Like if you're struggling, I will show you how we can help you solve this. And if we can't, then we won't take you on as a client. If you're not coachable, then we won't take you on as a client. [00:11:50] Like, but if I can help you, I want to help you. This is what we do every day. I love helping people grow their business and helping change their life. I want you to have a better life. I want you to have more time with your family. I want you to have more money in your bank account. I want you to have the freedom to take vacations and to do things that really matter. [00:12:09] Life is too short to be in constant suffering and pain and to live for a business that takes ownership of your life. And now you're like a slave to it, right? The business should be serving you. So let's get the business serving you instead of you feeling like you're waking up every day, serving your business. [00:12:27] All right. Until next time to our mutual growth. Bye everyone. [00:12:31] 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!  [00:12:58] At DoorGrow, we solve your biggest challenge: getting deals and growing your business. Find out more at doorgrow.com. Find any show notes or links from today's episode on our blog doorgrow.com, and to get notified of future events and news subscribe to our newsletter at doorgrow.com/subscribe. Until next time, take what you learn and start DoorGrow Hacking your business and your life.

DoorGrow Live 2024 is upon us! If you have been in the property management space for a little while now, you're probably familiar with DoorGrow Live.  In this episode of the #DoorGrowShow, property management growth experts Jason and Sarah explain how this year's is expanding upon previous DoorGrow Live events. This year's theme focuses on creating opportunity in times of uncertainty. Be there May 17-18 in Round Rock, TX. You'll Learn [01:20] DoorGrow Live, the property management event you don't want to miss [03:58] 2024: Creating Opportunity Through Uncertainty [05:48] Using these hectic times to your advantage [07:07] First glance at DoorGrow Live topics [08:32] Networking with growth-minded people Tweetables “The market is very uncertain right now, but that is such a great opportunity to do something with it.” “It's not hard to step up and showcase leadership and become a leader in times of crisis.” “There's all sorts of craziness that's going to be happening, and this is a big opportunity for you to get more market share to get more investments.” “This is how some of the largest companies were built were during like recessions or depressions or time periods where they decided to double down and to focus on growth instead of scale back and be a fearful like everybody else. This is when winners are made.”   Resources DoorGrow and Scale Mastermind DoorGrow Academy DoorGrow on YouTube DoorGrowClub DoorGrowLive TalkRoute Referral Link Transcript [00:00:00] Jason: This is when winners are made. And so we want our clients and those that are close to us and attending DoorGrow Live to be those that capitalize and succeed in this industry.  [00:00:11] Welcome DoorGrow property managers to the DoorGrow show. If you are a property management entrepreneur that wants to add doors, make a difference, increase revenue, help others, impact lives, and you are interested in growing in business and life, and you're open to doing things a bit differently then you are a DoorGrow property manager.  [00:00:29] DoorGrow property managers love the opportunities, daily variety, unique challenges, and freedom that property management brings. Many in real estate think you're crazy for doing it. You think they're crazy for not, because you realize that property management is the ultimate high trust gateway to real estate deals, relationships, and residual income. [00:00:49] At DoorGrow, we are on a mission to transform property management business owners and their businesses. We want to transform the industry, eliminate the BS, build awareness, change perception, expand the market and help the best property management entrepreneurs win. We're your hosts, property management, growth experts, Jason and Sarah Hull the founder and CEO of DoorGrow and the operator COO of DoorGrow. [00:01:13] And now let's get into the show.  [00:01:16] All right, we'll get that figured out eventually. [00:01:18] I always love it.  [00:01:19] Okay. So what we're going to be talking about today is what, Sarah?  [00:01:24] Sarah: DoorGrow Live  [00:01:25] Jason: DoorGrow live. DoorGrow Live! Yeah, so DoorGrow Live is our premier conference that we do once a year and it's pretty great. [00:01:35] So what do we want to say about it?  [00:01:37] Sarah: All right. So let's get them some of the information first. You can get all of this information at DoorGrowlive.Com. So that's the first thing is Just go to doorgrowlive.Com. Everything is on there except for our agenda, which we have not yet released. [00:01:53] We've got so much good stuff planned for you guys, but we're keeping the agenda a little close right now. So the dates for the event. It's a Friday and Saturday. It's May 17th and 18th, and it's in North Austin, Texas. The city is actually Round Rock, but no one knows where that is, so North Austin, Texas. [00:02:13] Okay, and where are we holding it this year?  [00:02:17] Jason: It's going to be at the Kalahari Resort in Round Rock, Texas So this is a really cool resort. it's really large and it's brand new. It's just built in the last several years.  [00:02:28] Sarah: 2020? Bad launch date.  [00:02:30] Jason: Yeah, they launched it not knowing there was going to be a pandemic.  [00:02:33] Sarah: Yeah, I think they opened and then the whole world shut down. [00:02:36] Jason: Yeah. And they have I believe the United States' largest indoor water park. It has this big indoor water park. Which could be fun. Yeah. If you're into that, or you can bring the kiddos maybe with you, but and it has several good restaurants and it's right in the heart of Round Rock. [00:02:51] Round Rock is just such a cute, cool town. The downtown area is really cool. There's all sorts of, great little restaurants and, bars and whatever you're into. So it's a fun little area and you're just hop, skip, and jump to get to downtown Austin. It's, Flying into Austin, one of the easiest, best airports. [00:03:09] I love being close to be able to get places through that airport.  [00:03:13] Sarah: Yeah. And they have a lot of flights. Yeah. They really do. They have flights from everywhere. So it's very central. It's easy to get on into. And the airport is really great.  [00:03:22] Jason: And then it's a quick drive over to the Kalahari resort where you can book your room and stay. And we've got a special group rate for you there so.  [00:03:30] Sarah: We do.  [00:03:31] Jason: We negotiated, so.  [00:03:33] Sarah: We do. Jason's assistant Mar, she always negotiates really great deals for you guys. If you want to just go ahead and book, you can, but if you'd rather get the discounted room rate, go to doorgrowlive.Com and then click on the link to register. [00:03:48] And that will help you get registered for the event and it will help you book your room at the discounted room rate. So that way you can get... I like saving money. I like it. It's great for me.  [00:03:59] Jason: All right. So what else do we want to tell them about DoorGrow Live?  [00:04:02] Sarah: Oh, okay. So this year's theme is going to be Creating Opportunity Through Uncertainty. [00:04:09] It's a weird year. So I really don't know what's happening with the market. There's a lot of talk. Is it going up? Is it going down? Are interest rates going to change? What's happening with property management? Right now it's a little bit harder to rent things out, whereas before, you could find a tenant in about a week or two. [00:04:26] And now that has changed and slowed down. And I'm hearing from some people that they're worried about their competitors or new companies are popping up that want to leverage AI and All kinds of technology and not have a lot of humans involved and, all the good stuff. So it's just a weird year and the market is very uncertain right now, but that is such a great opportunity to do something with it. [00:04:52] So we want to talk with you guys about how you can actually grow your company right now. This is not going to be well, "Hey, this might be relevant in three years if the market does this," this is relevant right now. So we're going to talk about actual strategies that you can implement today.... the day after the conference... if you attend. [00:05:09] And that you can just immediately implement them and start growing because we have some really amazing things planned for this conference.  [00:05:18] Jason: One of the things that I've noticed over the last several events that we've done and our plans for this one, just to give you a little bit of a teaser is we have a focus on those that want to be involved as investors. [00:05:32] And most property managers are investors and they're serving investors. And so some of the people are bringing in some of the conversations we're going to be having are how did structure, creative deals especially in this environment where we've got high interest rates and things are a little crazy. [00:05:48] And what Sarah said is true. 2024 is an election year, right? Every time there's an election cycle, the most powerful people and decision makers that control our lives to some degree start making things crazy. And there's opposing sides and it gets wild. So there's a lot of uncertainty that happens every election cycle. [00:06:06] Look at 2020, look at four years before that, look at 2024. There's all sorts of craziness that's going to be happening, and this is a big opportunity for you to get more market share to get more investments. There's going to be a big opportunity, I think, for you to establish yourself as a leader in the marketplace, and it's not hard to step up and showcase leadership and become a leader in times of crisis, like during the pandemic. And there's people that failed during that. And there's people that succeeded during that and made a lot of money. And we want to make sure you're prepared because there's patterns to this. [00:06:42] This is how some of the largest companies were built were during like recessions or depressions or time periods where they decided to double down and to focus on growth instead of scale back and be a fearful like everybody else. This is when winners are made. And so we want our clients and those that are close to us and attending, DoorGrow Live to be those that capitalize and succeed in this industry. [00:07:07] Sarah: So I'm not saying that this is definitely going to happen. I'm just saying that there's a pretty good chance that we might be talking about things like some creative ways to structure deals. Maybe some seller finance stuff, maybe some subject 2, maybe looking at your portfolio to see if any of your investors start to panic sell. [00:07:32] If you can capitalize on those opportunities, we might be looking at your profitability. We might be talking about some different business models and growth engines. There's just a chance that those are some of the things that we might talk about, being that we're not releasing the full agenda yet  [00:07:50] Jason: Okay, so yeah, there's gonna be some cool stuff Some of the things we might be talking about is a lot of people have been really curious about how we've been Able to make millions and millions of dollars leveraging Social media, and it's not something I usually want to share because I feel like it's a distraction in a lot of instances, but there are some ways to do this. [00:08:12] That can make you money as a property manager. And so there might be some conversation around some of that and how to leverage AI and some of the tools we use a DoorGrow to collapse time and cost on getting out to all the social media platforms. And so Yeah, there's several other things that we can tease, but it's going to be a really great event. [00:08:32] I think the best part about DoorGrow events that's really different from every other property management conference that I've been around or attended is the type of people that are there. They're just, they're a different crowd. The DoorGrow crowd is a different crowd. These are growth minded people. [00:08:47] These are contribution focused people. These are people that want to make a difference. These are people that are experiencing a different level of mindset, a different level of freedom and fulfillment in their business. These are property managers that actually enjoy what they get to do. This is what we do with clients. [00:09:02] We get them to the point where they're enjoying their day to day. And we've gotten all of the uncomfortable stuff onto other people's shoulders on their teams. And so we're really good at helping our clients get out of the cycle of suck, getting out of the day to day suck of stress and overwhelm. This is not a conference where everybody shows up and they just want to go hang out at the bar and pretend it's a vacation and get wasted. [00:09:25] Right. And if that's you, sorry, if I offended you, go do that. That's if that's what you need.  [00:09:30] Sarah: Do that after the event.  [00:09:31] Jason: Yeah, sure.  [00:09:32] Sarah: Go drink in the water park.  [00:09:33] Jason: Go do that. You can't.  [00:09:35] Sarah: I think there's a bar in there.  [00:09:36] Jason: I don't know. Maybe. But our clients are there to connect. They're there to get to the next level. [00:09:41] They have a growth mindset. And they're there to network. And so the connections made at these events are some of the biggest game changers. People are making friends. And if you want to be part of a community, if you want to come just taste some of the DoorGrow magic in person and see what's DoorGrow about? How is this different? [00:10:00] Why aren't they going to all of these other conferences and doing what everybody else is doing? How are they unique? Come experience it, come see it, and we'll share some things with you. And you'll get to talk to people that are having phenomenal growth. People that are like startups that are adding a hundred doors in like six months, like people that are adding two, 300 doors a year without spending any money on advertising, like this is real stuff that our clients are doing. [00:10:24] And you can come rub shoulders with some amazing people. I think that's the thing about DoorGrow is we, I think are attracting the cream of the crop, the best people in the industry, people with the strongest and healthiest mindset, people that are attracted to growth minded people. If you want to be around growth minded people in this industry that are doing innovative and new things like this is the place to be is DoorGrow Live. [00:10:47] So go to doorgrowlive.Com right now, get your tickets. We do have limited availability. This is not a massive event yet. And we have, we sold out. We've sold out at these events. If you want to get your spot, I recommend get in now because we know what you're going to do. [00:11:05] Sarah: What happens at every event is we always have more people and then they're like, "can we just grab a chair and maybe put it in the back? Like I'll stand in the back. I don't care." And that has happened at the last three of our events where we've had more people try to show up. [00:11:20] Jason: And then you stress out my assistant Mar and  [00:11:24] Sarah: I'm like just grab them a chair take a chair from the lobby I don't care make it happen  [00:11:28] So let's make sure that you have a place at a seat at the table. [00:11:32] Let's do that.  [00:11:33] Jason: Yeah get make sure that you get your tickets early get your tickets soon.  [00:11:38] Sarah: There's early bird tickets on sale right now.  [00:11:40] Jason: Oh, Yeah, so at the time of this recording there are early bird tickets for sale So if you're watching this live right now, or you see this soon There are early bird tickets and the tickets we're not trying to make this some crazy profit center The tickets early bird tickets are what 197? [00:11:57] They're 197  [00:11:59] Sarah: 197!  [00:12:00] Jason: And what does the room cost?  [00:12:02] Sarah: It's probably somewhere around two to three hundred.  [00:12:04] Jason: We're not trying to make this some big expensive thing.  [00:12:06] We probably make $0 off the whole event.  [00:12:10] Sarah: Oh yeah.  [00:12:10] Jason: It costs us a lot of money to put these events on, but for us, it creates community...  [00:12:14] Sarah: It's an investment that we're willing to make so that we can do cool things in the industry and for our clients and for those who are just interested in being better and leveling up their business and their life. [00:12:28] Jason: Okay, cool.  [00:12:28] Sarah: So go to DoorGrow Live, grab your early bird tickets. You can do it after the early bird sale too or wait longer, which I'm cool with. Do it now. If you want the sale do it now. And. You'll get there's a whole section on there with frequently asked questions, all of the information that you need is on there, but if you've got any additional questions, just ping us, reach out to us, you can really reach us just about anywhere and our team will be able to help you and answer your questions. [00:12:55] And then I will also say we still have a few spots. I don't know, exactly how many right now I'll confirm for sure for VIP I want to say there's at least four left right now, and that is tentative, but at three or four, maybe spots left at this point for the VIP. So if you're interested in upgrading to VIP, again, you can do this at doorgrowlive.Com. There's a button that says upgrade to VIP. And if you upgraded VIP then on I think day two, you'll go to lunch. We'll do a little VIP lunch. You'll be able to have lunch with all of the speakers at the event.  [00:13:34] Jason: And us.  [00:13:34] Sarah: And yes, and me and Jason our team is going to be there and you'll get priority seating at the event. [00:13:41] Jason: Cool. Yay. All right. Okay. That's it. Go to doorgrowlive.Com and until next time to our mutual growth. Bye everyone. [00:13:49] you just listened to the #DoorGrowShow. We are building a community of the savviest property management entrepreneurs on the planet in the DoorGrowClub. Join your fellow DoorGrow Hackers at doorgrowclub.com. Listen, everyone is doing the same stuff. SEO, PPC, pay-per-lead content, social direct mail, and they still struggle to grow!  [00:14:16] At DoorGrow, we solve your biggest challenge: getting deals and growing your business. Find out more at doorgrow.com. Find any show notes or links from today's episode on our blog doorgrow.com, and to get notified of future events and news subscribe to our newsletter at doorgrow.com/subscribe. Until next time, take what you learn and start DoorGrow Hacking your business and your life.

How does my personal background impact the way I express emotions and feelings today? How can I take care of myself while I take care of others placed within my care who are struggling with their emotional wellbeing?  Mrs. Sarah Oh, friend, Pharmacist, mother, and Biblical Counseling Seminary student, provides personal insight on the topic of emotions. Listen in as she and Victoria scratch the surface of emotional expression and wellbeing within the context of being Asian women and Christ-followers in the United States. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/erasingshame/message

At this point in the year, it's still early enough to make some plans to level up your property management business. One of the best ways to learn new strategies is by masterminding with other professionals. In this episode, property management growth experts Jason and Sarah Hull talk about the importance of strategic time as a business owner as well as some upcoming events for property management entrepreneurs. You'll Learn [02:06] The concept of your default future [06:43] The four reasons for having a business [10:26] 2024 events for property managers [16:51] Why masterminding matters [19:44] The ultimate event for property management entrepreneurs Tweetables “If you're working with any business, they should be helping you change your future outcomes.” “Worse is still different, but not probably the change we were hoping for.” “I never want to be the smartest person in the room. If I am, that means I'm in the wrong room.” “They say you're the sum of the five people that you are around the most or something like that, but I think your business will be the sum of the five property managers are the most connected to.” Resources DoorGrow and Scale Mastermind DoorGrow Academy DoorGrow on YouTube DoorGrowClub DoorGrowLive TalkRoute Referral Link Transcript [00:00:00] Jason: They say you're the sum of the five people that you are around the most or something like that, but I think your business will be the sum of the five property managers are the most connected to and to be connected in our mastermind to other mastermind members  [00:00:13] Welcome DoorGrowers to the DoorGrow show. If you are a property management entrepreneur that wants to add doors, make a difference, increase revenue, help others, impact lives, and you are interested in growing in business and life, and you are open to doing things a bit differently, then you are a DoorGrower. DoorGrower property managers love the opportunities, daily variety, unique challenges, and freedom that property management brings. Many real estate think you're crazy for doing it you think they're crazy for not because you realize that property management is the ultimate high trust gateway to real estate deals, relationships, and residual income. At DoorGrow we are on a mission to transform property management business owners and their businesses. [00:00:53] We want to transform the industry, eliminate the BS, build awareness, change perception, expand the market, and help the best property management entrepreneurs win. We're your hosts, property management growth experts, Jason Hull and Sarah Hull, the owners of DoorGrow. Now let's get into the show. All right. [00:01:11] So before this show, we were talking about what we should be talking about in today's episode. So what are we going to talk about today?  [00:01:18] Sarah: We will talk about getting ready for your 2024 and prepping, getting your schedule ready for some events that we've got coming up. [00:01:27] Jason: Okay. It is January 26. January 2nd. Sorry. I don't know why I said that January 2nd. What's wrong with you? I don't know. I don't know. I think I saw the clock. All right, so it's January 2nd The new year has just started. This episode will probably come out on the main podcast a little bit later, but we wanted to kick things off for the new year. [00:01:49] Make sure that everybody gets in momentum. I think 2024 is going to be a wild year. Every election year is. It's going to be interesting. So let's talk about your property management business, how you can get more of what you want and grow. So let's talk about some of the stuff coming up. All right. Where should we start? [00:02:06] Sarah: Let's first start about talking about what did your 2023 look like? Was it what you wanted it to look like? Was it maybe a little different where there's some curve balls that came at you in the middle of the year and threw the whole plan that you had off balance and if so, what are you going to do differently in 2024? [00:02:26] So if you change nothing, if you do nothing different, your 2024 will look probably pretty similar to your 2023 if not worse because the market is totally different, at least part of 2023. The market was good. The real estate market was pretty decent. It's not so decent right now. It's a little bit cooler. [00:02:45] In fact, we're really close to it flipping over to a buyer's market.  [00:02:49] Jason: Okay. And for those of you listening, I think you'll really enjoy this concept. This is one of my favorite closes when it comes to converting people into clients or customers. And we call it the default future versus created future close. So it's important to take a look at your default future is. What you're going to get in the next year, and you can easily base it on what you did the last year and the year before that, and the year before that, you should have a pretty good idea of what your default future looks like. And if you're working with any business, they should be helping you change your future outcomes, right? They should be helping you improve your future. So for you selling to your clients, they should have a default future if they continue to DIY, do it themselves, manage their own property, work with the crappy property manager they've got now, whatever their current future is. [00:03:36] They should have a different created future if they're working with you and you need to help them see a different alternate future reality that includes you. So we run into people all the time that have had a very uncomfortable default future in property management. They have not grown for the last sometimes 10 years. [00:03:55] They've struggled. We have a client we just got on. He's been around 50 units for a decade. So that means it's a grind. That means there's a lot of churn, losing a lot of customers while you're adding customers and you're just not growing, right? Some of y'all are down in doors because I've heard the excuse of the pandemic or people, a bunch of my clients sold or whatever. [00:04:15] So a lot of you might be down in doors. And so your current future, default future looks even worse than last year or the year before, right? So we want to shift you towards a created future. Yeah, so how do we do that. Okay you do that with DoorGrow, right? So we are really good at helping create a different alternate reality for you a different future That includes us. [00:04:39] And because we've been able to coach and support so many, like hundreds of property management, business owners, we have tactics strategies that we've developed over time that we're always. Honing, improving, figuring out that have allowed us to increase our client's door count, make their operations smoother, improve their team, lower the entrepreneur's pressure and noise, decrease their stress, make the business more fun so they feel like they're more of a business owner. [00:05:07] And so these are the things that we do. At door girl. All right. And we've got a bunch of events that we do throughout the year that help to facilitate our vision in helping transform property management business owners and their businesses.  [00:05:20] Sarah: Now is a really good time to plan out "what do I want my year to look like this year? Do I want it to look like more of the same? Or do I want it to look different, but positively different" because it can still look different, just maybe worse. Worse is still different, but not probably the change we were hoping for. Yeah. So if you want your business and your life and your income and your team and your day to improve, then you may need to just be open to doing things a little bit differently than you have before. [00:05:52] And I think being that we're at the beginning of the year, this is a really good time to set some time aside for you. Set some time aside to make sure that you're prioritizing the things that you really want to get out of the business or out of your life. And how do we do that? There's a few events that we have coming up throughout the year. [00:06:12] You can find all of our events, all of the details on doorgrow.com/events. And that will show you our event calendar. What event, who it's for, what the cost is, where it's located, the dates, all of that kind of information is on there. And if you go all the way to the bottom, there's a quick little video I recorded with even more details. [00:06:34] So you can watch the whole thing. It's only a couple minutes long, or you can skip to the part that talks about the event you're interested in.  [00:06:41] Jason: Okay, cool. So for this new year, I would like to recap the four reasons, because I think. It's important to take a step back and assess your business through the lens of these four things. [00:06:55] We have a fifth reason, so maybe the five, but we want to take a look at your business through this lens and make sure you're actually headed in the right direction. Because it's very possible to be making more and more money in your business and become more and more miserable. And that's not the goal. [00:07:09] We didn't start businesses to become more miserable. We thought we started them to make more money, but what we really want is what more money can give us, right? We're hoping more money can give us more, number one, fulfillment. We get to spend more of our time doing the things we enjoy doing. More and more freedom. [00:07:24] We feel free. We don't feel trapped. We don't feel stuck. We don't feel like we're controlled. We don't feel like our business runs us. We don't feel like a slave or servant to our business. We feel free, right? Freedom. The third reason is Contribution. So if we have freedom and fulfillment, usually then we want to make a difference to others, right? [00:07:44] We want to benefit other people too. It's just innate I think in entrepreneurs, we want to change the world. We want to make it a better place. We want to improve things. We see problems and we're like, "I can make money solving that problem, right? That's contribution. That means making a difference to your family, to your team, to your clients, to everybody that you can have impact with and so contribution, I think, is one of the greatest gifts we can give ourselves. It feels really good to benefit others. And then the fourth reason is support. It's really difficult to have fulfillment, freedom, contribution if we don't have a team because then we end up doing and wearing all the hats that we don't want to wear and we should only be wearing the hats. Eventually, if we had the ultimate business, it gives us the ultimate level of fulfillment and freedom. Then we are only spending our time wearing the hats that we most enjoy wearing, which would mean we have a really good team that supports us and they enjoy wearing the hats that they're wearing and they take those off of our plates. [00:08:41] So we don't have to wear those hats. And so those are the four reasons. Now there is a fifth reason, and this is important to recognize. This is what your team members want more than the four reasons, typically. This is what your clients want often more than the four reasons... they want safety and certainty. [00:08:58] They want peace of mind. And so this is why a lot of people are willing to give up fulfillment, freedom, even contribution. They're willing to give those up and trade them in order to have safety and certainty. This is why they will go get a job. This is why they want to do what they're told to by maybe the media at times, right? [00:09:17] They want to be safe and entrepreneurs were a little bit, we're wired a little bit differently. We care more about having our freedom than safety and certainty, but we also want that too. And so having our business built out in a way that gives us all five of those things gives us the ultimate business and it allows us then to make a real impact and to have a really good team and to have less stress. [00:09:39] And so this is our primary goal with DoorGrow is to move you towards that. So take inventory. How do you feel you rate on each of these five areas right now? Do you feel you have safety and certainty? Do you feel like you have support and a really great team? You really feel supported in your business? [00:09:54] Do you feel like you've got freedom and fulfillment? You get to do the things that you really want to do. You're really enjoying your day today. You feel like you're making a difference out there and contributing in the best way. If you don't have those things, even though you have a bunch of money coming in or a lot of doors, you built the wrong business. [00:10:11] And it doesn't mean you need to change businesses or industries. It just means you need to change what your role is in that business. So 2024, let's move you towards more towards the four reasons. All right. So should we talk about some of the events we have coming up? Yeah, let's do it.  [00:10:26] Sarah: Let's talk about the events scheduled for 2024. [00:10:29] By the time this airs, it'll still be early in the year. So you should be able to mark your calendars for the things that sound interesting to you and make sure that you prioritize your business so that you are set up for success so that you are able to grow so that you are able to get more of the day to day stuff that you just don't enjoy the stuff that bogs you down off of your plate because this is not the life that you need to live, but it's really common for property managers, so make sure that you prioritize this stuff. [00:10:59] So let's talk about some of the events that we've got coming up this year. What's first? Okay. The first thing we have, this is for our clients only. It's in January this month now. And that is open to all of our current mastermind clients. We're going to San Diego, California. So these type of events if you join the DoorGrow Mastermind, you'll have access to them. [00:11:20] So what our tribe events are. They're usually smaller events. They're not huge with, like 100 people or more. They're smaller, more intimate events. So if you're a little bit more on the introverted side, then this event might be really good for you because you get to create close connections with people. [00:11:39] So Jason and I attend these events as well as some of our clients. So you'll get to network and spend some time with other property management business owners. And what we'll be doing, this event, we do a little bit of business and a little bit of fun. So we have some activities planned out there for the day and either before lunch or at lunch or probably both because that's what happened last time is we're going to be, talking shop, talking business, what's working, what's not working, what's your plan? [00:12:07] What are you working on? How can we help support you in that? So that's our first one.  [00:12:11] Jason: Okay, cool. Now we have some other things happening in January. [00:12:13] I'll just throw out there. If you're hearing this later and you miss this stuff, we might have recordings that you might be able to get access to if it's one of our public things. But make sure that you stay connected to us, follow us and are connected to us on social media or you're inside our Facebook group at doorgrowclub. com where we broadcast this and stream it live so that you don't miss out each week. January 11th in a week, we are going to do with our clients a jumpstart 2024 call on zoom where you can 10x your year. And we're going to talk about 10xing your growth in your property management business. [00:12:47] What's next? [00:12:48] Sarah: Okay. So the next event that's coming up will be open to everyone So if you're currently in our mastermind or not yet in our mastermind, or you were formerly in the mastermind, this will be open to everyone. We have our boardroom event that's coming up March 13th and 14th. It will be in Round Rock, Texas, which is just north of Austin. [00:13:10] And that event, we actually launched a lot of these events for the first time last year in 2023. We've had some success with them. Clients really enjoy these style of events, so we carried them on into this year. So the boardroom event, it is a smaller event. We will probably limit it to about six clients, like six businesses total. [00:13:35] For that reason, because we really want to be able to go deep. If the event gets too big, then we have to stay granular and more topical and this event, we call it boardroom because we sit on each other's boards, it's a two day event. And what we'll do is we'll really get in and we'll like tinker with your business and see, where are you spending your time? [00:13:55] What does your team look like, what does your profit margin look like? What does your revenue look like? Where are you struggling? Where are you succeeding? So we really get in and we go deep with clients on the smaller style events. So spots will be limited. If you're interested in attending any of our events or getting more information, just go to doorgrow.com/events. [00:14:15] All of the information is there.  [00:14:17] Jason: Yeah. The last boardroom room event that we did was pretty awesome. So everybody walked away with a really solid set of clarity and to do items to take their business to the next level. And what was interesting is, a lot of them were really stuck and couldn't see where they needed to go next. [00:14:34] And so this allows us the opportunity to really go deep with the business owners. And so they get a lot of value from this.  [00:14:40] Sarah: So that one is coming up March 13th and 14th. It will be in round rock, which is like North Austin here in Texas. That one is very focused on business. So we do break for lunch. [00:14:52] We do go for dinner. But it's boardroom style events. So we're in session almost all day. It goes from about nine to five  [00:14:59] Jason: is serious stuff. All right  [00:15:01] Sarah: Yes, cool. All right, then this one personally is my favorite is our premium mastermind events we also launched that last year for the first time and This one for me, it's just so fun because it mixes the two things that I love, which is business and travel. [00:15:16] I'm like all about both of these things. So if you're looking for an event that allows you to travel, do something fun, explore the area and really dive into your business in that same depth that we offer in the boardroom, then this event will be for you. So this we do reserve for our current and former mastermind clients only. [00:15:38] It's not open to everyone. But what we do is we get a luxury Airbnb or rental of some sort and we will rotate where they're held. This one that's coming up, it's April 9th and 10th. It will be in Bentonville, Arkansas. Very random spot, but the home is beautiful and it's huge. So we'll do some fun stuff in the area. [00:16:01] What we do, it's about a day and a half event. So we come in, we'll do a mastermind during the day, and then at night we spend some time just, hanging out at the property and getting to know each other and really connecting. It was really interesting because we did this last year in April, and then in May, we had our DoorGrowLive and the clients that attended our premium mastermind, oddly enough, they all also attended our DoorGrowLive, they were like their own little group of people because you just know each other so well, like you've spent time with each other. You really get to know each other's businesses and like business model and what are they doing and what are they all about? [00:16:39] So it was like so worth it for me. And it was amazing to see that at our DoorGrowLive. So if you are a current or former mastermind client, then. This might be a really great event for you.  [00:16:51] Jason: Yeah. These are super fun. It's more of a more personal, more of an intimate setting. [00:16:56] We're hanging out together in the same house. And so the conversations are just, they're just really great. And this allows you to create some relationships and friendships. They say you're the sum of the five people that you are around the most or something like that, but I think your business will be the sum of the five property managers are the most connected to and to be connected in our mastermind to other mastermind members and our mastermind members are different. They're just different than the typical NARPM crowd or the typical crowd of people that are involved in property management. They like love what they get to do and they've shifted more towards the four reasons. They have a much healthier mindset because we've installed a lot of mindset things. This is why we want to bring mastermind clients to these, they're just a different crowd and being able to hang out with other people that are playing a similar game that have a similar mindset is just like next level. [00:17:45] And so the relationships that are created, I think will last a lifetime, which is really awesome.  [00:17:50] Sarah: And I think that's a really good point is there's a lot to be said about who's in your circle and, who you're spending time with. So if your circle is doing things that are either similar or if they're even a step ahead of you, that's fantastic. [00:18:06] You're in the right circle. So I never want to be the smartest person in the room. If I am that means I'm in the wrong room.  [00:18:12] Jason: I like being the smartest person in the room sometimes, but not all the time  [00:18:15] Sarah: No, it's like when we run the events, yeah. I'm talking about when we attend.  [00:18:19] Jason: Yeah, we invest a lot. [00:18:20] We invest a lot And we're a part of groups and have mentors that are like beyond where we're at here at DoorGrow. And being able to create that for clients and facilitate that, is really awesome. We love being able to experience that as well. So great leaders, I think are also great followers. [00:18:36] And I think that's why we're able to deliver so much to our clients is because we go join programs and events and do things like this, where we're the student, where we're learning, where we're connecting with people, where we're masterminding, we want to bring the same value to those that we serve. [00:18:49] So we've gotten really great benefits. We've done some really cool trips, different places, hang out with other entrepreneurs, and we always get a lot out of it. Even when I don't think I'm going to, I'm like "it might be fun." But then it like, sometimes it's changed my life. It's been really impactful. [00:19:04] All right.  [00:19:05] Sarah: Next, we've got our DoorGrow Live. Okay. And as an added kicker this year, if you are a current mastermind client in our super system tier you get your own special event. Yay, so we're tacking it on right before DoorGrowLive, that way it's not additional travel, it's not really like hard to do, it's just gonna mash in with DoorGrowLive, so it will be the day before DoorGrowLive, which is, I believe it's a Thursday, it's May 16th, this is for our current SuperSystem clients only, we will be diving into all things SuperSystem, all things operations at this event. [00:19:41] Jason: Okay. So now DoorGrowLive. The DoorGrowLive is our ultimate event. This is where we get everybody to go, clients, non clients. It's our biggest event of the year. This is fun, interesting. We've got speakers, there's lots of interaction. We've got a lot of fun stuff going on. So this is going to be at the Kalahari Resort in Round Rock, Texas, which is the North Austin area. And it's a super cool resort has a huge indoor water park. It has a bunch of restaurants.  [00:20:11] Sarah: It is Friday and Saturday. It's May 17th and 18th. This is open to everyone. So whether you are a current, former, it doesn't matter. You are never in our mastermind, never a client at all. [00:20:21] Does not matter. It's open to everyone. This is our big event of the year. So we bring in a bunch of different property managers. We bring in some vendors, we bring in some speakers, like it's a two day event. And we're holding it in again, North Austin. So Round Rock, Texas. And the resort is really, it's really great. [00:20:43] It's very nice. The rooms are nice. They have plenty of restaurants to choose from. We did our DoorGrowLive last year there, and we liked it so much. We decided to go back.  [00:20:54] Jason: Yeah. Some venues treat you really well and some treat you really not well. And this one was really good. We really liked it. [00:21:00] Yeah, so make sure you get tickets to DoorGrow live. If you're wanting to just initially put your foot in the toe in the water to see what is it like around the DoorGrow culture? What is it like around DoorGrowers? What is it like around people that are involved in their ecosystem? This would be a great way to decide whether or not you should be spending a whole bunch of money with DoorGrow, right? [00:21:22] Is come hang out at DoorGrow live and see the magic that's going on and learn about the DoorGrow code, learn about people that are scaling up, talk to people that have their different lanyard colors with their different belt levels. Like we've got a whole program of ascension and, just like in martial arts, and so come check it out. [00:21:40] It really is a different thing. This is not your usual conference. Let's say it like that. This is like the ultimate conference We've decided like we want to make these the best that we can make them. So sometimes NARPM events are okay and sometimes NARPM events... maybe they're not. Some of them though, we like we've even had clients say well on some of them our event and NARPM event were right at the same time and they said "there's no way I would skip DoorGrowLive to go to a NARPM But what we've done is we've done everything that we could to make these conferences, the best conferences ever for property managers. [00:22:16] Sarah: There's a lot that goes into it like every little detail that we put into it, we really try to make sure that this is so beneficial and it's the big event of the year. It's open to everyone. So if you're thinking, "Hey I don't know what event I should go to," this would be a really good one to go to because it's so big and there's just so much that goes into it. [00:22:36] You'll get a lot out of it and it's not the boring conference that you're going to go and sit and fall asleep. And go, "Oh God, is it lunch yet. Can I go home now?" It's not like that at all. It's very exciting. There's a lot going on and we always provide really good opportunities to meet and talk with other people too. [00:22:55] So it's not just like you're in session all day long. There's a lot of opportunities to network with other property management business owners.  [00:23:02] Jason: Yeah we actively try to facilitate that because we know that that's one of the biggest benefits we've gotten from going to events. It's just the connections that we actively facilitate that. [00:23:11] I think what makes, the DoorGrowLive events stand out is that it's a bit more holistic. We're not just focused only on property management. We're focused on improving you and your life and focusing on entrepreneurship, focusing on taking things to the next level. So people get a lot out of it and it really can be life changing instead of just business changing.  [00:23:30] Sarah: So that's our big one. Now, if you like vacation style events, this one is a newer one. So we're testing this out this year. This is going to be our first one ever it's DoorGrow retreat. Yeah, so this will mix a little bit of business and lots of vacation style. [00:23:47] So this is open to your family to your kids to your spouse, whomever wants to join you and let it be like a business trip on a tax write off for sure So we will still do some business stuff and it's vacation style event, and that is going to be July 17th through 21st. And it will be in Punta de Mita in Mexico. [00:24:10] Yay. Super excited. So you will need a passport.  [00:24:12] Jason: Get those passports ready. Get them now. We're going to mexico. So yeah, and this is gonna be a nice resort.  [00:24:19] Sarah: Oh, it's yeah, it's very nice.  [00:24:21] Jason: We go to nice places. All right. Yeah. Cool. A little picky. All right. All right.  [00:24:25] Sarah: Then, second half of the year, we just mirror what we do the first half of the year. So for a lot of things, not for everything, but for a lot of them, we like to have a spring session and a fall session. [00:24:35] So our tribe meetup, we do two per year, one in January and then one in September. And again, this is for our current mastermind clients only. It will be September 11th will be our next in person tribe meetup location to be announced. Why? Because if you're a mastermind member, you guys get to submit your ideas and vote on it. [00:24:52] Then we have another premium mastermind event. So again, spring session, fall session, our fall session will be October 22nd and 23rd. This is open for our current and former mastermind clients. Only this one will be in Water Sound, Florida. We've got a really nice place there lined up. And then boardroom. So again, spring session, fall session. Our fall session will be November 20th and 21st, and we'll hold that here in round rock, Texas. Those are our events that we've got coming up. I'm super excited for all of them.  [00:25:21] Jason: Yeah. I don't know that we've ever talked about all the different events and there's a lot of virtual events and online things we do for our mastermind members as well, besides all of this. [00:25:29] And we've never really talked about this. I don't think as much on the podcast. So I'm sure there's people listening. They're like, "Oh, I didn't realize DoorGrow did all this stuff or had all this stuff going on." We've got a lot going on. Yeah. In fact, one of the consistent pieces of feedback we get from Mastermind members is, "wow, there's a lot." [00:25:44] There is a lot. It can be a little overwhelming in the beginning. So we really hold people's hand to make sure they can navigate everything in DoorGrow Academy, all of our events, all the online classes, everything that we've got going on to make sure that it is geared towards what they need most and they don't get distracted by all the shiny objects everywhere. [00:26:02] So it's important. But if you're interested in any of this. You're interested in coming and jumping into the DoorGrow ecosystem. We have plenty of free trainings we would love to throw at you based on what your current challenges are, so you can get an idea of how we can support you, how we can help you. We've got a lot of case studies and testimonials. [00:26:18] I think over a hundred now on our playlist on YouTube of our case studies you can check out. See if you can trust these DoorGrow people. And once you're beyond the paywall and you're in with our clients, you'll get it. It's pretty awesome. But between now and then, feel free to join our Facebook group, which I mentioned earlier, go to DoorGrowClub.com and you get access to our podcast live. You get access to our masterclasses that we promote. That are free, you get access to a lot of really cool stuff and we've got a bunch of stuff, cool stuff in the file section there as well. It's available.  [00:26:51] It's a great online community. And if you join it and you have to put in your email address, answer the questions and if we give you access, it's for property management business owners. We reject 70 percent of applicants. So it's a little bit exclusive, which makes it really cool. But if we give you access, you'll also get five emails that are sent to you. Like a fee Bible we're gonna send you gifts, we're gonna send you some free stuff.  [00:27:15] I think we've covered all the events. Sarah's always coming up with more ideas, so there might be more stuff that we're going to be doing. [00:27:21] But yes, this is a pretty good overview.  [00:27:22] Sarah: If you can give me the opportunity to travel, I'm probably going to take it.  [00:27:25] Jason: She'll add it to the program for sure. All right. All right. So we appreciate everybody hanging out with us. We hope that this has opened your eyes a little bit to some of the cool stuff that's going on in DoorGrow, inspiring you to get plugged into our ecosystem. [00:27:37] And we are all about helping property management business owners take their business to the next level and grow. And until next time to our mutual growth. Bye everyone. [00:27:46] 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!  [00:28:12] At DoorGrow, we solve your biggest challenge: getting deals and growing your business. Find out more at doorgrow.com. Find any show notes or links from today's episode on our blog doorgrow.com, and to get notified of future events and news subscribe to our newsletter at doorgrow.com/subscribe. Until next time, take what you learn and start DoorGrow Hacking your business and your life.

Savvy property management entrepreneurs are always on the lookout for new ways to expand their services and better serve their clients and residents. In this episode, property management growth experts Jason and Sarah Hull chat with Nick Friedman, founder of College Hunks Hauling Junk and Trash Butler. You'll Learn [02:08] Becoming an entrepreneur [09:14] Daily trash removal for multifamily communities [16:45] A butler service for trash? How does it work? [19:47] Vetting team members [27:50] Junk removal services for property managers Tweetables “Property managers are that front-line resource for all things community.” “We've got to have urgency of effort, patience for the results.” “Culture drives behavior. Behavior drives results.” “Execution is a differentiator if you can out-execute everybody else.” Resources DoorGrow and Scale Mastermind DoorGrow Academy DoorGrow on YouTube DoorGrowClub DoorGrowLive TalkRoute Referral Link Transcript [00:00:00] Nick: I have come to realize, because we're in a blue collar industry ourselves, moving furniture and picking up trash at residents' doorsteps. Execution is a differentiator if you can out execute everybody else.  [00:00:14] Jason: All right. Welcome DoorGrowers to the DoorGrow show. If you are a property management entrepreneur that wants to add doors, make a difference, increase revenue, help others, impact lives, and you are interested in growing a business and life, and you're open to doing things a bit differently then you are a DoorGrower. DoorGrower property managers, love the opportunities, daily variety, unique challenges and freedom that property management brings. [00:00:39] Many in real estate think you're crazy for doing it. You think they're crazy for not, because you realize that property management is the ultimate high trust gateway to real estate deals, relationships, and residual income. At DoorGrow, we are on a mission to transform property management business owners and their businesses. [00:00:56] We want to transform the industry, eliminate the BS, build awareness, change perception, expand the market, and help the best property management entrepreneurs win. We're your hosts, property management growth experts, Jason Hull, the founder and CEO of DoorGrow and Sarah Hull, the co owner and COO of DoorGrow. [00:01:12] Now let's get into the show. All right. And our guest today is Nick Friedman. Did I say your name right?  [00:01:20] You got it right.  [00:01:21] Cool. And Nick has two different businesses. And why don't you introduce the two businesses and then I'd love to get into your background of how you got into entrepreneurship. [00:01:30] Nick: Absolutely. So two businesses that are relevant to property management, one is a doorstep amenity for apartment complexes called Trash Butler. It helps increase revenue and net operating income for the communities while also providing an amenity for the residents and that kind of incubated out of our first company that we launched, which is a company called College Hunks Hauling Junk and Moving. I'm a little more widely known for that business that I started back in college. It's a moving and bulk removal service that now has over 300 franchises across the U.S. So it's been a fun journey and a very entrepreneurial journey to say the least. [00:02:08] Jason: Awesome. So Nick, when did you first realize you were an entrepreneur that you were a little bit weird?  [00:02:13] Nick: I would have to say in retrospect, it was all the way into my early days of childhood. My sister had a lemonade stand in front of our house. She wanted to charge 25 cents for lemonade. I went out and started a competing lemonade next to hers and I wanted to charge a dollar for my lemonade because I thought my lemonade was better and I think we probably sold the same amount of cups, but I made four times the amount of money than she did because I was charging a dollar then she was charging 25 cents. So in hindsight, I think I would always do some out of the box things. My teachers would call me a little bit restless. But really our business innovation took place when we were in college. Because we had always been brought up and told to follow the more traditional career path, work hard in school, get good grades, get a job after you graduate, climb up that ladder. [00:02:56] And the summer before my senior year of college. My buddy's mom had a beat up cargo van from her furniture store and she said, "why don't you guys go do something with the van? You guys could move furniture, haul trash, you guys could be like college hunks who haul junk," and we just started laughing about it decided to put that on flyers and the phone started ringing so we were in business and realized that the name was catchy. [00:03:18] People appreciated quality service and and that was the light bulb moment for us to pursue a career of entrepreneurship and not the traditional path.  [00:03:26] Jason: There you go. So thank goodness for that truck, right? That's right. Changed your life.  [00:03:31] Nick: Totally changed our life. We credit her with the name. Yeah. [00:03:34] Jason: Competing with the sister. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I think for me, it was my entrepreneurial mom who was a real estate agent. She just, she was always hustling, trying to figure out how to make money. And she would have us fold flyers for her and canvas neighborhoods.  [00:03:50] Nick: And that's really when we realized the niche for us is very much so within property management, right? [00:03:56] Because. A homeowner or business might move every couple of years, might have junk to be removed every so often, but property managers are that front line resource for all things community, whether that's residents who are moving in and out, whether that's bulk trash is being left behind and needs to get turned around for the next move in. And then that ultimately, as I mentioned, incubated our Trash Butler business, which is more of a recurring revenue model, but it produces income for the apartment complexes that we partner with. It was an evolution for us. I always tell the story when we 1st started, we were doing all the work ourselves. [00:04:29] So we went out and we bought an 800 number. And we slapped it on the back of our truck, trying to make ourselves look bigger, but it was still routed to our cell phone. And so people would call to complain about erratic driving and we'd be in the driver's seat answering the phone, pretending like we weren't, saying, "Oh yeah, we'll fire those guys when they get back on the road, yeah, they're the worst." Yeah. Yeah. "We don't condone that driving in our company." So we probably fired ourselves at least three or four times. And I'm sure, your property manager listeners can relate to that. When they first started their business, you're doing all the work yourself. [00:04:59] You're fixing the doorknobs, you're changing out the light bulbs and everything in between. And one of our mentors recommended to us that we read a book called the E Myth Revisited, it's by a guy named Michael Gerber. And in it really emphasizes the notion of working on your business, not just in your business, creating systems and processes for the business to scale, which is obviously what you're doing for folks. [00:05:20] And so I think that was the next light bulb moment for us is if we're ever going to have another truck. Let alone another location, let alone eventually a second business. We've got to start documenting how we do everything.  [00:05:31] Jason: Yeah. And is that what kind of helped it take off? [00:05:34] Nick: I describe ourselves as a 20 year overnight success because it feels like it took that long for us to get to where we are. [00:05:40] It really did. And I think a lot of entrepreneurs, a lot of business owners and leaders have a level of impatience, which is good. But I always preach to our team, we've got to have urgency of effort, patience for the results, because if we get up every day, grind it out, and then we look a year from now, two years from now, three years from now, based on that consistent grind, we're going to see long term results start to manifest. [00:06:03] And so none of it happened overnight but it was a process and it was putting systems in place, aligning ourselves with great people and just being committed to our purpose and our vision.  [00:06:14] Jason: Yeah, I love it. I think I love that. Urgency of effort, patience for the result. [00:06:18] I think as entrepreneurs, nothing's ever fast enough for us.  [00:06:22] Nick: No, and that's a good and a bad thing as a business leader and an entrepreneur is, if we weren't optimistic, we would never start the business in the first place because we believe that the business is going to be successful. [00:06:34] We may minimize how hard it's going to be. We may minimize some of the challenges that we're going to encounter along the way. And that sort of maybe, cognitive dissonance or whatever you want to call it, getting into business, I think is a good thing, but you then have to then have the grit and the resilience and the sophistication to muscle through the challenging times. [00:06:56] But I don't think I've ever met an entrepreneur that says, "I made more money faster than I expected to." It's usually longer. "I didn't make as much as I had hoped for when I first started out." And when reality sinks in, some people give up and go back to their corporate grind and other people just stick it out and keep pushing forward. [00:07:13] Jason: Yeah, I call that the fantasy stage of entrepreneurship. That's the beginning. We only see upside. It's all upside. It's going to be a success. I get property managers coming to me, potential property managers are like, I'm going to start a property management business. I'm like, "Oh yeah, how are you going to do this?" [00:07:28] And they're like, "it's going to be amazing because all the other companies in my market suck. And I'm like, "okay, what are you going to do different?" "We're going to charge less. And we're going to provide better service." I'm like, "okay, good luck with that."  [00:07:38] Nick: So yeah, that's a tough recipe. Look, I have come to realize, because we're in a blue collar industry ourselves, moving furniture and picking up trash at residents' doorsteps. And execution is a differentiator if you can out execute everybody else. It's not easy. It's not the flashy, shiny objects that entrepreneurs like to chase, but we, coming through this past year, obviously, the market has shifted its leads aren't falling from the sky like they used to, we've had to assess are we doing everything that we're supposed to with every client touch point? [00:08:09] Are we consistently delivering the service that we preach in all of our markets across all the apartment communities that we service? And that I think is something that that takes reinforcement and repetition. And sometimes it can be a little bit boring, but it matters because that does make a difference. [00:08:25] I wouldn't charge less than everybody. That's not a sustainable business strategy. But if you can consistently out execute everybody else, that is an advantage.  [00:08:34] Jason: Yeah, if you can out execute everybody else, then you can probably out price everybody else, too, the leader gets to dictate the price, I think. [00:08:41] Nick: That's right, and usually it's going to cost us more to be able to out execute everybody else, unless you've got just, these magic employees that are willing to take less money to provide a better experience for the customer so that you can charge less it becomes a difficult equation. [00:08:56] Jason: Yeah. It's not too difficult to close the deal when somebody comes to you and says, "I want the other company's price, but I want your level of service." [00:09:03] Nick: That's right. That's right. And that is hard to explain in the sales process. If they, having, don't have the relationship or don't have the trust built that, that takes time. [00:09:14] Jason: Cool. Explain how Trash Butler works for people that have multifamily communities.  [00:09:19] Nick: Yeah, so as I mentioned, it incubated out of our college hunks business. We recognize this opportunity in the apartment space, particularly in a multifamily communities where there's a long walk for the residents to take the trash out. [00:09:31] If you think about the garden style apartments, even mid rise or raps, where there's a long walk to the trash room or trash shoot. And so this industry has emerged doorstep trash service, where we've signed a contract with the apartment complex and then 5 nights a week, the resident can simply put the trash in front of their door and recyclables in some markets, and then our Butler will come by and take the trash and the recyclables to the onsite compactor, which is provided by the 3rd party hauler. So it saves the resident a trip to the dumpster or the compactor each night or every other night. There's a safety component for the residents, an amenity component for the communities and looking to try to enhance the their quality of life for the residents. [00:10:10] And then it actually becomes an income producer for the apartment complex. I know that there's some, skepticism about upcharging services in the industry right now. We're staying very close to that legislation, but let's say we charge $10 a month per door to the apartment community. [00:10:24] They have the ability to, charge anywhere from $20 to in some cases, $30, $40 a month per door to the residents. So it becomes an NOI. Producer, net operating income producer for the community, and it's an amenity for the resident, many times an expected amenity for the resident. So currently, we're the second largest provider in that industry. [00:10:41] We service about 300, 000 doors nightly. We're the national partner with Graystar, of course, the big 800 pound gorilla of property management. And we started out as a side venture has all of a sudden, blossomed into a meaningful business that we've actually brought in some private equity money to help sustain that growth. [00:10:58] Jason: Yeah, brilliant. So yeah, I've lived at a complex for a while, and I had to walk forever to go drop my trash off. I hated it. It was super annoying. So I had to have some sort of stupid cart or something just to carry all my trash and like...  [00:11:12] Nick: I used to live in an apartment complex that did not have this service, and I would put the trash either on the hood of my car or in my trunk at times to drive it to the compactor, and one day, I actually forgot that I put it in my trunk, and so I passed by the compactor and this was a hot day in Florida in the summertime. [00:11:30] So of course, when I came back to my car at the end of a long work day and realized that I had failed to take the trash bag out of the trunk, it was a direct trip to the trash compactor and then the the car dealership. Oh yeah.  [00:11:42] Sarah: And then this is a service that the tenants pay for. Yes?  [00:11:46] Nick: It is. [00:11:47] So we contract directly with the community, but the tenants pay for it through their lease. So what we do when we sign up a community is we have a what we call phase in pricing where it steps up over the 1st year of the service. And so the community is never out of pocket. It's never a cost to the community. [00:12:03] The residents are either just paying a pass through, or even an upcharge to the community so that it becomes a profit center for the community. Yes, it does become an ancillary income stream for the apartment complexes. The resident is paying for it. It's part of their lease. It's not something that's opt in, opt out, but if they haven't had it before, it'll wait till the lease renews for it to be added in. [00:12:24] And so we're not charging full rate during the first year. We're stepping it up during month one, month two, month three in order to ensure that the residents are all paying for it by the time we're fully phased.  [00:12:34] Sarah: Oh, very nice. And then is this nationwide? If someone were like, "Hey, I think that's a great idea. Can I?" [00:12:40] Nick: It is. Yeah. So we're in about 30 states right now. Usually when you have a national partnership with a company like Graystar, they point to that direction and we run in that direction. So we opened up in the Northeast, we opened up in California. Our biggest presence is in the Southeast, Florida, Texas, Georgia, Carolinas. We've got a pretty big presence in Arizona. I know that's where you guys are. We're all over. We got boots on the ground. That business is not franchised. Our college hunks business is a franchise model that we have independent operators, but our Trash Butler business is all corporately operated. [00:13:12] So we have managers and and sort of area supervisors in each market that we service.  [00:13:17] Sarah: Oh, very cool.  [00:13:18] Jason: Got it. Yeah. All right. And is there a lot of competition for Trash Butler?  [00:13:22] Nick: Trash Butler and College Hunts has a lot of competition. What I always like to say, there's low barriers to entry, but high barriers to scale. [00:13:29] So there's probably a lot of similarities with the property management business as well, right? Any mom and pop can go out, hang a sign out or get a truck and say, "I'm in business." and you can do that with one or two communities or maybe one market. But when it comes to scaling out that infrastructure and providing a consistent level of service nationwide there's only a small handful that have done it and that's because it costs a lot of money to get to that scale. You've got to have software. You've got to have great people in every market. You've got to have accountabilities in every market. And that's been good and bad. There's always the people that will come in and try to undercut what we're charging or what their competitors are charging, but they can do that on a one off community or two communities. [00:14:09] But at some point their systems are going to break because they're doing all the work themselves. Like we did when we first started.  [00:14:15] Jason: Yeah. And I'm sure occasionally you see the cheap, dumb property manager that wants to like, "Oh I'll just do this myself. And I'll just make my team members, I'll make my gal at the front office desk go haul garbage." [00:14:26] Nick: And, we all know that employee retention is one of the hardest things right now to keeping good people. And you want your good people doing high value activities. At the property management level, you don't want your good people picking up trash from, 100, 200, 300 units every single night. [00:14:42] That's a surefire way to lose your good people. We think of us as an outsourced arm of property management. We pride ourselves on being an extra set of eyes and ears because we're walking the communities in the night. Night walks and when we're doing our patrol, so we're able to report back if we see a safety hazard or we see anything, suspicious activity, we can report that back in our reporting tools. [00:15:03] And so it becomes an extension for property management, not a cost center. And that's, I think, the most important piece. And there's redundancy. We've got backup butlers if a butler misses because he's sick or, has a wedding or something, I don't know. And so we send people in their place and that redundancy is important because, the residents will let you hear it if the trash gets missed. [00:15:22] That's for sure. Yeah. And they're paying for it. So they expect it to get picked up every night that they put it out there.  [00:15:28] Jason: Yeah. If trash day gets missed, there's going to be some pretty unhappy people. It's just sitting on their porch for a week. "Do I bring this back inside? Where do I have to walk it over myself?" [00:15:37] So how small of a complex do you guys take on? Like what are your sort of limits here?  [00:15:42] Nick: To be honest with you, the sweet spot for a trash butler is really a hundred units and greater. So I know there's a lot of property managers that manage smaller facilities or single family properties. [00:15:52] Usually communities like that it's smaller communities, it's more difficult to create a scalable model for the nightly doorstep trash pickup service. But we do see a lot of partnerships with our College Hunks business and the single family rentals the smaller apartment complexes where there's tenant leave behinds, or they want to have a move in special, so they'll contract with our College Hunks location in their market to move the resident in or move the resident out because the move in and the move out are two very critical touch points of the overall living experience as it relates to a community. And so I think the property manager may, in some cases, undervalue the importance of that high touch experience, especially on the move in when they're moving out, unless they're moving to another 1 of your properties. "Have a great day. Sorry to see you go." But when they're moving in, you really want to make that a special, memorable, positive experience so that then it reinforces the positive experience they have while living there.  [00:16:45] Jason: Now, normally trash pickup by the garbage companies is weekly, but you get, you mentioned nightly that you're doing this. [00:16:52] Nick: So we're doing the butler service nightly. We're not taking the trash off property. We're taking it from the doorstep of each resident to the onsite compactor. So if you think about it, the compactor pickups are still going to be weekly but the trash can be picked up from the residents doorstep on a nightly basis, typically 5 nights a week. [00:17:09] This kind of industry standard is Sunday to Thursday night. And so that's where this is becomes a very attractive amenity because if your trash fills up, you got to take it out and you want to wait until the trash day or whatever. You can put it out five nights a week and the butler's gonna take it to the onsite compactor. [00:17:24] Jason: Nice. . Yeah, that makes it really convenient. Okay. Got it. Cool. What do property managers typically. Ask about this service that I haven't asked yet? [00:17:35] Nick: Ah, so what we like to do is we boil it down to three very simple things. What's most important in this service, the doorstep amenity is the trash going to be picked up on time? [00:17:45] Is it going to be consistent? And is it going to be clean? In other words, is the trash butler not going to leave a mess or loose trash and all those sorts of things. And so we actually have what we call A 3x guarantee of Trash Butler, where we guarantee that those 3 things are going to be 100 percent consistent. [00:18:02] If not, we're going to make it right financially by reimbursing for the night, or in some cases, the week. And so I think that's really important. Another question that we actually make sure we emphasize is that there are some companies that do this that will use independent contractors and we recommend steering away from that because there's a level of liability and also accountability that's missing if you've got independent contractors picking up the trash five nights a week on your community. And so having a W 2, uniform, background check butler that's walking the hallways, walking the breezeways, picking up the items is really critical as well. So those are usually the most consistent questions. [00:18:41] I think not a lot of not all property managers really know how to charge the residents back for the service. So we try to pride ourselves on being revenue consultants and sustainability consultants as well. Not just the doorstep vendor for picking up the trash. And so I think, creating that partnership with any of the vendors is really critical, for your listeners not just our category but anybody who they're working with is having that trust and go to relationship. [00:19:04] That they can, rely on. It's not just an invoice, it's not just a contract, but there's actually a relationship there to ensure that, stuff is getting done when it needs to get done. And again, that goes with maintenance, that goes with roofing, that goes with insurance which I know is a huge issue, with properties these days. [00:19:21] And I think that we want to be a piece of that overall equation.  [00:19:24] Jason: Yeah. One bad independent contractor story could probably destroy a property management company. It certainly could destroy a relationship with one particular multi family complex or with that particular owner, but it could destroy a business if it were serious enough. [00:19:41] So that's right. That's right. Yeah. So related to that, how do you vet your butlers?  [00:19:47] Nick: So we prided ourselves both in our college hunts hauling junk business and our trash butler business on really being a culture first team member driven organization. And what I mean by that is we want to get great people. [00:20:01] It's a blue collar industry, but we want to get people to have pride of ownership of the work that they're doing. So it starts with the recruiting, our job posting, our recruiting machine, our interview process, our background checks, our reference checks, and then our onboarding. Our onboarding and retention is all about, we say, enrolling our team members in either the Trash Butler way or the College Hunks way of doing business. [00:20:24] And so I think it's important anytime you're hiring employees that you've got a system and a process. For identifying who are the type of people you want to bring into the organization because that's going to help define the culture and we always say culture drives behavior. Behavior drives results. [00:20:38] And so if you're just picking up any body off the street to fill a hole, you might get somebody good, but chances are, they're not going to be. Aligned with the core values of the company, the purpose of the company. And so we've viewed ourselves as our secret sauce as being able to recruit a widespread labor team decentralized across the country, train them, onboard them and retain them to go out and provide a good service on a consistent basis. And so I think again, relevant to your listeners and their businesses as they think about who they're hiring or teams that they're developing having a set of core values that you would abide by having a long term vision of what you're trying to become as an organization, what you want to be recognized for as an organization. [00:21:21] And then and then work to the present, the action items that you're going to take to, to ensure that those values are upheld and that the vision is becoming a reality.  [00:21:30] Jason: Yeah, that's that's so in alignment with the stuff that we teach, you mentioned culture, behavior results. [00:21:35] And when we focus on helping clients figure out their hiring systems, we focus on what I call the three fits, which is culture first personality fit, which relates to behavior and then skill. And skill's the only one that you really can move the needle hugely on. Usually it's about finding people that match your culture, that share your values, and then finding somebody that is the right personality fit to succeed in the role, and then you can train them. [00:22:01] But most business owners do the opposite. They're like, let's just find somebody with the skill.  [00:22:05] Nick: Somebody who knows how to do it. Yeah you're 100 percent right. There's a mantra. I'm sure you've said it probably is, you hire for attitude, you train for skill. And if you can hold true to that now, look, obviously they have to be capable and competent of learning the skill. If you're providing them the tools to do the work and they still can't do it, then there's a competency gap there that's missing. And you, you have to have, we like to say results based, performance based objectives, but you also have to have good people who align with your values because, if you've got somebody who's not good at the job, but a really good person, ideally, you could train them or find a seat for them to fill. If they're a bad person, but good at their job, then you feel handcuffed and it becomes this poison seed and an apple pie that ends up making the whole thing rotten. [00:22:56] Yeah, I want a team that can perform on the field, but you've got to have a good dynamic locker room. You can't have somebody in there that's upsetting the team dynamics, and that's where leadership comes in. That's where the leader of the organization has to champion the values, has to champion the vision, has to champion the culture, has to hold people accountable, especially their fellow leaders about, what are the behaviors that we value in our organization that matter to us? [00:23:24] Jason: Yeah, love it. It's got to be pretty daunting task to run a large empire, especially in a blue collar industry of people to make sure you've got good leadership. Managing good people and a good hiring process.  [00:23:38] Nick: Yeah. It's like I said it was a 20 year overnight success for us and it never gets easier. [00:23:43] Maybe, new level kind of different devil, but it's it's a lot of fun growing a business and embracing those challenges along the way. But, you hit it on the head, having the right leadership team to help support the founder of the entrepreneur in the journey. [00:23:58] And another thing that I think your listeners probably can relate to is along the way as their business grows is sometimes you're going to outgrow your leadership team, which we've gone through, multiple layers of that. And it's not easy because somebody who helps you get from, 0 to 20 properties may not be able to take you from 20 to 100 properties or somebody who took, in our business that took us from, 0 to 50 franchises or or what have you. [00:24:22] And there's a lot of parallels between our trash Butler business and property management. And so I'm sure we're facing the same sort of things and, making sure that you've got folks that... that's probably the hardest part is when they fit the culture, but the business starts to outgrow them. [00:24:33] And so that's why leadership development is very critical and also identifying the skill sets to make sure they're built for the longterm.  [00:24:41] Jason: Yeah. It said that the number one indicator of success is actually intelligence. And if somebody has enough intelligence, they can rise to different levels of competency and improve. [00:24:53] For example, like somebody might have a good executive assistant and maybe someday they're CEO, but I've had some assistants in the past that were not capable of that. They just weren't right. And then I've had some that were able to rise to different levels of, management. [00:25:06] And I think being able to, I think it's a knack or a talent to be able to identify that light because you can't just give people intelligent tests.  [00:25:14] Nick: Although they, they do have some different tests out there. Now there's the wonder liquid, which I think is what the NFL uses. [00:25:18] We use predictive index, which has a cognitive test and then also a personality profile matching, it's not an exact science, but it definitely provides another data point. Because hiring is probably the toughest thing. Even the sports teams get it wrong half the time, they can actually see the person playing on the field and they know from the other coaches, what type of person that individual is. [00:25:40] And yet they still draft the wrong player or sign the wrong position. And we got to give us, give ourselves a little bit of a break too, because our managers and our franchise owners who view the leadership role as a blessing rather than a burden, I think are the ones that are going to see the most success because they embrace the challenges of turnover. [00:26:01] They embrace the challenge, teaching their team members or empowering their team members to tackle new obstacles. They embrace the fact that maybe certain individuals on their team might have to be layered underneath the next layer of leadership. And so I think that's I think that's something that we got to keep reminding ourselves also as entrepreneurs. [00:26:17] Jason: We've, we partnered here at DoorGrow for DoorGrow Hiring with an AI assessment company before AI was big. And it's pretty spot on and amazing at identifying people that are the right culture, personality, and intelligence level. I used to use Myers Briggs, human design, Wonderlic DISC, and I would get a pretty decent picture of a person incorporating all of these things, but I had to know all these different systems and and I can hire with pretty good accuracy. [00:26:46] And so we started testing against this AI tool and it got the right candidate every time. And it was pretty obvious in the tool. We now use it with clients and it does a really good job. So it's pretty awesome. Very cool. That's how I got my current assistant, Mar, who's awesome. And I think all of our last several team members. [00:27:03] Nick: So yeah, it's pretty cool. Are you able to share the AI tool or is that proprietary to you guys now?  [00:27:08] Jason: So we've partnered with a company called BRYQ, B R Y Q. And yeah, it's super cool. So it's usually not affordable for the small business owner.  [00:27:17] Nick: Got it. So you guys have like an enterprise platform for, because you do recruiting as well? [00:27:22] Jason: Yeah, we help property managers with the hiring and recruit recruiting piece. 'cause if you get that wrong, that's a $10,000 minimum mistake. Minimum. And plus the opportunity cost of the money that you're just not going to get because they didn't do as good of a job. And I've seen it at the multimillion dollar level, most business owners just doing Russian roulette in hiring until they finally get a good team after a decade,  [00:27:41] Nick: I've been guilty of that myself.  [00:27:42] Jason: So me too. Yeah we're the summation of our mistakes when it comes to success. Super cool to have you here on the show. What should property managers know about the College Hunks Hauling Junk? How could that benefit  [00:27:54] Nick: them? [00:27:54] Yeah. A lot of people don't realize that our college hunks business is nationwide. We have almost 300 franchise owners in that business. We're in about 40 States. And so that business is local moving as well as we call bulk trash removal. So it's not just homeowners that we're moving. [00:28:10] It's not college campuses that we're moving, but we're moving anybody that's moving from point A to point B, whether that's a business, an apartment, a resident, a homeowner. And everything in between and we also do junk removal or bulk trash removal. So we're really the only one stop solution that can do both the move and the bulk removal as one brand, one company. [00:28:30] And I think it's important for apartments and multifamily in general, because you want to know that the individuals and the companies that are coming onto your property are insured, have a reputable, accountable brand behind them. And so we've started to see a lot of traction with apartment partnerships where we've become this preferred mover for them to recommend to the residents in the moving leasing packets. So they know that, the trucks are going to be branded. The property is going to be protected. The elevators or stairways are going to be, wraps that are not damaged. The individuals are going to be properly insured, so there's no injury, no injuries, properly trained. [00:29:09] We're not going to be blocking resident cars with the moving van, which, makes everybody upset. We've got a whole national platform and local platform for partnering with property managers. To be their go to solution for moving the residents in and out as well as the tenant leave behind the bulk trash removal, clearing out, for the turns. [00:29:28] And whether that's, corporate removal or just furniture removal, we have a partnership with goodwill where we can donate anything it's reusable. So I think that's something that maybe a lot of property managers don't realize is our College Hunks Hauling Junk and moving business is a great resource for property management in general. [00:29:44] Sarah: That's awesome. That was one of the things that was so frustrating is just waiting on the junk removal. Like it's finally vacant. Go! And sometimes they're like, "yeah, I'm a week out."  [00:29:55] Nick: Yeah. And we can do same day, next day. And look, there's going to be a wide range of prices on junk removal. I know that, there's a budget consciousness and property management. [00:30:03] I get that. Anyone with the truck can come and claim to do junk removal, but he might not answer the phone the next time you call him, or he might be a week out or he might say he's coming and not come. We've got a national call center, a national booking platform, a national accounts program. [00:30:18] So we've got responsiveness and that's something else again for your listeners. Nine out of 10 service companies don't even answer the phone. And so it's something as simple as just making sure the phone gets answered when people call if you've got a property management company, making sure your phone, you have somebody, even if it's an outsourced third party, answers the phone when your residents call or answers the ticket when, the client calls. That goes a long way. It's simple and often overlooked, but it gets back to what we talked about earlier about just being able to out execute what other people aren't doing.  [00:30:48] Jason: Yeah. That's the foundation of decent customer service is accuracy and availability, according to the Gallup polls customer satisfaction pyramid that they had in one of their books. [00:30:59] And if you're perfectly accurate and perfectly available. They don't notice you like that's just default. They just assume that should be done. So it's a math that it's partnership and then advice. And so when you get to that level where you're giving advice, like you had mentioned, like helping them with their fees and helping them figure out how to make money off of this and get the NOI, that's where you're at an exceptional level is when you get to that peak of partnership and then advice. [00:31:25] Nick, this has been a really cool, appreciate you coming here on the show. How can people get connected to College Hunks Hauling Junk and a Trash Butler?  [00:31:36] Nick: So the best way for Trash Butler, really simple, TrashButler. com and for our College Hunks hauling junk and moving business, really simple, CollegeHunks. com. So TrashButler. com, CollegeHunks. com, that's for the doorstep trash and recycling amenity as well as the moving and junk removal partnership opportunity and and look, I appreciate you having me on. I think it's awesome what you're doing to help, empower and motivate and inspire and elevate the property management industry because it's a great industry. And it's one that is right for people to continue to elevate and improve upon.  [00:32:07] Jason: Awesome. Thanks, Nick. Appreciate you being here on the DoorGrow show.  [00:32:10] Nick: Thank you.  [00:32:12] Jason: Thanks for being here. All right. So if you're a property management business owner, you're wanting to grow and scale your business. [00:32:18] Reach out to us. You can check us out at DoorGrow. com or go to join our community and hang out with a bunch of property management entrepreneurs and find out if we're legit and see what everybody else is doing. Go to DoorGrow club. com, and hopefully we're talking and working together soon. Bye everyone. [00:32:36] 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!  [00:33:03] At DoorGrow, we solve your biggest challenge: getting deals and growing your business. Find out more at doorgrow.com. Find any show notes or links from today's episode on our blog doorgrow.com, and to get notified of future events and news subscribe to our newsletter at doorgrow.com/subscribe. Until next time, take what you learn and start DoorGrow Hacking your business and your life.

Table of contentsNote: links take you to the corresponding section below; links to the original episode can be found there.* Laura Duffy solves housing, ethics, and more [00:01:16]* Arjun Panickssery solves books, hobbies, and blogging, but fails to solve the Sleeping Beauty problem because he's wrong on that one [00:10:47]* Nathan Barnard on how financial regulation can inform AI regulation [00:17:16]* Winston Oswald-Drummond on the tractability of reducing s-risk, ethics, and more [00:27:48]* Nathan Barnard (again!) on why general intelligence is basically fake [00:34:10]* Daniel Filan on why I'm wrong about ethics (+ Oppenheimer and what names mean in like a hardcore phil of language sense) [00:56:54]* Holly Elmore on AI pause, wild animal welfare, and some cool biology things I couldn't fully follow but maybe you can [01:04:00]* Max Alexander and I solve ethics, philosophy of mind, and cancel culture once and for all [01:24:43]* Sarah Woodhouse on discovering AI x-risk, Twitter, and more [01:30:56] * Pigeon Hour x Consistently Candid pod-crossover: I debate moral realism with Max Alexander and Sarah Hastings-Woodhouse [01:41:08]Intro [00:00:00]To wrap up the year of Pigeon Hour, the podcast, I put together some clips from each episode to create a best-of compilation. This was inspired by 80,000 Hours, a podcast that did the same with their episodes, and I thought it was pretty cool and tractable enough.It's important to note that the clips I chose range in length significantly. This does not represent the quality or amount of interesting content in the episode. Sometimes there was a natural place to break the episode into a five-minute chunk, and other times it wouldn't have made sense to take a five-minute chunk out of what really needed to be a 20-minute segment. I promise I'm not just saying that.So without further ado, please enjoy.#1: Laura Duffy solves housing, ethics, and more [00:01:16]In this first segment, Laura, Duffy, and I discuss the significance and interpretation of Aristotle's philosophical works in relation to modern ethics and virtue theory.AARON: Econ is like more interesting. I don't know. I don't even remember of all the things. I don't know, it seems like kind of cool. Philosophy. Probably would have majored in philosophy if signaling wasn't an issue. Actually, maybe I'm not sure if that's true. Okay. I didn't want to do the old stuff though, so I'm actually not sure. But if I could aristotle it's all wrong. Didn't you say you got a lot out of Nicomachi or however you pronounce that?LAURA: Nicomachian ethics guide to how you should live your life. About ethics as applied to your life because you can't be perfect. Utilitarians. There's no way to be that.AARON: But he wasn't even responding to utilitarianism. I'm sure it was a good work given the time, but like, there's like no other discipline in which we care. So people care so much about like, what people thought 2000 years ago because like the presumption, I think the justified presumption is that things have iterated and improved since then. And I think that's true. It's like not just a presumption.LAURA: Humans are still rather the same and what our needs are for living amongst each other in political society are kind of the same. I think America's founding is very influenced by what people thought 2000 years ago.AARON: Yeah, descriptively that's probably true. But I don't know, it seems like all the whole body of philosophers have they've already done the work of, like, compressing the good stuff. Like the entire academy since like, 1400 or whatever has like, compressed the good stuff and like, gotten rid of the bad stuff. Not in like a high fidelity way, but like a better than chance way. And so the stuff that remains if you just take the state of I don't know if you read the Oxford Handbook of whatever it is, like ethics or something, the takeaways you're going to get from that are just better than the takeaways you're going to get from a summary of the state of the knowledge in any prior year. At least. Unless something weird happened. And I don't know. I don't know if that makes sense.LAURA: I think we're talking about two different things, though. Okay. In terms of knowledge about logic or something or, I don't know, argumentation about trying to derive the correct moral theory or something, versus how should we think about our own lives. I don't see any reason as to why the framework of virtue theory is incorrect and just because it's old. There's many virtue theorists now who are like, oh yeah, they were really on to something and we need to adapt it for the times in which we live and the kind of societies we live in now. But it's still like there was a huge kernel of truth in at least the way of thinking that Aristotle put forth in terms of balancing the different virtues that you care about and trying to find. I think this is true. Right? Like take one virtue of his humor. You don't want to be on one extreme where you're just basically a meme your entire life. Everybody thinks you're funny, but that's just not very serious. But you don't want to be a boar and so you want to find somewhere in the middle where it's like you have a good sense of humor, but you can still function and be respected by other people.AARON: Yeah. Once again, I agree. Well, I don't agree with everything. I agree with a lot of what you just said. I think there was like two main points of either confusion or disagreement. And like, the first one is that I definitely think, no, Aristotle shouldn't be discounted or like his ideas or virtue ethics or anything like that shouldn't be discounted because they were canonical texts or something were written a long time ago. I guess it's just like a presumption that I have a pretty strong presumption that conditional on them being good, they would also be written about today. And so you don't actually need to go back to the founding texts and then in fact, you probably shouldn't because the good stuff will be explained better and not in weird it looks like weird terms. The terms are used differently and they're like translations from Aramaic or whatever. Probably not Aramaic, probably something else. And yeah, I'm not sure if you.LAURA: Agree with this because we have certain assumptions about what words like purpose mean now that we're probably a bit richer in the old conception of them like telos or happiness. Right. Udaimnia is much better concept and to read the original text and see how those different concepts work together is actually quite enriching compared to how do people use these words now. And it would take like I don't know, I think there just is a lot of value of looking at how these were originally conceived because popularizers of the works now or people who are seriously doing philosophy using these concepts. You just don't have the background knowledge that's necessary to understand them fully if you don't read the canonical text.AARON: Yeah, I think that would be true. If you are a native speaker. Do you know Greek? If you know Greek, this is like dumb because then you're just right.LAURA: I did take a quarter of it.AARON: Oh God. Oh my God. I don't know if that counts, but that's like more than anybody should ever take. No, I'm just kidding. That's very cool. No, because I was going to say if you're a native speaker of Greek and you have the connotations of the word eudaimonia and you were like living in the temper shuttle, I would say. Yeah, that's true actually. That's a lot of nuanced, connotation and context that definitely gets lost with translation. But once you take the jump of reading English translations of the texts, not you may as well but there's nothing super special. You're not getting any privileged knowledge from saying the word eudaimonia as opposed to just saying some other term as a reference to that concept or something. You're absorbing the connotation in the context via English, I guess, via the mind of literally the translators who have like.LAURA: Yeah, well see, I tried to learn virtue theory by any other route than reading Aristotle.AARON: Oh God.LAURA: I took a course specifically on Plato and Aristotle.AARON: Sorry, I'm not laughing at you. I'm just like the opposite type of philosophy person.LAURA: But keep going. Fair. But she had us read his physics before we read Nicomachi.AARON: Think he was wrong about all that.LAURA: Stuff, but it made you understand what he meant by his teleology theory so much better in a way that I could not get if I was reading some modern thing.AARON: I don't know, I feel like you probably could. No, sorry, that's not true. I don't think you could get what Aristotle the man truly believed as well via a modern text. But is that what you? Depends. If you're trying to be a scholar of Aristotle, maybe that's important. If you're trying to find the best or truest ethics and learn the lessons of how to live, that's like a different type of task. I don't think Aristotle the man should be all that privileged in that.LAURA: If all of the modern people who are talking about virtue theory are basically Aristotle, then I don't see the difference.AARON: Oh, yeah, I guess. Fair enough. And then I would say, like, oh, well, they should probably start. Is that in fact the state of the things in virtue theory? I don't even know.LAURA: I don't know either.#2 Arjun Panickssery solves books, hobbies, and blogging, but fails to solve the Sleeping Beauty problem because he's wrong on that one [00:10:47]All right, next, Arjun Panixery and I explore the effectiveness of reading books in retaining and incorporating knowledge, discussing the value of long form content and the impact of great literary works on understanding and shaping personal worldviews.ARJUN: Oh, you were in the book chat, though. The book rant group chat, right?AARON: Yeah, I think I might have just not read any of it. So do you want to fill me in on what I should have read?ARJUN: Yeah, it's group chat of a bunch of people where we were arguing about a bunch of claims related to books. One of them is that most people don't remember pretty much anything from books that they read, right? They read a book and then, like, a few months later, if you ask them about it, they'll just say one page's worth of information or maybe like, a few paragraphs. The other is that what is it exactly? It's that if you read a lot of books, it could be that you just incorporate the information that's important into your existing models and then just forget the information. So it's actually fine. Isn't this what you wrote in your blog post or whatever? I think that's why I added you to that.AARON: Oh, thank you. I'm sorry I'm such a bad group chat participant. Yeah, honestly, I wrote that a while ago. I don't fully remember exactly what it says, but at least one of the things that it said was and that I still basically stand by, is that it's basically just like it's increasing the salience of a set of ideas more so than just filling your brain with more facts. And I think this is probably true insofar as the facts support a set of common themes or ideas that are kind of like the intellectual core of it. It would be really hard. Okay, so this is not a book, but okay. I've talked about how much I love an 80,000 hours podcast, and I've listened to, I don't think every episode, but at least 100 of the episodes. And no, you're just, like, not going to definitely I've forgotten most of the actual almost all of the actual propositional pieces of information said, but you're just not going to convince me that it's completely not affecting either model of the world or stuff that I know or whatever. I mean, there are facts that I could list. I think maybe I should try.ARJUN: Sure.AARON: Yeah. So what's your take on book other long form?ARJUN: Oh, I don't know. I'm still quite confused or I think the impetus for the group chat's creation was actually Hanania's post where he wrote the case against most books or most was in parentheses or something. I mean, there's a lot of things going on in that post. He just goes off against a bunch of different categories of books that are sort of not closely related. Like, he goes off against great. I mean, this is not the exact take he gives, but it's something like the books that are considered great are considered great literature for some sort of contingent reason, not because they're the best at getting you information that you want.AARON: This is, like, another topic. But I'm, like, anti great books. In fact, I'm anti great usually just means old and famous. So insofar as that's what we mean by I'm like, I think this is a bad thing, or, like, I don't know, aristotle is basically wrong about everything and stuff like that.ARJUN: Right, yeah. Wait, we could return to this. I guess this could also be divided into its component categories. He spends more time, though, I think, attacking a certain kind of nonfiction book that he describes as the kind of book that somebody pitches to a publisher and basically expands a single essay's worth of content into with a bunch of anecdotes and stuff. He's like, most of these books are just not very useful to read, I guess. I agree with that.AARON: Yeah. Is there one that comes to mind as, like, an? Mean, I think of Malcolm Gladwell as, like, the kind of I haven't actually read any of his stuff in a while, but I did, I think, when I started reading nonfiction or with any sort of intent, I read. A bunch of his stuff or whatever and vaguely remember that this is basically what he like for better or.ARJUN: Um yeah, I guess so. But he's almost, like, trying to do it on purpose. This is the experience that you're getting by reading a Malcolm Gladwell book. It's like talib. Right? It's just him just ranting. I'm thinking, I guess, of books that are about something. So, like, if you have a book that's know negotiation or something, it'll be filled with a bunch of anecdotes that are of dubious usefulness. Or if you get a book that's just about some sort of topic, there'll be historical trivia that's irrelevant. Maybe I can think of an example.AARON: Yeah. So the last thing I tried to read, maybe I am but haven't in a couple of weeks or whatever, is like, the Derek Parfit biography. And part of this is motivated because I don't even like biographies in general for some reason, I don't know. But I don't know. He's, like, an important guy. Some of the anecdotes that I heard were shockingly close to home for me, or not close to home, but close to my brain or something. So I was like, okay, maybe I'll see if this guy's like the smarter version of Aaron Bergman. And it's not totally true.ARJUN: Sure, I haven't read the book, but I saw tweet threads about it, as one does, and I saw things that are obviously false. Right. It's the claims that he read, like, a certain number of pages while brushing his teeth. That's, like, anatomically impossible or whatever. Did you get to that part? Or I assumed no, I also saw.AARON: That tweet and this is not something that I do, but I don't know if it's anatomically impossible. Yeah, it takes a little bit of effort to figure out how to do that, I guess. I don't think that's necessarily false or whatever, but this is probably not the most important.ARJUN: Maybe it takes long time to brush his teeth.#3: Nathan Barnard on how financial regulation can inform AI regulation [00:17:16]In this next segment, Nathan Barnard and I dive into the complexities of AI regulation, including potential challenges and outcomes of governing AI in relation to economic growth and existential security. And we compare it to banking regulation as well.AARON: Yeah, I don't know. I just get gloomy for, I think justified reasons when people talk about, oh yeah, here's the nine step process that has to take place and then maybe there's like a 20% chance that we'll be able to regulate AI effectively. I'm being facetious or exaggerating, something like that, but not by a gigantic amount.NATHAN: I think this is pretty radically different to my mainline expectation.AARON: What's your mainline expectation?NATHAN: I suppose I expect like AI to come with an increasing importance past economy and to come up to really like a very large fraction of the economy before really crazy stuff starts happening and this world is going very anonymous. Anonymous, anonymous, anonymous. I know the word is it'd be very unusual if this extremely large sector economy which was impacted like a very large number of people's lives remains like broadly unregulated.AARON: It'll be regulated, but just maybe in a stupid way.NATHAN: Sure, yes, maybe in a stupid way. I suppose critically, do you expect the stupid way to be like too conservative or too like the specific question of AI accenture it's basically too conservative or too lenient or I just won't be able to interact with this.AARON: I guess generally too lenient, but also mostly on a different axis where just like I don't actually know enough. I don't feel like I've read learned about various governance proposals to have a good object level take on this. But my broad prior is that there are just a lot of ways to for anything. There's a lot of ways to regulate something poorly. And the reason insofar as anything isn't regulated poorly it's because of a lot of trial and error.NATHAN: Maybe.AARON: I mean, there's probably exceptions, right? I don't know. Tax Americana is like maybe we didn't just kept winning wars starting with World War II. I guess just like maybe like a counterexample or something like that.NATHAN: Yeah, I think I still mostly disagree with this. Oh, cool. Yeah. I suppose I see a much like broader spectrum between bad regulation and good regulation. I agree it's like very small amount. The space of optimal regulation is very small. But I think we have to hit that space for regulation to be helpful. Especially in this especially if you consider that if you sort of buy the AI extension safety risk then the downsides of it's not this quite fine balancing act between too much whether consumer protection and siphoning competition and cycling innovation too much. It's like trying to end this quite specific, very bad outcome which is maybe much worse than going somewhat slowering economic growth, at least somewhat particularly if we think we're going to get something. This is very explosive rates for economic growth really quite soon. And the cost of slowing down economic growth by weather even by quite a large percentage, very small compared to the cost of sort of an accidental catastrophe. I sort of think of Sony iconic growth as the main cost of main way regulation goes wrong currently.AARON: I think in an actual sense that is correct. There's the question of like okay, Congress in the states like it's better than nothing. I'm glad it's not anarchy in terms of like I'm glad we have a legislature.NATHAN: I'm also glad the United States.AARON: How reasons responsive is Congress? I don't think reasons responsive enough to make it so that the first big law that gets passed insofar as there is one or if there is one is on the pareto frontier trading off between economic growth and existential security. It's going to be way inside of that production frontier or whatever. It's going to suck on every action, maybe not every act but at least like some relevant actions.NATHAN: Yeah that doesn't seem like obviously true to me. I think Dodge Frank was quite a good law.AARON: That came after 2008, right?NATHAN: Yeah correct. Yeah there you go. No, I agree. I'm not especially confident about doing regulation before there's some quite bad before there's a quite bad warning shot and yes, if we're in world where we have no warning shots and we're just like blindsided by everyone getting turned into everyone getting stripped their Athens within 3 seconds, this is not good. Both in law we do have one of those shots and I think Glass Seagull is good law. Not good law is a technical term. I think Glass Steagall was a good piece of legislation. I think DoD Frank was a good piece of legislation. I think the 2008 Seamless Bill was good piece of legislation. I think the Troubled Assets Relief Program is a good piece of piece of legislation.AARON: I recognize these terms and I know some of them and others I do not know the contents of.NATHAN: Yeah so Glass Eagle was the financial regulation passed in 1933 after Great Depression. The Tropical Asset Relief Program was passed in I think 2008, moved 2009 to help recapitalize banks. Dodge Frank was the sort of landmark post financial cris piece of legislation passed in 2011. I think these are all good pieces of legislation now. I think like financial regulation is probably unusually good amongst US legislation. This is like a quite weak take, I guess. It's unusually.AARON: So. I don't actually know the pre depression financial history at all but I feel like the more relevant comparison to the 21st century era is what was the regulatory regime in 1925 or something? I just don't know.NATHAN: Yeah, I know a bit. I haven't read this stuff especially deeply and so I don't want to don't want to be so overcompensant here but sort of the core pieces which were sort of important for the sort of the Great Depression going very badly was yeah, no distinction between commercial banks and investment banks. Yes, such a bank could take much riskier. Much riskier. Things with like custom deposits than they could from 1933 until the Peel Glass Eagle. And combine that with no deposit insurance and if you sort of have the combination of banks being able to do quite risky things with depositors money and no deposit insurance, this is quite dangerously known. And glassy repeal.AARON: I'm an expert in the sense that I have the Wikipedia page up. Well, yeah, there was a bunch of things. Basically. There's the first bank of the United States. There's the second bank of the United States. There's the free banking era. There was the era of national banks. Yada, yada, yada. It looks like 19. Seven was there was some panic. I vaguely remember this from like, AP US history, like seven years ago or.NATHAN: Yes, I suppose in short, I sort of agree that the record of sort of non post Cris legislation is like, not very good, but I think record of post Cris legislation really, at least in the financial sector, really is quite good. I'm sure lots of people disagree with this, but this is my take.#4 Winston Oswald-Drummond on the tractability of reducing s-risk, ethics, and more [00:27:48]Up next, Winston Oswald Drummond and I talk about the effectiveness and impact of donating to various research organizations, such as suffering-focused S-risk organizations. We discuss tractability, expected value, and essentially where we should give our money.AARON: Okay, nice. Yeah. Where to go from here? I feel like largely we're on the same page, I feel like.WINSTON: Yeah. Is your disagreement mostly tractability? Then? Maybe we should get into the disagreement.AARON: Yeah. I don't even know if I've specified, but insofar as I have one, yes, it's trapped ability. This is the reason why I haven't donated very much to anywhere for money reasons. But insofar as I have, I have not donated to Clrcrs because I don't see a theory of change that connects the research currently being done to actually reducing s risks. And I feel like there must be something because there's a lot of extremely smart people at both of these orgs or whatever, and clearly they thought about this and maybe the answer is it's very general and the outcome is just so big in magnitude that anything kind.WINSTON: Of that is part of it, I think. Yeah, part of it is like an expected value thing and also it's just very neglected. So it's like you want some people working on this, I think, at least. Even if it's unlikely to work. Yeah, even that might be underselling it, though. I mean, I do think there's people at CRS and Clr, like talking to people at AI labs and some people in politics and these types of things. And hopefully the research is a way to know what to try to get done at these places. You want to have some concrete recommendations and I think obviously people have to also be willing to listen to you, but I think there is some work being done on that and research is partially just like a community building thing as well. It's a credible signal that you were smart and have thought about this, and so it gives people reason to listen to you and maybe that mostly pays off later on in the future.AARON: Yeah, that all sounds like reasonable. And I guess one thing is that I just don't there's definitely things I mean, first of all, I haven't really stayed up to date on what's going on, so I haven't even done I've done zero research for this podcast episode, for example. Very responsible and insofar as I've know things about these. Orgs. It's just based on what's on their website at some given time. So insofar as there's outreach going on, not like behind the scenes, but just not in a super public way, or I guess you could call that behind the scenes. I just don't have reason to, I guess, know about that. And I guess, yeah, I'm pretty comfortable. I don't even know if this is considered biting a bullet for the crowd that will be listening to this, if that's anybody but with just like yeah, saying a very small change for a very large magnitude, just, like, checks out. You can just do expected value reasoning and that's basically correct, like a correct way of thinking about ethics. But even I don't know how much you know specifically or, like, how much you're allowed want to reveal, but if there was a particular alignment agenda that I guess you in a broad sense, like the suffering focused research community thought was particularly promising and relative to other tractable, I guess, generic alignment recommendations. And you were doing research on that and trying to push that into the alignment mainstream, which is not very mainstream. And then with the hope that that jumps into the AI mainstream. Even if that's kind of a long chain of events. I think I would be a lot more enthusiastic about I don't know that type of agenda, because it feels like there's like a particular story you're telling where it cashes out in the end. You know what I mean?WINSTON: Yeah, I'm not the expert on this stuff, but I do think you just mean I think there's some things about influencing alignment and powerful AI for sure. Maybe not like a full on, like, this is our alignment proposal and it also handles Sris. But some things we could ask AI labs that are already building, like AGI, we could say, can you also implement these sort of, like, safeguards so if you failed alignment, you fail sort of gracefully and don't cause lots of suffering.AARON: Right?WINSTON: Yeah. Or maybe there are other things too, which also seem potentially more tractable. Even if you solve alignment in some sense, like aligning with whatever the human operator tells the AI to do, then you can also get the issue that malevolent actors can take control of the AI and then what they want also causes lots of suffering that type of alignment wouldn't. Yeah, and I guess I tend to be somewhat skeptical of coherent extrapolated volition and things like this, where the idea is sort of like it'll just figure out our values and do the right thing. So, yeah, there's some ways to push on this without having a full alignment plan, but I'm not sure if that counts as what you were saying.AARON: No, I guess it does. Yeah, it sounds like it does. And it could be that I'm just kind of mistaken about the degree to which that type of research and outreach is going on. That sounds like it's at least partially true.#5: Nathan Barnard (again!) on why general intelligence is basically fake [00:34:10]Up next, Nathan Barnard is back for his second episode. And we talked about the nature of general intelligence, its relationship with language and the implications of specialized brain functions on the understanding of human cognitive abilities.NATHAN: Yes. This like symbolic like symbolic, symbolic reasoning stuff. Yeah. So I think if I was, like, making the if I was, like, making the case for general intelligence being real, I wouldn't have symbolic reasoning, but I would have language stuff. I'd have this hierarchical structure thing, which.AARON: I would probably so I think of at least most uses of language and central examples as a type of symbolic reasoning because words mean things. They're like yeah. Pointers to objects or something like that.NATHAN: Yeah, I think it's like, pretty confidence isn't where this isn't a good enough description of general intelligence. So, for instance so if you bit in your brain called, I'm using a checklist, I don't fuck this up vernacular, I'm not making this cool. Lots of connects to use words like pointers as these arbitrary signs happens mostly in this area of the brain called Berkeley's area. But very famously, you can have Berkeley's epaxics who lose the ability to do language comprehension and use the ability to consistently use words as pointers, as signs to point to things, but still have perfect good spatial reasoning abilities. And so, conversely, people with brokers of fascia who fuck up, who have the broker's reason their brain fucks up will not be able to form fluent sentences and have some problems like unsigned syntax, and they'll still be able to have very good spatial reasoning. It could still, for instance, be like, good engineers. Would you like many problems which, like, cost engineering?AARON: Yeah, I totally buy that. I don't think language is the central thing. I think it's like an outgrowth of, like I don't know, there's like a simplified model I could make, which is like it's like an outgrowth of whatever general intelligence really is. But whatever the best spatial or graphical model is, I don't think language is cognition.NATHAN: Yes, this is a really big debate in psycholinguistics as to whether language is like an outgrowth of other abilities like the brain has, whether language whether there's very specialized language modules. Yeah, this is just like a very live debate in psycholinguistics moments. I actually do lean towards the reason I've been talking about this actually just going to explain this hierarchical structure thing? Yeah, I keep talking about it. So one theory for how you can comprehend new sentences, like, the dominant theory in linguistics, how you can comprehend new sentences, um, is you break them up into, like you break them up into, like, chunks, and you form these chunks together in this, like, tree structure. So something like, if you hear, like, a totally novel sentence like the pit bull mastiff flopped around deliciously or something, you can comprehend what the sentence means despite the fact you've never heard it. Theory behind this is you saw yes, this can be broken up into this tree structure, where the different, like, ah, like like bits of the sentence. So, like like the mastiff would be like, one bit, and then you have, like, another bit, which is like, the mastiff I can't remember I said rolled around, so that'd be like, another bit, and then you'd have connectors to our heart.AARON: Okay.NATHAN: So the massive rolling around one theory of one of the sort of distinctive things that humans have disabilities is like, this quite general ability to break things up into these these tree structures. This is controversial within psycholinguistics, but it's broadly an area which I broadly buy it because we do see harms to other areas of intelligence. You get much worse at, like, Ravens Progressive Matrices, for instance, when you have, like, an injury to brokers area, but, like, not worse at, like, tests like tests of space, of, like, spatial reasoning, for instance.AARON: So what is like, is there, like, a main alternative to, like, how humans.NATHAN: Understand language as far as this specificity of how we pass completely novel sentences, as far as where this is just like this is just like the the academic consensus. Okay.AARON: I mean, it sounds totally like right? I don't know.NATHAN: Yeah. But yeah, I suppose going back to saying, how far is language like an outgrowth of general intelligence? An outgrowth like general intelligence versus having much more specialized language modules? Yeah, I lean towards the latter, despite yeah, I still don't want to give too strong of a personal opinion here because I'm not a linguistic this is a podcast.AARON: You're allowed to give takes. No one's going to say this is like the academic we want takes.NATHAN: We want takes. Well, gone to my head is.AARON: I.NATHAN: Think language is not growth of other abilities. I think the main justification for this, I think, is that the loss of other abilities we see when you have damage to broker's area and verca's area.AARON: Okay, cool. So I think we basically agree on that. And also, I guess one thing to highlight is I think outgrowth can mean a couple of different things. I definitely think it's plausible. I haven't read about this. I think I did at some point, but not in a while. But outgrowth could mean temporarily or whatever. I think I'm kind of inclined to think it's not that straightforward. You could have coevolution where language per se encourages both its own development and the development of some general underlying trait or something.NATHAN: Yeah. Which seems likely.AARON: Okay, cool. So why don't humans have general intelligence?NATHAN: Right. Yeah. As I was sort of talking about previously.AARON: Okay.NATHAN: I think I think I'd like to use go back to like a high level like a high level argument is there appears to be very surprised, like, much higher levels of functional specialization in brains than you expect. You can lose much more specific abilities than you expect to be able to lose. You can lose specifically the ability a famous example is like facebindness, actually. You probably lose the ability to specifically recognize things which you're, like, an expert in.AARON: Who does it or who loses this ability.NATHAN: If you've damaged your fuse inform area, you'll lose the ability to recognize faces, but nothing else.AARON: Okay.NATHAN: And there's this general pattern that your brain is much more you can lose much more specific abilities than you expect. So, for instance, if you sort of have damage to your ventral, medial, prefrontal cortex, you can say the reasoning for why you shouldn't compulsively gamble but still compulsively gamble.AARON: For instance okay, I understand this not gambling per se, but like executive function stuff at a visceral level. Okay, keep going.NATHAN: Yeah. Some other nice examples of this. I think memory is quite intuitive. So there's like, a very famous patient called patient HM who had his hippocampus removed and so as a result, lost all declarative memory. So all memory of specific facts and things which happened in his life. He just couldn't remember any of these things, but still perfectly functioning otherwise. I think at a really high level, I think this functional specialization is probably the strongest piece of evidence against the general intelligence hypothesis. I think fundamentally, general intelligence hypothesis implies that, like, if you, like yeah, if you was, like, harm a piece of your brain, if you have some brain injury, you might like generically get worse at tasks you like, generically get worse at, like at like all task groups use general intelligence. But I think suggesting people, including general intelligence, like the ability to write, the ability to speak, maybe not speak, the ability to do math, you do have.AARON: This it's just not as easy to analyze in a Cogsy paper which IQ or whatever. So there is something where if somebody has a particular cubic centimeter of their brain taken out, that's really excellent evidence about what that cubic centimeter does or whatever, but that non spatial modification is just harder to study and analyze. I guess we'll give people drugs, right? Suppose that set aside the psychometric stuff. But suppose that general intelligence is mostly a thing or whatever and you actually can ratchet it up and down. This is probably just true, right? You can probably give somebody different doses of, like, various drugs. I don't know, like laughing gas, like like, yeah, like probably, probably weed. Like I don't know.NATHAN: So I think this just probably isn't true. Your working memory corrects quite strongly with G and having better working memory generic can make you much better at lots of tasks if you have like.AARON: Yeah.NATHAN: Sorry, but this is just like a specific ability. It's like just specifically your working memory, which is improved if you go memory to a drugs. Improved working memory. I think it's like a few things like memory attention, maybe something like decision making, which are all like extremely useful abilities and improve how well other cognitive abilities work. But they're all separate things. If you improved your attention abilities, your working memory, but you sort of had some brain injury, which sort of meant you sort of had lost ability to pass syntax, you would not get better at passing syntax. And you can also use things separately. You can also improve attention and improve working memory separately, which just it's not just this one dial which you can turn up.AARON: There's good reason to expect that we can't turn it up because evolution is already sort of like maximizing, given the relevant constraints. Right. So you would need to be looking just like injuries. Maybe there are studies where they try to increase people's, they try to add a cubic centimeter to someone's brain, but normally it's like the opposite. You start from some high baseline and then see what faculties you lose. Just to clarify, I guess.NATHAN: Yeah, sorry, I think I've lost the you still think there probably is some general intelligence ability to turn up?AARON: Honestly, I think I haven't thought about this nearly as much as you. I kind of don't know what I think at some level. If I could just write down all of the different components and there are like 74 of them and what I think of a general intelligence consists of does that make it I guess in some sense, yeah, that does make it less of an ontologically legit thing or something. I think I think the thing I want to get the motivating thing here is that with humans yet you can like we know humans range in IQ, and there's, like, setting aside a very tiny subset of people with severe brain injuries or development disorders or whatever. Almost everybody has some sort of symbolic reasoning that they can do to some degree. Whereas the smartest maybe I'm wrong about this, but as far as I know, the smartest squirrel is not going to be able to have something semantically represent something else. And that's what I intuitively want to appeal to, you know what I mean?NATHAN: Yeah, I know what you're guessing at. So I think there's like two interesting things here. So I think one is, could a squirrel do this? I'm guessing a squirrel couldn't do this, but a dog can, or like a dog probably can. A chimpanzee definitely can.AARON: Do what?NATHAN: Chimpanzees can definitely learn to associate arbitrary signs, things in the world with arbitrary signs.AARON: Yes, but maybe I'm just adding on epicentercles here, but I feel like correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that maybe I'm just wrong about this, but I would assume that Chicken Tees cannot use that sign in a domain that is qualitatively different from the ones they've been in. Right. So, like, a dog will know that a certain sign means sit or whatever, but maybe that's not a good I.NATHAN: Don'T know think this is basically not true.AARON: Okay.NATHAN: And we sort of know this from teaching.AARON: Teaching.NATHAN: There's like a famously cocoa de guerrilla. Also a bonobo whose name I can't remember were taught sign language. And the thing they were consistently bad at was, like, putting together sentences they could learn quite large vocabularies learning to associate by large, I mean in the hundreds of words, in the low hundreds of words which they could consistently use consistently use correctly.AARON: What do you mean by, like, in what sense? What is bonobo using?NATHAN: A very famous and quite controversial example is like, coco gorilla was like, saw a swan outside and signed water bird. That's like, a controversial example. But other things, I think, which are controversial here is like, the syntax part of putting water and bird together is the controversial part, but it's not the controversial part that she could see a swan and call that a bird.AARON: Yeah, I mean, this is kind of just making me think, okay, maybe the threshold for D is just like at the chimp level or something. We are like or whatever the most like that. Sure. If a species really can generate from a prefix and a suffix or whatever, a concept that they hadn't learned before.NATHAN: Yeah, this is a controversial this is like a controversial example of that the addition to is the controversial part. Yeah, I suppose maybe brings back to why I think this matters is will there be this threshold which AIS cross such that their reasoning after this is qualitatively different to their reasoning previously? And this is like two things. One, like a much faster increase in AI capabilities and two, alignment techniques which worked on systems which didn't have g will no longer work. Systems which do have g. Brings back to why I think this actually matters. But I think if we're sort of accepting it, I think elephants probably also if you think that if we're saying, like, g is like a level of chimpanzees, chimpanzees just, like, don't don't look like quantitatively different to, like, don't look like that qualitatively different to, like, other animals. Now, lots of other animals live in similar complex social groups. Lots of other animals use tools.AARON: Yeah, sure. For one thing, I don't think there's not going to be a discontinuity in the same way that there wasn't a discontinuity at any point between humans evolution from the first prokaryotic cells or whatever are eukaryotic one of those two or both, I guess. My train of thought. Yes, I know it's controversial, but let's just suppose that the sign language thing was legit with the waterbird and that's not like a random one off fluke or something. Then maybe this is just some sort of weird vestigial evolutionary accident that actually isn't very beneficial for chimpanzees and they just stumbled their way into and then it just enabled them to it enables evolution to bootstrap Shimp genomes into human genomes. Because at some the smartest or whatever actually, I don't know. Honestly, I don't have a great grasp of evolutionary biology or evolution at all. But, yeah, it could just be not that helpful for chimps and helpful for an extremely smart chimp that looks kind of different or something like that.NATHAN: Yeah. So I suppose just like the other thing she's going on here, I don't want to keep banging on about this, but you can lose the language. You can lose linguistic ability. And it's just, like, happens this happens in stroke victims, for instance. It's not that rare. Just, like, lose linguistic ability, but still have all the other abilities which we sort of think of as like, general intelligence, which I think would be including the general intelligence, like, hypothesis.AARON: I agree that's, like, evidence against it. I just don't think it's very strong evidence, partially because I think there is a real school of thought that says that language is fundamental. Like, language drives thought. Language is, like, primary to thought or something. And I don't buy that. If you did buy that, I think this would be, like, more damning evidence.#6 Daniel Filan on why I'm wrong about ethics (+ Oppenheimer and what names mean in like a hardcore phil of language sense) [00:56:54][Note: I forgot to record an intro segment here. Sorry!]AARON: Yeah. Yes. I'm also anti scam. Right, thank you. Okay, so I think that thing that we were talking about last time we talked, which is like the thing I think we actually both know stuff about instead of just like, repeating New York Times articles is my nuanced ethics takes and why you think about talk about that and then we can just also branch off from there.DANIEL: Yeah, we can talk about that.AARON: Maybe see where that did. I luckily I have a split screen up, so I can pull up things. Maybe this is kind of like egotistical or something to center my particular view, but you've definitely given me some of the better pushback or whatever that I haven't gotten that much feedback of any kind, I guess, but it's still interesting to hear your take. So basically my ethical position or the thing that I think is true is that which I think is not the default view. I think most people think this is wrong is that total utilitarianism does not imply that for some amount of suffering that could be created there exists some other extremely large arbitrarily, large amount of happiness that could also be created which would morally justify the former. Basically.DANIEL: So you think that even under total utilitarianism there can be big amounts of suffering such that there's no way to morally tip the calculus. However much pleasure you can create, it's just not going to outweigh the fact that you inflicted that much suffering on some people.AARON: Yeah, and I'd highlight the word inflicted if something's already there and you can't do anything about it, that's kind of neither here nor there as it pertains to your actions or something. So it's really about you increasing, you creating suffering that wouldn't have otherwise been created. Yeah. It's also been a couple of months since I've thought about this in extreme detail, although I thought about it quite a bit. Yeah.DANIEL: Maybe I should say my contrary view, I guess, when you say that, I don't know, does total utilitarianism imply something or not? I'm like, well, presumably it depends on what we mean by total utilitarianism. Right. So setting that aside, I think that thesis is probably false. I think that yeah. You can offset great amounts of suffering with great amounts of pleasure, even for arbitrary amounts of suffering.AARON: Okay. I do think that position is like the much more common and even, I'd say default view. Do you agree with that? It's sort of like the implicit position of people who are of self described total utilitarians who haven't thought a ton about this particular question.DANIEL: Yeah, I think it's probably the implicit default. I think it's the implicit default in ethical theory or something. I think that in practice, when you're being a utilitarian, I don't know, normally, if you're trying to be a utilitarian and you see yourself inflicting a large amount of suffering, I don't know. I do think there's some instinct to be like, is there any way we can get around this?AARON: Yeah, for sure. And to be clear, I don't think this would look like a thought experiment. I think what it looks like in practice and also I will throw in caveats as I see necessary, but I think what it looks like in practice is like, spreading either wild animals or humans or even sentient digital life through the universe. That's in a non as risky way, but that's still just maybe like, say, making the earth, making multiple copies of humanity or something like that. That would be an example that's probably not like an example of what an example of creating suffering would be. For example, just creating another duplicate of earth. Okay.DANIEL: Anything that would be like so much suffering that we shouldn't even the pleasures of earth outweighs.AARON: Not necessarily, which is kind of a cop out. But my inclination is that if you include wild animals, the answer is yes, that creating another earth especially. Yeah, but I'm much more committed to some amount. It's like some amount than this particular time and place in human industry is like that or whatever.DANIEL: Okay, can I get a feel of some other concrete cases to see?AARON: Yeah.DANIEL: So one example that's on my mind is, like, the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, right? So the standard case for this is, like, yeah, what? A hundred OD thousand people died? Like, quite terrible, quite awful. And a lot of them died, I guess a lot of them were sort of some people were sort of instantly vaporized, but a lot of people died in extremely painful ways. But the countercase is like, well, the alternative to that would have been like, an incredibly grueling land invasion of Japan, where many more people would have died or know regardless of what the actual alternatives were. If you think about the atomic bombings, do you think that's like the kind of infliction of suffering where there's just not an offsetting amount of pleasure that could make that okay?AARON: My intuition is no, that it is offsettable, but I would also emphasize that given the actual historical contingencies, the alternative, the implicit case for the bombing includes reducing suffering elsewhere rather than merely creating happiness. There can definitely be two bad choices that you have to make or something. And my claim doesn't really pertain to that, at least not directly.#7: Holly Elmore on AI pause, wild animal welfare, and some cool biology things I couldn't fully follow but maybe you can [01:04:00]Up next, Holly Elmore and I discuss the complexities and implications of AI development and open sourcing. We talk about protests and ethical considerations around her, um, uh, campaign to pause the development of frontier AI systems until, until we can tell that they're safe.AARON: So what's the plan? Do you have a plan? You don't have to have a plan. I don't have plans very much.HOLLY: Well, right now I'm hopeful about the UK AI summit. Pause AI and I have planned a multi city protest on the 21 October to encourage the UK AI Safety Summit to focus on safety first and to have as a topic arranging a pause or that of negotiation. There's a lot of a little bit upsetting advertising for that thing that's like, we need to keep up capabilities too. And I just think that's really a secondary objective. And that's how I wanted to be focused on safety. So I'm hopeful about the level of global coordination that we're already seeing. It's going so much faster than we thought. Already the UN Secretary General has been talking about this and there have been meetings about this. It's happened so much faster at the beginning of this year. Nobody thought we could talk about nobody was thinking we'd be talking about this as a mainstream topic. And then actually governments have been very receptive anyway. So right now I'm focused on other than just influencing opinion, the targets I'm focused on, or things like encouraging these international like, I have a protest on Friday, my first protest that I'm leading and kind of nervous that's against Meta. It's at the Meta building in San Francisco about their sharing of model weights. They call it open source. It's like not exactly open source, but I'm probably not going to repeat that message because it's pretty complicated to explain. I really love the pause message because it's just so hard to misinterpret and it conveys pretty clearly what we want very quickly. And you don't have a lot of bandwidth and advocacy. You write a lot of materials for a protest, but mostly what people see is the title.AARON: That's interesting because I sort of have the opposite sense. I agree that in terms of how many informational bits you're conveying in a particular phrase, pause AI is simpler, but in some sense it's not nearly as obvious. At least maybe I'm more of a tech brain person or whatever. But why that is good, as opposed to don't give extremely powerful thing to the worst people in the world. That's like a longer everyone.HOLLY: Maybe I'm just weird. I've gotten the feedback from open source ML people is the number one thing is like, it's too late, there's already super powerful models. There's nothing you can do to stop us, which sounds so villainous, I don't know if that's what they mean. Well, actually the number one message is you're stupid, you're not an ML engineer. Which like, okay, number two is like, it's too late, there's nothing you can do. There's all of these other and Meta is not even the most powerful generator of models that it share of open source models. I was like, okay, fine. And I don't know, I don't think that protesting too much is really the best in these situations. I just mostly kind of let that lie. I could give my theory of change on this and why I'm focusing on Meta. Meta is a large company I'm hoping to have influence on. There is a Meta building in San Francisco near where yeah, Meta is the biggest company that is doing this and I think there should be a norm against model weight sharing. I was hoping it would be something that other employees of other labs would be comfortable attending and that is a policy that is not shared across the labs. Obviously the biggest labs don't do it. So OpenAI is called OpenAI but very quickly decided not to do that. Yeah, I kind of wanted to start in a way that made it more clear than pause AI. Does that anybody's welcome something? I thought a one off issue like this that a lot of people could agree and form a coalition around would be good. A lot of people think that this is like a lot of the open source ML people think know this is like a secret. What I'm saying is secretly an argument for tyranny. I just want centralization of power. I just think that there are elites that are better qualified to run everything. It was even suggested I didn't mention China. It even suggested that I was racist because I didn't think that foreign people could make better AIS than Meta.AARON: I'm grimacing here. The intellectual disagreeableness, if that's an appropriate term or something like that. Good on you for standing up to some pretty bad arguments.HOLLY: Yeah, it's not like that worth it. I'm lucky that I truly am curious about what people think about stuff like that. I just find it really interesting. I spent way too much time understanding the alt. Right. For instance, I'm kind of like sure I'm on list somewhere because of the forums I was on just because I was interested and it is something that serves me well with my adversaries. I've enjoyed some conversations with people where I kind of like because my position on all this is that look, I need to be convinced and the public needs to be convinced that this is safe before we go ahead. So I kind of like not having to be the smart person making the arguments. I kind of like being like, can you explain like I'm five. I still don't get it. How does this work?AARON: Yeah, no, I was thinking actually not long ago about open source. Like the phrase has such a positive connotation and in a lot of contexts it really is good. I don't know. I'm glad that random tech I don't know, things from 2004 or whatever, like the reddit source code is like all right, seems cool that it's open source. I don't actually know if that was how that right. But yeah, I feel like maybe even just breaking down what the positive connotation comes from and why it's in people's self. This is really what I was thinking about, is like, why is it in people's self interest to open source things that they made and that might break apart the allure or sort of ethical halo that it has around it? And I was thinking it probably has something to do with, oh, this is like how if you're a tech person who makes some cool product, you could try to put a gate around it by keeping it closed source and maybe trying to get intellectual property or something. But probably you're extremely talented already, or pretty wealthy. Definitely can be hired in the future. And if you're not wealthy yet I don't mean to put things in just materialist terms, but basically it could easily be just like in a yeah, I think I'll probably take that bit out because I didn't mean to put it in strictly like monetary terms, but basically it just seems like pretty plausibly in an arbitrary tech person's self interest, broadly construed to, in fact, open source their thing, which is totally fine and normal.HOLLY: I think that's like 99 it's like a way of showing magnanimity showing, but.AARON: I don't make this sound so like, I think 99.9% of human behavior is like this. I'm not saying it's like, oh, it's some secret, terrible self interested thing, but just making it more mechanistic. Okay, it's like it's like a status thing. It's like an advertising thing. It's like, okay, you're not really in need of direct economic rewards, or sort of makes sense to play the long game in some sense, and this is totally normal and fine, but at the end of the day, there's reasons why it makes sense, why it's in people's self interest to open source.HOLLY: Literally, the culture of open source has been able to bully people into, like, oh, it's immoral to keep it for yourself. You have to release those. So it's just, like, set the norms in a lot of ways, I'm not the bully. Sounds bad, but I mean, it's just like there is a lot of pressure. It looks bad if something is closed source.AARON: Yeah, it's kind of weird that Meta I don't know, does Meta really think it's in their I don't know. Most economic take on this would be like, oh, they somehow think it's in their shareholders interest to open source.HOLLY: There are a lot of speculations on why they're doing this. One is that? Yeah, their models aren't as good as the top labs, but if it's open source, then open source quote, unquote then people will integrate it llama Two into their apps. Or People Will Use It And Become I don't know, it's a little weird because I don't know why using llama Two commits you to using llama Three or something, but it just ways for their models to get in in places where if you just had to pay for their models too, people would go for better ones. That's one thing. Another is, yeah, I guess these are too speculative. I don't want to be seen repeating them since I'm about to do this purchase. But there's speculation that it's in best interests in various ways to do this. I think it's possible also that just like so what happened with the release of Llama One is they were going to allow approved people to download the weights, but then within four days somebody had leaked Llama One on four chan and then they just were like, well, whatever, we'll just release the weights. And then they released Llama Two with the weights from the beginning. And it's not like 100% clear that they intended to do full open source or what they call Open source. And I keep saying it's not open source because this is like a little bit of a tricky point to make. So I'm not emphasizing it too much. So they say that they're open source, but they're not. The algorithms are not open source. There are open source ML models that have everything open sourced and I don't think that that's good. I think that's worse. So I don't want to criticize them for that. But they're saying it's open source because there's all this goodwill associated with open source. But actually what they're doing is releasing the product for free or like trade secrets even you could say like things that should be trade secrets. And yeah, they're telling people how to make it themselves. So it's like a little bit of a they're intentionally using this label that has a lot of positive connotations but probably according to Open Source Initiative, which makes the open Source license, it should be called something else or there should just be like a new category for LLMs being but I don't want things to be more open. It could easily sound like a rebuke that it should be more open to make that point. But I also don't want to call it Open source because I think Open source software should probably does deserve a lot of its positive connotation, but they're not releasing the part, that the software part because that would cut into their business. I think it would be much worse. I think they shouldn't do it. But I also am not clear on this because the Open Source ML critics say that everyone does have access to the same data set as Llama Two. But I don't know. Llama Two had 7 billion tokens and that's more than GPT Four. And I don't understand all of the details here. It's possible that the tokenization process was different or something and that's why there were more. But Meta didn't say what was in the longitude data set and usually there's some description given of what's in the data set that led some people to speculate that maybe they're using private data. They do have access to a lot of private data that shouldn't be. It's not just like the common crawl backup of the Internet. Everybody's basing their training on that and then maybe some works of literature they're not supposed to. There's like a data set there that is in question, but metas is bigger than bigger than I think well, sorry, I don't have a list in front of me. I'm not going to get stuff wrong, but it's bigger than kind of similar models and I thought that they have access to extra stuff that's not public. And it seems like people are asking if maybe that's part of the training set. But yeah, the ML people would have or the open source ML people that I've been talking to would have believed that anybody who's decent can just access all of the training sets that they've all used.AARON: Aside, I tried to download in case I'm guessing, I don't know, it depends how many people listen to this. But in one sense, for a competent ML engineer, I'm sure open source really does mean that. But then there's people like me. I don't know. I knew a little bit of R, I think. I feel like I caught on the very last boat where I could know just barely enough programming to try to learn more, I guess. Coming out of college, I don't know, a couple of months ago, I tried to do the thing where you download Llama too, but I tried it all and now I just have like it didn't work. I have like a bunch of empty folders and I forget got some error message or whatever. Then I tried to train my own tried to train my own model on my MacBook. It just printed. That's like the only thing that a language model would do because that was like the most common token in the training set. So anyway, I'm just like, sorry, this is not important whatsoever.HOLLY: Yeah, I feel like torn about this because I used to be a genomicist and I used to do computational biology and it was not machine learning, but I used a highly parallel GPU cluster. And so I know some stuff about it and part of me wants to mess around with it, but part of me feels like I shouldn't get seduced by this. I am kind of worried that this has happened in the AI safety community. It's always been people who are interested in from the beginning, it was people who are interested in singularity and then realized there was this problem. And so it's always been like people really interested in tech and wanting to be close to it. And I think we've been really influenced by our direction, has been really influenced by wanting to be where the action is with AI development. And I don't know that that was right.AARON: Not personal, but I guess individual level I'm not super worried about people like you and me losing the plot by learning more about ML on their personal.HOLLY: You know what I mean? But it does just feel sort of like I guess, yeah, this is maybe more of like a confession than, like a point. But it does feel a little bit like it's hard for me to enjoy in good conscience, like, the cool stuff.AARON: Okay. Yeah.HOLLY: I just see people be so attached to this as their identity. They really don't want to go in a direction of not pursuing tech because this is kind of their whole thing. And what would they do if we weren't working toward AI? This is a big fear that people express to me with they don't say it in so many words usually, but they say things like, well, I don't want AI to never get built about a pause. Which, by the way, just to clear up, my assumption is that a pause would be unless society ends for some other reason, that a pause would eventually be lifted. It couldn't be forever. But some people are worried that if you stop the momentum now, people are just so luddite in their insides that we would just never pick it up again. Or something like that. And, yeah, there's some identity stuff that's been expressed. Again, not in so many words to me about who will we be if we're just sort of like activists instead of working on.AARON: Maybe one thing that we might actually disagree on. It's kind of important is whether so I think we both agree that Aipause is better than the status quo, at least broadly, whatever. I know that can mean different things, but yeah, maybe I'm not super convinced, actually, that if I could just, like what am I trying to say? Maybe at least right now, if I could just imagine the world where open eye and Anthropic had a couple more years to do stuff and nobody else did, that would be better. I kind of think that they are reasonably responsible actors. And so I don't k

It's our last podcast of the year! Thank you all for joining my journey in starting this podcast. As a reminder, I'll take some time off before restarting episodes in 2024. Don't forget to fill out this short form if you have ideas for what you'd like to see.This week's fun trade-off is:For our last guest of 2023, I'm welcoming Sarah Oh to the podcast.Sarah is a human rights expert and tech executive who has worked at Meta, Twitter, and, most recently, Pebble. Pebble worked a lot like Twitter, but one thing Sarah and the other co-founders were adamant about was building the platform with a human-rights and safety-first approach. While Pebble did shut down a few weeks ago (the success of Threads really hurt their ability to grow and get funding), there are a lot of lessons to be learned from their experiences. Sarah's co-founder, Gabor Cselle, covered some of his lessons learned in this Medium post, and Sarah talks about what she learned in the podcast.Enjoy! Get full access to Anchor Change with Katie Harbath at anchorchange.substack.com/subscribe

IntroAt the gracious invitation of AI Safety Twitter-fluencer Sarah Hastings-Woodhouse, I appeared on the very first episode of her new podcast “Consistently Candid” to debate moral realism (or something kinda like that, I guess; see below) with fellow philosophy nerd and EA Twitter aficionado Max Alexander, alongside Sarah as moderator and judge of sorts.What I believeIn spite of the name of the episode and the best of my knowledge/understanding a few days ago, it turns out my stance may not be ~genuine~ moral realism. Here's my basic meta-ethical take:* Descriptive statements that concern objective relative goodness or badness (e.g., "it is objectively for Sam to donate $20 than to buy an expensive meal that costs $20 more than a similar, less fancy meal”) can be and sometimes are true; but* Genuinely normative claims like “Sam should (!) donate $20 and should not buy that fancy meal” are never objectively true.Of course the label per se doesn't really matter. But for a bunch of reasons it still seems wise to figure out which label really does work best.Some definitionsStanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Moral realists are those who think that, in these respects, things should be taken at face value—moral claims do purport to report facts and are true if they get the facts right. Moreover, they hold, at least some moral claims actually are true. That much is the common and more or less defining ground of moral realism (although some accounts of moral realism see it as involving additional commitments, say to the independence of the moral facts from human thought and practice, or to those facts being objective in some specified way).Wikipedia:The robust model of moral realism commits moral realists to three theses:* The semantic thesis: The primary semantic role of moral predicates (such as "right" and "wrong") is to refer to moral properties (such as rightness and wrongness), so that moral statements (such as "honesty is good" and "slavery is unjust") purport to represent moral facts, and express propositions that are true or false (or approximately true, largely false, and so on).* The alethic thesis: Some moral propositions are in fact true.* The metaphysical thesis: Moral propositions are true when actions and other objects of moral assessment have the relevant moral properties (so that the relevant moral facts obtain), where these facts and properties are robust: their metaphysical status, whatever it is, is not relevantly different from that of (certain types of) ordinary non-moral facts and properties.And to settle the matter, here's what some LLM have to say.My prompt:Suppose a person believes the following:1: Descriptive statements that concern objective relative goodness or badness (e.g., "it is objectively for Sam to donate $20 than to buy an expensive meal that costs $20 more than a similar, less fancy meal”) can be and sometimes are true; but 2: Genuinely normative claims like “Sam should donate $20 and should not buy that fancy meal” are never objectively true.Is this person best categorized as a moral realist?ChatGPTGiven these two beliefs, the person's stance doesn't align completely with traditional moral realism, which typically asserts that there are objective truths about both moral facts (like the goodness or badness of actions) and moral duties (what one should or should not do). However, it also doesn't fully align with moral anti-realism, since the person believes in some form of objective truth regarding moral value.One possible categorization for this stance could be a form of "value realism" combined with "normative anti-realism" or "normative subjectivism." This would mean that the person believes in objective truths about what is better or worse (value realism) but thinks that what one ought to do (normative claims) is not a matter of objective truth but perhaps of subjective judgment or societal conventions.This position is quite sophisticated and might be best understood as a hybrid or intermediate position in the landscape of moral philosophy, rather than fitting neatly into the category of moral realism or its standard alternatives.Great, so much for trying to fit things into nice little buckets.Claude, fortunately, is more definitive:No, the view described is not best categorized as moral realism. Here's why:Moral realism is the view that there are objective moral facts or truths. A moral realist believes that some moral claims, including normative claims about what one should or shouldn't do, can be objectively and mind-independently true.The view in the example accepts that there can be objective truths about relative degrees of goodness or badness (claim 1). However, it denies that there are objective normative truths about what one should or shouldn't do (claim 2). By rejecting that genuine normative 'should/shouldn't' claims can be objectively true, the view denies a key commitment of moral realism - namely that moral claims can state objective normative facts. At best it allows for objective evaluative facts about goodness/badness, not prescriptive facts about obligations.So this view would be more accurately categorized as a form of moral anti-realism like non-cognitivism or error theory. It does not qualify as moral realism because of its rejection of the existence of objective normative truths that could make strong normative claims justified or true. The commitment to objective evaluative facts alone does not sufficiently qualify the view as realist in the metaethical sense.In summary, the view accepts objective "good/bad" facts but denies objective "should/shouldn't" facts. This combination puts it at odds with core commitments of moral realism, so it is better seen as an anti-realist view.I'm gonna disagree with Claude here, at least in that the bolded claim above (objective normative facts are a key part of moral realism) just seems…wrong? Like all the definitions could replace the term “moral fact” or “moral claim” with “normative fact” and “normative claim” but they do not!So I really don't have a great answer to which label works best. One of two ~human level chatbots giving me a definitive-sounding “anti-realism” answer is too much evidence for me, whose only formal philosophy training is an undergrad minor, to rule that one out. There are also good arguments, I think, for the “realist label,” as well as for “neither” (i.e., ‘secret third thing'). In fact all of these seem pretty similar in terms of argument convincingness/correctness. So, in sum,

At DoorGrow, we have organized our clients into Tribes to provide them with connections, community, and support. In today's episode, property management growth experts Jason and Sarah Hull quickly talk about the importance of having these kinds of connections and being socially active as a property management entrepreneur. You'll Learn [01:16] Why we created DoorGrow Tribes [03:08] Find people on your same path [04:54] The neighbor strategy [06:04] In-person events for property managers Tweetables “You go faster together.” “It's really surprising to me how many property management business owners do not know anybody else that does property management.” “You need somebody you can look up to somebody that's ahead of you.” “The in-between moments at conferences, events where you get to connect with people, make friends are probably the most impactful.” Resources DoorGrow and Scale Mastermind DoorGrow Academy DoorGrow on YouTube DoorGrowClub DoorGrowLive TalkRoute Referral Link Transcript [00:00:00] Jason: It's really surprising to me how many property management business owners do not know anybody else that does property management. [00:00:07] They don't really have a relationship or friendship. They're not connected.  [00:00:13] All right. Welcome DoorGrow property managers to the DoorGrow show. If you are a property management entrepreneur that wants to add doors, make a difference, increase revenue, help others impact lives, and you are interested in growing in business and life, and you're open to doing things a bit differently, then you are a DoorGrow property manager. [00:00:33] DoorGrow property managers love the opportunities, daily variety, unique challenges, and freedom that property management brings. Many in real estate think you're crazy for doing it. You think they're crazy for not, because you realize that property management is the ultimate, high trust gateway to real estate deals, relationships, and residual income. [00:00:53] At DoorGrow, we are on a mission to transform property management business owners and their businesses. We want to transform the industry, eliminate the BS, build awareness, change perception, expand the market, and help the best property management entrepreneurs win. I'm your host, property management growth expert, Jason Hull, the founder and CEO of DoorGrow, along with Sarah Hull, co owner and COO of DoorGrow. [00:01:16] Now let's get into the show. All right, today's topic, we were chatting about what we should talk about, and we're about to head out on a trip. Where are we going?  [00:01:25] Sarah: We are going to Salt Lake City, Utah. And what are we doing? We're doing a tribe event with our clients.  [00:01:31] Jason: Okay. She's excited.  [00:01:33] Sarah: I am so excited. This is our first one. We're kicking it off live.  [00:01:36] Jason: All right. So we've organized our clients into tribes because we've got this awesome, amazing mastermind, and we wanted people to be able to get to know each other because this Is really important. The in between moments at conferences, events where you get to connect with people, make friends are probably the most impactful and maybe even profit evoking in like instances in interactions that you have at the entire event a lot of times. And so we want to really facilitate those for our clients and get them connected and get them creating some relationships. So we're going to be doing something fun. We are. Yeah. So what's the agenda? Why don't we tell them?  [00:02:15] Sarah: Yeah. So we're just hanging out. We're spending a full day together. So our clients decided where we were going. We had all of our clients submit their ideas for a location and then what we're doing when we're there, like some sort of activity. And then everyone voted and this was the one with the most votes. So off we go. So we are going hiking in Little Cottonwood Canyon.  [00:02:37] Jason: Okay. Yeah. And I hear it's beautiful. So it's going to be awesome. So we're going to see that. Everybody's going to be mixing a little bit of business in there and we're going to be having some good conversations and my intention while I'm there is just to benefit everybody that shows up as much as I can as coach. Right. And I'm sure that's Sarah's goal as well.  [00:02:56] And we've got to go catch a flight. So we're going to keep this really brief. It's going to be a short episode. So, why is it important to have a tribe or to have friends or to have connections in your industry as an entrepreneur?  [00:03:08] Sarah: Oh, it's so important, and in fact, studies have shown that this is arguably the most important thing that you can do so that you can be successful in your business and in your growth and in your life is just be connected to other people who are working on similar things and like on a similar path and they're growth minded. And a lot of people unfortunately don't have that. [00:03:34] So we provide that in our mastermind.  [00:03:37] Jason: A lot of you have heard the phrase, they say that you're the sum of the five people that you spend the most time with, and I think this is true in property management, your business and your relationship with your business will be the sum of the five property management business owners that you are the most connected to. [00:03:53] And so somebody they can also support. You know, you need these relationships. You need somebody you can look up to somebody that's ahead of you, and we definitely have people that are ahead of others in our mastermind, and then you want people that are on the same path as you, because a lot of the people, like if you've got 200 doors and you're trying to hang around people with a thousand doors, yes, you'll learn some stuff. [00:04:12] But also the game's changed. And the things that you need to do right now to grow your business are different than how they grew their business probably 10, 20 years ago, some of these guys or gals, right? And so you need to be doing what's current. And a lot of times they're watching you to see what the next thing is or they use you as the guinea pig. [00:04:30] They don't want to make big sweeping changes or mistakes. Small companies, you're more nimble. You get to experiment. You get to do cool new things. And we do a lot of cool new things at DoorGrow with our clients. And so you need at least five friends. And it's really surprising to me how many property management business owners do not know anybody else that does property management. [00:04:51] They don't really have a relationship or friendship. They're not connected. And we've been focused on this strategy of the neighbor strategy. Which you can check out by going to neighborstrategy. Com. If you'd like to get access to this free training, it's really cool. And it gets you connected to your neighbors. [00:05:07] And it helps you both make more money and get each other more business. It's a no brainer. It's one of our favorite growth strategies. And we've got two of our clients are in the Salt Lake area and they've been handing business back and forth to each other. One does focus on more on focuses more on short term, one focuses more long term and they've been feeding each other business using this neighbor strategy. [00:05:30] And it's not just sending business back and forth. It's a little bit deeper than that. And I teach you how to convert cold leads that might come in that you can field for or give to other people into a 90 percent close rate, warm lead. And so check this training out. You want to give this to all of your neighbors, get them to do it, and you're going to make a lot more money and they're just going to feed you business. [00:05:49] Warm leads, 90 percent close rate, easy stuff to close. Really cool. So go out and get some neighbors and maybe join the DoorGrow mastermind and get into our tribe groups and start coming to our events and make some connections. Anything else we need to say about it?  [00:06:04] Sarah: I don't think so. I think we're excited about all of the things that we're doing cause we're rolling out a couple of different styles of events. [00:06:11] Of course we're keeping our main one, our DoorGrow live. We're going to do that once a year. It'll be every May. So mark your calendars. It'll be every May. And then in the meantime, in the interim, like for our clients, we want to provide an opportunity for at least once a quarter for us to get together, like in person. [00:06:28] So the DoorGrowLive will always be an Austin. The tribe events, it's like once a quarter, we have the opportunity to just get some face time and get some time around each other. [00:06:38] And I feel like every time we do an event like this, the group that attends, they're just so bonded and it's like awesome to see. So we did an event back in. April and then in May we had our DoorGrow live and a lot of the people who attended our April event also attended DoorGrow live and they were like their own little like pod of people. [00:06:59] They were messaging each other like in the old group and. Because you just get so like, comfortable around each other and it allows you to really like create a relationship and a connection that's not on the screen because that's like the thing now everybody's like, "Oh, I like, this is how I socialize with people is on a screen," that it's not like genuine real connection. [00:07:19] Like it's very different when you're like face to face with someone and you can. Like feel their energy. That's really hard. Unless you're Roya Mattis, that's really hard to do through a screen.  [00:07:29] Jason: Cool. All right. So make sure you start getting around some property managers and get connected to some business owners because as entrepreneurs, we kind of isolate. [00:07:38] We feel alone a lot of times, especially in the early stages of our entrepreneurial journey. Eventually you realize the fastest way forward is to be connected. It's masterminds, it's coaches. It's getting connected with other people. It's allowing other ideas. It's not all available on YouTube and reading a book and stuff you can just do on your own. [00:07:57] Right? You go faster together. So let's get together. So that's our message today. And until next time to our mutual growth, check us out at DoorGrow.com. We would love to support you and your growth and move you through the DoorGrow code. If you go there, there's a free training. If you click the pink button on the homepage and you can learn all about what we do, how it can help you grow, book a call with our team and watch a whole bunch of testimonials and case studies of people that are scaling the shit out of their businesses. So we'll talk to hopefully you soon because you deserve this and you should be moving your business forward and should stop feeling frustrated, tired, and drained by your business. This should be fun. You should be making a lot of money. All right. That's enough. Talk to you soon. [00:08:39] Bye everyone. [00:08:40] you just listened to the #DoorGrowShow. We are building a community of the savviest property management entrepreneurs on the planet in the DoorGrowClub. Join your fellow DoorGrow Hackers at doorgrowclub.com. Listen, everyone is doing the same stuff. SEO, PPC, pay-per-lead content, social direct mail, and they still struggle to grow!  [00:09:07] At DoorGrow, we solve your biggest challenge: getting deals and growing your business. Find out more at doorgrow.com. Find any show notes or links from today's episode on our blog doorgrow.com, and to get notified of future events and news subscribe to our newsletter at doorgrow.com/subscribe. Until next time, take what you learn and start DoorGrow Hacking your business and your life.

At DoorGrow, we love showing off the awesome entrepreneurial people we get to coach and work with every day. In today's episode, property management growth experts Jason and Sarah Hull sit down with DoorGrow clients Jill Lyons and Alex Platt to talk about their journey in property management and with DoorGrow. You'll Learn [03:00] Starting a journey with coaching [07:26] Finding support as an entrepreneur [12:18] The path to success is hard work [16:54] Getting out of the business [19:28] The importance of good company culture [21:20] The impact of coaching Tweetables “Done is better than perfect.” “The more valuable you are to your business, the less valuable your business is.” “If you don't mind working, you don't set up boundaries.” “Just being open to the thought and the idea is enough to make it work.” Resources DoorGrow and Scale Mastermind DoorGrow Academy DoorGrow on YouTube DoorGrowClub DoorGrowLive TalkRoute Referral Link Transcript [00:00:00] Jason: The more valuable you are to your business, the less valuable your business is. Ooh, like that one.  [00:00:07] Welcome DoorGrow property managers to the #DoorGrowShow. If you are a property management entrepreneur that wants to add doors, make a difference, increase revenue, help others, impact lives, and you're interested in growing in business and life, and you're open to doing things a bit differently, then you are a DoorGrow property manager. DoorGrow property managers love the opportunities, daily variety, unique challenges, and freedom that property management brings. Many in real estate think you're crazy for doing it. You think they're crazy for not because you realize that property management is the ultimate, high trust gateway to real estate deals, relationships, and residual income. [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 along with Sarah Hull, co owner and COO of DoorGrow. Now let's get into the show. [00:01:13] Our guests today... we've got Jill and Alex. Jill Lyons. Alex, what's your last name? Platt. Okay. I just know he's always with Jill, Alex. So we're really glad to have you on the show. And the topic of today's episode is like, we want to talk about your journey with DoorGrow because you've been with us for a little bit. So, why don't you introduce yourself and explain like kind of how you got into property management.  [00:01:39] Jill: Well, I must've taken an insane pill along the way, but I like it. My name is Jill Lyons and I own and I'm broker of Relaxed Realty Group in Sarasota, Florida. Currently we manage about 500 homes. We have like maybe 520 now and our rent roll, we just surpassed 800,000 this month, so I'm stoked and happy and proud. And you know, I love the business. There's never a day that's not that I feel like, "Oh my gosh, it's, you know, Monday." I never feel like that. So it's every day is a joy. Not every instant is a joy, but every day is a joy.  [00:02:12] Jason: So let's Alex, why don't you introduce yourself and tell us what is your role?  [00:02:17] Alex: So, my name is Alex and I've worked with Jill here just over a year and a half, or going on almost two years when I got my real estate license. My wife started with Jill, Miranda, and she's been with Jill for what, 10 years now? Started with a business with her and I do the operations here. So operations and BDM.  [00:02:38] Jason: Awesome. Okay, cool.  [00:02:41] Jill: So he came from a customer service background with T Mobile for the last 10 years. It's great. Corporate's a great, but there's a lot more opportunity here and oh my God, he's great with people. Of course He's not " to brag about himself. So I'll brag about him. So he will put on multiple hats and do everything that whatever needs to be done.  [00:03:00] Jason: Cool. Yeah, you guys make a good team. We've enjoyed having you in the program. So why don't we start with what problem problems were you dealing with when you first came to DoorGrow? Like what challenges were going on?  [00:03:14] Jill: So I would say my strengths are that I love to sell and talk to people and help people. So, you know, that was naturally there and I grew the business with success with growing doors. And I was in a kind of a comfortable, I would say position as. Having a good amount of owners and properties, but I want to start exiting the business and it was just way too 'me centered,' you know, what do we do? What do we do with people coming to me? You know, I don't mind working. Like I say, so unfortunately, if you don't mind working, you don't set up boundaries, you don't set up corporate structures. My flow, there was nothing corporate about me. [00:03:49] If I wanted to step away, which I did this year, hired the operations manager, but I'm like, now what? And now what do you do? I'm an engineer by education. All I know how to do is build a spreadsheet and show people returns. So I was looking for ...I always believed in coaches. I've been coached since day one of my business. [00:04:07] So coaching is definitely something I believe in, but the coaching company I used was really just real estate working with buyers and sellers. So I hadn't ever got the property management business aspect of it and setting up the business and the structure. So when you watched one of your podcasts and listened to your podcast, and I liked what you had to say, so I-- "let's let them get us to that next level." [00:04:32] Jason: Watch the podcast, listen to the podcast, and now you're on the podcast.  [00:04:36] Jill: I know, I'm like, what do I have to offer? That's the first thing, I'm still listening and learning.  [00:04:42] Jason: You know, there's a lot of people listening out there that would dream of having 520 doors, having an amazing operator, having the operations running smoothly and being on your journey, stepping out of the business, like this, that's a dream for a lot of property managers. [00:04:58] They're still in the thick of the mud and wondering if there's a light at the end of the tunnel.  [00:05:03] Jill: So they don't believe that I'm going to step out.  [00:05:05] Alex: She's a workaholic. So, you know, it's a little bit of yin and yang.  [00:05:09] Jason: You know, entrepreneurs, it's a tough thing. I've known a few entrepreneurs that have like exited their business and then they were bored and they started another business. It happens. So entrepreneurs, we want to stay busy and we want to do the things we really enjoy doing. So you just have to find something you maybe enjoy doing more.  [00:05:29] Jill: I don't know. Yeah, no, I'm not closed to what's next, but I don't know. I'm still here.  [00:05:35] Jason: So let's chat about, and maybe this is a question for Alex. So Alex what did you see when you first came into the business? Some of the challenges in how to like support Jill and how to get her out of the operational stuff. And what challenges did you see that DoorGrow so far been able to help with?  [00:05:54] Alex: So luckily with your program we got to revamp everything. I mean, your Rapid Revamp was amazing. I mean, we got to go from rebuilding and rebranding our logo and everything. So I really enjoyed your class, especially with the whole cycle of suck, making sure that you're not holding onto those owners that are sucking up all your time and, you know, using. A lot of your resource when it comes down to it. I would say those were the biggest things and especially your systems that you have. I mean, I think the Flow is going to help a lot for us to map out each and every one of our procedures that we have on an operational standpoint.  [00:06:33] Jason: Okay. So for those listening, DoorGrow Flow, our process software, which is pretty cool. So the Rapid Revamp, I mean, and you guys made a lot of changes. Yes. Changed your pricing.  [00:06:43] Alex: We changed our name.  [00:06:44] Jill: You changed the name. I said I would never, ever do that!  [00:06:49] Sarah: She's like " I'm not rebranding." I'm like, "okay, we don't have to rebrand." And then she's like, "I think I'm going to rebrand." I was like, "wow! All right, let's do it."  [00:06:58] Jason: Everybody says they don't want to do it. But what I love about entrepreneurs is that if you show them how to make more money, they're pretty okay with it. They're pretty okay with making more money. So, and I think the training, we do a good job in converting people into wanting to make more money. "Here's how it'll make you more money if you do the right things with your branding." So website. Did we help with that?  [00:07:23] Alex: We're almost there. We're on the tail end of that portion of it.  [00:07:26] Jason: So for those that have not been exposed to DoorGrow. Maybe they're just listening to this podcast. They're like, "I don't know if these guys are legit. Kind of looks like some sort of one of these Influencer sort of guys," or I don't know what people think before they become a client but what would you say to those that are on the other side of the paywall and maybe struggling?  [00:07:51] Jill: For me, honestly, if I would have found this 10 years ago, it would have happened faster, my growth and where I am now would have happened faster and more organized. I kind of wing it and I'm the type that, you know, I don't want to spend any money unless a bunch of sitting in the bank. And I probably, if I would have opened up the bank and gotten the coaching and the programs from a property management company versus just from, you know, where I got my assistance from, which I had when I did buying and selling, which I hate it. So I kind of kept my things rather than going into property management coaching and training. It would have definitely made it faster and less painful, and I would say that's the biggest thing that I wish I would have found you sooner, but you know, you always find people when you're supposed to find them and entrepreneurs tend not to be, in my opinion, people that go to business school because they just want to do it. They jump in head first. There's no rhyme or reason to how we do it. So the organization is usually where we struggle the most. And just networking and having the beginning, I just went to Google and figured everything out on my own, rather than reaching out to an organization like yours, that's more specific for us and NARPM, which, you know connected me to other property managers and how are they doing it? And why did I have to create the wheel and do it all my way? I didn't even know that there was anything like this.  [00:09:16] Jason: Yeah. And you had been in NARPM for a while before joining DoorGrow.  [00:09:20] Jill: Yeah. I'm heavily involved in NARPM. I'm the president of our local chapter. So that definitely has made helped my business, and the connection and they have a lot of tools that have helped me significantly realize that it is a business and with systems. But but there isn't the sales support, you know, they don't have you, Jason. It's not energetic and make me go, "yes! I'm going to do it!" With you and with everybody around! You know, it's just like the connections.  [00:09:48] Jason: Yeah. I know you have both really enjoyed the operational pieces as well, and you've attended quite a few of our scale calls on Friday that Sarah runs. What what things have you taken away from on the operational side of things? [00:10:04] Jill: So what would you say, because you deal with that more? I kind of say, go do it.  [00:10:07] Alex: So, I take a lot of the way, honestly, you guys definitely on those calls go over a lot of different systems that are in other people's companies, to be honest. And we try to take piece by piece and just kind of make it our own when it comes to this. I think it's developing more of the systems that we have. As far as like a specific system, I think we talked about maintenance heavily. And the processes over how other companies do it and what we do with our maintenance. So it's kind of getting every pieces of everybody's input on that stuff to kind of lay out what maybe we should change, you know? [00:10:45] Jill: I will say that as far as operational, we were in pretty good shape with that. It's not technicalogical. So you have DoorGrow flow. I'm just talking with Errol tomorrow. So it's been on my list of things to do this whole year to set up flow and get that going so that it's more clear how we do things because when we have a new employee, I can't just hand them, "these are our thing," we have to manually tell them or give them a checklist, which doesn't really help. So, I have to hire Errol cause it stays on my list every single month and it hasn't been done. That's what I'm going to pass the buck on versus the website. I'd like to do the marketing. So we need to finish all of this by the end of the year. That's on our list. Does it check the list? We're at the last, getting to the last quarter. So you give us the tools. It's just setting it up. That takes a lot of time and concentration time. And Errol seemed to be I met him at DoorGrow live, you know, in Texas. And yeah, he was talking about processes and creating them. Like I talked about property management, so he's going to be our guy. I'll see how it goes.  [00:11:47] Alex: We have a lot in our heads, obviously. So, that's getting it all down to where if somebody needs to know something, it's much easier.  [00:11:56] Jason: Yeah we're planning on doing some more stuff with Errol Allen, who Jill's speaking with, and he's currently playing around with our DoorGrow flow software and testing it out as well. [00:12:05] So I think it's going to be a game changer for the market. So Sarah's had a lot of interaction, I think, with the two of you. What's been your perception of why they do so well as clients?  [00:12:18] Sarah: Oh, well, so there's a few things that I'd like to kind of. Point out and give you guys like major kudos on. First is, I think you're just open. Sometimes we have people who are very resistant. They're like, " that won't work," and "I'm not going to do it like this," and "I can't do this," and "that's not in my market," right? And I think the difference is just being open to the thought and the idea is enough to make it work because if you go into something and you think, "oh, this won't work," well, you're probably right. Then it's not going to work. But you guys are very open and you also, I love this about you guys, you take action. You just come in and you're like, "this is what we're going to do," and then you take action, you implement and you get it done. I think, to date, they are the fastest people who have completed everything in the Rapid Revamp. Like, they get a medal for that. Like, every time, they're like, "yep, we're done with this," I'm like, "oh, wow, okay!" They just get it done. It's like they just put their heads down. They know what they need to do. They put in the work and they get it done and then they go, "okay, great, we did that. What do we need now? Like what's the next thing that we can do to either like build on top of that or like take us to the next level? And I think you guys are really great at that. And I think you, you work very well together. You know, you balance each other out. You like ping well back and forth, back together, and I think that gives you the ability to move things along so quickly.  [00:13:44] Alex: It's great to have ideas that we can bounce off of each other and make it a solid process and get it out of the way and move on to the next one.  [00:13:52] Jill: Well, and I love a checklist. So you have a checklist. I want to see checks on there. I don't want to see them open. So I think that myself, I can be more reactionary property management. Our phone is always ringing. Things are always happening. You know, I can easily not get anything accomplished in a day and be busy the whole day. So with the Rapid Revamp it has me be on track along with handling the things that come on you know all day but I have to get my things done  [00:14:18] Alex: And the nice thing about your dashboard was the fact that you could assign things, we would take them and split them up and be like, "okay, you're going to do these and they're assigned to you" and then I could assign ones to me so we can you know, handle what we needed to.  [00:14:30] Jason: Cool. [00:14:31] Sarah: Yeah. Yeah. I think that was really awesome just to see you guys because every time I check in with you, you're like, "Oh, yeah, we're done with that already." Like, okay, let's see what's the next thing for you guys? And you already knew! You were never like, "Hey, I don't know what I'm supposed to be doing. Like, you just like stayed the course. And sometimes it's hard for entrepreneurs to do because there's so many shiny objects. There's so many of them, right? Like, "Hey, I'm coming in, I'm doing this one thing and that's it," and then along the way, there's like some other little thing that's like, "Hey, I need your attention." [00:15:04] And it's so tempting to go, "Ooh, but I could focus on that." Like, " let me just go over here for a second," and like, you guys just stayed the course. You like stay on point. And I think that's that's something I really have to give you guys like a huge compliment on because it's hard to do that. It's really difficult to do that. And you guys do it really well.  [00:15:25] Jill: Thank you.  [00:15:26] Jason: Yeah. And so you've interacted with several of our team members, right? It's not just the Jason show or the Jason and Sarah show. And I think that's what a lot of people think. Could you just comment a little bit on DoorGrow's team? You don't have to remember everybody's names, but yeah.  [00:15:43] Jill: Well the two that I've probably enjoyed the most is Clint. He's like the coolest surfer dude in the whole wide world, but he's sharp as a tack. You know, "we're just going to buy a $5 million company." He's the exact person to teach you how to be cool and do acquisitions and whatnot. [00:16:03] And that you can see why he's so successful because he's a joy to listen to.  [00:16:07] Jason: Yeah, he's fun.  [00:16:08] Jill: And ironically considering an acquisition in the middle of all listening to him and he took his time out, sent me a lot of information and questions I should ask and what due diligence I should do. So, I mean, his wealth of all the years that he's done that, enticed in a few documents was, I could have never created that. And then Roya, she's a ball of energy and I'm all into manifesting and all that. So, I mean, not many people you can feel through a computer screen with their energy, you know, that's heard of talent that she has.  [00:16:43] Jason: Yeah, she's our dangerously powerful mindset coach. And teaches the advanced sales stuff. [00:16:51] She's yeah she's had quite an impact. Yeah.  [00:16:54] Jill: Yeah. For sure.  [00:16:56] I went to DoorGrow live, which was fantastic to connect with everybody. But thanks to DoorGrow and Alex being also trained as a DoorGrow. I'm taking my first three week vacation in 10 years.  [00:17:08] Jason: That's amazing. That's awesome. Yeah. Yeah. That's awesome. Your business will be in good hands with Alex and and we've got his back. So. For sure. So awesome. Yep. Property managers, if you're listening to this and you have not taken a significant vacation in the last five years, when's your turn? Maybe it's time to reach out and let us help you take- this is one of the most common things that we hear, especially this summer. [00:17:36] Lots of our clients are taking vacations like for the first time ever, or in the first time in a long time, or it's a longer vacation than they've been able to take.  [00:17:45] Sarah: Brandon and Mark, they took off the majority of July, both of them, took off the majority of July, and they're like, "things were fine, like things were okay," I'm like, "that's great, that's how it should work," and if we set it up that way, then things can work that way.  [00:18:01] Jason: For sure. Yeah, one of our mentors had this quote, I don't know where it came from, but he said, the more valuable you are to your business, the less valuable your business is. Ooh, like that one. So Jill's working on making herself less valuable to the business. I've made DoorGrow less of the Jason show, and we've got all these amazing coaches and yeah, and that's the goal, right? We're able to provide more value and it allows us to be more free as entrepreneurs. To do the things that we really enjoy doing and eventually maybe to do nothing. If that's really the goal. I don't know. Jill, will have to find something to do. She's going to trap the world. She'll think we're not going to do nothing. Exactly. We're not going to do nothing. I don't think Jill knows what to do.  [00:18:43] Jill: We just want freedom to not always to be working.  [00:18:46] Jason: There you go. Yeah.  [00:18:48] Sarah: You can choose the things you do.  [00:18:50] Jill: Yeah.  [00:18:51] Jason: Well, we've really appreciated having you both in the program. You know, the, Sarah mentioned about you, but what I've noticed is Jill, you have this gift of positivity, it seems to rub off on everyone around you. We've really enjoyed having you in the program. Everyone's like, "Oh, we love Jill." All of our coaches and team members love Jill. And you can see Alex has like got a positive, you know, energy going on as well. And so you've created a really good culture on your team and in your business. And I don't know if it's always been that way, but I know that's something that's important to us at DoorGrow is making sure everybody has good culture with their business and with their team. So can you touch on culture just a little bit? [00:19:30] Jill: Well, I think connection and culture is the most important thing. If I don't have it here, how is a client going to want to be attracted to us? You know, how is that going to work? You know, if you don't have a positive look on the industry, the business... I mean, this is anybody that calls us is frustrated with property management and say, "here, we love to do property management." They're like, "I need you!" [00:19:51] you know, tenants and everybody gets to complain to us and we have to listen to them and, you know, do our job, but in these walls of this company, we don't have to do that. We can vent to each other. We can laugh. We don't complain. We more laugh about situations than we do complain. And I think I've been a good leader as far as that goes. But I think that also because I have that energy, I want to attract that energy. And so those people are, who are working here and stay.  [00:20:18] Jason: I love that. I mean, I think having a culture in which complaining is not the norm. I mean, it's easy to complain in property management. Right? And I'm sure there's a lot of you listening that are like, " I complain all the time. I complain every day," like reducing that complaining in the business and creating a culture where the team don't see that it's totally okay to just complain all the time. Because if you're complaining about your clients, they're going to feel that. They're not going to want to work with somebody that's, they know is just going to be complaining about them behind their back. [00:20:47] And so I think that's really powerful. And I think that there's a lot of joking in property management, and I think if you can't laugh about it, then you're just going to be hurt by it, and so...  [00:20:58] Jill: and the only way you make a lot of money is to do the things that nobody wants to do. [00:21:02] Jason: There you go. And they will pay you a pretty penny to do it. [00:21:05] Alex: Yeah, we don't have one person that dreads coming to work every day. That's for sure. Everybody's like, "oh shoot. It's monday. Let's go!"  [00:21:11] Jill: We're a little family.  [00:21:13] Jason: Awesome. Yeah, I love that. You have a good culture. So, cool well, anything else we should chat about? What are the biggest takeaways you feel like you've gotten from being part of working with DoorGrow for those listening? [00:21:28] Jill: I think first of all to make sure that I express my purpose to everybody, you know, start with the person.  [00:21:34] Jason: Has that changed your close rate? Has that changed how clients respond to you?  [00:21:39] Jill: Oh, just overall being brave enough to start with that, you know, I always assume they don't care, you know they're not calling for my me personally, but they are, you know, and some would get to know me on a personal level over time, but I never started the conversation with that. [00:21:54] I always started it with "I love property management" and I think they could feel our energy, but not deep down what my life purpose is. So, and how I could tie that back into having them become our client. But it gets a personal, it makes it a personal fit right away or not.  [00:22:11] Jason: Yeah. They either trust your motives and like them or they don't, but they, at least they know what your motives are. Otherwise they're just going to assume you just want their money.  [00:22:20] Jill: Yeah. The name change was a huge one. And then the third, I think final one for me is. When you did your stack deck and it wasn't like perfectly animated with all these designs and it looked great. And I'm fine with it. I stopped judging my marketing to have to be the caliber of Coca Cola. [00:22:40] I don't have designers out there. I don't want to spend design. So just produce it and get it out there and make it look kind of quirky and we're quirky anyway. So I don't know why I was thinking that we had to be this high level, corporate marketing program in order for it to work.  [00:22:54] Jason: I think done is better than perfect for sure. [00:22:57] That's one of my  [00:22:57] Alex: favorite things is like, no, just get it complete and then we'll move on and we'll get the next thing done.  [00:23:03] Jason: Yeah. Done makes money. And you've made a lot of changes. You've gotten a lot of things done that are going to help shore up leaks that make you a lot more money. And. Yeah. A lot of people get really caught up on things being so perfect. [00:23:14] They don't get as nearly as much done. So kudos to both of you for implementing and taking action. So, well, we appreciate you coming and hanging out with us here on the show. What do you feel like, what are some tangible results besides the brand? Revenue doors, any other shifts that you've seen in the business since joining? [00:23:33] Jill: Well, we've gotten rid of a lot of the properties. I had the guts to say to a couple owners, you know, "You have to either sell this property or find another manager because it's too much of a liability. And I'm scared to because X Y Z and so should you." And obviously it's a great time to sell last year. So this is the time get to get a better asset, 1031 exchange it, or let's you know, we need to drop it by the end of the year. I didn't, you know, say we're going to drop you on 30 days, but they, most of them, most of those as a consulting, they trust us and know us and they sold those properties. We have two that are closing this week, our last two that are closing and we had problems. Yeah, problems. So we've gotten rid of a lot of problems since the beginning and liability issues, you know, you know, liabilities. So that's that's, I think our biggest deal and it's allowed other doors to come in. [00:24:28] It's amazing what you let go just energetically things will fill its place. So door wise, I would say we're at about the same, but revenue has gone up 20%.  [00:24:38] Alex: We've been getting higher-end properties instead of, you know, things that were D class properties that we didn't want.  [00:24:44] Jason: Love it. 20 percent more revenue. Awesome, that does not suck.  [00:24:48] Sarah: And getting rid of the problem, right?  [00:24:55] Jason: Well, we appreciate you being clients and we're super excited to see your progression through the DoorGrow code, and this business I think that could easily be at a thousand doors in the next two to three years. It's totally doable, especially if you start doing some of the acquisition deals, like it's going to be really interesting once you get some of these systems in place, then you're ready to just scale like crazy. So excited to see what you do. All right. Well then we'll go ahead and wrap up. Appreciate you being on the show. [00:25:25] Thanks for hanging out with us, Alex and Jill. Thank you. Great.  [00:25:29] For those listening, if you want to be like Alex and Jill and make good decisions and grow your business in a healthy way, and maybe increase your revenue 20%. aNd clean up your portfolio and optimize your sales pipeline so you make more money, more easily reach out to DoorGrow. [00:25:45] We would love to take a look at your business and see if we can help you. The answer is: we can... most likely and see if you'd be a good fit for our program. You can check us out at doorgrow. com. There's a big pink button on the home page says "I want to grow." click that. Do the three steps there to see if you'd be a good candidate to work with us, and until next time to our mutual growth. Bye everyone  [00:26:08] you just listened to the #DoorGrowShow. We are building a community of the savviest property management entrepreneurs on the planet in the DoorGrowClub. Join your fellow DoorGrow Hackers at doorgrowclub.com. Listen, everyone is doing the same stuff. SEO, PPC, pay-per-lead content, social direct mail, and they still struggle to grow!  [00:26:35] At DoorGrow, we solve your biggest challenge: getting deals and growing your business. Find out more at doorgrow.com. Find any show notes or links from today's episode on our blog doorgrow.com, and to get notified of future events and news subscribe to our newsletter at doorgrow.com/subscribe. Until next time, take what you learn and start DoorGrow Hacking your business and your life.

Note: I can't seem to edit or remove the “transcript” tab. I recommend you ignore that and just look at the much higher quality, slightly cleaned up one below. Most importantly, follow Sarah on Twitter! Summary (Written by chatGPT, as you can probably tell)In this episode of Pigeon Hour host Aaron delves deep into the world of AI safety with his guest, Sarah Woodhouse. Sarah shares her unexpected journey from fearing job automation to becoming a recognized voice on AI safety Twitter. Her story starts with a simple Google search that led her down a rabbit hole of existential dread and unexpected fame on social media. As she narrates her path from lurker to influencer, Sarah reflects on the quirky dynamics of the AI safety community, her own existential crisis, and the serendipitous tweet that resonated with thousands.Aaron and Sarah's conversation takes unexpected turns, discussing everything from the peculiarities of EA rationalists to the surprisingly serious topic of shrimp welfare. They also explore the nuances of AI doom probabilities, the social dynamics of tech Twitter, and Sarah's unexpected viral fame as a tween. This episode is a rollercoaster of insights and anecdotes, perfect for anyone interested in the intersection of technology, society, and the unpredictable journey of internet fame.Topics discussedDiscussion on AI Safety and Personal Journeys:* Aaron and Sarah discuss her path to AI safety, triggered by concerns about job automation and the realization that AI could potentially replace her work.* Sarah's deep dive into AI safety started with a simple Google search, leading her to Geoffrey Hinton's alarming statements, and eventually to a broader exploration without finding reassuring consensus.* Sarah's Twitter engagement began with lurking, later evolving into active participation and gaining an audience, especially after a relatable tweet thread about an existential crisis.* Aaron remarks on the rarity of people like Sarah, who follow the AI safety rabbit hole to its depths, considering its obvious implications for various industries.AI Safety and Public Perception:* Sarah discusses her surprise at discovering the AI safety conversation happening mostly in niche circles, often with a tongue-in-cheek attitude that could seem dismissive of the serious implications of AI risks.* The discussion touches on the paradox of AI safety: it's a critically important topic, yet it often remains confined within certain intellectual circles, leading to a lack of broader public engagement and awareness.Cultural Differences and Personal Interests:* The conversation shifts to cultural differences between the UK and the US, particularly in terms of sincerity and communication styles.* Personal interests, such as theater and musicals (like "Glee"), are also discussed, revealing Sarah's background and hobbies.Effective Altruism (EA) and Rationalist Communities:* Sarah points out certain quirks of the EA and rationalist communities, such as their penchant for detailed analysis, hedging statements, and the use of probabilities in discussions.* The debate around the use of "P(Doom)" (probability of doom) in AI safety discussions is critiqued, highlighting how it can be both a serious analytical tool and a potentially alienating jargon for outsiders.Shrimp Welfare and Ethical Considerations:* A detailed discussion on shrimp welfare as an ethical consideration in effective altruism unfolds, examining the moral implications and effectiveness of focusing on animal welfare at a large scale.* Aaron defends his position on prioritizing shrimp welfare in charitable giving, based on the principles of importance, tractability, and neglectedness.Personal Decision-Making in Charitable Giving:* Strategies for personal charitable giving are explored, including setting a donation cutoff point to balance moral obligations with personal needs and aspirations.TranscriptAARON: Whatever you want. Okay. Yeah, I feel like you said this on Twitter. The obvious thing is, how did you learn about AI safety? But maybe you've already covered that. That's boring. First of all, do you want to talk about that? Because we don't have to.SARAH: I don't mind talking about that.AARON: But it's sort of your call, so whatever. I don't know. Maybe briefly, and then we can branch out?SARAH: I have a preference for people asking me things and me answering them rather than me setting the agenda. So don't ever feel bad about just asking me stuff because I prefer that.AARON: Okay, cool. But also, it feels like the kind of thing where, of course, we have AI. Everyone already knows that this is just like the voice version of these four tweets or whatever. But regardless. Yes. So, Sarah, as Pigeon Hour guest, what was your path through life to AI safety Twitter?SARAH: Well, I realized that a chatbot could very easily do my job and that my employers either hadn't noticed this or they had noticed, but they were just being polite about it and they didn't want to fire me because they're too nice. And I was like, I should find out what AI development is going to be like over the next few years so that I know if I should go and get good at some other stuff.SARAH: I just had a little innocent Google. And then within a few clicks, I'd completely doom pilled myself. I was like, we're all going to die. I think I found Geoffrey Hinton because he was on the news at the time, because he just quit his job at Google. And he was there saying things that sounded very uncertain, very alarming. And I was like, well, he's probably the pessimist, but I'm sure that there are loads of optimists to counteract that because that's how it usually goes. You find a doomer and then you find a bunch of more moderate people, and then there's some consensus in the middle that everything's basically fine.SARAH: I was like, if I just keep looking, I'll find the consensus because it's there. I'm sure it's there. So I just kept looking and looking for it. I looked for it for weeks. I just didn't find it. And then I was like, nobody knows what's going on. This seems really concerning. So then I started lurking on Twitter, and then I got familiar with all the different accounts, whatever. And then at some point, I was like, I'm going to start contributing to this conversation, but I didn't think that anybody would talk back to me. And then at some point, they started talking back to me and I was like, this is kind of weird.SARAH: And then at some point, I was having an existential crisis and I had a couple of glasses of wine or something, and I just decided to type this big, long thread. And then I went to bed. I woke up the next morning slightly grouchy and hungover. I checked my phone and there were all these people messaging me and all these people replying to my thread being like, this is so relatable. This really resonated with me. And I was like, what is going on?AARON: You were there on Twitter before that thread right? I'm pretty sure I was following you.SARAH: I think, yeah, I was there before, but no one ever really gave me any attention prior to that. I think I had a couple of tweets that blew up before that, but not to the same extent. And then after that, I think I was like, okay, so now I have an audience. When I say an audience, like, obviously a small one, but more of an audience than I've ever had before in my life. And I was like, how far can I take this?SARAH: I was a bit like, people obviously started following me because I'm freFreaking out about AI, but if I post an outfit, what's going to happen? How far can I push this posting, these fit checks? I started posting random stuff about things that were completely unrelated. I was like, oh, people are kind of here for this, too. Okay, this is weird. So now I'm just milking it for all its worth, and I really don't know why anybody's listening to me. I'm basically very confused about the whole thing.AARON: I mean, I think it's kind of weird from your perspective, or it's weird in general because there aren't that many people who just do that extremely logical thing at the beginning. I don't know, maybe it's not obvious to people in every industry or whatever that AI is potentially a big deal, but there's lots of truckers or whatever. Maybe they're not the best demographic or the most conducive demographic, like, getting on Twitter or whatever, but there's other jobs that it would make sense to look into that. It's kind of weird to me that only you followed the rabbit hole all the way down.SARAH: I know! This is what I…Because it's not that hard to complete the circle. It probably took me like a day, it took me like an afternoon to get from, I'm worried about job automation to I should stop saving for retirement. It didn't take me that long. Do you know what I mean? No one ever looks. I literally don't get it. I was talking to some people. I was talking to one of my coworkers about this the other day, and I think I came up in conversation. She was like, yeah, I'm a bit worried about AI because I heard on the radio that taxi drivers might be out of a job. That's bad. And I was like, yeah, that is bad. But do you know what else? She was like, what are the AI companies up to that we don't know about? And I was like, I mean, you can go on their website. You can just go on their website and read about how they think that their technology is an extinction risk. It's not like they're hiding. It's literally just on there and no one ever looks. It's just crazy.AARON: Yeah. Honestly, I don't even know if I was in your situation, if I would have done that. It's like, in some sense, I am surprised. It's very few people maybe like one, but at another level, it's more rationality than most humans have or something. Yeah. You regret going down that rabbit hole?SARAH: Yeah, kind of. Although I'm enjoying the Twitter thing and it's kind of fun, and it turns out there's endless comedic material that you can get out of impending doom. The whole thing is quite funny. It's not funny, but you can make it funny if you try hard enough. But, yeah, what was I going to say? I think maybe I was more primed for doom pilling than your average person because I already knew what EA was and I already knew, you know what I mean. That stuff was on my radar.AARON: That's interesting.SARAH: I think had it not been on my radar, I don't think I would have followed the pipeline all the way.AARON: Yeah. I don't know what browser you use, but it would be. And you should definitely not only do this if you actually think it would be cool or whatever, but this could be in your browser history from that day and that would be hilarious. You could remove anything you didn't want to show, but if it's like Google Chrome, they package everything into sessions. It's one browsing session and it'll have like 10,000 links.SARAH: Yeah, I think for non-sketchy reasons, I delete my Google history more regularly than that. I don't think I'd be able to find that. But I can remember the day and I can remember my anxiety levels just going up and up somewhere between 01:00 p.m. and 07:00 p.m. And by the evening I'm like, oh, my God.AARON: Oh, damn, that's wild.SARAH: It was really stressful.AARON: Yeah, I guess props for, I don't know if props…Is the right word, I guess, impressed? I'm actually somewhat surprised to hear that you said you regret it. I mean, that sucks though, I guess. I'm sorry.SARAH: If you could unknow this, would you?AARON: No, because I think it's worth maybe selfishly, but not overall because. Okay, yeah, I think that would plausibly be the selfish thing to do. Actually. No, actually, hold on. No, I actually don't think that's true. I actually think there's enough an individual can do selfishly such that it makes sense. Even the emotional turmoil.SARAH: It would depend how much you thought that you were going to personally move the needle by knowing about it. I personally don't think that I'm going to be able to do very much. I was going to tip the scales. I wouldn't selfishly unknow it and sacrifice the world. But me being not particularly informed or intelligent and not having any power, I feel like if I forgot that AI was going to end the world, it would not make much difference.AARON: You know what I mean? I agree that it's like, yes, it is unlikely for either of us to tip the scales, but.SARAH: Maybe you can't.AARON: No, actually, in terms of, yeah, I'm probably somewhat more technically knowledgeable just based on what I know about you. Maybe I'm wrong.SARAH: No, you're definitely right.AARON: It's sort of just like a probabilities thing. I do think that ‘doom' - that word - is too simplified, often too simple to capture what people really care about. But if you just want to say doom versus no doom or whatever, AI doom versus no AI doom. Maybe there's like a one in 100,000 chance that one of us tips the scales. And that's important. Maybe even, like, one in 10,000. Probably not. Probably not.SARAH: One in 10,000. Wow.AARON: But that's what people do. People vote, even though this is old 80k material I'm regurgitating because they basically want to make the case for why even if you're not. Or in some article they had from a while ago, they made a case for why doing things that are unlikely to counterfactually matter can still be amazingly good. And the classic example, just voting if you're in a tight race, say, in a swing state in the United States, and it could go either way. Yeah. It might be pretty unlikely that you are the single swing vote, but it could be one in 100,000. And that's not crazy.SARAH: It doesn't take very much effort to vote, though.AARON: Yeah, sure. But I think the core justification, also, the stakes are proportionally higher here, so maybe that accounts for some. But, yes, you're absolutely right. Definitely different amounts of effort.SARAH: Putting in any effort to saving the world from AI. I wouldn't say that. I wouldn't say that I'm sacrificing.AARON: I don't even know if I like. No. Maybe it doesn't feel like a sacrifice. Maybe it isn't. But I do think there's, like, a lot. There's at least something to be. I don't know if this really checks out, but I would, like, bet that it does, which is that more reasonably, at least calibrated. I wanted to say reasonably well informed. But really what it is is, like, some level of being informed and, like, some level of knowing what you don't know or whatever, and more just like, normal. Sorry. I hope normal is not like a bat. I'm saying not like tech Bros, I guess so more like non tech bros. People who are not coded as tech bros. Talking about this on a public platform just seems actually, in fact, pretty good.SARAH: As long as we like, literally just people that aren't men as well. No offense.AARON: Oh, no, totally. Yeah.SARAH: Where are all the women? There's a few.AARON: There's a few that are super. I don't know, like, leaders in some sense, like Ajeya Cotra and Katja Grace. But I think the last EA survey was a third. Or I could be butchering this or whatever. And maybe even within that category, there's some variation. I don't think it's 2%.SARAH: Okay. All right. Yeah.AARON: Like 15 or 20% which is still pretty low.SARAH: No, but that's actually better than I would have thought, I think.AARON: Also, Twitter is, of all the social media platforms, especially mail. I don't really know.SARAH: Um.AARON: I don't like Instagram, I think.SARAH: I wonder, it would be interesting to see whether or not that's much, if it's become more male dominated since Elon Musk took.AARON: It's not a huge difference, but who knows?SARAH: I don't know. I have no idea. I have no idea. We'll just be interesting to know.AARON: Okay. Wait. Also, there's no scheduled time. I'm very happy to keep talking or whatever, but as soon as you want to take a break or hop off, just like. Yeah.SARAH: Oh, yeah. I'm in no rush.AARON: Okay, well, I don't know. We've talked about the two obvious candidates. Do you have a take or something? Want to get out to the world? It's not about AI or obesity or just a story you want to share.SARAH: These are my two pet subjects. I don't know anything else.AARON: I don't believe you. I know you know about house plants.SARAH: I do. A secret, which you can't tell anyone, is that I actually only know about house plants that are hard to kill, and I'm actually not very good at taking care of them.AARON: Well, I'm glad it's house plants in that case, rather than pets. Whatever.SARAH: Yeah. I mean, I have killed some sea monkeys, too, but that was a long time ago.AARON: Yes. So did I, actually.SARAH: Did you? I feel like everyone has. Everyone's got a little sea monkey graveyard in their past.AARON: New cause area.SARAH: Are there more shrimp or more sea monkeys? That's the question.AARON: I don't even know what even. I mean, are they just plankton?SARAH: No, they're not plankton.AARON: I know what sea monkeys are.SARAH: There's definitely a lot of them because they're small and insignificant.AARON: Yeah, but I also think we don't. It depends if you're talking about in the world, which I guess probably like sea monkeys or farmed for food, which is basically like. I doubt these are farmed either for food or for anything.SARAH: Yeah, no, you're probably right.AARON: Or they probably are farmed a tiny bit for this niche little.SARAH: Or they're farmed to sell in aquariums for kids.AARON: Apparently. They are a kind of shrimp, but they were bred specifically to, I don't know, be tiny or something. I'm just skimming that, Wikipedia. Here.SARAH: Sea monkeys are tiny shrimp. That is crazy.AARON: Until we get answers, tell me your life story in whatever way you want. It doesn't have to be like. I mean, hopefully not. Don't straight up lie, but wherever you want to take that.SARAH: I'm not going to lie. I'm just trying to think of ways to make it spicier because it's so average. I don't know what to say about it.AARON: Well, it's probably not that average, right? I mean, it might be average among people you happen to know.SARAH: Do you have any more specific questions?AARON: Okay, no. Yeah, hold on. I have a meta point, which is like, I think the people who are they have a thing on the top of their mind, and if I give any sort of open ended question whatsoever, they'll take it there and immediately just start giving slinging hot takes. But thenOther people, I think, this category is very EA. People who aren't, especially my sister, they're like, “No, I have nothing to talk about. I don't believe that.” But they're not, I guess, as comfortable.SARAH: No, I mean, I have. Something needs to trigger them in me. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, I need an in.AARON: Well, okay, here's one. Is there anything you're like, “Maybe I'll cut this. This is kind of, like narcissistic. I don't know. But is there anything you want or curious to ask?” This does sound kind of weird. I don't know. But we can cut it if need be.SARAH: What does the looking glass in your Twitter name mean? Because I've seen a bunch of people have this, and I actually don't know what it means, but I was like, no.AARON: People ask this. I respond to a tweet that's like, “What does that like?” At least, I don't know, once every month or two. Or know basically, like Spencer Greenberg. I don't know if you're familiar with him. He's like a sort of.SARAH: I know the know.AARON: He literally just tweeted, like a couple years ago. Put this in your bio to show that you really care about finding the truth or whatever and are interested in good faith conversations. Are you familiar with the scout mindset?SARAH: Yeah.AARON: Julia Galef. Yeah. That's basically, like the short version.SARAH: Okay.AARON: I'm like, yeah, all right. And there's at least three of us who have both a magnifying glass. Yeah. And a pause thing, which is like, my tightest knit online community I guess.SARAH: I think I've followed all the pause people now. I just searched the emoji on Twitter, and I just followed everyone. Now I can't find. And I also noticed when I was doing this, that some people, if they've suspended their account or they're taking time off, then they put a pause in their thing. So I was, like, looking, and I was like, oh, these are, like, AI people. But then they were just, like, in their bio, they were, like, not tweeting until X date. This is a suspended account. And I was like, I see we have a messaging problem here. Nice. I don't know how common that actually.AARON: Was. I'm glad. That was, like, a very straightforward question. Educated the masses. Max Alexander said Glee. Is that, like, the show? You can also keep asking me questions, but again, this is like.SARAH: Wait, what did he say? Is that it? Did he just say glee? No.AARON: Not even a question mark. Just the word glee.SARAH: Oh, right. He just wants me to go off about Glee.AARON: Okay. Go off about. Wait, what kind of Glee are we? Vaguely. This is like a show or a movie or something.SARAH: Oh, my God. Have you not seen it?AARON: No. I mean, I vaguely remember, I think, watching some TV, but maybe, like, twelve years ago or something. I don't know.SARAH: I think it stopped airing in, like, maybe 2015?AARON: 16. So go off about it. I don't know what I. Yeah, I.SARAH: Don't know what to say about this.AARON: Well, why does Max think you might have a take about Glee?SARAH: I mean, I don't have a take about. Just see the thing. See? No, not even, like, I am just transparently extremely lame. And I really like cheesy. I'm like. I'm like a musical theater kid. Not even ironically. I just like show tunes. And Glee is just a show about a glee club at a high school where they sing show tunes and there's, like, petty drama, and people burst into song in the hallways, and I just think it's just the most glorious thing on Earth. That's it. There are no hot takes.AARON: Okay, well, that's cool. I don't have a lot to say, unfortunately, but.SARAH: No, that's totally fine. I feel like this is not a spicy topic for us to discuss. It's just a good time.AARON: Yeah.SARAH: Wait.AARON: Okay. Yeah. So I do listen to Hamilton on Spotify.SARAH: Okay.AARON: Yeah, that's about it.SARAH: I like Hamilton. I've seen it three times. Oh.AARON: Live or ever. Wow. Cool. Yeah, no, that's okay. Well, what do people get right or wrong about theater kids?SARAH: Oh, I don't know. I think all the stereotypes are true.AARON: I mean, that's generally true, but usually, it's either over moralized, there's like a descriptive thing that's true, but it's over moralized, or it's just exaggerated.SARAH: I mean, to put this in more context, I used to be in choir. I went every Sunday for twelve years. And then every summer we do a little summer school and we go away and put on a production. So we do a musical or something. So I have been. What have I been? I was in Guys and Dolls. I think I was just in the chorus for that. I was the reverend in Anything Goes. But he does unfortunately get kidnapped in like the first five minutes. So he's not a big presence. Oh, I've been Tweedle dumb in Alice in Wonderland. I could go on, but right now as I'm saying this, I'm looking at my notice board and I have two playbills from when I went to Broadway in April where I saw Funny Girl and Hadestown.SARAH: I went to New York.AARON: Oh, cool. Oh yeah. We can talk about when you're moving to the United States. However.SARAH: I'm not going to do that. Okay.AARON: I know. I'm joking. I mean, I don't know.SARAH: I don't think I'm going to do that. I don't know. It just seems like you guys have got a lot going on over there. It seems like things aren't quite right with you guys. Things aren't quite right with us either.AARON: No, I totally get this. I think it would be cool. But also I completely relate to not wanting to. I've lived within 10 miles of one. Not even 10 miles, 8 miles in one location. Obviously gone outside of that. But my entire life.SARAH: You've just always lived in DC.AARON: Yeah, either in DC or. Sorry. But right now in Maryland, it's like right next to DC on the Metro or at Georgia University, which is in the trying to think would I move to the UK. Like I could imagine situations that would make me move to the UK. But it would still be annoying. Kind of.SARAH: Yeah, I mean, I guess it's like they're two very similar places, but there are all these little cultural things which I feel like kind of trip you up.AARON: I don't to. Do you want to say what?SARAH: Like I think people, I just like, I don't know. I don't have that much experience because I've only been to America twice. But people seem a lot more sincere in a way that you don't really get that. Like people are just never really being upfront. And in America, I just got the impression that people just have less of a veneer up, which is probably a good thing. But it's really hard to navigate if you're not used to it or something. I don't know how to describe that.AARON: Yeah, I've definitely heard this at least. And yeah, I think it's for better and for worse.SARAH: Yeah, I think it's generally a good thing.AARON: Yeah.SARAH: But it's like there's this layer of cynicism or irony or something that is removed and then when it's not there, it's just everything feels weak. I can't describe it.AARON: This is definitely, I think, also like an EA rationalist thing. I feel like I'm pretty far on the spectrum. Towards the end of surgical niceties are fine, but I don't know, don't obscure what you really think unless it's a really good reason to or something. But it can definitely come across as being rude.SARAH: Yeah. No, but I think it's actually a good rule of thumb to obscure what you. It's good to try not to obscure what you think most of the time, probably.Ably, I don't know, but I would love to go over temporarily for like six months or something and just hang out for a bit. I think that'd be fun. I don't know if I would go back to New York again. Maybe. I like the bagels there.AARON: I should have a place. Oh yeah. Remember, I think we talked at some point. We can cut this out if you like. Don't if either of us doesn't want it in. But we discussed, oh yeah, I should be having a place. You can. I emailed the landlord like an hour before this. Hopefully, probably more than 50%. That is still an offer. Yeah, probably not for all six months, but I don't know.SARAH: I would not come and sleep on your sofa for six months. That would be definitely impolite and very weird.AARON: Yeah. I mean, my roommates would probably grumble.SARAH: Yeah. They would be like.AARON: Although I don't know. Who knows? I wouldn't be shocked if people were actually like, whatever somebody asked for as a question. This is what he said. I might also be interested in hearing how different backgrounds. Wait, sorry. This is not good grammar. Let me try to parse this. Not having a super hardcore EA AI rationalist background shape how you think or how you view AI as rationality?SARAH: Oh, that's a good question. I think it's more happening the other way around, the more I hang around in these circles. You guys are impacting how I think.AARON: It's definitely true for me as well.SARAH: Seeping into my brain and my language as well. I've started talking differently. I don't know. That's a good question, though. Yeah. One thing that I will say is that there are certain things that I find irritating about the EA way of style of doing things. I think one specific, I don't know, the kind of like hand ring about everything. And I know that this is kind of the point, right? But it's kind of like, you know, when someone's like, I want to take a stance on something, but then whenever they want to take a stance on something, they feel the need to write like a 10,000 word blog post where they're thinking about the second and order and third and fifth order effects of this thing. And maybe this thing that seems good is actually bad for this really convoluted reason. That's just so annoying.AARON: Yeah.SARAH: Also understand that maybe that is a good thing to do sometimes, but it just seems like, I don't know how anyone ever gets anywhere. It seems like everyone must be paralyzed by indecision all the time because they just can't commit to ever actually just saying anything.AARON: I think this kind of thing is really good if you're trying to give away a billion dollars. Oh yes, I do want the billion dollar grantor to be thinking through second and third order effects of how they give away their billion dollars. But also, no, I am super. The words on the tip of my tongue, not overwhelmed but intimidated when I go on the EA forum because the posts, none of them are like normal, like five paragraph essays. Some of them are like, I think one of them I looked up for fun because I was going to make a meme about it and still will. Probably was like 30,000 words or something. And even the short form posts, which really gets me kind of not even annoyed. I don't know, maybe kind of annoyed is that the short form posts, which is sort of the EA forum version of Twitter, are way too high quality, way too intimidating. And so maybe I should just suck it up and post stuff anyway more often. It just feels weird. I totally agree.SARAH: I was also talking to someone recently about how I lurked on the EA forum and less wrong for months and months and I couldn't figure out the upvoting system and I was like, am I being stupid or why are there four buttons? And I was like, well, eventually I had to ask someone because I couldn't figure it out. And then he explained it to me and I was like, that is just so unnecessary. Like, just do it.AARON: No, I do know what you mean.SARAH: I just tI think it's annoying. It pisses me off. I just feel like sometimes you don't need to add more things. Sometimes less is good. Yeah, that's my hot take. Nice things.AARON: Yeah, that's interesting.SARAH: But actually, a thing that I like that EA's do is the constant hedging and caveatting. I do find it kind of adorable. I love that because it's like you're having to constantly acknowledge that you probably didn't quite articulate what you really meant and that you're not quite making contact with reality when you're talking. So you have to clarify that you probably were imprecise when you said this thing. It's unnecessary, but it's kind of amazing.AARON: No, it's definitely. I am super guilty of this because I'll give an example in a second. I think I've been basically trained to try pretty hard, even in normal conversation with anybody, to just never say anything that's literally wrong. Or at least if I do caveat it.AARON: I was driving home, me and my parents and I, unless visited, our grandparents were driving back, and we were driving back past a cruise ship that was in a harbor. And my mom, who was driving at the time, said, “Oh, Aaron, can you see if there's anyone on there?” And I immediately responded like, “Well, there's probably at least one person.” Obviously, that's not what she meant. But that was my technical best guess. It's like, yes, there probably are people on there, even though I couldn't see anybody on the decks or in the rooms. Yeah, there's probably a maintenance guy. Felt kind of bad.SARAH: You can't technically exclude that there are, in fact, no people.AARON: Then I corrected myself. But I guess I've been trained into giving that as my first reaction.SARAH: Yeah, I love that. I think it's a waste of words, but I find it delightful.AARON: It does go too far. People should be more confident. I wish that, at least sometimes, people would say, “Epistemic status: Want to bet?” or “I am definitely right about this.” Too rarely do we hear, "I'm actually pretty confident here.SARAH: Another thing is, people are too liberal with using probabilities. The meaning of saying there is an X percent chance of something happening is getting watered down by people constantly saying things like, “I would put 30% on this claim.” Obviously, there's no rigorous method that's gone into determining why it's 30 and not 35. That's a problem and people shouldn't do that. But I kind of love it.AARON: I can defend that. People are saying upfront, “This is my best guess. But there's no rigorous methodology.” People should take their word for that. In some parts of society, it's seen as implying that a numeric probability came from a rigorous model. But if you say, “This is my best guess, but it's not formed from anything,” people should take their word for that and not refuse to accept them at face value.SARAH: But why do you have to put a number on it?AARON: It depends on what you're talking about. Sometimes probabilities are relevant and if you don't use numbers, it's easy to misinterpret. People would say, “It seems quite likely,” but what does that mean? One person might think “quite reasonably likely” means 70%, the other person thinks it means 30%. Even though it's weird to use a single number, it's less confusing.SARAH: To be fair, I get that. I've disagreed with people about what the word “unlikely” means. Someone's pulled out a scale that the government uses, or intelligence services use to determine what “unlikely” means. But everyone interprets those words differently. I see what you're saying. But then again, I think people in AI safety talking about P Doom was making people take us less seriously, especially because people's probabilities are so vibey.AARON: Some people are, but I take Paul Cristiano's word seriously.SARAH: He's a 50/50 kind of guy.AARON: Yeah, I take that pretty seriously.Obviously, it's not as simple as him having a perfect understanding of the world, even after another 10,000 hours of investigation. But it's definitely not just vibes, either.SARAH: No, I came off wrong there. I don't mean that everyone's understanding is just vibes.AARON: Yeah.SARAH: If you were looking at it from the outside, it would be really difficult to distinguish between the ones that are vibes and the ones that are rigorous, unless you carefully parsed all of it and evaluated everyone's background, or looked at the model yourself. If you're one step removed, it looks like people just spitting out random, arbitrary numbers everywhere.AARON: Yeah. There's also the question of whether P doom is too weird or silly, or if it could be easily dismissed as such.SARAH: Exactly, the moment anyone unfamiliar with this discussion sees it, they're almost definitely going to dismiss it. They won't see it as something they need to engage with.AARON: That's a very fair point. Aside from the social aspect, it's also a large oversimplification. There's a spectrum of outcomes that we lump into doom and not doom. While this binary approach can be useful at times, it's probably overdone.SARAH: Yeah, because when some people say doom, they mean everyone dies, while others mean everyone dies plus everything is terrible. And no one specifies what they mean. It is silly. But, I also find it kind of funny and I kind of love it.AARON: I'm glad there's something like that. So it's not perfect. The more straightforward thing would be to say P existential risk from AI comes to pass. That's the long version, whatever.SARAH: If I was in charge, I would probably make people stop using PDOOm. I think it's better to say it the long way around. But obviously I'm not in charge. And I think it's funny and kind of cute, so I'll keep using it.AARON: Maybe I'm willing to go along and try to start a new norm. Not spend my whole life on it, but say, I think this is bad for X, Y, and Z reasons. I'll use this other phrase instead and clarify when people ask.SARAH: You're going to need Twitter premium because you're going to need a lot more characters.AARON: I think there's a shorthand which is like PX risk or P AiX risk.SARAH: Maybe it's just the word doom that's a bit stupid.AARON: Yeah, that's a term out of the Bay Area rationalists.SARAH: But then I also think it kind of makes the whole thing seem less serious. People should be indignant to hear that this meme is being used to trade probabilities about the likelihood that they're going to die and their families are going to die. This has been an in-joke in this weird niche circle for years and they didn't know about it. I'm not saying that in a way to morally condemn people, but if you explain this to people…People just go to dinner parties in Silicon Valley and talk about this weird meme thing, and what they really mean is the ODs know everyone's going to prematurely die. People should be outraged by that, I think.AARON: I disagree that it's a joke. It is a funny phrase, but the actual thing is people really do stand by their belief.SARAH: No, I totally agree with that part. I'm not saying that people are not being serious when they give their numbers, but I feel like there's something. I don't know how to put this in words. There's something outrageous about the fact that for outsiders, this conversation has been happening for years and people have been using this tongue-in-cheek phrase to describe it, and 99.9% of people don't know that's happening. I'm not articulating this very well.AARON: I see what you're saying. I don't actually think it's like. I don't know a lot of jargon.SARAH: But when I first found out about this, I was outraged.AARON: I honestly just don't share that intuition. But that's really good.SARAH: No, I don't know how to describe this.AARON: I think I was just a little bit indignant, perhaps.SARAH: Yeah, I was indignant about it. I was like, you guys have been at social events making small talk by discussing the probability of human extinction all this time, and I didn't even know. I was like, oh, that's really messed up, guys.AARON: I feel like I'm standing by the rational tier because, it was always on. No one was stopping you from going on less wrong or whatever. It wasn't behind closed.SARAH: Yeah, but no one ever told me about it.AARON: Yeah, that's like a failure of outreach, I suppose.SARAH: Yeah. I think maybe I'm talking more about. Maybe the people that I'm mad at is the people who are actually working on capabilities and using this kind of jargon. Maybe I'm mad at those people. They're fine.AARON: Do we have more questions? I think we might have more questions. We have one more. Okay, sorry, but keep going.SARAH: No, I'm going to stop making that point now because I don't really know what I'm trying to say and I don't want to be controversial.AARON: Controversy is good for views. Not necessarily for you. No, thank you for that. Yes, that was a good point. I think it was. Maybe it was wrong. I think it seems right.SARAH: It was probably wrong.Shrimp Welfare: A Serious DiscussionAARON: I don't know what she thinks about shrimp welfare. Oh, yeah. I think it's a general question, but let's start with that. What do you think about shrimp? Well, today.SARAH: Okay. Is this an actual cause area or is this a joke about how if you extrapolate utilitarianism to its natural conclusion, you would really care about shrimp?AARON: No, there's a charity called the Shrimp Welfare Initiative or project. I think it's Shrimp Welfare Initiative. I can actually have a rant here about how it's a meme that people find amusing. It is a serious thing, but I think people like the meme more than they're willing to transfer their donations in light of it. This is kind of wrong and at least distasteful.No, but there's an actual, if you Google, Shrimp Welfare Project. Yeah, it's definitely a thing, but it's only a couple of years old. And it's also kind of a meme because it does work in both ways. It sort of shows how we're weird, but in the sense that we are willing to care about things that are very different from us. Not like we're threatening other people. That's not a good description.SARAH: Is the extreme version of this position that we should put more resources into improving the lives of shrimp than into improving the lives of people just because there are so many more shrimp? Are there people that actually believe that?AARON: Well, I believe some version of that, but it really depends on who the ‘we' is there.SARAH: Should humanity be putting more resources?AARON: No one believes that as far as I know.SARAH: Okay. Right. So what is the most extreme manifestation of the shrimp welfare position?AARON: Well, I feel like my position is kind of extreme, and I'm happy to discuss it. It's easier than speculating about what the more extreme ones are. I don't think any of them are that extreme, I guess, from my perspective, because I think I'm right.SARAH: Okay, so what do you believe?AARON: I think that most people who have already decided to donate, say $20, if they are considering where to donate it and they are better morally, it would be better if they gave it to the shrimp welfare project than if they gave it to any of the commonly cited EA organizations.SARAH: Malaria nets or whatever.AARON: Yes. I think $20 of malaria nets versus $20 of shrimp. I can easily imagine a world where it would go the other way. But given the actual situation, the $20 of shrimp is much better.SARAH: Okay. Is it just purely because there's just more shrimp? How do we know how much shrimp suffering there is in the world?AARON: No, this is an excellent question. The numbers are a key factor, but no, it's not as simple. I definitely don't think one shrimp is worth one human.SARAH: I'm assuming that it's based on the fact that there are so many more shrimp than there are people that I don't know how many shrimp there are.AARON: Yeah, that's important, but at some level, it's just the margin. What I think is that when you're donating money, you should give to wherever it does the most good, whatever that means, whatever you think that means. But let's just leave it at that. The most good is morally best at the margin, which means you're not donating where you think the world should or how you think the world should expend its trillion dollar wealth. All you're doing is adding $20 at this current level, given the actual world. And so part of it is what you just said, and also including some new research from Rethink Priorities.Measuring suffering in reasonable ranges is extremely hard to do. But I believe it's difficult to do a better job than raising priorities on that, given what I've seen. I can provide some links. There are a few things to consider here: numbers, times, and the enormity of suffering. I think there are a couple of key elements, including tractability.Are you familiar with the three-pronged concept people sometimes discuss, which encompasses tractability, and neglectedness?SARAH: Okay.AARON: Importance is essentially what we just mentioned. Huge numbers and plausible amounts of suffering. When you try to do the comparison, it seems like they're a significant concern. Tractability is another factor. I think the best estimates suggest that a one-dollar donation could save around 10,000 shrimp from a very painful death.SARAH: In that sense…AARON: You could imagine that even if there were a hundred times more shrimp than there actually are, we have direct control over how they live and die because we're farming them. The industry is not dominated by wealthy players in the United States. Many individual farmers in developing nations, if educated and provided with a more humane way of killing the shrimp, would use it. There's a lot of potential for improvement here. This is partly due to the last prong, neglectedness, which is really my focus.SARAH: You're saying no one cares about the shrimp.AARON: I'm frustrated that it's not taken seriously enough. One of the reasons why the marginal cost-effectiveness is so high is because large amounts of money are donated to well-approved organizations. But individual donors often overlook this. They ignore their marginal impact. If you want to see even a 1% shift towards shrimp welfare, the thing to do is to donate to shrimp welfare. Not donate $19 to human welfare and one dollar to shrimp welfare, which is perhaps what they think the overall portfolio should be.SARAH: Interesting. I don't have a good reason why you're wrong. It seems like you're probably right.AARON: Let me put the website in the chat. This isn't a fair comparison since it's something I know more about.SARAH: Okay.AARON: On the topic of obesity, neither of us were more informed than the other. But I could have just made stuff up or said something logically fallacious.SARAH: You could have told me that there were like 50 times the number of shrimp in the world than there really are. And I would have been like, sure, seems right.AARON: Yeah. And I don't know, if I…If I were in your position, I would say, “Oh, yeah, that sounds right.” But maybe there are other people who have looked into this way more than me that disagree, and I can get into why I think it's less true than you'd expect in some sense.SARAH: I just wonder if there's like… This is like a deeply non-EA thing to say. So I don't know, maybe I shouldn't say it, but are there not any moral reasons? Is there not any good moral philosophy behind just caring more about your own species than other species? If you're sorry, but that's probably not right, is it? There's probably no way to actually morally justify that, but it seems like it feels intuitively wrong. If you've got $20 to be donating 19 of them to shrimp and one to children with malaria, that feels like there should be something wrong with that, but I can't tell you what it is.AARON: Yeah, no, there is something wrong, which is that you should donate all 20 because they're acting on the margin, for one thing. I do think that doesn't check out morally, but I think basically me and everybody I know in terms of real life or whatever, I do just care way more about humans. I don't know, for at least the people that it's hard to formalize or specify what you mean by caring about or something. But, yeah, I think you can definitely basically just be a normal human who basically cares a lot about other humans. And still that's not like, negated by changing your $20 donation or whatever. Especially because there's nothing else that I do for shrimp. I think you should be like a kind person or something. I'm like an honest person, I think. Yeah, people should be nice to other humans. I mean, you should be nice in the sense of not beating them. But if you see a pigeon on the street, you don't need to say hi or whatever, give it a pet, because. I don't know. But yeah, you should be basically like, nice.SARAH: You don't stop to say hi to every pigeon that you see on the way to anywhere.AARON: I do, but I know most normal people don't.SARAH: This is why I'm so late to everything, because I have to do it. I have to stop for every single one. No exceptions.AARON: Yeah. Or how I think about it is sort of like a little bit of compartmentalization, which I think is like… Which is just sort of like a way to function normally and also sort of do what you think really checks out at the end of the day, just like, okay, 99% of the time I'm going to just be like a normal person who doesn't care about shrimp. Maybe I'll refrain from eating them. But actually, even that is like, I could totally see a person just still eating them and then doing this. But then during the 1% of the time where you're deciding how to give money away and none of those, the beneficiaries are going to be totally out of sight either way. This is like a neutral point, I guess, but it's still worth saying, yeah, then you can be like a hardcore effective altruist or whatever and then give your money to the shrimp people.SARAH: Do you have this set up as like a recurring donation?AARON: Oh, no. Everybody should call me out as a hypocrite because I haven't donated much money, but I'm trying to figure out actually, given that I haven't had a stable income ever. And maybe, hopefully I will soon, actually. But even then, it's still a part-time thing. I haven't been able to do sort of standard 10% or more thing, and I'm trying to figure out what the best thing to do or how to balance, I guess, not luxury, not like consumption on things that I… Well, to some extent, yeah. Maybe I'm just selfish by sometimes getting an Uber. That's totally true. I think I'm just a hypocrite in that respect. But mostly I think the trade-off is between saving, investing, and giving. Beast of the money that I have saved up and past things. So this is all sort of a defense of why I don't have a recurring donation going on.SARAH: I'm not asking you to defend yourself because I do not do that either.AARON: I think if I was making enough money that I could give away $10,000 a year and plan on doing that indefinitely, I would be unlikely to set up a recurring donation. What I would really want to do is once or twice a year, really try to prioritize deciding on how to give it away rather than making it the default. This has a real cost for charities. If you set up a recurring donation, they have more certainty in some sense of their future cash flow. But that's only good to do if you're really confident that you're going to want to keep giving there in the future. I could learn new information that says something else is better. So I don't think I would do that.SARAH: Now I'm just thinking about how many shrimp did you say it was per dollar?AARON: Don't quote me. I didn't say an actual thing.SARAH: It was like some big number. Right. Because I just feel like that's such a brainworm. Imagine if you let that actually get in your head and then every time you spend some unnecessary amount of money on something you don't really need, you think about how many shrimp you just killed by getting an Uber or buying lunch out. That is so stressful. I think I'm going to try not to think about that.AARON: I don't mean to belittle this. This is like a core, I think you're new to EA type of thinking. It's super natural and also troubling when you first come upon it. Do you want me to talk about how I, or other people deal with that or take action?SARAH: Yeah, tell me how to get the shrimp off my conscience.AARON: Well, for one thing, you don't want to totally do that. But I think the main thing is that the salience of things like this just decreases over time. I would be very surprised if, even if you're still very engaged in the EA adjacent communities or EA itself in five years, that it would be as emotionally potent. Brains make things less important over time. But I think the thing to do is basically to compartmentalize in a sort of weird sense. Decide how much you're willing to donate. And it might be hard to do that, but that is sort of a process. Then you have that chunk of money and you try to give it away the best you can under whatever you think the best ethics are. But then on the daily, you have this other set pot of money. You just are a normal person. You spend it as you wish. You don't think about it unless you try not to. And maybe if you notice that you might even have leftover money, then you can donate the rest of it. But I really do think picking how much to give should sort of be its own project. And then you have a pile of money you can be a hardcore EA about.SARAH: So you pick a cut off point and then you don't agonize over anything over and above that.AARON: Yeah. And then people, I mean, the hard part is that if somebody says their cut off point is like 1% of their income and they're making like $200,000, I don't know. Maybe their cut off point should be higher. So there is a debate. It depends on that person's specific situation. Maybe if they have a kid or some super expensive disease, it's a different story. If you're just a random guy making $200,000, I think you should give more.SARAH: Maybe you should be giving away enough to feel the pinch. Well, not even that. I don't think I'm going to do that. This is something that I do actually want to do at some point, but I need to think about it more and maybe get a better job.AARON: Another thing is, if you're wanting to earn to give as a path to impact, you could think and strive pretty hard. Maybe talk to people and choose your education or professional development opportunities carefully to see if you can get a better paying job. That's just much more important than changing how much you give from 10% to 11% or something. You should have this macro level optimization. How can I have more money to spend? Let me spend, like, I don't know, depends what life stage you are, but if you had just graduated college or maybe say you're a junior in college or something. It could make sense to spend a good amount of time figuring out what that path might look like.AARON: I'm a huge hypocrite because I definitely haven't done all this nearly as much as I should, but I still endorse it.SARAH: Yeah, I think it's fine to say what you endorse doing in an ideal world, even if you're not doing that, that's fine.AARON: For anybody listening, I tweeted a while ago, asking if anyone has resources on how to think about giving away wealth. I'm not very wealthy but have some amount of savings. It's more than I really need. At the same time, maybe I should be investing it because EA orgs don't feel like, or they think they can't invest it because there's potentially a lot of blowback if they make poor investments, even though it would be higher expected value.There's also the question of, okay, having some amount of savings allows me to take higher, potentially somewhat higher risk, but higher value opportunities because I have a cushion. But I'm very confused about how to give away what I should do here. People should DM me on Twitter or anywhere they have ideas.SARAH: I think you should calculate how much you need to cover your very basic needs. Maybe you should work out, say, if you were working 40 hours a week in a minimum wage job, like how much would you make then? And then you should keep that for yourself. And then the rest should definitely all go to the shrimp. Every single penny. All of it.AARON: This is pretty plausible. Just to make it more complicated, there's also the thing that I feel like my estimates or my best guesses of the best charities to give to over time has changed. And so there's like two competing forces. One is that I might get wiser and more knowledgeable as time goes on. The other one is that in general, giving now is better than giving later. All else equal, because I think for a couple of reasons, the main one just being that the charities don't know that you're going to give later.AARON: So it's like they can plan for the future much better if they get money now. And also there's just higher leverage opportunities or higher value per dollar opportunities now in general than there will be later for a couple of reasons I don't really need to. This is what makes it really complicated. So I've donated in the past to places that I don't think, or I don't think even at the time were the best to. So then there's a question of like, okay, how long do I save this money? Do I sit on it for months until I'm pretty confident, like a year.AARON: I do think that probably over the course of zero to five years or something, becoming more confident or changing your mind is like the stronger effect than how much good you give to the, or how much better it is for the charities to give now instead of later. But also that's weird because you're never committing at all.Sometimes you might decide to give it away, and maybe you won't. Maybe at that time you're like, “Oh, that's what I want. A car, I have a house, whatever.” It's less salient or something. Maybe something bad happened with EA and you no longer identify that way. Yeah, there's a lot of really thorny considerations. Sorry, I'm talking way too much.SARAH: Long, are you factoring AI timelines into this?AARON: That makes it even more sketchy. But that could also go both ways. On one hand, you have the fact that if you don't give away your money now and you die with it, it's never going to do any good. The other thing is that it might be that especially high leverage opportunities come in the future or something potentially you need, I don't know, whatever I can imagine I could make something up about. OpenPhil needs as much money as it can get to do X, Y and Z. It's really important right now, but I won't know that until a few years down the line. So just like everything else, it doesn't neatly wash out.SARAH: What do you think the AGI is going to do to the shrimp? I reckon it's probably pretty neat, like one shrimp per paperclip. Maybe you could get more. I wonder what the sort of shrimp to paperclip conversion rate is.AARON: Has anyone looked into that morally? I think like one to zero. I don't think in terms of money. You could definitely price that. I have no idea.SARAH: I don't know. Maybe I'm not taking this as seriously as I should be because I'm.AARON: No, I mean, humor is good. When people are giving away money or deciding what to do, they should be serious. But joking and humor is good. Sorry, go ahead.SARAH: No, you go ahead.AARON: I had a half-baked idea. At EA Global, they should have a comedy show where people roast everybody, but it's a fundraiser. You have to pay to get 100 people to attend. They have a bidding contest to get into the comedy show. That was my original idea. Or they could just have a normal comedy show. I think that'd be cool.SARAH: Actually, I think that's a good idea because you guys are funny. There is a lot of wit on this side of Twitter. I'm impressed.AARON: I agree.SARAH: So I think that's a very good idea.AARON: Okay. Dear Events team: hire Aaron Bergman, professional comedian.SARAH: You can just give them your Twitter as a source for how funny you are, and that clearly qualifies you to set this up. I love it.AARON: This is not important or related to anything, but I used to be a good juggler for entertainment purposes. I have this video. Maybe I should make sure the world can see it. It's like a talent show. So maybe I can do that instead.SARAH: Juggling. You definitely should make sure the world has access to this footage.AARON: It had more views than I expected. It wasn't five views. It was 90 or something, which is still nothing.SARAH: I can tell you a secret right now if you want. That relates to Max asking in the chat about glee.AARON: Yes.SARAH: This bit will also have to edit out, but me having a public meltdown over AI was the second time that I've ever blown up on the Internet. The first time being. I can't believe I'm telling you this. I think I'm delirious right now. Were you ever in any fandoms, as a teenager?AARON: No.SARAH: Okay. Were you ever on Tumblr?AARON: No. I sort of know what the cultural vibes were. I sort of know what you're referring to. There are people who like Harry Potter stuff and bands, like Kpop stuff like that.SARAH: So people would make these fan videos where they'd take clips from TV shows and then they edit them together to music. Sometimes people would edit the clips to make it look like something had happened in the plot of the show that hadn't actually happened. For example, say, what if X character had died? And then you edit the clips together to try and make it look like they've died. And you put a sad song, how to save a life by the fray or something, over the top. And then you put it on YouTube.AARON: Sorry, tell me what…"Hat I should search or just send the link here. I'm sending my link.SARAH: Oh, no, this doesn't exist anymore. It does not exist anymore. Right? So, say if you're, like, eleven or twelve years old and you do this, and you don't even have a mechanism to download videos because you don't know how to do technology. Instead, you take your little iPod touch and you just play a YouTube video on your screen, and you literally just film the screen with your iPod touch, and that's how you're getting the clips. It's kind of shaky because you're holding the camera anyway.SARAH: Then you edit together on the iMovie app of your iPod touch, and then you put it on the Internet, and then you just forget about it. You forget about it. Two years later, you're like, oh, I wonder what happened to that YouTube account? And you log in and this little video that you've made with edited clips that you've filmed off the screen of your laptop to ‘How To Save Life' by The Fray with clips from Glee in it, has nearly half a million views.AARON: Nice. Love it.SARAH: Embarrassing because this is like, two years later. And then all the comments were like, oh, my God, this was so moving. This made me cry. And then obviously, some of them were hating and being like, do you not even know how to download video clips? Like, what? And then you're so embarrassed.AARON: I could totally seem it. Creative, but only a reasonable solution. Yeah.SARAH: So that's my story of how I went viral when I was like, twelve.AARON: It must have been kind of overwhelming.SARAH: Yeah, it was a bit. And you can tell that my time, it's like 20 to eleven at night, and now I'm starting to really go off on one and talk about weird things.AARON: Like an hour. So, yeah, we can wrap up. And I always say this, but it's actually true. Which is that low standard, like, low stakes or low threshold. Low bar for doing that in recording some of the time.SARAH: Yeah, probably. We'll have to get rid of the part about how I went viral on YouTube when I was twelve. I'll sleep on that.AARON: Don't worry. I'll send the transcription at some point soon.SARAH: Yeah, cool.AARON: Okay, lovely. Thank you for staying up late into the night for this.SARAH: It's not that late into the night. I'm just like, lame and go to bed early.AARON: Okay, cool. Yeah, I know. Yeah, for sure. All right, bye. Get full access to Aaron's Blog at www.aaronbergman.net/subscribe

Do you know the difference between cold and warm leads? If not, it could be costing you thousands or tens of thousands of dollars… Join property management growth experts Jason and Sarah Hull as they reveal the ugly truth of using internet marketing and pay-per-lead services. Learn the difference between warm and cold leads and how to attract more warm leads in your property management business. You'll Learn [02:46] What's the Difference Between Warm and Cold Leads? [06:28] What are the Problems with Cold Leads? [14:14] How to Get Warmer Leads Tweetables “The difference between a cold and warm lead is that they know you, trust you, and like you.” “Cold leads are only good when they come in for maybe about the first 10-15 minutes.” “Sales and deals happen at the speed of trust.” “Not all leads are equal.” Resources DoorGrow and Scale Mastermind DoorGrow Academy DoorGrow on YouTube DoorGrowClub DoorGrowLive TalkRoute Referral Link Transcript [00:00:00] Jason: One of our clients came to us, and we said, "what have you been doing for the last year to try to grow your business?" because they have not been very successful, they were doing a pay per lead service. They bought 322 leads in the last year. And I said, " how many doors did you get out of those 322 leads?" And they said that they got like 18.  [00:00:26] Welcome DoorGrow Hackers to the DoorGrowShow. If you are a property management entrepreneur that wants to add doors, make a difference, increase revenue, help others, impact lives, and you are interested in growing in business and life, and you're open to doing things a bit differently, then you are a DoorGrow Hacker. [00:00:42] 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.  [00:01:00] 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, along with Sarah Hull, co owner and COO of DoorGrow. Now let's get into the show.  [00:01:26] All right. I always trip up a little bit trying to like introduce you. Like it's really hard, co owner, COO, like they both start with the same first letters and my brain's like COO's, owner, COO... I don't know. All right. So we were talking about today's topic and what we wanted to talk about. And what we were planning on talking about today is property management leads, specifically the difference between cold and warm leads. And a lot of you probably already know what that is, especially if you've been listening to the podcast a while, but I still get asked this question. I'm explaining, like these marketing channels will only give you cold leads and the close rate is only like 10 percent on those or worse, and these channels will give you warm leads, and people are like, "what's a warm lead? What's a cold lead?" I still get asked this question. So we're , to answer that today and we will give some examples of those And and help you figure out maybe a little bit towards the end, how to get some more leads because everybody wants more property management leads. How do I get more leads? And one of the challenges we can get into is related leads is sometimes you think you need more leads, but what you just need maybe is less leaks or maybe some better channels. So we'll chat about that. Okay, so Sarah, what's the difference between a cold and warm lead?  [00:02:51] Sarah: Oh, that's such a good question. [00:02:53] Really there's a lot of differences, but I would say the main difference is like, where does it come and what is your close rate? Those are, I'm going to say, your two big ones. Where does it come from and what is your close rate?  [00:03:05] Jason: So Here, like, let's make this really simple for those of you listening. Now, a lead may start out as cold. It will, if you are effective, it will warm up, and then it will become hot, and then you will close the deal, right? So, what is the difference during this transition? The difference is trust level. That's the difference. The difference between a cold and warm lead is that they know you, trust you, and like you. That's the big difference between a cold and warm lead. They know you trust you and like you, then they're warm. Now, how do we create more trust? How do we make sure that they feel like they know us authentically and truly, and how do we get them to like us, right? And that's what makes a warm lead. So cold lead examples. Let's let, what are some typical cold lead examples?  [00:03:58] Sarah: Online really like, "Oh, I did a Google search." [00:04:03] Jason: Okay. Yeah. Online. So we've got like SEO related to search engine marketing. We've got like Google ads, like pay per click. And I'm not saying "paper click" some people like think I'm saying I think it was paper click Like you're clicking papers.  [00:04:19] Sarah: Sometimes people say it so fast. It's like yeah paper click, you know.  [00:04:22] Jason: So those non nerds out there it is pay per click. Right, so per every click you're paying some money right is the idea of PPC. All right, so we've got SEO pay per click not paper click and then we've got... [00:04:40] Sarah: I can't wait to see the transcription. I know it's going to be great. He's saying the same thing.  [00:04:45] Jason: Super confused... content marketing and then we've got social media marketing and then we have... you mentioned also pay per lead. Not paper leads not like made of paper leads. Okay, pay per lead. So pay per click example would be like google ads, facebook ads, things like this. You're paying for clicks or you're paying for views, right? And then pay per lead, that would be something like you know, lead services, like that. Yeah. Lead services that you pay to get leads. The end.  [00:05:20] Sarah: And this is like true in every industry, like every industry that sales is a part of it, they're like, "Hey, we will sell you leads," and then you essentially, you buy a lead, you pay money, you buy a lead. [00:05:32] And then you think "Hey, here's this person. And I will call them because they are interested in the thing that I am selling."  [00:05:39] Jason: So let me give you an extreme example of cold lead marketing. One of our clients came to us, they had 1300 doors. Their BDM came on to one of our calls and we said, "what have you been doing for the last year to try to grow your business?" because they have not been very successful, and they said that they were doing a pay per lead service. And it's a very common one. A lot of people do in the industry, which is APM allpropertymanagement. com. I said, "how many leads did you buy from them?" because you pay per lead. They bought 322 leads in the last year. And I said, "cool. How many doors did you get out of those 322 leads?" And they said that they got like 18.  [00:06:23] Sarah: Something like that. So like a 10 percent close rate would have been like 32.  [00:06:27] Jason: So they, yeah, it was really bad close rate. Right now to compound this, and for those of you that want to do some math on your own cold lead marketing, I have a calculator for this. [00:06:39] You can go to DoorGrow.com/ cold. That's my cold lead calculator. Wow. Yeah, it's old. Can we update that video? Maybe. There's a really old video. I have a much skinnier, less muscular face with a very big beard and mustache on it. So you might see it. I almost don't want people to go there. Oh, stop. I don't care how cool I look. It's good stuff. So go to the cold lead calculator. Don't watch the video. Put in the math and see what your cold lead acquisition cost is because here's where they'd spent money and i'm guessing it's like I don't know what apm charges nowadays maybe it's 50 bucks 60 bucks 80 bucks something somewhere in there. I'm guessing So 322 of those and then, but they're paying to have a full time BDM that's working on this and they're paying to have a setter working on this as well. That's a lot of expense annually. We're talking tens and tens of thousands of dollars, right? And so they're spending all of this money and they got 18 doors. [00:07:38] If we took all of that expense, the business owner took all of that expense. And divided it by 18, that acquisition cost would be ridiculous. It would be ridiculous. This is like giving maybe a year, years of free management away just to get a client. It's not a profitable way to do growth, right? Now there are some that do these different cold lead channels, but they have to build an entire mechanism. [00:08:04] They might have multiple BDMs there. They have sales CRMs. They're following up immediately as a lead comes in because the race is on. Cold leads are only good when they come in for maybe about the first 10, 15 minutes and then conversion rates drop like 80%. Right. So you have to like have immediate follow up and you have to be first. You have to be the first one to call them because APM, for example, is going to give it out to multiple companies.  [00:08:28] Sarah: Yeah. That's the thing to kind of keep in mind too, is, and I used to deal with this when I was in the insurance world is when you buy leads... yeah ..Like even if they tell you like you're the exclusive one, you're never it's never an exclusive lead It's never just being sold to you never because they're in the market. Tell you like, "oh. We won't sell this to anybody else." Like yes, you will. Yes, you absolutely will. So they're sick. You're selling it to multiple people who are trying to buy the same thing and then you've got it like hit that really fast  [00:09:01] Jason: Yes, so if somebody is looking online, that means they're at the end of the sales cycle, that means they're now hunting and looking, they're not just going to do one thing. Usually they're going to keep going until they find what they're looking for. And so even if it's an exclusive lead from some sort of service, and there are other services that will give you exclusively, which means they're not going to give it to five companies, they'll just give it to you. The challenge is these people are still in the market. They're hunting and looking now.  [00:09:31] Sarah: Before we get into warm leads, I was just so burned on this, like in the insurance world that I was like, : I'm never freaking doing leads again." Even if you're like, "Hey, I only want to like deal with qualified leads, right? Like I don't want like these like shitty, crappy leads that you call them and they're they have no idea who you are." They have no idea why you're calling them You're like, oh because you know, you were interested in getting a quote on your insurance and like "no I wasn't. What are you talking about?" [00:09:58] Fake leads? Like, "I don't know how they got my information." So, like, crap leads. Like, real crap leads. Or... There were services too that would try to tell you they were more qualified, like in the insurance world for anyone who kind of is familiar, there are different coverage levels, right? So like in property management, there might be different tier levels in your pricing plan. You might say, "Hey, I only want to get people who are going to be in my top pricing plan. Send me those leads." And typically this is like the portfolio of, you know, what I deal with. And. Based off of that, they should be able to, like, use their algorithm to find people who are similar to that and push those people to you in the form of leads. Sounds fantastic. It's not because it never works that way. Even if you go, "listen, like I only want the people, you know, that have like full tort and like, you know, stacked coverage and like, you know, at least a hundred, 300 liability, send me only those." And then you'll get these leads and you call them and sure enough, you pull it up and they have like, Limited tort, they've got like no UMUIM, they've got like state minimum coverage and you're like, "this is not the lead that it's paying for." so you're paying for like a premium lead what you think is going to be like a qualified top tier lead and come to find they are not qualified and they are not top tier. So like, that's just the other thing to kind of keep in mind is even like, even the services that are like, "Hey, we're going to screen them more for you and like, tell us a little bit about, you know, what your top tier looks like, and we'll push you more people that have that Like algorithm, right?" [00:11:38] And it just, it doesn't work that way. It just doesn't. It sounds really great, but it doesn't end up working that way. So, more often than not, you're talking with people that sometimes they have no idea what you're even calling them for. They are they're completely in the dark feel like, "I don't even know how you got my information I don't know why you're calling me. I don't even know what property management is," like they have no idea they're not interested or they are interested but now like they're being bombarded Because that lead is being sold to like multiple companies. So even if it's just you and one other company, now you've got two people who are calling going like, "Hey, you're interested in property management." [00:12:18] And now that kind of puts them in like, it almost gives them like the buyer's power, right? Because they're like, "Oh, these people are now chasing me" like, "Oh yeah, Fred called me over here and Jason called me over here, but they're obviously both interested in working with me." Right. So it it just changes the dynamic a little bit. So that's kind of something else to kind of keep in mind when you're dealing with any kind of like pay per lead  [00:12:42] Jason: service.  [00:12:43] Yeah. They'll start regretting their decision to fill out some sort of lead form when they start getting called by multiple companies. Okay. [00:12:50] Sarah: And they will continue to sell it even though like, because they don't like this, the service doesn't know. So if I was interested, if I was a legitimate lead and I was interested in property management. They might sell my lead to multiple companies. But if I talk with, let's say Jason, who does property management, and Jason closes the deal. [00:13:10] Well, the service that is selling my lead does not know that Jason closed the deal. So technically I'm like off the market. I'm not interested in looking for another property manager anymore because I already found one and I closed the deal. They don't know that. So they will continue selling that lead. [00:13:25] Jason: Okay. All right. So yeah the challenge with cold lead marketing and property management, the feedback I typically hear, and we used to do like Google ads for for clients. And one of the biggest challenges is you're always going to get a lot of people filling out lead forms or clicking on stuff because they know property managers will start to call them that are vendors. [00:13:47] This happens all the time. Like vendors are like, "Hey, I want to talk to some property managers, so I'm going to fill out these lead forms. I'm going to click on their ads, and I'm a plumber, and I'm not interested in property management. And so some of these services like APM, they will like, if you tell them this was a bad lead, they will refund your money. To their credit, the challenge is imagine how many leads come through that nobody goes and ask for a refund. This still becomes a profit center for them.  [00:14:14] So, all right, so let's get into warm leads. So the challenge with warm leads is that people don't know necessarily what they are, how to get them. So let's talk about what a warm lead is. A warm lead, or look, these are people that know you, trust you and like you. We've established that some examples of higher trust or warmer leads would be leads that come in from your online reviews. If you have really good reviews, that could be a warm lead channel. They're like, "Hey man, they're the best rated company on Yelp or they're the best rated company on Google, or they have the most reviews on Google and they're rated really well. You know, I already can trust them," and they might read some testimonials to say "these guys are great. They're awesome The business owner's fantastic. The team's cool," like all that and they'll be like, okay now they have trust. So there's things that are trust indicators that help create trust. The website. Your website also can help create trust And so a lot of what we do with our clients at doorgrow is we show all of the trust leaks that exist in throughout the sales pipeline You've got leads that come in, but then if your business has all these trust leaks after it, it's like turning on the hose, getting more leads. And then you have all of these leads. And so we want to shore up all of the leaks that kill trust because sales and deals happen at the speed of trust. You've probably heard me say before. And so we want to increase the trust level throughout the process because that warms them up and allows you to close deals. [00:15:43] So online reviews might be a channel for warm leads, referrals. Word of mouth you know, and these could be referrals from agents. This could be word of mouth from like your existing clients. Things like this have a high level of trust. They're like, "Hey, use this company." Now, what's really important to understand is that most warm lead channels, warm leads usually come before cold leads in most situations. Which means the warm lead table, the referral word of mouth table, usually the scraps that fall off of that table, the shitty cold lead, terrible scraps that fall off the referral word of mouth, warmly table are what are going to be looking online. So any online channel, SEO, paperclip, content marketing, social media marketing, paper lead, these are able to find and attract people that are at the end of the sale cycle, which means they're more price sensitive. They view you more as a commodity. They're getting bombarded or talking to multiple companies. You're now just all property managers are the same and they're looking for the cheapest price. And so if you're able to capture them earlier in the sales cycle, like even before they're searching online, even before they could even see online reviews, and you can capture through word of mouth or referrals or warm lead channels. You're going to be able to close deals at a higher price point. There's less price sensitivity and your close rate is really high for most referrals, I'm guessing most of you will say, close to a hundred percent, you know, it's something super high. [00:17:14] If it's not higher than 70%, you have bad breath and you don't know it, right? It's like 80, 90%. So it's the opposite. So we've got warm leads at like 90 percent cold leads at like 10 percent or worse. Now the other challenge with cold leads and warm leads is cold leads take way more time. It takes a lot more time to nurture them, talk to them, phone calls with them. And a lot of times you still won't even get the deal. So you're wasting a lot more time trying to get business with cold leads. Warm leads take way less time. So if you eliminate all of your cold lead marketing channels, which we help a lot of our clients do completely eliminate advertising expense altogether, and then we help them. They're able to grow faster. So that company we talked about before, if they didn't have the 322 cold leads to work, and they spent all of that time with their setter and their closer, their BDM focused. And that's business development manager is what that stands for. Everybody asks me that. If those are focused a hundred percent on warm lead strategies, they would have added a hundred or hundreds of doors. [00:18:20] One of our clients did just that. In contrast, came to us with 600 units in less than a year. They had added over 400 units, and they had broken the thousand door barrier. But it's because they were not focused on cold leads and their BDM full time was focused on real strategies that work, that were able to help them capture business much faster. [00:18:45] So here's the question I usually ask. Would you rather have 10 cold leads or five warm leads? If you do some math here, 10 percent close rate, you have 10 old leads you might get one deal. Five warm leads, you'll probably get four. You'll probably get four deals out of five warm leads right? And you're going to spend way less time, probably two to three times less amount of time in trying to nurture somebody, talking to them, visiting the property, etc. Less time wasting. So if you're a small business owner and you're trying to grow a business, one of the worst things you could do is to muck up your lead generation with cold lead marketing that takes a ton of time and gets you very little yield and is super expensive because warm lead marketing costs basically 0. [00:19:38] And you're like, "yeah, but it takes time." It takes less time than cold lead advertising does. It takes less follow up time, less time. So less time, less money, more deals. And a lot of people don't get this. They're like, "well, I just, I don't want to do all that work. I just want to throw money at the problem." [00:19:56] Cool. Keep wasting your money while my clients are kicking your ass. Like we'll help them do that all day long because our clients are crushing it when it comes to adding doors and they're not spending any money. So they have a lot more bandwidth to be able to afford to improve their business and improve operations because they're not spending two, three, sometimes four or five grand a month on internet marketing. [00:20:19] So they're able to grow faster.  [00:20:20] Hopefully all of you understand the difference between cold leads and warm leads. Not all leads are equal. People come to us all the time. They're like, "I want more leads." Well, if that is the thing that you're going to marketers and saying, "I just want more leads" with the assumption, the false assumption that all these are equal, you are red meat for a wolf that's going to destroy you, right? Because they're going to take your money and they're going to give you leads, but you don't know the difference between cold and warm leads, you're going to be taken for a ride and you're going to spend a lot of money and you're going to be one of those clients that comes to us and says, "I just spent a ton of money on X company, or, you know, ABC company or whatever for marketing, and I don't have a lot to show for it, but I've spent a lot of money and I've wasted a lot of time and I haven't added hundreds of doors, you know, over the last few years." [00:21:11] So we would love to help you grow and scale your business, do things that are more effective and focus on warmer lead strategies and move your business forward, help you get all these leaks shored up. We have an amazing program in our mastermind. Our clients are crushing it. We have more case studies and testimonials than any other coaching property management coaching out there on the planet. I think we collected on the last year. We made like over 40 case study videos, and these are just videos we're capturing during our interactions and our calls with clients. [00:21:44] And we would love to see you grow and succeed and help this industry grow and succeed and stop wasting your time, energy, and money, because we know if you spend a lot of money on cold lead marketing, and you're not getting a return, then you're losing money. Good marketing should make you way more money, that's an ROI, just like investing in rental properties should make you way more money in the long run than you're spending. [00:22:10] You should have an ROI. And if you don't, then your business is going to suffer. Your customer service is the first thing to go down the drain. And then you're the next shitty property management company. And there's way too many of those in the industry, and savvy marketers, clever marketers are the ones that I think are destroying and hurting this industry in aggregate. [00:22:29] And we're on a mission to change that here at DoorGrow. So I think that's it for today. We talked about cold leads, warm leads. Hopefully all of you understand the difference and reach out if you'd like some support and to get more warm leads.  [00:22:41] And until next time to our mutual growth. Bye everyone.  [00:22:45] You just listened to the #DoorGrowShow. We are building a community of the savviest property management entrepreneurs on the planet in the DoorGrowClub. Join your fellow DoorGrow Hackers at doorgrowclub.com. Listen, everyone is doing the same stuff. SEO, PPC, pay-per-lead content, social direct mail, and they still struggle to grow!  [00:23:12] At DoorGrow, we solve your biggest challenge: getting deals and growing your business. Find out more at doorgrow.com. Find any show notes or links from today's episode on our blog doorgrow.com, and to get notified of future events and news subscribe to our newsletter at doorgrow.com/subscribe. Until next time, take what you learn and start DoorGrow Hacking your business and your life.

Today on the podcast, Sarah joins us from Minnesota. Sarah got COVID-19 very early on in her first pregnancy during the height of the pandemic. The protocol at her practice was to recommend a precautionary 39-week induction. Sarah trusted her doctor and consented to the induction along with other interventions that were suggested. Her birth ended in a Cesarean under general anesthesia. During recovery, Sarah's knees would buckle to the point where she needed assistance walking and fell until the problem slowly resolved. When she achieved her VBAC, Sarah was able to immediately walk unassisted. She wasn't groggy from just having had anesthesia. Her throat didn't hurt. She got the immediate skin-to-skin she missed the first time.Sarah is such an amazing example of how powerful a VBAC birth can be, especially with the right prep and the right team. We just love how hands-off and supportive her doctor was. Sarah went into her birth mentally and physically strong. She labored hard, stayed calm, and pushed her baby boy out in 20 minutes!Additional LinksNeeded WebsiteHow to VBAC: The Ultimate Prep Course for ParentsFull Transcript under Episode DetailsMeagan: Welcome to The VBAC Link. We have a story for you today coming from Minnesota. We have our friend, Sarah. And Sarah, tell me. Did you have your babies both in Minnesota or have you moved since then? Sarah: Yes, both in Minnesota. Meagan: Both in Minnesota. All right, so Minnesota parents, listen up. This is a wonderful episode in your area. Review of the WeekAs always, we have a Review of the week but first I want to talk a little bit about COVID-19. Sarah and I were just talking about how we have seen so many COVID-19 stories coming through. They had their C-section through COVID-19 or even had their VBAC during COVID-19 and then now they have gone on to VBAC. There is definitely a trend of situations that we are seeing so I'm just so curious today. Go comment on today's episode and let us know if you have any relation, but a lot of providers are wanting to induce if you have the virus, COVID-19. Sarah, that was kind of the case with you, right? They wanted to induce because you had COVID-19. Sarah: Yes. That was kind of the standard of care at that point. Meagan: Yes, which is kind of interesting to think about the new standard of care. I really am curious to see one day what the Cesarean rates did during COVID-19. You know, there is some evidence here and there on it, but I'm really curious to see what the Cesarean rate did because we do have a lot of people saying that they were induced because they had COVID and then they ended in a Cesarean. So we're going to talk a little bit. She's going to share her birth and her induction story that then led to her VBAC. But of course, we have that review. It is by Raving Abbeh and the title is “Confidence.” It says, “I found this podcast at 34 weeks pregnant and it helped me gain the confidence to fight for my chance and get a VBAC. I hope to submit a success story in a few weeks.” And guess what? This was also during 2020, so Raving Abbeh, if you haven't submitted your story, we would love you to and as always, you guys, we're always accepting stories. We definitely record in chunks, so know that if it takes time, that doesn't mean you haven't been chosen or you will never be chosen, but if you want to submit your story, go to thevbaclink.com/share. Sarah's StoriesMeagan: Okay, Sarah. Welcome to the show. Sarah: I'm so excited. Meagan: I'm so excited. I'm so, so excited. Well, tell us more about this 39-week induction and why they were saying it was the new norm. It was the protocol, right? Sarah: Yes. So at this time, I was working full-time in the hospital where I gave birth as a radiographer– an X-ray tech. I was kind of in the world a little bit. It was definitely not a fun time to work in the hospital. I actually tested positive when I was 8 weeks pregnant, so very newly pregnant. I was seeing family med for my provider and what they were doing at that time, they said, “Okay. This is what's going to be different. You're going to meet with a high-risk OB who specialized in COVID.” I would have growth ultrasounds every 4 weeks and then also, they were recommending this induction at 39 weeks. When I asked about that, what she said was that they had seen issues with the placenta. That was the reason that they had. I actually looked back on it now and I think in the study, they really only had 16 pregnant people so that was what they were basing this all off on. Meagan: Which is really nothing to start making a protocol so wide-ranged. Sarah: Right. Right. And actually, right now, my sister-in-law had COVID and she's pregnant. She had COVID at the same time I did at 8 weeks, but now it's 2023 and her doctor is not doing the growth ultrasounds. They're not recommending induction. There actually is nothing different with her current, right-now pregnancy which I find interesting. Meagan: Interesting, right? Right? Sarah: But again, it can range. Meagan: In 2020, it's interesting because they were like, “Oh, we're going to have you with this provider who specializes in COVID pregnancies,” but how does someone specialize that fast? Sarah: Right. The person that was the specialized person was the highest-up person in the department of OB. Meagan: Okay, so definitely a specialized OB. Okay. Sarah: Right. I actually only ended up meeting up with her one time because if there was anything abnormal, that's when I would go to her but my pregnancy was completely normal. I had no issues related to COVID or related to anything else which was obviously a blessing, but kind of also a bummer because now, I'm going to have this completely unnecessary induction at 39 weeks.Meagan: Yeah. Sarah: She did mention at the time that if I wanted to go past 39 weeks, I could definitely make that choice but she would do NSTs. Now after learning so much and being where I am now, I would have been like, “Okay. Let's go longer and do NSTs,” but at the time as a first-time parent, I was like, “That sounds kind of weird. Let's just do what you think.” Meagan: It sounds intense with all of these extra visits. It's a lot. It sounds like a lot. Sarah: Yeah. Otherwise, about that pregnancy, being a first-time parent and having this medical background, it's no surprise probably that my attitudes towards the doctors were that I completely trusted their knowledge with the COVID stuff because it was so new. Meagan: Oh yeah, and scary. Sarah: Yeah, definitely, but I was completely unaware that there was such a wide range of ways to treat pregnancies and so many different attitudes on how to birth babies. I was just clueless to the whole thing about the cascade of interventions and why do inductions have an increased risk of C-section? I was completely clueless to it. I am just used to with a doctor, you have a certain condition and there are ways to treat it. It was very narrow. But with birth, there are midwives. There are doulas. There are so many different ways to treat someone's birth and pregnancy that was just over my head. When people would ask me, “Oh, why are you having an induction?” and tell me that maybe I shouldn't do that, I was like, “Oh, well why wouldn't I when they say that is the best thing to do for this COVID situation?” For me, it was like, “Well, they know better than me.” Meagan: Right, yeah. Sarah: I think you say all the time that you don't know what you don't know. Meagan: You don't know what you don't know and you can't judge yourself for not knowing what you don't know. Sarah: Yes. I definitely had to work through forgiving myself for sure. Meagan: Yeah. You have to take the information. I think I talked about this too. My husband had said this. We took the information we were given and made the best choice that we felt we had with the information provided. Sarah:  Yes. Meagan: Right? And that's what you did. Sarah: Right. Honestly, it's funny now. Even just preparing for birth in general, take away the COVID part, it's kind of funny how I did basically nothing to prepare for birth. I just focused on my registry and other things like that after the baby got there. It was kind of because I had this, “Oh if I go with the flow, I'll have the best outcome. I don't want to put too many expectations on myself. I don't want to pressure myself. I'm just going to go with the flow. I don't know how my body is going to handle it,” which does have a place. There is a goodness to that, but I think I was a little too extreme where I was like, “My mom had C-sections. I know if that happens, it happens.” It was just very, “Whatever happens, happens.” Now, I look back and I'm like, “Well, now all I did was have no tools in my toolbox to deal with pain, labor, or resources to help make those hard decisions that I was going to have to make.” I had nothing in the background to help me with that. Meagan: No tools in your toolbox. Sarah: Exactly. That's why it was very different for my second birth but at that time, I was like, “Okay, whatever happens, happens. I don't know what's going to happen to me or how my body is going to take it, so we'll just see what happens.” I was scheduled at 39 weeks on a Monday and actually, that Friday before, they called me and said, “Hey, do you want to come in early? We have a lot of people scheduled on Monday.” I was like, “Oh, I'm excited to meet my baby. I'll go in even earlier,” which is like, oh. Okay. That weekend, we were actually moving into our new house an hour away. Meagan: Oh my gosh. Sarah: We actually spent one night at our new house and the next day we drove back to Rochester to have our baby but we were so excited. Meagan: Yeah. Absolutely. Sarah: I wasn't even thinking about anything else. We were scheduled for a 7:00 PM Saturday appointment then. When I got there, I was completely 0% dilated. Closed. 0, 0, 0, -3 station. Furthest from ready. Meagan: Not ready to have a baby, yeah. Sarah: No. So they started me with Cytotec overnight and in the morning, they placed the Cook catheter then they started Pitocin right after. I faintly remember watching Beauty and the Beast bouncing on a ball, but that was the extent of any movement in my labor. Like I said, I didn't prepare for anything. I just was like, “Oh, bounce on a ball. Everyone says that's good.” I didn't do much. But what did start happening was the baby was having decels, not liking the Pitocin, so I had to get moved from side to side. I was lying on the bed– not the best position to have the baby not be so high up. Meagan: Right. Sarah: But then by 10:00 AM, they took out the Cook catheter. I was 4 centimeters dilated. Things were moving along. But then at 11:00, they had to turn down the Pitocin because again, the baby was still not tolerating it very well. Then I felt a big pop in my belly and I was like, “Oh, is this what it feels like when your water breaks?” I was excited. I'm like, “Oh, that sounded like a balloon popping.” So they came in and they were like, “No, we don't see anything. Your water didn't break.” I was like, “Oh, okay sure.” Meagan: I felt something. Sarah: So then a half hour later, they came back in because they had to actually turn off the Pitocin because the baby still wasn't happy. They checked me and they're like, “Oh, there's all your water,” and it gushed out on them. So I was like, “Okay, well at least I know that I can trust my intuition even though you didn't quite believe me.” Meagan: Yes. Sarah: But I'm not crazy. It did break. The contractions were getting really intense at this point. I tried laughing gas. It didn't really work. At that point, I decided, “Okay. I'm ready for an epidural. I feel like I've gotten as far as I can with what I prepared,” which was nothing. I actually found out this after the fact, but at this point, they actually gave me medicine to stop my contractions. Meagan: Like terbutaline or something?Sarah: Yes, exactly. They gave me that at this point. I actually have no recollection of this, but I was able to look at my records after the fact and I was like, “Oh, I never knew they even gave me that.” Apparently, they gave me that to stop things or slow them down or whatever. I was about 5 centimeters dilated at this point and they placed the epidural. Everything went smoothly with that and then an hour later, they were like, “Oh, we're going to start the Pitocin again.” I was like, “Okay.” I was 5 centimeters at that point and then 40 minutes later, they checked me and I was 9 centimeters. Meagan: Whoa, so your body went into total relaxation mode and dilated. Sarah: Yes. Yes. I was like, “Cool. That was fast.” They had just sent away the doctor. They had to call her back. Shortly after that, I was at 10 centimeters, ready to go. This is when they had me start pushing. One important part that I know now is that I don't remember ever feeling pressure or the urge to push or anything like that. They were just like, “Okay. It's time to push.” I'm like, “Okay.”I did end up pushing for about 3 hours. They did let me try a few different positions. They tried to turn down my epidural to help too, but she never really progressed past that zero station. So nothing was happening. I was mostly on my back for all of it.I remember them saying that they would let me push for the most at 4 hours, but at the 3-hour mark, I was exhausted. I felt like we had made no progress. I was just like, “Nothing's going to change in another hour at this point for me. I don't know what I'm doing. You try to tell me how to push. I still don't know.” Meagan: Yeah. You're just like, “I'm tired.” Sarah: Exactly. The contractions were beginning to be really painful. Again, I didn't really have a way to cope with them. The pushing wasn't working so I consented to the C-section. I just remember feeling so defeated and just crying, being wheeled into the OR. My doctor stayed right by my head and talked to me until my husband was supposed to come in because I kept saying, “Hey, I feel these contractions. They are strong.” They were trying to give me all of the medicine to numb me enough. They were doing the prick test to make sure that I couldn't feel it and I just remember it was really hard because my nose was plugged up from crying. I felt like I couldn't breathe anyway. I wasn't sure about the pokes. I was like, “They are sharp to me. I feel them. They don't feel like pressure. They feel sharp.” They were like, “Okay. Well, we're going to have to put you under.” They put the mask on me. I breathed in and went to sleep. Meagan: And you were gone. Sarah: Yep. Then I was gone. Meagan: Your husband probably never came in then? Sarah: So he did get to go into the OR. She was born. They let him go in so he was all gowned up. He was in the OR. He kind of tells it like, “Yeah, it was so weird. I looked over and there you were on the table.” He wasn't so close to me. Meagan: Sleeping. Sarah: But yeah. I was sleeping. He did get to do skin-to-skin. They let him do that in the OR which was really nice. They got a bunch of pictures of her getting weighed and him cutting the cord in there so it was nice to have some of those pictures that I can look back on. Meagan: Right. Sarah: That's something. Meagan: Right, yeah. It helps you relate, too, when you're not awake. Sarah: Exactly. It was definitely a weird experience. But when I did come to, apparently, I had been awake longer but you know how that works. When you're waking up from anesthesia, it's kind of weird. But apparently, when I woke up, they told me that I was just like, “Where's the baby? Where's the baby? Where's the baby?” They rushed me back. I don't remember any of that, but what I do remember is when I woke up, my throat was so sore and hurt so bad. But she was on me and she latched immediately and started feeding so that was really special. Meagan: Yes. Sarah: Just how she was able to eat right away and I didn't have any problems with that which was really nice. I know that can happen sometimes. That's basically that birth. Meagan: An unexpected ending and a less-ideal situation, but then to come out and have things work out really nicely was probably really healing and comforting. Sarah: Yes. Right away, I was definitely happy. She was healthy. I was okay. She was eating. But I remember just recovering from a C-section, you're in a fog. I remember my legs being in those machines to keep the blood flowing, having a catheter, having my sore throat, and whispering to talk. That kind of thing was definitely not a fun recovery in that aspect right immediately after. Meagan: Yeah. Sarah: I actually had a really weird thing. I had problems with my knees. Meagan: Oh. Sarah: I have never heard anyone else talk about this. Meagan: Interesting, like wobbly and strong? Sarah: So what happened was once they took out the catheter and then they give you the, “Okay, it's time to try to go to the bathroom for the first time.” When I tried to stand up, my knees would just buckle. The first day, I had to have two people assist me to the bathroom. The second day, it was also a two-assist. Slowly, they started to not always buckle. I was in the hospital, I think, for four days. Four or five days. Eventually, they wouldn't buckle but when I got home, they would buckle when I went upstairs. I did fall twice but slowly, they did get better. It was fine. It was just if I unexpectedly took a step. My cat scared me and I stepped and then I would fall because my knee wasn't expecting it. Meagan: I just looked it up because I am legitimately curious. It says, “Acute lower limb compartment syndrome after a Cesarean.” Sarah: Oh. Hmm. Meagan: Interesting. So it can happen. Sarah: Interesting. I was just kind of assuming it was a mix of me being numbed from the waist down for hours and then my legs being up in the air for hours and then being in the C-section, and then also laying down. Do you know what I mean? Something with that, but no doctor or anything ever said anything to me about it. They were just like, “Oh, okay. That's weird.” Meagan: Yeah. Really, really interesting. It says that it's rare. Sarah: Oh. Meagan: It's pretty rare, so you get to be in one of those rare groups. Thank you for sharing. Sarah: Yeah, so otherwise, I hadn't really fully processed the birth but every time I would tell my birth story, I would choke up or cry and that's when I realized, “Oh, maybe I didn't really like that very much” because at first, you're just happy the baby is okay and you're okay. I actually remember right afterward, I was like, “Oh, okay for any other baby, I'll just schedule a C-section. This time it will be planned and I'm going to be awake for it.” I honestly wasn't even thinking about VBAC right away. I was just like, “Oh, the future will be easier. It will be fine.” But when my daughter was around 6 months old, I started to listen to The Birth Hour and I found myself searching C-section stories, looking for things like mine which led me to hearing VBAC stories, searching those out, and then finally finding The VBAC Link. That was the big game changer. I am so appreciative of you guys having this podcast and keeping it going on and all that. Meagan: Absolutely. Sarah: Such an inspiration. I learned so much even from both podcasts about interventions, doulas, birth teams, and most importantly, trusting in a woman's body. It kind of leads me to this big thing. It's like, why do we have to go through some sort of trauma to become an advocate for women and educate ourselves? Meagan: Right? Sarah: I feel like that's such a theme. Meagan: It's so true though. It's so true. Why do we have to go through a really crappy experience? It doesn't always have to be crappy. I'm not saying C-sections are crappy, but a big experience to have passion and to feel that motivation behind that.Sarah: Exactly. Yep. Sometimes, it's so hard because it's like when you talk to someone who hasn't been affected by this kind of situation where it doesn't go their way in the hospital, it sounds like a conspiracy theory. “You can't trust the doctors.” That's not what we're saying. It's so much more than that. Meagan: It is. It really is. It's not even just in birth. Truly, right? My husband does not do what he does, I think, mainly just because he didn't want to do it one day. It was like, “Hey, this really unfortunate situation happened to someone I love and I want to be available in a different manner to help them or help anybody else.” So he took on his profession. It's like IBCLCs– I'm sure a lot of them have had unfortunate or poor nursing experiences and are like, “We want to help other people have better experiences.”Sarah: Yes, because it's the information that, “Oh, wow.” It makes complete sense that, “Oh, things might go a little bit better if you let your body naturally do it.” Oh, well yeah. That makes sense. It makes sense that, “Oh, if I have someone who's trained in positioning, maybe if I move my body in this way, then I can get my baby in a better position to come out better. Oh, that makes sense. Why didn't I know that? Why didn't my doctor say, ‘Hey, there are some positions that can help.'” It's confusing to me. It's like, well that makes sense. Meagan: Yeah. Sarah: Yeah. So obviously, I just dove right into all of the VBAC stuff and learning all about that and listening to different stories. I was super excited for my next pregnancy because I had made the decision, “Yes. I'm going to go for a VBAC and I'm super excited about it.” I was ready to do all of the things to make it more successful. We got pregnant when my daughter was around 15 months old. We wanted a two-year age gap and they're both two years apart in April so that worked out for us. Meagan: Perfectly, yeah. Sarah: So the things I did to make it more successful– they are all things that people on this podcast talk about. For physical things, it was workouts that focused on birth prep. I didn't do anything crazy like walking for miles and miles every day. I just did the minimal which was doing some exercises every day for hips opening, cat/cow, and all of that stuff. I did the Miles Circuit later on in pregnancy every day. I ate my dates every day. I drank my tea.Then I think the biggest thing, too, is mentally preparing. For mentally preparing, I got my doula. I really love that the doula does the meetings before the birth. I didn't even know that when I had heard people talk about doulas but meeting before and talking about what birth plan I wanted, what things– Meagan: Your desires. Sarah: Exactly and what things could happen. I'm like, “This would be so helpful for a first-time parent to know all of this stuff.” I wish I had gotten her with my first. Also, just talking about coping mechanisms, what are some positions that we are going to do, talk about scenarios. It was great. Then I also, for mentally preparing, I looked up a bunch of different coping mechanisms. I actually did Hypnobabies. I wasn't consistent with the meditation, but it was very helpful to practice the breathing and visualization. Meagan: I did too. I did it as well. Sarah: I was really bad at the meditations so that didn't stick with me, but it was really, really great to practice the breathing and all of that. And honestly, just listening to birth stories is mentally preparing because I would really only focus on positive stories toward the end of my pregnancy. I was like, “Okay, now we are in the home stretch. We are just going to stick to all of the positive ones.” The big thing, too, was finding my provider. I joined The VBAC Cesarean Support Group on Facebook way earlier and everyone had all of the recommendations of who to go to. My provider is actually family med, but he is more like a midwife. Actually, my doula said that he's actually more crunchy than a midwife as a family med. For all of the births that she attended, she said, “He is more hands-off than a midwife.” I'm like, “Wow.” Meagan: Wow, that's cool. Sarah: And what's great is that he attends all of his births so there is no rotating call schedule. Meagan: Which is huge. Sarah: There's no, “Who's going to be there?” He's very trusting of women's bodies. I did my due diligence and I asked him, “How often have you personally seen a uterine rupture? How often do you use the vacuum? How often have you done episiotomies?” You know, so just asking him all of the things. He had really great responses and I felt really solid with him. Meagan: Which is really important, right? To have those conversations also. We know that when they come in and they say, “Hey, do you have any questions?” It's really okay to ask questions. Sarah: Yes. That's the big thing. So because he's not an OB, I had to go do a consult with the OB that he works with in the hospital. The OB who works in the hospital definitely wasn't making me fearful, but there's a certain form you have to fill out that says, “Hey, obviously if you're successful with your TOLAC, that's going to be the safest option for you. But if you're not successful, that's the least safe.” It's easy to plant doubt, but after I saw him again, I asked my provider, “How often do you see it?” It was such a small amount and since he's one of the VBAC go-tos, I felt very confident with him. It was really nice to have that fear taken away in that way. Meagan: Yeah. Yeah. Sarah: And then this is kind of interesting. Just for fun, I did message my old provider at my previous hospital just to see what she would say about my chances for VBAC. I actually messaged her before I was pregnant. I said, “Hey, I am kind of processing and struggling from my C-section. What do you think about my chance for VBAC?” It was just on a message. What she said was, “You did everything you could at that time to have her vaginally, but she just didn't fit your pelvis for whatever reason. We think of fitting as a lock and key situation. Both pieces have to work together to open, so there's no way to know if a future baby would ever fit your pelvis better than she did.” Then she kind of went on. I thought, “Nope.” I'm like, “Nope. I'm not taking that in.” Meagan: Yes. Sarah: It was interesting. Meagan: Thank you so much, but no thanks. Sarah: Exactly.Sarah: Exactly. I'm like, “I don't think she didn't fit my pelvis. That's not a thing.” Meagan: But you know, it's an easy thing for people to say or diagnose. It's like, “Oh, well your baby was perfect. You were perfect, but the two together didn't really match that time.” Sarah: Right. Meagan: That doesn't necessarily mean that's true. We just don't know. Sarah: Again, we can't go back in time and have me try something different. Meagan: Yes, yes. Sarah: But I think it's interesting that she said that. Meagan: It is. Sarah: Again, I talked to my doctor. He's like, “Oh yeah. Great. Let's do it.” Meagan: Yeah. Sarah: He said, “You've got this.” So you know. Otherwise, I'm preparing. This is the funny thing too, again. At first, I didn't have any intention of trying to go unmedicated. At first. I was like, “I definitely want to VBAC,” but I wasn't trying to do that. I was just focused on the VBAC part. But once you hear enough birth stories, you know that if I do all of this preparation and I go as long as I can without this intervention, I'm going to have the best possible chance of a healthy vaginal birth. If it still ends in a C-section, it's because that was what had to happen not because I didn't know any better. Meagan: Right. Sarah: So that's when I was like, “Yes, okay. It makes sense for me to try. I should just try to go unmedicated. I should just do it. Whatever happens, happens.” I still am keeping my go-with-the-flow but with a lot of preparation. It was kind of funny because when I would tell people that, “I'm trying to go unmedicated,” people will say the craziest things to you. Meagan: Right? “I could never.” Sarah: Yes, or “I know someone who did and it was the worst thing they ever chose to do. They said, ‘Never do that.'” It's like, I know and I've heard many, many stories of people doing it and are very happy with the outcome. So definitely right before, I was 37 weeks. I was like, “I'm going to read Ina May's Guide to Childbirth.” Everybody talks about it, but I just wanted to hone in and focus on those unmedicated birth stories and just say, “How did you guys do this? How was it successful?” That was really helpful. I really liked that book. That was really good. Meagan: Yeah. I really like it too. Sarah: Yeah. Otherwise in this pregnancy though, I physically felt really good. I got Braxton Hicks contractions which I didn't have in my first pregnancy. That was definitely new. Meagan: Yes. Probably exciting. Sarah: It was exciting. I was like, “Okay, yeah. Every birth is different.” That was one of the Hypnobabies thing that stuck with me. Each baby is different. Your birth is going to be different. Don't let that fear creep in on you. But at 33 weeks, I found out the baby was breech so that was scary. Meagan: Yeah. It throws you for a loop, right? Sarah: Yes. When I found out that he was breech, I immediately messaged my doula. She gave me Spinning Babies exercises to do every day. I was making sure I was sitting forward and all of that stuff. Then I went to see a chiropractor first and then she also gave me this massage therapist who was trained in breech balancing massage. I went to both of those and the baby was flipped at my next appointment at 35 weeks. Meagan: Yay. Sarah: So I was very happy. The coolest thing with the massage therapist—in our state, I'm pretty sure she is maybe the only one who does this breech balancing massage. She told me because I actually went to do a follow-up appointment. Even though he was already head down, I was like, “Let's just go again to make sure.” She said that she was treating six other breech moms at that time and they had all flipped when I came back from my second appointment. Meagan: Oh my gosh. Sarah: Yeah. I'm always in the groups. I'm like, “If anyone is breech, try this specific breech balancing massage. Yeah.” It's really interesting just listening to her talk about it because she is so knowledgeable about, “Hey, your baby is breech for a reason. You have these muscles that get tightened. Your pelvis is this bowl and if things are in the wrong position, the baby wants to be head down. If I can release all of these muscles and make more space in there, even if the massage might not on its own make your baby flip, but giving your baby that space, then your ECV is more successful if you do that. Meagan: Right. Sarah: I was very happy because I had done all of this work and hyped myself up. I wouldn't want to have to schedule a C-section for this reason after all of that but if it happened, it happened. Meagan: Yeah. Sarah: So everything was going good then until my 39-week appointment. I had a high blood pressure reading so I was like, “Oh great.” But my doctor was not worried. He had me do an NST, labs, and monitor at home. I came back in a few days and everything was good. That was nice. Actually, the day that I went back for my follow-up for my high blood pressure was the day that I got my birth records. They had my birth records there for me. I had gone this whole time. I was almost 40 weeks and I was like, “I still really want to see.” Meagan: You had requested them? Sarah: Yeah, and it just took a really long time to get them. When I had that appointment, I was able to get my birth records earlier than I thought. I didn't think I was even going to get them by the time I had the baby. I was able to read through them and kind of work through it. My doula was like, “Oh, do you want to call and talk about it?” I was like, “Yes.” It was kind of like a fear release for me because that night I went into labor. Meagan: Yeah. Did you find anything in there that you didn't know before? Sarah: I mean, that one thing was that terbutaline. I didn't know that. And then I was just curious about some of the dilation. Also, I saw on my records too that the surgeon who did my C-section put, “This patient is a candidate for a TOLAC.” Meagan: Oh yeah. Sarah: It was nice just to have that and to see that the surgeon who did my C-section would put that on my note like, “Yeah. They are a candidate.”Meagan: Yeah, it's helpful. Sarah: Just working through it too was nice to see it in a timeline. So that night was the night I went into labor. At 2:00 AM, I woke up with my contractions. Right away, they were 3-7 minutes apart. I had the same situation three weeks before where I woke up and had contractions that were 3-7 minutes apart, but they fizzled out and didn't come back. I only had that situation one time earlier. So I was like, “Oh, this could be another practice. This could be the real thing.” But they were stronger than the last time. That's the biggest thing too. Even though they were so close together, I was handling them so well that I was like, “I think I'll just wait this out,” which is interesting because if you're a first-time mom, you're like, “Hey, this is 4-1-1. I'm having them.” Meagan: You have to go! Sarah: And they're long. A lot of them were long like at least a minute, but they just weren't strong so I was like, “Okay, well I'll wait.” Then my husband woke up at 4:00 AM. I was like, “Hey, I'm having these contractions.” His response was, “I'd better hurry up and go work. I've got some work to get done.” He's like, “Oh no. I gotta go.” So then he went away to go work on stuff. Then by 6:00 AM, I was like, “Okay.” I had a couple really strong ones so I was like, “Oh.” Then I was also getting back labor so I was like, “All right. Time to text the doula.” I was like, “Hey, this is what's going on.” She was like, “Well, your back pain might be because of the baby's position, so try to do the Miles Circuit. Eat a good breakfast. Hydrate. I'm preparing you for possibly a long day.” I said, “Okay, sounds good.” I had my bagel with cream cheese. I got my Body Armor drinks out, but when I tried to do the Miles Circuit, it was so intense. I could not. The minute I laid down and I had a contraction in the Miles Circuit position, the laying down one, it was like, “Whoa, no.” Meagan: Not gonna happen. Sarah: I'm like, “I think this is time for me to start going into some prep mode here.” So I dimmed the lights in my room. I had my ball but I actually didn't like bouncing on it so I never bounced on it. Meagan: Was it uncomfortable? Sarah: Yeah. For me, that seated position was uncomfortable. For me, I was in a forward-leaning position. I'd lean against the wall and sway or I'd have my husband come. I'd hug him and sway. I'm like, “This is working out okay.” The back labor was a different aspect that was like, “There's got to be something I can do for this back labor.” I messaged her and she's like, “Okay, well obviously have him try to do hip squeezes,” but he wasn't really getting the job done with the hip squeezes. She recommended the shower to also help us see if it's going to calm down or if it will keep going. I got in the shower and it was magic. The heat on the back was perfect. My favorite thing ever, but the hot water ran out after 15 minutes and I was so sad. Meagan: Oh shoot. Sarah: So the hot water ran out and I was like, “Oh man.” I got out of the shower and I was like, “Now we might just have to go to the hospital right now because I need hot water. I want to get in that tub.” That was my dream was getting in the tub. Meagan: Right. Sarah: So my doula checked in with me at this point and asked about the shower. I was like, “Yeah.” I think I was kind of in denial because I was like, “Oh, it's medium intense,” but they were still happening. She was like, “Okay, well maybe you should start heading in as long as they are staying 3-4 minutes consistently for an hour. Go ahead and start heading in.” At this point, she also tells me that she is actually in another birth. Then she joined me with the backup doula so she was at another birth. I was like, “Oh bummer.” But my backup doula ended up being amazing as well. But you know, when you're preparing with someone— Meagan: Can I just say right there that is a real thing? It's usually if you have to have a backup doula, it usually works out so well. Right? Sarah: Yeah, it was so good. Meagan: But like you were saying as I was cutting you off, as you were preparing with someone else, it's hard. Sarah: Yeah, it's kind of a bummer because you know this person so well and you had worked with them, but it worked out perfectly fine too. I really like my backup doula. She's great as well. She told me, again because I was like, “Hey, what can I do for now? We're going to head in probably soon but what else can I do for this back pain?” She was like, “Do you have a heating pack?” I'm like, “Ooh, yes.” I was putting a hot pack on my back which again, wasn't hot enough for me. Meagan: You needed a hot tub. Sarah: It did something. At this point, my daughter had actually woken up because we were still at home. It was about 8:00 and she was so sweet. Every time I'd have a contraction, I'd go into my room. I'd have my calming music on and my swaying but then I would leave and I'd come back out with her. She was just so sad. She wasn't crying, but she had these big tears welling up in her eyes. I would hold her and she would pat my back. She was like, “It's okay.” It's like she knew that something was going on. I was like, “I'm okay. It's okay.” She was just kind of like, “What is going on?” I wasn't making loud, loud noises but I would be doing horse lips through them or moaning. Meagan: Coping. Sarah: Yeah, nothing too crazy, but for her, she could tell that something was going on. Luckily, my mother-in-law and sister-in-law came over shortly after that around 8:30ish. My sister-in-law took my daughter and was like, “Let's go play,” so she was good. She was good. My mother-in-law saved me because she said, “Oh, I will boil hot water.” So she got a big pot and boiled hot water. She put cloths in them and put those on my back. That was amazing. Meagan: I bet that felt really good. Sarah: Right. So at this point, my husband probably should have been getting the cars ready for us to go to the hospital, but instead, he was cleaning the house frantically. Meagan: That was probably his way of coping. “Oh my gosh, this is happening. I'm going to go work and then I'm going to go clean the house.” Sarah: Yes. Yes, so we're like, “Okay, it's time. We've got to get going.” I'm like, “Yeah. I've got to get going.” So finally, we get in the car. My back is soaking wet from these hot towels but they are saving me. Luckily, the drive was only 10 minutes. I had my hot towel in there. It wasn't the most comfortable, but we got there. They checked us in and they moved us to triage. At this point, again, the sitting position was not my position for labor. It was, “Nope, not happening.” I was always kneeling, facing the back of the bed. The back of the bed was up. I held onto it. Then when I was in triage, though, I didn't have my coping mechanisms. I didn't have my hot towels. My next plan that I had was the comb technique. I had packed a couple of combs. I was telling my husband, “All right. Your hip squeezes—” he was trying to find the combs and of course, he couldn't find the combs that I brought. But he did remember that he brought his own comb. Meagan: Hey! Sarah: So I was able to take his comb which I can say RIP to his comb. I used it. There were little comb tings, whatever they are called, the teeth of the comb were everywhere at the end of my birth but it definitely worked. So then every time I would have a contraction, I was pushing on the comb and breathing as they were checking me into triage. But they were able to kind of get the band on me. They gave me an ultrasound to make sure the baby was head down while I was in triage. Then they checked me. The nurse checked me and when she was down there, she was like, “Oh, it's really hard to tell how dilated you are because you have a bulging bag of waters and I really can't tell what you're doing.” She was like, “I think you're almost complete.” I'm like, “Okay.” Meagan: Whoa. Sarah: I'm like, “Okay.” This whole time, she'd been trying to call someone on her radio, but they were really busy. At that point, she was like, “Okay, let's get this room.” She was like, “I'll just wheel you on this bed unless you want to walk.” I'm like, “Actually, I want to walk.” I was actually thinking, “You know what? I think I want the bed that is in the room. The triage beds aren't probably as comfortable.” That's where my mind was so I was like, “Let me just walk.” Meagan: No. Sarah: So they get me in the room and again, my doula is on her way but she's not there yet. It's about, I think, 10:00. My doctor comes in. They put the little IV on my arm in case I need any medicine. All I'm doing right now- Meagan: Hep lock. Sarah: Yes, exactly. All I'm saying is that I just wanted to get in the tub. This is me the whole time in triage. Meagan: I just want the water. Sarah: I want to get in the tub. I want to get in the tub. The comb is helping, but I want to get in the tub. So he comes in. I'm like, “Hey, can I get in the tub?” He's like, “Well, you can but I should probably check you first if you want me to. If you're really close like the nurse thinks, then you'll have to push soon possibly.” I'm like, “Yes. Check me because then, if I'm not, I can get in the tub.” That was in the back of my mind. He checked me. He's down there for a while and I'm finally like, “Okay, you've got to get out.” He's like, “I understand why they are having a hard time. Yes. You have a big, bulging bag of waters. I can tell why she had a hard time and I think you're maybe 7 or 8 centimeters but I can't tell. As soon as the water breaks, you're going to be fast.” I was like, “Sounds like I can get in the tub.” He was like, “Yes, you can.” Meagan: You're like, “Perfect.” Sarah: Perfect. This is when my doula came around this time. She helped get the tub in motion because they were like, “Well, it's going to take a while. We've got to get you on these mobile monitors.” She went in and she got the water going and I was able to get in the tub. The only problem is that once I got in the tub, I was like, “Oh, I think I have to poop,” which is the magic— Meagan: Means you're going to have a baby! Sarah: She was like, “Well if you want, you can sit on the toilet and see if you actually do poop.” I was like, “Sounds like a plan.” I sat on the toilet facing the back of the toilet. I had my hands on my comb. My comb was with me everywhere. That's when I had the scary, scary transition contraction. I was so happy I had her there because she was saying all of the right things and at this point, I can't remember any of them except for her saying to me, “This is the hardest part, but it's also the shortest. You are in transition.” When I heard her, I was like, “Okay, that makes sense.” I was a little shaky. You just feel so out of control. I was like, “Whoa. I don't know about this. I'm not sure about this.” Meagan: You start questioning. It's weird. Sarah: It is really, yeah. But she was saying all of the things I needed to hear, so I was good. So then I was like, “Okay, no poop is coming. Let's get back in the tub.” So I got back in the tub, and then I had probably one contraction and then a lab person came to the door and was like, “I've got to take your blood.” We're like, “Uh, okay. Let's just wait until she's in between contractions.” I'm like, “That's a good idea.” So she comes in. She turns on the light. I'm like, “This is throwing off my vibe.” She sits down next to me and she scans my band and then they were like, “Okay, let's wait for the next one.” The next contraction came and it was the, “My body is pushing! I'm pushing. Help!” I had that fetal ejection reflex, but my water was still intact so it was more of the water ejection reflex. Meagan: It was pushing that, yeah. Exactly. Sarah: My body did the thing where it pushed on its own. I've always heard about this when I've listened to the podcasts that this happens. I was always like, “Oh, I want that. That sounds nice. Do it for me,” but I did not like it. Nope. Especially because I was in the tub, maybe that's why, but I just felt so out of control. I was like, “Whoa. I'm not controlling this pushing,” but I was also very excited because I knew that meant it was time. The lab person promptly left the bathroom and they never got my blood. I don't know why they needed it, but they never got it. Meagan: I know. It's so weird, “We need your blood right now.” It's like, “Really? Why?” Sarah: Yeah. Especially when, “Oh, I'm in transition about to have a baby.” I think you're okay. Meagan: Seriously. Sarah: I had that. So that happened and then my doula was like, “Well, do you think you want to get in the bed?” I'm like, “Yes. If a baby is coming, I need to be on the bed.” So again, my favorite position—even my tub position was my hands and knees. I was draping my hand on the back of the bed kind of in that—I wasn't really hands and knees because I started that way and then I ended up hugging a pillow and kind of squatting back. Meagan: Yeah, okay. Sarah: Yeah. I started pushing. Again, my waters hadn't broken yet which was obviously, this is a big thing with my provider. He is hands-off. Any other provider would have said, “Do you want me to break your water?” Meagan: Absolutely. Sarah: That would have been a thing. It was kind of interesting that “Nope. I'm just doing it all on my own what my body wants to do.” I was pushing for about 10 minutes and then my waters exploded. They all knew it was coming, so no one got drenched, but it was so loud. Meagan: Everyone was probably a little sensitive in that area. They were probably like, “I'll walk over here.” Sarah: Yes. They expected it. My doctor was like, “I might get drenched, but I'm ready for it.” But he didn't. Meagan: That's okay. Sarah: It was so loud. I was shocked. It was like a gunshot. It felt like it was just like BAM when I pushed it out. So that was great. Then about 5 minutes after that, he was born. I pushed the waters out and then pushed him out. His head was right there and they were like, “Oh, you can reach down and feel the head.” I'm like, “I can't.” I had to reach down. I'm like, “My arms are too short.” So then I pushed him out. It was about two pushes I think.Yes, as soon as that water was done, yeah. He was two pushes after that. It was about 20 minutes of pushing total. Meagan: Whoa. That's like nothing. Sarah: Yeah, then I got to flip around. They put him on me and they didn't cut the cord until it was done pulsing. They did delayed cord clamping. They did the golden hour. He was just on my chest the whole time. I birthed my placenta which was fine. I did have a small tear which was just something I was scared about with an unmedicated birth. I'm like, “Oh, that will be not pleasant. I hope I don't but again, no idea. I probably will. Most people do.” It was a very small, I guess, second-degree tear but he numbed it. It just felt like a bunch of little bee stings. He numbed it and stitched it. It was fine. Baby was on my chest for that whole hour. What was crazy to me—I also consented to having the Pitocin drip afterward to get the— Meagan: The uterus to contract down, mhmm. Sarah: Yes, yes. I had that. Once that was done, I was able to just stand up and go to the bathroom. Meagan: Amazing, right? Sarah: I could just get up to go to the bathroom. I felt good. I felt fine. This was about 10:50 in the morning, so yeah. I was at the hospital for an hour and a half before he was born. Later that night around 5:00, we had family come over to see the baby that night. I felt as great as could be with still normal postpartum stuff. Meagan: Right. You did just push a baby out. But you weren't knocked out and coming too and all of those other things. Sarah: Yes. So yeah. That's about it for that.Meagan: Aw, yes. Well, congratulations. I'm sure that was a very different experience. I mean, I'm sure both babies were, right? We all cherish our babies' births but to be more present in your baby's birth, I'm sure definitely left an impact. Sarah: Yeah. Even my husband told me that for this time, he actually teared up and felt like it was just such a more of an emotional experience even for him which is completely understandable. It was actually really scary for him with the C-section he told me. They tell you, “Hey, we're going to go put your wife out. We're going to come back and get you and then you're going to come and be part of it.” He's sitting there waiting, waiting, waiting. They just kind of say, “Hey, you can't go in anymore. We knocked her out. You have to wait here. It's going to be a while.” Then he's just like, “Oh, is she going to be okay?” It was a little scary for him too, that first one. This was a lot, obviously, more emotional and just a really cool experience for both of us. Meagan: Yeah. I'm sure it was very healing for both of you like you said. That couldn't have been easy for him walking in and seeing you in that manner. I mean, the fact that he even brought it up. “It was weird when I walked in and you were laying there but then I'm over here doing skin-to-skin with this baby.” Sarah: Yep. Meagan: I'm sure it was so healing for both of you. Huge congrats. Sarah: Yeah, thank you. Oh, and one thing to mention with the doctor is that because I gave him all of my birth plan too, at no point in this hospital situation was I ever offered anything. They knew what my preferences were. They never said anything about any interventions at all. They never said, “Do you want us to break this water?” Everyone was on board. It was great. Meagan: Yeah. You really didn't feel like you had to fight along the way. Sarah: Yeah. It was all supportive which is what I wanted. Meagan: Yeah, and what you deserved. Sarah: Yeah. It was really great to have that. Honestly, the thing I also really liked about pushing in that position where you are facing the back of the bed was that I didn't see all of the people staring at me. It was nice because—and not that it would have mattered—but I'm kind of socially anxious in that situation so it was nice to just be focused on my husband's hand holding me. I've got my comb. I'm breathing. I'm totally in it. I'm not looking around. With the C-section, that labor was like everyone was staring at you. You're pushing and trying and nothing is happening. It was so nice to just be here in my world. I never even saw anyone. Meagan: Yeah. Sometimes you see people's faces and they are not wanting to communicate with their mouths so they communicate with their faces. So when you are just staring at all of these people surrounding you, you find yourself, “What are they saying?” Sarah: Yeah, exactly. Meagan: You start questioning it. It pulls you out of that space. It sounds like you were really able to stay in that space because maybe you didn't see any of that. Sarah: Yes, exactly. When I was pushing, it was really hard. I'm not saying it was easy. “Oh, unmedicated in 20 minutes.” No. It was hard work. There were times when some doubts would creep in and I was like, “What if he's in the canal too long? Will he be okay?” It would be easy for those doubts to creep in, but my doctor and my doula were all saying the things that I needed to hear. “You're doing it. Your body knows what to do. Keep pushing this way. Push like you're going to poop.” They were saying all of the things to keep me focused. It would be so easy if you're not ready to give birth to a baby, that feeling would be very scary. You would feel very out of control. I could see how easy it would be for that to be very, very scary. Having the people there that knew what to say to me was very helpful. Meagan: Yeah. Absolutely. The team is really that powerful though. It really, really is. Sarah: Mhmm. Meagan: So get a team. If you're looking for a doula, we've got doulas on our website that are VBAC-trained and certified. Get a good provider who is supportive and loving and willing to just like Dr. Ryan, just yeah. “Let's do this. Let's do it.” Super supportive from the get-go. “Yeah, we have to have this consult, but I'm not not supporting you by sending you to this consult.” Sarah: Exactly. Yep. He's like, “This person knows that I do a lot of VBACs. They've been through this before.” Meagan: Yes. Yes. Sarah: Yeah. Meagan: Well, huge, huge congrats.ClosingWould you like to be a guest on the podcast? Tell us about your experience at thevbaclink.com/share. For more information on all things VBAC including online and in-person VBAC classes, The VBAC Link blog, and Meagan's bio, head over to thevbaclink.com. Congratulations on starting your journey of learning and discovery with The VBAC Link.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-vbac-link/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Real estate agent referrals can be a great source for leads in a property management business, but this strategy is often challenging and confusing for property management entrepreneurs. Join property management experts Jason Hull and Sarah Hull as they dive into the world of real estate agent referrals and why they often don't work for property management entrepreneurs. Learn how to shift the focus from seeking referrals to creating impactful introductions that connect you with the right clients. You'll Learn [02:24] The Problems with Trying to Get Referrals from Realtors [05:39] How to be Memorable to Your Clients [10:31] How Going Deeper can Land You More Deals [15:24] Challenges with Asking for Referrals [17:44] Don't Make Realtors Sell for You + Building Confidence Tweetables “We have maybe three or four different bodies or parts of ourselves. We have our intuitive, we have our mental, we have our emotional, and we have our physical.” “What I found was they'll have a logical mental memory of something, but a logical mental memory of something alone doesn't really stay there unless there's emotion connected to it.” “If they're not excited or feel something, why would they be motivated to give you referrals or even remember you or think about you?” “Depth is where the magic happens.” Resources DoorGrow and Scale Mastermind DoorGrow Academy DoorGrow on YouTube DoorGrowClub DoorGrowLive TalkRoute Referral Link Transcript [00:00:00] Jason: They wake up every morning wanting something and it's not property management and it's not like helping their clients with property management that is not at the forefront of their mind, their heart and their desires. What do they want? They want money. They want more real estate deals.  [00:00:17] Welcome DoorGrow Hackers to the DoorGrowShow. If you are a property management entrepreneur that wants to add doors, make a difference, increase revenue, help others, impact lives, and you are interested in growing in business and life, and you're open to doing things a bit differently then you are a DoorGrow hacker. DoorGrow hackers love the opportunities, daily variety, unique challenges, and freedom that property management brings. Many in real estate think you're crazy for doing it you think they're crazy for not because you realize that property management is the ultimate, high trust gateway to real estate deals relationships and residual income. At DoorGrow, we are on a mission to transform property management, business owners and their businesses. [00:00:59] 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, along with Sarah Hull, the co owner and COO of DoorGrow. Now let's get into the show.  [00:01:20] My iPad dinged. I didn't turn on do not disturb when it started. I need my— I have to have a pre flight checklist like right there. Like I got to do it. So, it's on do not disturb now. By the way, I was talking with a client this week. And he said that he had some of my videos playing in the background and he forgot and he came back into the room and he heard this voice talking, and he's like, "why is Ed Norton talking in my office?" You know who Ed Norton is?  [00:01:55] Sarah: No.  [00:01:56] Jason: All right for those of you listening, you probably know he's an actor, very famous actor, but apparently I might sound like Ed Norton, so I don't know.  [00:02:05] Sarah: I'm one of those people, don't ask me like, "oh do you know like this?" Don't name drop with me, I don't know who they are. [00:02:10] Jason: She doesn't care.  [00:02:12] Sarah: I don't, especially if it's like a celebrity, now I really don't know.  [00:02:16] Jason: Yeah, she's like, they're not paying me. [00:02:19] Sarah: I have no idea who they are.  [00:02:20] Jason: Okay.  [00:02:20] Sarah: I don't know. Alright. I can maybe name like five celebrities.  [00:02:24] Jason: So our topic is, and we had a question asked about this in our Facebook group in the DoorGrow Club. So if you're interested in what I told him and the coaching that— I created a video and I put it into there, go check it out You can go to doorgrowclub.Com. But the topic was— He was basically frustrated about getting agent referrals. Like how do you make this work? So a lot of property managers think a great lead source would be getting referrals from real estate agents, but we found that it doesn't work very well if you're asking for referrals. And so I wanted to talk about why real estate agent referrals in property management don't work. And maybe if you can understand why it doesn't work, you might be interested in reaching out to DoorGrow and learning how we make this work really well. So what typically happens with people that go out and they think "I'm going to go get some real estate agents to give me referrals 'cause they might know some investors." [00:03:23] Sarah: Yeah. And I did it too. So like, I'm guilty as charged, but it was like, "Hey, so if you ever know anybody who needs property management, then just like, let me know, like, here's my card, here's my information. Like, just give me a call." [00:03:36] Jason: Yeah.  [00:03:36] Sarah: " Keep me in mind." It doesn't work.  [00:03:39] Jason: Or they'll go and like, "Hey, could I present to your office about property management?" and so they'll go do to the real estate office. They have their morning meeting, you know, in their office maybe once a week and they go present and they sit there and they pitch and talk about property management and how they're so good and all this stuff. And then at the end, they're sitting there insecure, wondering like, "Why was everybody just eating donuts and looking at their phone the whole time?" you know, and "nobody's coming up to me." And maybe one person says, "Hey, nice presentation," you know, and then you walk away with nothing, and they don't really care about you, right? So, why doesn't this work? Because a lot of people try this. Why aren't they getting tons of referrals from real estate agents? [00:04:22] Sarah: Well, there's a lot of different reasons. I think one of the big ones is we're just relying on people to remember you like "oh, hey if you need, you know If you come across somebody who needs property management, then you have to just remember that I do it and then hopefully You know, pass it on over to me." and they're not going to remember you unless there's a really good reason to there, especially if they don't see like a benefit in it for them. So if you're like, Oh yeah, who paints houses? It's like, now I have to go find people that paint houses. But very rarely do we have like this Rolodex in our head of, you know, people who do certain things. We do have connections to people who do things that we refer out to a lot. So for example, in real estate, you might know somebody that paints houses. You might know somebody that cleans. You might do, you know, know someone who does some like handyman work. Because if you've got a client who's buying a house and they're like, yeah, but I hate the color. It's like, "oh, don't worry. I'll just send you to John and he'll paint the whole thing for you, right?" But property management is a little bit different unless you're working with a lot of investors, then you probably just don't need to have a property manager, like in your Rolodex. So that's one of the first reasons why it doesn't work. [00:05:39] Jason: Okay. So, I like what you said about it not being memorable. So I'll talk about memory real quick. So we have, you could say that we have maybe three or four different bodies or parts of ourselves. We have our intuitive, we have our mental, we have our emotional, and we have our physical right? And I used to do, you know, some emotional processing work with people like I would help them work through emotional stuff. And what I found was they'll have a logical mental memory of something, but a logical mental memory of something alone doesn't, they don't retain it, or it doesn't really stay there unless there's emotion connected to it. And so. The example I like to share with people is I just asked him, what were you doing on the day of 9 11? And what was the weather like? And they can usually remember quite a bit in detail, even though it was quite long ago. And I say, what was the day like 2 days before? And they're like, "I have no idea," right? Because there's no emotion. Maybe if they were hypnotized, their logical brain could go, "yeah, I could, I remember this," but we don't really retain things well, if there is an emotion connected to it. So that's one of the reasons why they don't, they didn't feel anything in you talking to them. They don't, they're not excited. If they're not excited or feel something, why would they be motivated to give you referrals or even remember you or think about you? So the anchor that we've created with them is— And anchoring is a neurolinguistic programming tactic. You can do this very strategically and effectively. You can create anchors. You also can create emotional states in people by the way that you communicate and maybe even listen to this. You're like getting a little bit excited. You're feeling a little bit excited about getting agent referrals, but you still don't know how it works, right? So what I did is I just created a state in you just a little bit. All right. So, the reason I think agent referrals don't work is because real estate agents don't care about you and your business.  [00:07:39] Sarah: The other reason they don't care: why would they don't care about what somebody else is doing? They're not, you know walking around going. "Oh, how can I help you today? How can I help you today? And how can I help you?" They're like, "what am I doing? Like, what's on my plate today? What do I have to do?" And the sooner we realize, like, hey, people are just in their own little bubble. Like, they're worried about what is right in front of them. And like, what are the tasks that they have to focus on? And what's going on in their life? And what are they thinking? What are they feeling? They're not very often stepping outside of that to go like, "Oh what is he feeling today? And what is she feeling today? You know, what are you dealing with?" People are very concerned with, you know, what they've got going on and that's just, that's normal. So we need to kind of just understand that and then figure out, "well, okay, if that's the mindset and the headspace that people are in knowing that, what do we do differently?  [00:08:36] Jason: Yeah, I think we need to figure out like, what do they actually want?" They wake up every morning wanting something and it's not property management and it's not like helping their clients with property management that is not at the forefront of their mind, their heart and their desires. What do they want? They want money. They want more real estate deals. And so you have got to connect them getting more real estate deals to them connecting you to their investor clients. You've got to figure out how to make that connection. So we have this very well scripted out. We have our clients that are, let's talk about some results. Like some of our clients, one of our clients, one of our best success stories this year in less than a year has added 400 doors in less than a year without really focusing on paid advertising really at all, right? Contrast that. So they've broken the thousand door barrier. Another client came to us and they have I think 1300, 1700 doors and their BDM bought 322 leads from a lead service, like, I'll just say APM. They bought it from APM and they closed 18. They closed 18 in the last year of those. They got 18 doors in the last year. If you calculate what each of those probably costs and they have a full time BDM that they're paying to work this, they have a setter that they're paying. [00:09:56] Like this is expensive with the per deal acquisition costs must be ridiculous. If they spent all of that time and all of that money and all. You know, follow up and everything else doing the strategies that we teach a DoorGrow, they probably could have, they might've been able to double their portfolio over the last several years. They're just churning and burning through all this energy, time, focus, cash and effort. Like, it's super wasteful. So, one of our clients added 310 doors just using this strategy in a year from only five or six agents. So a couple of things, the reasons that agent referrals don't work, we've established, they don't care about you, they care about getting more deals. You've got to connect that you aren't making them feel something. They want to feel excited. They feel excited about getting more deals. You're creating a weak anchor. Other ways in which this isn't working is that. You're not really getting to know them well enough. There's not enough depth in the relationship or a connection. They're not going to connect you to somebody unless they feel really safe with you and they like you. And so a lot of people are trying to do this so superficially, like "let's go pitch to a whole group and maybe I'll magically get a bunch of leads that come in from them." There's no depth there. [00:11:14] There's a lot of width, right? You're hitting a lot of people, but depth is where the magic happens. This is probably the greatest secret I think that we teach in helping people grow and add doors rapidly is we just get them doing depth in a way that none of their competitors are doing it. Going deeper. That means more personal, more intimate, more one on one, like focusing on like in person or video, whatever's the deepest things that you can do, you're going to grow faster. So I think there's also a lack of depth is a challenge. I think also with why agent referrals don't work is because nobody comes up to them and says they need property management. This almost never happens. And if it does— [00:12:01] Sarah: If they do, they're not the ones you want to take on.  [00:12:03] Jason: Right.  [00:12:03] Sarah: Like, "Hey, I desperately need a property manager. Please help me. Like, I don't want that.  [00:12:08] Jason: Yeah.  [00:12:09] Sarah: I want somebody who's we know without even asking any further questions, this is not going to be a great property to take on. [00:12:15] Jason: Yeah. Their hair has to be on fire or that like to call their agent up and say, "Hey, this rental property, it's a nightmare for me. I have this huge problem. I've got an eviction. I need to get done. It's a meth house. Like they, they burned down the back porch. Like it's leaking. Like they, like, they won't let us in. They've got a pit bull, right? Whatever, right? It's a nightmare." And for you to take it on, you would, it would probably— [00:12:42] Sarah: They're breeding dogs and the tenants were addicted to drugs. One's in rehab. One just died. Now we have I think there was like 12 dogs in the house. There were puppies. We had to do like a puppy rescue. [00:12:54] Jason: Oh gosh.  [00:12:55] Sarah: We've seen it all. Super fun as a property manager.  [00:12:58] Jason: Yeah. The things you property managers have seen, right?  [00:13:00] Sarah: It's like, "oh, hey, you know what? Jason does property management. Let me call Jason." And Jason was like, "I don't want that." I'm like, "why? No. Like, thanks for thinking of me, I guess." And now, that almost, like, shoots you in the foot even worse, because now it's like, "hey, well, now I have something to give you, and I gave it to you, and you don't even want it?" [00:13:19] Jason: Right.  [00:13:19] Sarah: So now we're like taking what could be a good relationship and kind of saying like, yeah, well, thanks for that lead, but it's garbage. Yeah. Thanks for giving me the shittiest thing you could possibly find.  [00:13:30] Jason: Yeah. The worst thing you could do is finally get them to give you a referral. You've been bugging them over and over again. They're like, "here, somebody came to me, here you go. And can you help my client out?" And you're like. " Do I have to? Like, I don't want to change somebody else's dirty diaper." Like you don't want to deal with this. You don't want to deal with this problem.  [00:13:48] Sarah: Right. And it's probably not gonna be profitable for you. It's probably not like if I think if a lot of property managers ran a profit and loss statement, or like a cost analysis on each individual door, which some of those low rent doors would not be profitable for you, right?  [00:14:05] Jason: You should know some of those owners.  [00:14:07] Sarah: These are part of, yeah, these are part of knowing your financials. We have a whole course in here about it, but there are certain data that you should just know in your business, you should know which doors, you know, are profitable, which doors maybe are not so profitable, which clients are and are not profitable. You should know all of that. But if you really start to dig into that, you're right. You're going to see very clearly like, Hey. This one doesn't quite measure up to, you know, what we're hoping for. But if you're just waiting for somebody to go, "Hey, I need a property manager. Like that's what we're getting. We're getting the, "Oh my God, I have this like awful situation and now I need somebody like that's what we're waiting to get." [00:14:50] Jason: Yeah. I mean to expect that a bunch of people are just going to walk up to a real estate agent and say, "Hey, I need a property manager. Who do you got that almost never ever happens. It's super rare. Now, some of you have gotten some referrals from agents and it might've been some sort of scenario like that. Like they came up to him and said, "Hey, they need a property manager," but it's probably super rare. So you're probably not getting, you know, 10, 20, 30 doors a month from this engine. The other challenge why agent referrals don't work is a lot of real estate agents don't even work with investors. Most real estate, 50 percent of real estate agents in the last year, the stat I heard was they didn't even do a single deal. [00:15:38] Sarah: Oh yeah. Yeah, I was talking with a client, I think yesterday with anyone with them and he's in the Miami market and like in his like city alone. I think there was something like 60, 000 agents, but out of those 60, 000 agents, like, you know, they're not all active and then out of the ones that are active, like, what are the ones that I've actually done a deal? What are the ones that actually do multiple deals? And then what are the ones that actually work with investors?  [00:16:04] Jason: The ones that actually work with investors must be a pretty small pool. Like maybe they'll do a deal occasionally, but how many agents are regularly working with investors? All the time, and they have a Rolodex and a pool of a bunch of investors that they have connections to not very many. So, our client that added 310 doors in a year, he did it from only 5 or 6 real estate agents he told me. That was it, but he said he tried calling a 1000 to find those 5 or 6. So that's a lot of deals from very few. He had to kiss a lot of frogs to find a few princesses. Right? Or princes, whatever. So, now, a lot of real estate agents are working with investors. So you need to find the ones that do. So this is another reason why referrals don't work. You go pitch to a office meeting. You might as well just like— well, I'm not going to give away all our strategy, but you might as well just ask, like how many of you work with investors? If no one's raising their hand, you might as well just end and say, "cool, if you find anybody, send them our way." And that's my time, right? You don't need to be wasting your time. Another reason referrals in general don't work is that you don't even go to the right audience. So if you're going to real estate agents that don't have investors, that's the wrong audience. Some go even worse than they go to a BNI group where there might be one real estate agent only, or they go to a chamber of commerce, or some sort of networking groups and they're like, "Hey, everybody, and nobody there really has rental properties. Maybe like, they're not even an investor or they don't have connections to investors. And so those kind of things can be a big time, suck or a waste of time when there's way more effective strategies. So now, another reason why referrals, agent referrals for property managers don't work is you are, if you're asking for referrals, which is the wrong thing to actually ask for, you're expecting them to sell for you. So, the idea of a referral, if we break this down, is somebody's going to come up to them. And say, "I have this problem. They're going to say, let me sell you on this idea of getting a property manager and then connect you to somebody." You're expecting them to sell for you. The way our clients are winning this game is we've set it up so that you get to sell. The client, our client gets to sell, not the real estate agent. So what we teach instead is to focus on getting introductions. So, so that is— and if you want to learn more about that, we recommend you get into our program because our clients are crushing it. We have scripts for this, all of this. All right. Any other things about this that are not why realtor referrals don't work for most people? [00:18:48] Sarah: I think that about covers it.  [00:18:50] Jason: I think if I were to add one more thing, it would be a lack of confidence. So a lot of property managers don't go into these situations knowing clearly how to get Referrals to come from them. They don't know how to create these relationships effectively. They don't know the language, the scripting to use. Oh, this is a big one that we missed. Another big reason is they're not going to refer to you if your business is a real estate brand. This makes them feel very unsafe. So this is why we rebrand a large percentage of our clients. If your brand has 'real estate' or 'realty,' or they know that you're a real estate agent, it's like all over the tin. They don't want to send people to you because they don't want to lose their clients and they're afraid of their clients being stolen by you. And everybody says, "Oh, well, I'll just promise I'll refer them back," but their clients might put pressure on you or know that you do real estate. You need to create a scenario in which they're going to feel safe connecting clients to you so that you look like property management, not real estate. So those are some of the big ones. So, I think that's basically it. I think that's pretty comprehensive. So realtor referrals for most people are not working. And if you'd like this to work, what should they do?  [00:20:09] Sarah: Well, you can talk with us. You can book a call. You can check us out online at doorgrow.Com. We also have a free Facebook group and you can check out our Facebook group. There's a lot of information that we have out there available for you guys, but check us out. And if you're like, "I just don't know." That's okay. Do some research like where I think our results speak for themselves.  [00:20:33] Jason: Yeah. Nobody has as many case studies as us. We put out 40 testimonials or case study videos in the last year. And these are just captured during our coaching calls. Our clients are crushing it. And nobody is moving forward or innovating as quickly as DoorGrow when it comes to coaching. So join our group coaching mastermind. You can get all the details by going to doorgrow.Com. There's a big pink button on the page say "you want to grow." Click on that. It'll give you the three steps that you need to take in order to potentially work with us. We don't just like work with everybody. We want to work with people that are willing to put in the effort, but we're actually going to reduce the amount of friction and effort and time that it takes for you to get business on by doing more effective strategies. So reach out to us at DoorGrow. So I think that's it. So until next time to our mutual growth, bye everyone. [00:21:27] 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!  [00:21:53] At DoorGrow, we solve your biggest challenge: getting deals and growing your business. Find out more at doorgrow.com. Find any show notes or links from today's episode on our blog doorgrow.com, and to get notified of future events and news subscribe to our newsletter at doorgrow.com/subscribe. Until next time, take what you learn and start DoorGrow Hacking your business and your life.

Ever wondered what a Declaration of Independence document would look like for property management entrepreneurs? Jason did, so he fed ChatGBT his mission statement and core values. Join property management growth experts Jason and Sarah Hull as they go through The Property Management Declaration of Independence. You'll Learn [02:44] Article I: Liberation from Limiting Beliefs [09:40] Article II: Autonomy from Bad Clients [11:54] Article III: Emancipation from Inefficient Processes [13:12] Article IV: Freedom of Experimentation [20:26] Article V: Independence Through Education and Collaboration [29:01] Article VI: Allegiance to Our Core Values [31:36] Article VII: Pursuit of Holistic Success Tweetables “There's few things that will steal more of your sense of autonomy and freedom than bad clients.” “If you have limiting beliefs, one of the best ways to get liberated from it is to just be around somebody that doesn't hold those same limiting beliefs for you.” “If you say, "Oh, it won't work because of this and this and this." You are right.” “If you have a shitty mindset, just know it will hold you back and you will only accomplish what you believe you can accomplish.” Resources DoorGrow and Scale Mastermind DoorGrow Academy DoorGrow on YouTube DoorGrowClub DoorGrowLive TalkRoute Referral Link Transcript [00:00:00] Sarah: if you believe that you have the knowledge and the ability and the resources to be able to figure out how to make the shifts that you need to have the business that you want and run it the way that you want, then it's absolutely possible.  [00:00:16] Jason: Welcome DoorGrow Hackers to the DoorGrowShow. If you are a property management entrepreneur that wants to add doors, make a difference, increase revenue, help others, impact lives, and you are interested in growing in business and life, and you're open to doing things a bit differently then you are a DoorGrow hacker. DoorGrow hackers love the opportunities, daily variety, unique challenges, and freedom that property management brings. Many in real estate think you're crazy for doing it. You think they're crazy for not because you realize that property management is the ultimate high trust, gateway to real estate deals, relationships, and residual income. 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 along with Sarah, the COO of DoorGrow. I know, I need to rewrite this intro for when you're here, because sometimes you're here-- and now let's get into the show. All right.  [00:01:24] Sarah: You stumble on that every time. So funny. I know. I have to like wing it. He's like in the middle of reading it. Okay. " And her over there." [00:01:33] Jason: Let's get into this. All right, so it is Independence Day. It is the 4th of July in which United States declared its independence and fought for freedom, right? So we'regoing to be talking about property management entrepreneurs declaring your independence. So, this is something that I think is important because you've heard me talk before about the four reasons: fulfillment, freedom, contribution, and support. Entrepreneurs, we want freedom. And so let's talk about a declaration of independence for property management entrepreneurs. So, I actually have been really having fun playing around with chat GPT and I gave it a bunch of info of how we kind of do things and our philosophy and I had it create a Declaration of Independence. So this should be interesting. So we can go through some of this and we can chat about some of these ideas. And does that sound good? All right.  [00:02:34] Sarah: Well, I guess so because that's what we're doing.  [00:02:36] Jason: Alright. This is what we're doing. She had no clue. She just walked in here. No, and I'm like, this is what we're talking about.  [00:02:42] Sarah: I just show up.  [00:02:44] Jason: She just shows up. Yeah. because she can do that. All right, cool. So, declaration of Independence for property management entrepreneurs. "In the spirit of entrepreneurial growth, the pursuit of freedom in the property management industry." We need to queue up like some patriotic music. [00:03:02] Maybe. I'm just kidding, Madi, maybe you'll add that.  [00:03:05] "We, the United Community of Property Management entrepreneurs solemnly declare our independence from the constraints, inefficiencies, and setbacks that have bound us for too long. We assert our dedication to a brighter, more prosperous, and thriving future." [00:03:20] "Article one, liberation from Limiting Beliefs." So one of the number one things before I read it. One of the number one things clients say that they get from us is mindset. It's just mindset shifts. because that changes everything of how they do things, how their business runs. All right, this is what it says.  [00:03:37] "We vow to liberate ourselves from self-limiting beliefs that hinder innovation and growth. We pledge to foster a growth mindset and no longer allow the words, 'I can't,' or 'it's not possible' to define our reality." So, what have you noticed about limiting beliefs with clients?  [00:03:55] Sarah: Well, I think whatever you think is possible is exactly what is possible. So if you think like, "oh, I can't do it that way," or "This won't work," or like, "oh, my team can't do this," or " I don't have the right tools," then you're absolutely right and it won't happen the way that you want it to or the way that it could. I think some of the biggest shifts I've seen in clients is when they open their mind to different possibilities and when they start to do things just a little differently.  [00:04:27] Jason: So most of our clients are pretty good at believing in us. I think we've gotten really good at convincing them through the sales process and once they get on board, we've got plenty, tons of case studies. But occasionally we get a client that comes in and they are skeptical about everything and maybe somehow they missed all the details during the onboarding and the sales process, and they don't believe. They have these limiting beliefs, "this stuff won't work." What do we notice in terms of results between those shitty clients and everyone else? [00:05:00] Sarah: Well, first, I don't think it's fair to call them shitty clients.  [00:05:03] Jason: Okay. Maybe we don't. Shitty mindset clients.  [00:05:05] Yeah. I think it's fair to say  [00:05:06] Sarah: like, "Hey, your mindset is shitty." Yeah. And I get that like my mindset used to be completely different. Totally different. Like I grew up in a place , where. Anybody that was making a million dollars a year, like I just didn't know it. Like, I was like, "oh, like, Hollywood. That's like what happens there, like when you're famous and you're like, this is just what happens out there. Or like, maybe big cities but not here. And because they didn't have any kind of example or anything tangible to say like, "Hey, they did it so I can do it." I just didn't believe that it was possible. And when I got out of that area, and now I'm in an area where it's very entrepreneurial based and business friendly and people just have a different kind of thought process around here, and we spend a lot of time with people who they're elevated in their thinking. And now I'm like, "yeah, it's a hundred percent possible." Absolutely possible. So I think first is if you have a shitty mindset, just know it will hold you back and you will only accomplish what you believe you can accomplish. So if you think, "oh yeah, none of this stuff is going to work for me," and we've heard it all, like, "oh, my market is different," or like, "my team won't do that," or like, "oh yeah, my clients will never go for that," or like, "my tenants are different. My properties are different." And like all of the reasons, what they're doing is they're like giving us all of the reasons why it's not going to work for them. And they're correct on every single reason. [00:06:39] If you say, "oh, it won't work because of this and this and this." You are right. What we need to do is like change your mindset to believe like, "Hey, this can work for me and it can work in my market and it can work with my team and it can work with my clients and it might mean that I need to make some shifts. It's not just going to be, "oh, I believe it and now it's true." we need to make a couple shifts and it can be true, but if you believe that you have the knowledge and the ability and the resources to be able to figure out how to make the shifts that you need to have the business that you want and run it the way that you want, then it's absolutely possible. [00:07:18] Jason: Okay, so some clients come to us. We have quite a few actually, that they don't believe in themselves. And one of the things-- this is a confession on my part-- one of the things that I failed with clients in the past, because I couldn't see this-- is that sometimes clients come to us and they're lacking hope. They don't have belief in themselves, and my mindset at the time was, "well just do the stuff and you'll see that it works". And the clients that would do it, they would get results and it would work, and some clients just wouldn't put in effort. They'd say they did, but they would blame us and like stuff like this, and they don't realize it takes like three months to get something really well dialed in. So they'd try it for like a couple days. Right. So I think one of the things that I've realized since from some of my coaches and mentors is that, we as coaches get to believe and provide hope and faith into our clients that are lacking it. [00:08:16] And so I think we're much better now at helping clients that lack that mindset and lack that belief and have limiting beliefs in themselves or even in like the strategies. If we give them enough belief, they still start to get results and that belief it rubs off on them. And so instead of blaming clients, I now take accountability more and say, "all right, I'm not giving them enough belief. I need to be more in their corner. I need to believe in them more." And I see them energetically change real time while on a Zoom call with them, like I just start feeding them belief like, "somebody else did this. You can do this too. They're not more special than you. They're not more charismatic. They're not better looking than you. They're not smarter than you. You know how to do property management. If they can do this stuff, you can do it too." I believe that I believe in them. And then they start to go, "wait, maybe he's right. Maybe I can do this." And then it starts to help their belief. [00:09:16] And so I think if you have limiting beliefs, one of the best ways to get liberated from it is to just be around somebody that doesn't hold those same limiting beliefs for you. They believe in you. They believe in you. Do you believe in me?  [00:09:27] Sarah: Yeah. Of course. I believe in you. [00:09:29] Jason: Sarah believes in me. I believe in her. Do you feel like I believe in you? Yeah. Yeah. So, and that creates momentum. That creates momentum. All right, let's go to the next one. Article two, autonomy from Bad Clients. "We assert our right to work with clients who respect and value our expertise. We shall not allow our business to be dominated by clients who undermine our values, ethics, or the standards of service we strive to provide." [00:09:58] So this goes along with our concept I, this of the cycle of suck and not taking on bad clients, which-- [00:10:04] Sarah: we should give this to our clients. And just like-- [00:10:06] Jason: have them sign it? Yeah.  [00:10:07] Sarah: This is your new declaration. We're doing it.  [00:10:10] Jason: ChatGPT is really good if you give it good data, like garbage in, garbage out. Right? I know. So, yeah, I gave it our whole client avatar document. I gave it our DoorGrowShow manifesto. I gave it our client-centric mission statement, and then they give it all that and this is what it came up with. So it's pretty cool. Pretty good. So yeah, I think this is involved with, our previous episodes where we talked about the cycle of suck or not taking on bad clients, but yeah, you deserve, you have the right to choose who you work with that value, your expertise. Why would you tolerate anything less? This is your business. You can build it however you want. You can build it full of a bunch of clients that don't value you, or you can build it full of clients that share your values, your ethics, your standards, want you to be able to do your best job and are willing to pay you for it. Anything else we should say about that?  [00:11:03] Sarah: I think we covered this a lot in our program, but what's really nice is to see when clients start to make that shift for themselves. Like we've had a few clients say like, and it was very clear to me that this is not the client that I wanted to work with. So like, sometimes they turn it down, sometimes they just know like, Hey, if I get the deal then, I'll consider taking it on if it seems to be a decent enough fit. But like, this is not my ideal client, so I'm really just not going to put a lot of time and energy into this because I can see like, this is just not what I'm looking for. [00:11:38] Jason: Autonomy from bad clients. I mean, really there's few things that will steal more of your sense of autonomy and freedom than bad clients. I mean, that's a real strong thief, so you deserve freedom from that. Declare your independence from bad clients.  [00:11:54] All right, article number three, emancipation from inefficient processes. "We declare to free ourselves from inefficient, archaic, and time consuming processes. We will actively seek, implement, and embrace technology and systems that streamline our operations, enhance productivity, and allow us to serve our clients better." [00:12:16] Sarah: Like that. These are these shifts. We got to make some shifts. If you're expecting your business to just change overnight and without really changing anything in it, then it's like, the definition of insanity. Like we're doing the same thing over and over, but we're expecting different results.  [00:12:35] Jason: Yeah. We've got a lot of software tools and tech that we use with clients to facilitate them having a greater sense of freedom and emancipation from inefficient processes. So yeah, technology can help with that. Okay.  [00:12:52] Sarah: Well, so can a great team though. Yes. Not everything needs to be technology because I've seen property management companies that they're like," we just rely on technology," and like humans are very rarely involved and it just doesn't work the way that they want it to work.  [00:13:07] Jason: Systems, right? Systems. Yeah. Building systems. Okay.  [00:13:12] Article four, Roman numeral iv. Okay. Freedom of Experimentation. "We recognize our freedom to experiment with new approaches and marketing strategies. We will not be shackled by "this is how it's always been done," shall embrace the diverse, evolving landscape of our industry." So I think innovation is a big part of what we focus on at DoorGrow. We're always like adding new things and coming up with new ideas and pulling in the best ideas from our clients that are also working towards innovating and making a difference. And I think innovation comes from. Innovation. And so as our clients are doing these new ideas and these new things, they're seeing little ways to improve. because that's what entrepreneurs do. Like, Hey, we could do this, we could do that. And so, and us sitting on top with a bird's eye view of all these clients that are doing all of these things that we've helped to bring to the industry or to innovate, they're also helping us to make this better for everybody else as well. [00:14:16] And so this innovation incubation system that we've created at DoorGrow is pretty powerful, I think. So, I mean, just some of the ideas that some of our clients have presented at some of our conferences have been pretty awesome, so, yeah. All right. Yeah. Anything else about that?  [00:14:32] Sarah: I think the only other thing I would add is like, the way that we implement things in our business. because we just move so fast. Yeah. Like Jason and I, we don't like to waste time. We don't, him and haw, we're not like, oh, is this the right decision? Like, what do we do? I don't know. Let's take like four months and figure it out. We see something, we make a change and we're like, let's just do it. And if it's the wrong thing, then we'll undo it because we'll see it very quickly. But we take action really quickly. We just went through our annual planning and from just one year. Our business is completely different. Like our model is different, our coaching is different, like what we offer is different. [00:15:10] Totally. Like literally every piece of it is completely different. It was like we took our old business model and we just blew it up and we were like, Hey, how can we make this like 20 times better? Yeah. And we did it. And we did it all in less than one year. So it was so funny because when we were going through, we start off with wins, we're like, Hey, what wins do we have from the last year? And it was like, we had so many wins. Like, it's like hard to even think like, Hey, remember a year ago when our business was like this? So what's nice about that is we get to pull up like what the business looked like last year in the system. We were like, oh yeah, we totally forgot because it was so long ago to us. We're like, oh God, I like totally forgot it used to be like that. We used to do things like this, and these are all of the things that we changed or improved or added in order to make things that much better. And I think just being able to like add a new piece or do things a little bit differently is something that sometimes doesn't feel super comfortable for people because they're so worried about like, is this the right decision? [00:16:14] And it might not be. It might not be the right decision, but the inaction will keep you like tethered to the ground for a really long time. So if we just worry all the time like, oh, I don't want to do it because I just don't know if it's the right thing, you are never going to know if it's the right thing. Unfortunately, like no one makes a crystal ball yet. We don't have like the answer to predict the future at this point in time. So sometimes you just have to make the leap and guess and know that if you make the leap and it's the wrong one, we can always change it because your business should be this like ever evolving, ever changing thing. It shouldn't be like this stagnant old like pond, with like murky water that never gets any movement.  [00:17:00] Jason: So, I think one of the things that has facilitated the speed and the innovation and the experimentation, which is the Article four that we're talking about, is DoorGrow OS, like having this really strong planning system, which you mentioned we just did annual, quarterly, monthly, and weekly planning. We did it all in a week. It was like planning week. So this planning system, really, and not all technology is software. Not all technology is software. This is a piece of technology, which there is a software aspect to it, but really the technology of this is this system that of planning that we're able to create this cadence of momentum in the business that gets everyone on the team moving it forward. [00:17:51] It's probably the most important system we have in our business. It creates our culture, it creates our business, it creates our results. It creates an immense amount of speed. No one can keep up with the level of changes like Sarah's saying, if you worked with DoorGrow in the past, like three years ago, or even one year ago. Even one year ago. [00:18:10] Sarah: If you were a client with us like one year ago, yeah, you have no, is not, you have no idea what DoorGrow is now because it's just so different.  [00:18:18] Jason: This is like a newer. Way more improved company and clients that worked with us maybe five years ago or maybe even 10 years ago. They have no clue what DoorGrow is even about or what we do anymore. It's even one year ago transformed so much one year in what we do. It's like, so it's so very different. Totally.  [00:18:36] Sarah: One year ago we had one program that was it. Like we had one program and we had like a baby scale program with like a little bit in it. But it's really flourished. So now we have like three different three different programs and like so many things that are available that we just didn't, we didn't have at all before.  [00:18:57] Jason: Now you said we don't have a crystal ball, but if there was something that was as close as you could get to a crystal ball, it would be having a planning system like DoorGrow OS because we are creating the future. We map it out and there's a super high likelihood we're going to achieve it because of how it's all broken down. And it creates predictable results. Like we consistently are able to scale our revenue, scale our programs, and get the things done that we want to do at a really high pace. And we're able to create predictable results we can, we create and see the future. A of entrepreneurs have a vision of the future and they try and throw that vision to their team, like a grenade with a pin pulled. And the team are like, what? What? Okay. Sure. And then they teach. A lot of entrepreneurs don't have a good system like this, and so they teach their team to lose. [00:19:44] They're like, Hey, we're going to hit this great goal this month, and then they don't. And they're teaching their team to be comfortable with losing, and they get more and more comfortable with failure. Our team's pretty comfortable with winning, right? Yeah. Like if we don't hit an objective, something major happened. Like painful. Yeah. Something major happened. Yeah. And so our team are used to winning and we win early. We set goals and we hit them usually early. Is the goal. DoorGrowOS is one of the systems we in help clients install. This planning system better than EOS, better than traction, better than whatever else you've, like, experimented with. You'll get far bigger results from your team and you'll get a lot more momentum and money.  [00:20:26] All right, so let's go to article number five. Article five. Independence through Education and Collaboration. This is something we are a big part of that we believe in.  [00:20:37] "We commit to continual learning and collaboration, understanding that our strength lies in the collective wisdom of our community. We pledge to share insights, strategies, and experiences with our fellow property management entrepreneurs for the greater good of the industry." [00:20:54] A lot of people are worried about the competition and they don't want to share their ideas. Yes. And how small is their thinking?  [00:21:01] Sarah: Oh yeah, I know. There was somebody just yesterday that said, "oh my God, like, this is such an amazing program. And like I, I've been part of multiple coaching programs on the real estate side and this blows all of those out of the water. Obviously we're focused on property management, but he's like, this blows all of this out of the water." And he is like, "I just hope that my competitors don't find out about this and start using you guys because that would be really bad for me." And like, I get it. I do, I understand it. Because-- [00:21:30] Jason: this is a new client. [00:21:32] Sarah: Yes. Yeah, he's newer. They'll figure it out. Yeah. He's newer. So I get it because I used to think that too, like, oh God. Like it's like that we have to have like this abundance mindset, like a, there's always enough to go around. And b, we say it like a rising tide raises all ships. So if you are like, oh, I can't, like, I can't tell my secrets to my competitors. [00:21:55] I must keep everything like you, I'm not telling you anything that you do. I, and I used to be, I used to be like that. So I, I do understand it because I used to be like, I'm not telling anybody what I do. Like you do what you do and I'm justgoing to do what I do, and you don't need to worry about what I'm doing over here. And I've gotten out of that just because. My mindset has changed. And I realize there's so much more than like our brains can even fathom. If you think, hey, like I can make, a hundred thousand dollars a year and this is what my business can look like, there's more to be had and there's always more like to go around. If you're like, Hey, I know I can do a hundred thousand. I feel like I'm in the mindset where I could do two 50 or 500 or a million dollars a year. I can have multiple locations. Like I can just keep acquiring businesses. I can grow and grow. with a client this week that has 1300 doors. Let's pause there for a second, because a lot of times, 1300 doors is really hard to even get to, and most property managers don't even reach that level. And he's at 1300 doors and he goes, I haven't even like made a dent. Like I haven't, I'm just a drop in the bucket. Of where I want to go and where I want to be. Why is that? Because his mindset is open. Like he's opened his mind to realize there is, there's more if we think of it like this, like, hey, You are just like this tiny little pinpoint on the map because when we expand out, it's like, here's me and my business. [00:23:26] But if we expand out, you are in an entire like city. We expand out more. You're in an entire state. We expand out more. You're in an entire country. We expand out more like we're in an entire planet. If we just keep going and going, like, the universe is just so infinite. And if you're, sometimes it's just so hard to conceptualize because your brain is like this is what I'm doing and like, this is what I can see, touch, and feel around me. [00:23:53] But if you, once you realize like, Hey, there is always, there's always more. You're not going to worry about what your competitors do. Not at all. You're not even going to be concerned. Like, I don't really care what Johnny's doing down the street. He could do all of the same things that I do, and I'm just not worried about it because I know that there's so much abundance to go around that I'm, I don't care what he is doing. [00:24:17] Jason: So when your vision is small, you see the competition. When your vision's bigger, you see a lot more opportunity. And we really try and push the idea mindset wise and with our clients and here on the podcast, collaboration over competition, right? When we get our clients collaborating, like we just talked about before, innovation starts to happen, the whole industry can move forward. [00:24:42] Two thirds are self-managing, there's like 70% or so that are self-managing. There's no scarcity in this industry. If you feel like there's scarcity. And it's because you're playing a game that is not very winnable. You're probably doing the wrong things to try and grow. If it feels scarce, get with us and we'll help you see bigger opportunities. [00:25:02] So once we get clients in our system and they're focused on adding doors, and they start adding doors, and they start to do this in the blue ocean, instead of doing it in the red, ugly bloody water through SEO or pay per click or content marketing or social media marketing or pay per lead services. They realize there's plenty of business. It's not hard to grow, and they become completely like, like, it's like not even paying attention to, or not even caring about their competition. Yeah. They're like, they're so busy adding doors and making money and trying to get their own stuff together to be able to handle the growth. [00:25:37] They're not even paying attention anymore to the competition.  [00:25:40] Sarah: Exactly. Like Mike with a 1300 doors seat, like no. Never ever at that, like at any point in our conversation did he say like, oh, but I'm like, I can't do this because this person. Never, like he, he's worried about what he's doing. He is like on this one track, and he is like, this is my mission and this is what I need to do and this is where I'm going. And I don't care about anything else. Like, I don't care about anything else around me when, like, they put blinders on the horse, right? We've got to put our blinders on and just run towards that goal as fast as we can. You don't care about what's going on over here or over here. You just get to the point where it's completely insignificant. [00:26:21] Even our smallest clients, once they get into momentum of growth and they see how easy growth can be, I mean, it takes work, but once they see that it's super doable and it's repeatable and they're adding doors like crazy, that goes away. Like I think there's always a competitive nature in our clients, and I like to leverage that in the beginning. So I, in some of my content in trainings, I'm like, Hey, if you want to crush your competition, do this or do it this way, or do this. And that brings out that competitive entrepreneurial side of themselves. But once they start getting into it, our challenge sometimes might be with some clients they like lose the drive because they start to see this is not so hard. [00:26:58] But hopefully they get inspired and excited to like, take things to the next level. Right. Okay.  [00:27:03] I don't think they so much lose drive. I think it's just that it's shifted. It's a like you versus me. Versus like, I'm just doing what I'm doing. It's me versus me now. And that, like, that's happened with me in my business a couple times where like I'm like, oh, it's me versus my competition. [00:27:21] Like it's me versus that guy down the street. It's me versus like every other like management company and my area. And it's not, it's only me versus me. I have to outdo what I did yesterday or last year or last month. Like it's it just changes because you start playing a game with yourself instead of trying to worry about like, I'm, I've got to beat you. [00:27:44] Jason: Well, your power and achievement. So this all makes a lot of sense, hearing how you think, but some of our clients are not, and like one of our clients like Mark and Brandon, they had gotten to a point, they'd been adding doors and then they got comfortable and they were like, and I think what happens is they had this big goal to like leave their day jobs and get a bunch of doors and they did that and then they were like, well, then they lost a little bit of steam. So I think what happens with a lot of entrepreneurs is we have this away motivator. Like we're trying to get away from something. We want to get away from a job we don't like, or we want to get away from scarcity or starving or whatever. Right? We have this, we're trying to run away from this saber tooth tiger that's chasing after us each month, and then we have to shift towards some sort of toward motivator. [00:28:31] So with them in my coaching call, I had to like help them identify what is? We talked about their why, which is their personal why, which is something that we get into deeply with clients and each of their, what they want. And how do we connect their why to the business now? Like what do they want more of or what do they want to move towards? And so that kind of lit them up again. And so we have to find that toward motivator. And we've gotten off track the education and collaboration, but, all right, but that's the idea. All right, so let's go to Article six vi. All right. Allegiance to our core values. "We affirm our allegiance to the core values that guide our business. We will strive to uphold integrity, transparency, excellence, and client centricity in all our operations, and we shall not waver in times of adversity." I love the shalls. All right, so we're big on core values. We help our clients define their core values. We even took a look at our individual values and then figured out what should they be for the business and took a fresh look. [00:29:41] And they were, we had a lot of alignment and we didn't really change much, I don't think we changed any, anything on the company core values.  [00:29:49] Sarah: No. We added like one, one sentence. Yeah. But I think mine, if I were to add one is just. Do whatever it takes. Right? Do whatever it takes. Like we have a do whatever it takes mindset and if that means you have to come out of your comfort zone, you come out of your comfort zone. That means you have to make phone calls? You make phone calls. Yeah. If that means you have to, do whatever. It's like ethically, of course. But if you have to do things that don't. Seem fun or like, these are not my normal job duties. [00:30:20] Well, that's okay. Like, we're going to, we're going to do it because that's what we need in the business.  [00:30:26] Jason: So I think it's important for property managers to be really clear on their values. So, so you, as an entrepreneur, if you're listening to this, you need to be very clear on your values. Not like 10 values or 20 values or infinite values. You need to figure out what are your, like top three maybe four values that if everybody on your team believed these, they would be great team members. They would fit you. And that's something we help clients work on. But I think it's super important to have values in the business because it that's the how you go about doing everything in the business. [00:31:02] And if you're worried about how your team members are going to do things, it's because they don't share your values. You can work all day on the whats. You can define every process and try to micromanage, but you cannot control how you need people that fit your culture. You cannot create that in them. You have to find the right people that have the right culture and the right values. Values come from mom and dad, God, religion, whatever, right? DNA, I don't know, genetics, but people have their values somewhat hardwired, and you're not going to really move the needle on their values. So you got to find people that fit them  [00:31:36] All right article, what are we up to? Six. Seven. Seven, okay. Article seven. All right. Pursuit of holistic success. [00:31:47] "We vow to pursue not just financial success. But the overall wellbeing and fulfillment in our personal and professional lives. We will commit to creating balance that nurtures our personal growth relationships and contributions to society." [00:32:03] All right. It's pretty good. So a holistic success. I mean, this really is I've never, I don't know, like. I used to like tag myself on Facebook when I would create a post, that'd say, holistic business coach or something like this. Because that's the idea. Holistic means it encompasses our personal life, our business, and that's why in our podcast intro it says " and our mission at DoorGrow is to transform property management, business owners and their businesses." So we have a strong holistic approach.  [00:32:34] Sarah: Yeah. For sure. I was it Ed Mylet that said it at Funnel Hacking Live last year? It might have been Ed Mylet. I'm going to have to look it up. Sorry Ed, if it was not you. So I think he said if the game for you is making money, if you're just in this to make money and that's all you care about, you are not going to make very much of it. You just won't because that's the only thing you're focused on and you don't care about anything else. But if instead, oh, it might have been Russell Brunson. Oh God, I owe one of them an apology.  [00:33:03] Jason: We heard it. We heard it at Funnel Hacking Live Conference. It was Funnel Hacking live at conference. So I can tell you that for sure. So, and it was either Ed Millet or Russell Brunson. I can tell you that too. They probably both said something similar.  [00:33:13] Sarah: So credit to both. But if you're only focused on making money, you're not going to make very much of it. You won't be very successful. However, if your focus is on helping people. Now you're going to be successful and you'll make a whole bunch of money. So if money is the thing that you're after, it's just going to feel like really hard. [00:33:34] It's going to be really, really draining for you. But if we're focused on like, Hey, how can I, primarily, first and foremost, how can I help people? That's the thing that's going to unlock all of the money for you.  [00:33:47] Jason: This is where your business mission becomes client-centric. This is where it becomes outward focused and our personal why should be outward focused as well, right? This is where we start to have that impact, but everybody wants to have some sort of different impact. We're all unique, so I think it's important to discover that. We talk about the four reasons, like moving towards more greater fulfillment, freedom, contribution, and support is why we have a business as motivators, and if you're moving towards that and you're committed to creating a balance in your business and personal life and personal growth and relationships and contributions to society, right, then you're going to have a much more profitable business. You're going to enjoy it more. Your team are going to be more inspired to work for you and be part of this vision and this mission. [00:34:39] So I like this article. It's a good one. That's the last one. So this ends this way. "Let this declaration serve as a compass that guides our actions, decisions, and collaborations with resolve and unity. Let us forge a path that transforms not just our own lives, but the entire property management industry for the betterment of the communities we serve. Signed your name and all fellow DoorGrow Hackers." All right. So I like that. Yeah, we're using that. That's pretty good. We're going to keep that. Maybe we'll post that somewhere. Yeah. All right. And that's basically it. Anything else we should add? I mean, we want, we all want more freedom and there's probably something that you feel like right now is holding you back. [00:35:22] You don't feel free. You wake up in the morning and maybe you don't feel like you are excited to go to work or excited to take that next phone call or excited to do property management. You may not feel a sense of freedom right now. You may not even think it's possible in that industry, so I promise you it is absolutely possible. We've helped lots of clients do this, and it can happen a lot faster than you realize as well. So you can have freedom and you can have freedom from bad clients. You can have freedom from bad deals. You can have freedom from bad phone calls. You can have freedom from bad team members. You can have freedom from all the bad stuff that you want to have freedom from. [00:36:02] So, all right, what should people do? Let's give them a call to action.  [00:36:07] Sarah: Well, I think the easiest thing to do is work with a great coach. Might be us, might be somebody else. I'm a bit biased.  [00:36:16] Jason: It should be us and you should reach out to DoorGrow. Go to DoorGrow.com and join our Facebook group, which you can get to at... [00:36:25] Sarah: I don't know.  [00:36:25] Jason: DoorGrowClub.com. doorgrowclub.com. Join our Facebook group community, and this will start getting you connected and indoctrinated. We're going to convince you to believe in yourself and we're going to convince you to also believe in DoorGrow. And then we're going to help you win through DoorGrow and we're going to change your life. This is what we do at DoorGrow. So, If you want some help. Otherwise, join our Facebook group and eventually reach out once you realize that you want our help. And until next time to our mutual growth. Bye everyone.  [00:36:57] Jason Hull: You just listened to the #DoorGrowShow. We are building a community of the savviest property management entrepreneurs on the planet in the DoorGrowClub. Join your fellow DoorGrow Hackers at doorgrowclub.com. Listen, everyone is doing the same stuff. SEO, PPC, pay-per-lead content, social direct mail, and they still struggle to grow!  [00:37:24] At DoorGrow, we solve your biggest challenge: getting deals and growing your business. Find out more at doorgrow.com. Find any show notes or links from today's episode on our blog doorgrow.com, and to get notified of future events and news subscribe to our newsletter at doorgrow.com/subscribe. Until next time, take what you learn and start DoorGrow Hacking your business and your life.

With the real estate market shifting, more and more real estate agents are going to be starting property management companies. Is this you? If you are starting a property management business, this episode is for you. Join property management growth experts Jason and Sarah Hull as they discuss the best way to build the foundation of your property management business in the current market. You'll Learn [01:18] The Trends in the Market and What They Mean [07:10] Why You Should Start a Property Management Business [10:09] Building the Right Foundation [15:03] The Product Research Strategy [17:39] The Next Steps for Your Business Tweetables “The biggest challenge usually getting started is just taking action to actually get the business going.” “When you're in that dreamer or that fantasy stage, a lot of times we are very good at looking at all the upside, and we're very good at ignoring the difficulties or the downside.” “Property management, like I mentioned in the intro, is the ultimate gateway to real estate deals, relationships, and residual income.” “A lot of the people that are the least qualified to be doing it, they're going to be the ones that get hurt the most because they're not paying attention much to the market.” Resources DoorGrow and Scale Mastermind DoorGrow Academy DoorGrow on YouTube DoorGrowClub DoorGrowLive TalkRoute Referral Link Transcript [00:00:00] Jason: the biggest challenge usually getting started is just taking action to actually get the business going, and they get caught up on wasting a lot of time on stuff that doesn't really matter when the only thing that really matters is getting your first client, right? That first door is the hardest.  [00:00:16] Welcome DoorGrow Hackers to the DoorGrowShow. If you are a property management entrepreneur that wants to add doors, make a difference, increase revenue, help others, impact lives, and you are interested in growing in business and life, and you're open to doing things a bit differently, then you are a DoorGrow hacker. DoorGrow Hackers love the opportunities, daily variety, unique challenges, and freedom that property management brings. Many in real estate think you're crazy for doing it. You think they're crazy for not because you realize that property management is the ultimate, high-trust gateway to real estate deals, relationships, and residual income. At DoorGrow, we are on a mission to transform property management business owners and their businesses. We want to transform the industry, eliminate the BS, build awareness, change perception, expand the market, and help the best property management entrepreneurs win. I'm your host property management growth expert, Jason Hull, along with Sarah I'm the founder and CEO she is owner and COO of DoorGrow. Now let's get into the show.  [00:01:17] Alright. So today's topic, we've been noticing there's some trends and some changes in the real estate industry, which is going to probably create some shifts. So what are we noticing?  [00:01:29] Sarah: Well, so some of you may have realized real estate isn't quite what it was a couple months, even a year ago, certainly not what it was two years ago. Things have a shifted a little bit in the market. There was a point where you can list a property, you would get, you know, multiple offers in one to two days, and it would sell for a whole lot over asking and it was very easy. It was simple because the market was just on fire. Things have changed just a little bit. They've slowed down. And we wanted to talk about what happens when the real estate market slows down.  [00:02:14] Jason: So, historically what I've noticed is anytime real estate kind of takes a nose dive or slows down or there's some sort of recession or something like this, I see a lot of real estate agents quit. There's a lot of real estate agents that don't renew their license. They leave, they quit, they give up. And a lot of these are the newer ones or the ones that came in thinking it'd be really easy when things were great and we had years of feast and now that there maybe is coming famine, they're out. And so we see a lot of that. I also see a lot of real estate agents decide to become property managers because they're struggling to get real estate deals. They're like, "what else could I do? I'm going to start a property management business because all of the other ones around me aren't that great." [00:03:00] And so historically DoorGrow, we get a lot of clients coming to us, looking for new websites and starting a business when the market takes a nosedive or there's a shift in real estate. So the other thing, I just saw a video that was pretty interesting data, and it was showing how there's been this huge spike in inventory in Airbnbs, but the revenue generated on average by Airbnbs has dipped in some markets to like 50% of the revenue generated per unit or per owner. And so the revenue's dipping significantly, but there's a lot of inventory of Airbnbs. What's going to happen is that bubble is going to burst, it's going to collapse because a lot of Airbnbs are going to sell. I talked to a property manager here locally in Austin, and he said he already saw the writing on the wall. And shout out to my buddy and friend, Brett Koster. He said that he already saw the writing on the wall. Oh, Koster, Koster. I said his name wrong. He did. All right. Koster Kingdom-- sorry-- on Instagram. I got you. All right. I think Koster sounds cool, but it's Koster, it's not "coaster." So yeah. Sorry Brett. [00:04:07] All right. So Brett said he already saw the writing on the wall and he went to his short-term rental clients and he said, Hey, let's convert these into long-term rentals. because this is what I see coming. So I think there's an opportunity for property managers out there. There's an opportunity for real estate agents to get into property management that brings a lot of unqualified people and people that are going to not be very great and make a lot of mistakes perhaps unless they have their own investments, they've been dealing with property management a little bit. We can help you do this correctly and we'll talk a little bit about our DoorGrow Foundations in a little bit, but those of you that are established property managers, there's going to be an opportunity for you to capitalize maybe on this bubble, this Airbnb bubble, and convert some of the short-term rentals or convince some of the short-term rentals to convert the long term. [00:04:57] Otherwise, they're probably going to sell an exit. For real estate agents, that's your opportunity is maybe to identify those Airbnbs that really need to just get sold so that they don't end up losing out. A lot of unqualified people came into the short-term rental situation as a result of the pandemic and everything else thinking, "Hey, there's a bunch of opportunity here now afterwards, and they are, you know, a lot of the people that are the least qualified to be doing it, they're going to be the ones that get hurt the most because they're not paying attention much to the market.  [00:05:30] Sarah: And there's a lot of like coaching things for like, "oh, here, I'll teach you how to like, run an Airbnb or like a short term rental business." and I think it's a really great idea. It is. I think what oftentimes happens is people significantly underestimate the amount of work that it takes. Significantly. Like Jason and I, we were just at Melanie's event last week and we were talking with someone who manages two short-term rental properties and she is already done. She's completely overwhelmed. She hates it. And that's only at two, two properties. And she's like, "everything is just urgent. They need it right now. You know, you can't wait, and sometimes people have very unreasonable expectations and thoughts as to what is an emergency and what needs to be done right now." so if you're in that short term Rental game. Our advice to her was, "you need a property manager," like, and one that does short-term rentals like on a consistent basis, not one that is just able to say, "Hey, I can do short-term." When you get into the short-term game, your short-term game and your long-term game are completely different. [00:06:39] They function like two very separate businesses, and we have a few clients that do both short term and long term, and they realize very quickly that they are not at all the same thing. They have to operate very differently just because of that quick turnover.  [00:06:57] Jason: Yeah, so I'm doing a webinar later today with a friend of mine that basically does some coaching stuff to the real estate industry to real estate agents. So I'm going to be talking to real estate agents about how they can double their real estate commissions by leveraging property management and there's an opportunity here. Real estate agents can either start their own property management business so that they can keep their investor clients or they can partner with a property manager locally, which could be you listening, and that could help them as well. [00:07:34] I've had several clients that if they make the property management arm of their business, when they also have brokerage, double their brokerage commissions simply by making sure property management is healthy, that they're acquiring new clients, that there's healthy flow, and that has fed them a lot more real estate deals. A lot of companies get their real estate deals from the tenants that are looking to get into buying a home from owners that are looking to buy or sell, they're getting real estate deals and commissions and property management, like I mentioned in the intro, is the ultimate gateway to real estate deals, relationships, and residual income. And so there's an opportunity there for those listening to either start your own property management business if you don't have that yet or to partner with a property manager, and there's ways they can help you generate revenue, get more deals if you have a good relationship. Especially those of my clients because they know how to help real estate agents get more real estate deals and make more money. [00:08:37] We teach them how to do this. So why don't we talk about to those that are looking to maybe get into property management or have been thinking about starting it up. Okay. Okay.  [00:08:48] Sarah: Okay. So if you're thinking about starting a property management business, I think it would be a very good time to do that because we aren't quite sure where the real estate market is going. Are we heading into a recession? Are we already in the recession? Is it going to continue to tank? We don't know. So I think it's a really great time to start a property management business. I actually started one years ago just kind of by mistake, and I learned some hard lessons along the way. So what we've done is we've created a course called DoorGrow Foundations for people who are starting, or who have recently started a property management company. So by like startups, we mean that you might already have a few clients, but you are just really not, you know, a big large company at this point. What we've done is we've kind of, mapped out.  [00:09:45] Jason: Or you have zero doors? Or like purely nothing.  [00:09:48] Sarah: Yeah. Started, I started by saying that, okay. [00:09:51] Jason: Just to clarify, a lot of the people that I talked to that have started their property management business, they started it because they were an investor. [00:09:57] They already had 10, sometimes even a hundred units that were their own. And then they decided to start doing it, third party, and then they were actually starting a business. So before that, they just considered themselves an investor. So why don't we tell them a little bit about our Foundations program  [00:10:12] then? [00:10:12] Sarah: Yeah. So what we've done in DoorGrow Foundations is we have created an entire course that you can go through that talks about all of the things that you're going to need to know when starting a property management business. We go into all of the mistakes that we see a lot of people make right around this point. [00:10:32] And I've leveraged my own experience as well to help people avoid making some really common mistakes. So some of the things that we've talked about are, you know, what do your bank accounts need to look like and what should your financials look like? And, you know, how do we prioritize, like how do we get started? What should my day look like? Like all of these types of things are usually questions that people have when they're starting up. And unfortunately, sometimes if you don't kind of set that up the right way in the beginning, then it comes around to kind of bite you later. So we've put all of this into a course and we've made this available because a lot of times we get people contacting us who don't yet have a property management business. [00:11:20] They're like, "Hey, I want to start this. I want to get into it." But they haven't actually done it yet and made that leap. So we thought, 'Hey, let's help people by leveraging what we know, what we've seen by talking hundreds of property managers and my own experience in starting a property management company, let's put all of that into a course that people can have access to, and that way it'll help you kind of get things off on the right foot.' [00:11:47] Jason: So in our DoorGrow code, a lot of. At the very earliest stage, we call those dreamers. These are people that have this dream of starting a business and we call them fantasy belts. You know, we have this belt system, so they're not even a white belt yet. When you're in that dreamer or that fantasy stage, a lot of times we are very good at looking at all the upside, and we're very good at ignoring the difficulties or the downside. And so there are a lot of potential pitfalls and mistakes that they make when getting started. and the biggest challenge usually getting started is just taking action to actually get the business going, and they get caught up on wasting a lot of time on stuff that doesn't really matter when the only thing that really matters is getting your first client, right? That first door is the hardest. And so our program is focused on helping you get that first third party door as quick as possible, getting the right things in place, that you need systems in place. And then we even have some upsells or upgrades in the program, so you can get a website and some of these other add-ons that you might want in starting your business. Let's talk about what the program costs.  [00:12:54] Sarah: Yeah. Okay. Let's talk about it. So the monthly investment for foundations is only $297 a month. And we price it this way because some people, it might take only a couple months to get through and some people might kind of hang out here for quite a while. So sometimes we see people really go through things like we have clients in our program. They go through things super quickly. They're rapid implementers. They get the knowledge that they need and then they just implement, move forward. And if that's you, then you can get through this really quickly. You might only be in there for a few months and at that point you might qualify for our mastermind if you need a little bit more time because. You maybe have another job or you've got, you know, other things that are requiring your attention. So you want to be able to do this so that you don't miss out on the opportunity, but you can't fully dedicate yourself to it, then that's okay too. It might take you a little bit longer, so it's only $297 a month. And that way as long as it takes you or as quickly as you get through it you still get all of that information and you can kind of work at your own pace.  [00:14:06] Jason: Cool. Let's talk about what you get with this program. So first you get access to the Foundation's training in DoorGrow Academy, which is going to help you make a lot of the right moves in getting this started. You also get a ticket to DoorGrow Live, which is easily worth the value of, you know, probably several months of paying for this program. But you get a ticket to DoorGrow Live, you get to attend in person, connect with other property managers, maybe make some connections, a friend or two, maybe find a mentor. And we've got some really great mastermind members in that, that are always coming to those events. You get access to DoorGrow CRM. So this is a tool that's going to help you to be able to keep track of potential deals and leads and to be able to move those forward more easily. And it has phone calling and texting and a lot of cool features. So DoorGrow CRM. [00:15:00] Sarah: Branding pages, automation, all that kind of good stuff.  [00:15:03] Jason: So you get access to that and then we have a growth strategy that we teach in this as well. That's perfect and ideal for startups that we call product research interviews so that you can go out and have a reason to talk to investors or people that can connect you to investors and how to leverage that and how to have the right conversation. We give you the scripts, everything so that you can use this tactic to get your first clients, which are the most difficult to get. And if you do these product research interviews and you do them correctly, you'll get some clients. And this is how we actually use this strategy to start our mastermind and several other programs that we've had at DoorGrow is this strategy of product research interviews, which gives you an excuse to talk to somebody. Sometimes I call this the Trojan horse to selling, but basically you're interviewing people and able to then convert them into clients.  [00:15:58] And that can be really effective for startups because it's also going to teach you, by doing these interviews, you're going to learn the language and the objections and the pain and the pleasure, all the stuff you need to understand in order to sell effectively to clients. So this is going to help you collapse time on selling to clients so that you will be able to sell as effectively, or maybe more so than some people that have been in the industry or at this game for a long time. There's some knowledge that we need to collapse time on, and this is one of the strategies that will help with that. We also have a upsell to where you can, if you want a logo and you want a website, you can pay a little extra to get access to our team to do those things for you. We're the world's leading property management, branding and design agency, we've rebranded more companies than anybody else. Period. Hundreds. And we can help you with making sure you don't make some significant mistakes on the brand, which can cost you a lot of money in the long run. And I think that's about it, right?  [00:16:59] Sarah: Oh, they do the masterclass too? They get access to the masterclass.  [00:17:02] Jason: Oh. We also have a masterclass that we do once a month where we do a cool training on something related to helping you grow and scale your property management business. Trainings in the past that we've done, you will have access to is we did a training on creating the ideal pitch deck, how to create a really good pitch deck to increase your close rate. We did a training on the three systems you need in order to make your business infinitely scalable so you can scale quickly. And any others? We've done some others. We just did your priorities. We did, yeah. We just did a training on increasing your profitability by changing the priorities in the business. Stuff like this.  [00:17:39] So, yeah. So the Foundation's program is a really great stepping stone to enable you to get the funds and get in gear so that you can join our Mastermind. Now, if you've already got the funds, maybe you've got a healthy brokerage, we would recommend you start with our lite version of the Mastermind, and that would be a much better program to be in because it includes the foundation stuff, but then you get coaching and we take things to the next level. You get our more advanced growth strategies, and we do a full rapid revamp on your business, which includes the branding, the website, all that stuff's included. Based on the price points for those things, those upsells being included, it makes it a no-brainer you should do the lite version of the Mastermind, because you'll probably save money that way. So you'll definitely save money that way. Yeah, we would recommend that.  [00:18:31] Program is a one year program or a 12 month commitment, and if you're 200 doors + maybe $20k revenue and plus, then you probably are at a point now where you know how to add doors. Your business probably has a team, you're probably ready for our super system level of the Mastermind and that would be the that next level that we would recommend for those of you that are 200 plus. At least a hundred doors, but maybe 20 K in revenue, plus maybe to be in that level. So depending on what you need and where you're at, we can help figure out what do you need most and how can we best help you? So, yeah. Cool. So if you're thinking about getting into property management, my usual joke is, If you're considering it is, do you want us to talk you into it or do you want us to talk you out of it? because we can do either one. So reach out to us and we can help you with that. Anything else that we should say?  [00:19:24] If you are interested in talking to us, you are struggling in your property management business. You are wanting to take things to the next level. You really haven't grown much or significantly over the last year. Let us inject a little bit of juice and rocket fuel into your business and get you to that next level. We're really good at that. Reach out to us at doorgrow.com and join our free Facebook community. We have some free gifts and we will help funnel you through to working with us as a client. If you need a little time to be nurtured, go to DoorGrowClub.com. We have a lot of great stuff, free content. You get access to some of our master classes and the goal is to convince you that we know what we're doing and to get you to the point where you're working with us as a client. And we'd love to see you in there. So, and that's it, right? And you'll get some free gifts for joining. Until next time, to our mutual growth. Bye everyone.  [00:20:12] Jason Hull: You just listened to the #DoorGrowShow. We are building a community of the savviest property management entrepreneurs on the planet in the DoorGrowClub. Join your fellow DoorGrow Hackers at doorgrowclub.com. Listen, everyone is doing the same stuff. SEO, PPC, pay-per-lead content, social direct mail, and they still struggle to grow!  [00:20:39] At DoorGrow, we solve your biggest challenge: getting deals and growing your business. Find out more at doorgrow.com. Find any show notes or links from today's episode on our blog doorgrow.com, and to get notified of future events and news subscribe to our newsletter at doorgrow.com/subscribe. Until next time, take what you learn and start DoorGrow Hacking your business and your life.

It started out as a Google Sheet shared on Twitter by Gabor Cselle, asking people to add their thoughts on how to make a kinder Twitter. After going viral, the former Twitter employee decided to build an alternative. Gabor and co-founder Sarah Oh launched T2 just two weeks after starting to build it, following Y Combinator's advice to launch early. Listen to this episode for the full story.Gabor Cselle, co-founder and CEO of T2 was in conversation with Steven Levy, editor-at-large for Wired, on Centre Stage at Collision 2023."The best technology conference on the planet".Follow us on Twitter, Instagram and Linkedin. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/websummit/message

Has anyone ever told you that you need to implement more humor to grow and improve your property management business? Well today, property management growth experts, Jason and Sarah Hull are going to share why humor is an important tool when getting prospects to trust you and choose you over other management companies.  You'll Learn… [01:26] Why we use humor to create trust [05:44] Mistakes happen… even in business [10:26] How humor and teasing can build rapport [13:45] How humor can be a sign of intelligence Tweetables “A lot of times, we take ourselves too seriously, and so we act too serious in our business, and when we're too serious, people are less likely to trust us.” “You have to be willing to not always look perfect.” “Even the best, smartest, fastest learning companies and people, they still make mistakes.” “It's okay to make mistakes because it happens to everyone, and it's okay also to ask people for grace.” Resources DoorGrow and Scale Mastermind DoorGrow Academy DoorGrow on YouTube DoorGrowClub DoorGrowLive TalkRoute Referral Link Transcript [00:00:00] Jason: Humor really is a sign of intelligence. The more intelligent somebody is, the more they can think on their feet and be witty and create jokes and add humor into the conversation. So I've always viewed humor as a sign of intelligence.  [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 are interested in growing in business and life, and you're open to doing things a bit differently, then you are a DoorGrow Hacker. DoorGrow Hackers love the opportunities, daily variety, unique challenges, and freedom that property management brings. Many in real estate think you're crazy for doing it. You realize that they're the ones that are crazy because they're not, because you realize that property management is the ultimate high trusts, gateway to real estate deals, relationships, and residual income. [00:00:56] At DoorGrow, we are on a mission to transform the property management industry. We want to change the industry. We want to transform property management business owners and their businesses. We want to eliminate the bs. We want to change the perception. We want to 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. All right, so I sort of adlibbed that a little bit. I kind of messed up my intro a little bit.  [00:01:26] All right, everybody. So I want to talk about humor. I want to talk about being funny, and a lot of times we take ourselves too serious, too seriously, and so we act too serious in our business and the when we're too serious, people are less likely to trust us. So you have to be willing to not always look perfect. Like I've made mistakes in business and some of the best ways I can close people and convince people to trust us is I get transparent and real and raw and share some of the challenges I've had in business. That allows people to open up and share as well, and it builds this bridge and this relationship of trust. And you've heard me say before, sales and deals happen at the speed of trust, right? And if they trust you and they know you, and they like you, they're going to work with you. So what I want to talk about is humor. [00:02:22] And so you may have noticed, if you're following us on YouTube, we've put out some funny videos. So, one of them is called Profit Martian and makes fun of the idea of maybe a property manager not having enough profitability in their business and you'll see Sarah, my wife and I, just being really silly around that and it's pretty funny. And then you may laugh, so I recommend you go search for Profit Martian. You can add DoorGrow and you should find it and have a good laugh. The other video we made recently is Not move in ready and you'll see me at the beginning yelling, "not move in ready!" Right? "This is not move ready." So check that out. Sarah and I made a humorous video showing a couple that decides to kind of manage the property themselves and all the stupid mistakes that we make. She's suggested I get a property manager and I was like, "ah, I don't need that. I can do it myself." Right? So check that out. That's funny as well. We actually just recorded our third video, which is going to be about all the reasons why you might not meet a property manager. [00:03:27] And it shows me doing some really uncomfortable things and challenging things and pretending that I like doing the property management stuff, acting as an owner that's doing it myself instead of using a property manager. And I think the working title is 13 Reasons Why You Might Not Need a Property Manager cause we had like 13 different instances. So you'll see me running from a dog when I'm supposed to be doing an inspection and, stuff like this. So, they get pretty ridiculous. What it does is we've already gotten feedback from some clients that signed up because they saw some of these videos because they say it shows our personality, which is true. And it shows that we are real humans, which is true. We're real humans. And it shows that we understand the industry. Like, you can't make funny memes and humor and stuff related to property management unless you kind of understand it, right? And so it showcases a level of expertise just in that we understand it well enough to make some jokes about it. [00:04:27] And so I recommend that you be sure or remember to add a little humor into your sales process. Add a little bit of humor into your interactions. Be willing to laugh and joke about yourself. Shows a lot of vulnerability and confidence to showcase that you don't always have to look perfect. If you're always trying to maintain this look of perfection cause you think that's going to make people feel safe. It actually does the opposite. There's no real secrets or hiding. People know if you're trying to create this perception that everything's amazing in your business when it's not. And so you can say, "look we're not always perfect. We don't get it right all the time, but we care and we will make sure that we make it right." That's the kind of conversation you need to have because then they're going to go, "I can trust a business like that more than the businesses "Well, we maintain a high level quality service and we blah, blah" and use a lot of business speak and try and look perfect all the time. They're going to go, "Hmm, I don't know this doesn't seem real to me. I don't know if we can really trust these people." Because it's not always about what you say. They can read body language. Some people are really intuitive. I think especially women, they're very intuitive about body language. They can pick up on things that you're not being honest on. [00:05:41] I don't know. Anything else you wanted to add to that? [00:05:44] Sarah: Oh now that I've been completely put on the spot, so I guess my take on that is I think just showing that you are human is really powerful. I think especially for me and other perfectionists out there, we want to present like this tidy, clean, perfect package, right? We're like, "oh, I do everything perfect, and I'm so wonderful all the time. And like, I never make mistakes. Some of it may be posturing for people, some of it may also just be like, you're afraid to fail. You're afraid to make a mistake. And I think, I had lived in this space for a very long time where I was scared to make a mistake because of the consequences. Right.  [00:06:24] Here's a perfect example. If you misjudge a tenant, right? And now you put the wrong tenant in, because some people look really great on paper. Yeah. And everything seems wonderful and you've met with them and you can just kind of, judge to the best of your ability. Like, "Hey, I think they would be a great fit." And then you move them in and then it's like, It switches and you go, "oh, wow, I was way off on that and I clearly misjudged" and things like that. [00:06:52] Sometimes it's unavoidable but I think just being able to say, "Hey, like I've done this, and then what did I learn from it?" Because you're going to make mistakes no matter what. Like, none of us are perfect. Some of us are really good at trying to be perfect all of the time, but even the best, smartest, fastest learning companies and people, they still make mistakes. And I think the thing about that is that you need to just realize, first of all, that it's okay to make mistakes because it happens to everyone. And it's okay also to ask people for grace. And I think that if you do ask, especially with clients or tenants or whatever it is, like, "hey, just understand, we're not perfect all of the time. We will try to make it right because occasionally we do mess up like we are human and we are humans that rely on technology. And technology is not perfect either." Right? So like when you automate things and you're like, "oh, this was supposed to happen and it didn't happen because something in the process broke somewhere." Yeah. Like it happens. But just asking for grace, realizing that you will make mistakes and that it's okay, and then the biggest thing you can do honestly, is just what did you learn from that? So things are going to break, things are going to go wrong. Somebody on your team or yourself, or a process or a software or something at some point... it's not going to work the way that you intended and things break down and mistakes will happen.  [00:08:25] And then when that happens, then all you can really do is like, you have to pivot. You have to be able to figure out what are you going to do to like, correct that as quickly and as neatly, I'd say as possible without a lot of blow back. But then what did you learn from the experience? Because if you don't learn anything from that and you don't say, "Hey, Maybe we can look at this in a different way. What can we do? Is there some sort of check and balance that we can put in place? Like how do we make sure that doesn't continue to happen, then it doesn't happen again? What did we learn from this experience? And if you don't do that, then the whole point I think is learning. And if you don't do that, then you're like you're missing out.  [00:09:05] Jason: Okay. So related to making mistakes and showcasing humor I didn't mention this, but what do we have at the end of each of our videos?  [00:09:15] Sarah: Oh, we have all the bloopers and I think the bloopers are so funny. I love them, but we, I mean, we all make mistakes, right? Yeah. Like, sometimes you forget, especially when you're like we've been recording these videos and. You forget your lines sometimes, or like, yeah, Jason in the last one, he's like, "oh, the camera has been rolling the whole time. I'm like, "UGH!" It's been just recording me, like moving things in the kitchen and like I'm standing there waiting for him to hit the record button. He's like, "oh, it's already recording." So I think if you can laugh at yourself, don't take yourself too seriously. And that for me has been huge because I am an INTJ. I am a perfectionist. I am the like, I need things to be the right way all the time and I don't have very much grace with myself and I don't have very much grace with other people. And that's something that I've been really working on I'd say over the last year or so is it can't always be perfect as much as I would love it to be, it's not realistic. It's not realistic to have a 100% success rate 100% of the time in 100% of the things that you do.  [00:10:24] Jason: Yeah. It's good stuff. It's been proven that when you tease other people or joke with other people, It assumes rapport. Is that right? You can't like tease somebody that you don't have a good relationship with because they'll just not like you, and it seems really harsh, but, we can tease each other a bit, which we do. But it's an intimate form of communication and that's a form of joking. So you can add some humor into your conversations. Lightly, maybe teasing or something that potential client, "oh what You must really be a glutton for punishment, you know that you are doing all this property management stuff," you could say to them, and I know because I do a lot of it, or something like that. But you can make jokes and that assumes rapport and actually creates rapport with people. It creates the perception of that being willing to joke and play around.  [00:11:13] Sarah: So, It's funny that you say that. I actually do that on my sales calls and I didn't even realize I did that until you just said it, so I'll do that, like when I'm talking with them and I'm, especially when they're self-managing or when they have somebody else managing, which is like 99% of the conversations we have, but yeah. Right. Like. I always ask like, "and how has that been going?" And it doesn't matter either if they already have a manager and they're looking for another one, it obviously isn't going well. If they're self-managing, it definitely isn't going well. Yeah, I don't really need a lot of information when they're self-managing. I already know they're in pain and I know they're probably not enjoying what they're doing. Very few people are like, I love all of this stuff. And that was the last video that we just did. But. I kind of will, as soon as they say something that really is like their pain point, right? [00:12:02] They're like, "oh yeah, like the, the tenants call me all the time, or, like, this tenant is late every single month. And like it's been going on too long and now they're behind three months and now I feel like I need to either get them to pay or evict them. And that's like painful for me. I don't want to be the bad guy or I don't know how to handle this legally. Like if I have to evict them, like I'm at that stage now and I have to evict them, but I don't know what I'm doing," and they don't say it exactly like that. But that's the, that's like the read between the lines message that you're getting. I'll kind of joke with them at that point. And they'll say, "oh yeah, sometimes like, tenants suck." And I just laugh and I'm like, "yeah, sometimes you're right. Sometimes tenants suck." And I know that is painful because we too have seen that and we too have dealt with that. And that's exactly why we have systems and processes in place. And sometimes it's not even that the tenant sucks, sometimes it's the tenant is amazing and then something changes in their life and now they suck. So, and that happens, right? It's called life. Like people lose their jobs, they lose their spouses relationships end. Hardships... they're just part of life. And sometimes that carries over into how they behave as a tenant. But I will, I'll kind of laugh like on the call and they'll say, "oh the building is completely vacant now because we had all these tenants in it and they didn't pay, so we got them all out." and I'm like, okay. So it's like all, it's all vacant. Yeah. And I'm like, "and I bet that's fun for you, right?" Like, and they're like, "oh yeah. It's like, it's horrible." But I didn't notice that I really did that until just now. [00:13:32] Jason: I think women do a lot of things intuitively. And I think there's a lot of things that people pick up when you do sales enough. Like you start to intuitively pick up things that work, especially once you're really comfortable doing it. So I think one of the things that I've noticed is that humor really is a sign of intelligence. The more intelligent somebody is, the more they can think on their feet and be witty and create jokes and add humor into the conversation. So I've always viewed humor as a sign of intelligence, and I've always viewed people having a sense of humor as a sign of, maybe intelligence or being more of a light in humanity. People that have no sense of humor, they're not willing to take jokes, they're not willing to joke. They're not super fun people to be around. And I think it shows us that when somebody knows the fine line of whether it's funny to somebody else or not, shows that you have that emotional quotient, you have that EQ intelligence and there's some emotional intelligence. And I think if you're able to be witty, it shows that iq, like you're able to piece ideas together and do something unexpected which is what humor's kind of based on. And people will see, okay, there's some intelligence behind this person. So, and I think that circles back to us making the videos, us being able to formulate an idea, know that we show that we know the industry. There's intelligence that goes into us putting together our scripts and what we're going to do in our videos and making it funny. And comedians I think are some of the most intelligent people out there. I love the observational humor. I love when they can see truth and things that don't make sense and it's ironic. So comedians really are able to showcase a high level of intelligence. They're able to piece things together and do things that people can't see coming. [00:15:16] And that's why punchlines are so funny. They're unexpected. Our brains get excited about that because it's different. It's unique and it's something we hadn't expected or heard of. And that's where humor becomes so funny to us and exciting because we didn't expect it. And it takes intelligence to be able to catch people off guard like that. So add a little bit of humor into your day and your day's just going to be a little bit more fun if you're laughing at some stuff and laughing with some people and laughing with people creates connection as well. Like if they laugh and you're laughing and like you, you can make jokes together. There's some bonding, I think that happens and really that creates more trust with clients. So, Anything else we should add?  [00:15:56] Sarah: Yeah I don't know what you started out with, but I feel good about that.  [00:16:00] Jason: Okay, cool. I'm glad you came and joined me.  [00:16:03] Sarah: That was a mistake. Wasn't planning on being on the podcast. [00:16:07] Jason: She just walks into my office. Making noise. She could see I'm on the video. [00:16:10] Sarah: I couldn't see you were on the video. No. His desk is against the wall and I can hear him. And he does a lot of voice message, so I always just assume he's either on a call or some sort of voice message on telegram. [00:16:21] Jason: All right. If any of you are struggling with growing your business, you're having trouble figuring out how to scale your operations, you're having difficulty with your team. We have rolled out what we call the DoorGrow Super System. It's the system of systems we put together the ultimate sort of package of operational stuff, planning stuff process stuff, hiring stuff, and we brought in expert coaches to facilitate all of this as well, because you know it's not the Jason show at DoorGrow anymore. We've got experts like Sarah and Clint Collins and Phil Mazer and Roya Mattis and Stacy Pittman, and like we've got the Avengers team of coaches, so if you really want to take your business to the next level and you want to grow faster and be less frustrated with your team, be able to have more jokes and have more fun and stop wearing all the hats you don't really enjoy wearing because you're the one screwing up your own business if you're wearing the hats you don't enjoy wearing and start just getting those all offloaded, we're really good at that.  [00:17:23] Like we can turn your business into something you love being in and you enjoy being in each day, and it will actually run better without you doing all that stuff. And so we can help you get to that next level, especially if you're 200 doors or higher. This is where all of this becomes really magical. And if you're below 200 doors and you're struggling to break even that a hundred door barrier, we can help you do that very easily. Adding doors is super easy. We can help you do it without spending any money on advertising. I know this sounds crazy, but we can actually help you grow faster without doing ads. And ads are expensive. And so if this is interesting to you and you're curious on our guerilla marketing strategies and how we can help you grow your business and get more leads, and get more doors and get better operations, reach out to DoorGrow and learn about our Mastermind. It's pretty awesome. And that's it. Check us out doorgrow.com and until next time, to our mutual growth. Bye everyone.  [00:18:21] Jason Hull: You just listened to the #DoorGrowShow. We are building a community of the savviest property management entrepreneurs on the planet in the DoorGrowClub. Join your fellow DoorGrow Hackers at doorgrowclub.com. Listen, everyone is doing the same stuff. SEO, PPC, pay-per-lead content, social direct mail, and they still struggle to grow!  [00:18:48] At DoorGrow, we solve your biggest challenge: getting deals and growing your business. Find out more at doorgrow.com. Find any show notes or links from today's episode on our blog doorgrow.com, and to get notified of future events and news subscribe to our newsletter at doorgrow.com/subscribe. Until next time, take what you learn and start DoorGrow Hacking your business and your life.  

Miriam Schulman, my guest today, is an artist, author and host of The Inspiration Place podcast. She's helped thousands of creatives around the world develop their skill sets and create more time and freedom to do what they love. Her signature coaching program, The Artist Incubator, teaches artists go from so-so sales to sold-out collections. After witnessing 9/11, Miriam abandoned a lucrative hedge fund to become a full-time thriving working artist. Featured in major publications including Forbes, The New York Times, Where Women Create, Art of Man, and Art Journaling magazine. Her artwork has also been featured on NBC's “Parenthood” and the Amazon series “Hunters” with Al Pacino. NOW, Her book with HarperCollins Leadership, Artpreneur, has been released in JANUARY 2023. In today's episode, Miriam and I talk about: The definition of art Why creative artists struggle most with marketing How embracing your inner weirdo and honoring what comes easy for you Why talking about the problem doesn't work for artists About Miriam's love for email marketing Why art matters And so much more [00:00:00] Sarah: Hello, humane marketers. Welcome back to the Humane Marketing Podcast, the place to be for the generation of marketers that cares. This is a show where we talk about running your business in a way that feels good to you, is aligned with your values, and also resonates with today's conscious customers because it's humane, ethical, and non-pushy. [00:00:23] I'm Sarah z Croce, your hippie turn business coach for quietly rebellious entrepreneurs and marketing impact by. Mama Bear of the Humane Marketing Circle and renegade author of marketing like we're human and selling like we're human. If after listening to the show for a while, you're ready to move on to the next level and start implementing and would welcome a community of like-minded, quietly rebellious entrepreneurs who discuss with transparency. [00:00:52] Works and what doesn't work in business, then we'd love to welcome you in our humane marketing circle. If you're picturing your [00:01:00] typical Facebook group, let me paint a new picture for you. This is a closed community of like-minded entrepreneurs from all over the world who come together once per month in a Zoom circle workshop to hold each other accountable and build their business. [00:01:15] Sustainable way we share with transparency and vulnerability, what works for us and what doesn't work, so that you can figure out what works for you instead of keep throwing spaghetti on the wall and seeing what sticks. Find out more at humane.marketing/circle, and if you prefer one-on-one support from me. [00:01:37] My humane business Coaching could be just what you need, whether it's for your marketing, sales, general, business building, or help. Idea like writing a book. I'd love to share my brain and my heart with you together with my almost 15 years business experience and help you grow a sustainable business that is joyful and sustainable. [00:01:58] If you love this [00:02:00] podcast, wait until I show you my mama bear qualities as my one-on-one client can find out more@humane.marketing slash. And finally, if you are a Marketing Impact pioneer and would like to bring Humane Marketing to your organization, have a look at my offers and workshops on my website@humane.marketing. [00:02:31] Hi, friends. Welcome back. Happy Spring. Today's conversation fits under the P of product, and if you're irregular here, as always, you know that I'm organizing the conversations around the seven Ps of the Humane Marketing Mandala. And if you're new here, big warm, welcome. Uh, you probably don't know what I'm talking about, but you can download your one. [00:02:53] Marketing plan with the humane marketing version of the seven Ps of [00:03:00] marketing@humane.marketing slash one page. That's the number one and the word page. And this comes with seven email prompts to really help you reflect on these different PS for your business. It's kind of the foundation of your business and your market. [00:03:17] So today I'm talking to New York based Miriam Schulman about making art your product. I'll tell you more about Miriam in just a second, but first I want to give you an update about the Humane Marketing Circle, our community. Um, I wanna tell you that bringing in in a young community facilitator was one of the best moves I've ever made. [00:03:40] You know how it is. You have to invest in something in order for it to grow, but investing at the stage where you know the income is just not there yet. It is always scary, but. My gut was telling me, you know, this is the right thing to do and I'm just so excited to [00:04:00] be working with Eddie now, um, who's our community facilitator and, and carer and, uh, net weaver, that's how he, uh, refers, um, to himself as. [00:04:11] So besides adding a second monthly call that's hosted by three of our ambassadors, we, uh, have also transitioned in January to a new online platform. Uh, it's on Cajabi not Mighty Network, and we're really loving it. It feels like Cajabi is kind. You know, is, is one of us, it feels like us, not perfect, but very playful and kind. [00:04:39] It's kind of like, I think of it as the little sister of Mighty Networks with big dreams. And so after every call, Eddie, um, is giving us a challenge to complete. So either something that deepens our connection with other members. Because that's a big priority for us, is [00:05:00] that members are interconnected. [00:05:02] That's the definition of a community, right. So, uh, Eddie helps us with that and puts a challenge up on our, uh, cajabi. We call it our water hole, our place, you know. Kind of nicer image than just a water cooler. So we call it our water hole. Uh, the place where animals in Africa get together in the morning and drink. [00:05:24] So, um, he puts a challenge up there and helps us, uh, connect with each other. Or it might also be a, a challenge that helps us with our marketing and our. Business. So, um, yeah, if you've been thinking about joining for a while now is really a good time because it's time. In May I'll be doubling the monthly rates. [00:05:47] Uh, besides the monthly calls and the active online community, you also get one live 90 minute workshop on a marketing or business topic, as well as all the recording. And we will soon [00:06:00] also probably be, be adding a third call per month. So yeah, I feel like stepping into my personal power and it's, it's time to raise the, the rates, but there is still time to join us at the current monthly rate, which is $37 per month. [00:06:17] So have a look at the details at humane.marketing/circle and also look for the circle inaction link, uh, on that page. On that circle in action page, you'll see some excerpts from our calls and testimonials and all of that, um, kind of real behind the scenes info. Thanks so much for checking that out. All right, Miriam Schulman. [00:06:44] My guest today is an artist, author, and host of the Inspiration Place podcast. She's helped thousands of creatives around the world develop their skill sets and create more time and freedom to do what they love. Her [00:07:00] signature coaching program, the artist incubator teaches artists to go from so, so sales to sold out collections. [00:07:09] After witnessing nine 11, Miriam abandoned a lucrative hedge fund to become a full-time thriving working artist featured in major publications including Forbes, the New York Times where women create Art of man and art Journaling. Her artwork has also been featured on NBC's Parenthood ND Amazon Series, hunter Hunters with Al Pacino, and now her book with Harper Collins Leadership Art Printer has been released in January, 2023. [00:07:42] In this episode, we talk about the definition of art and how art may not just be what we think it is, uh, why creative artists struggle most with marketing and what to do about it, how embracing your inner weirdo [00:08:00] and honoring what comes easy for you. Frees you up and actually lets you do the marketing, uh, that is aligned with you. [00:08:09] Why talking about the problem doesn't work for artists and what to do instead about Miriam's love for email marketing, why art matters and so much more. So let's dive in and talk to Miriam about making art your product. [00:08:28] Hey, Miriam, so good to speak to you today. I can't wait for this conversation about art. [00:08:35] Miriam: Well, thanks so much for having me, Sarah. It's, it's an honor to [00:08:38] Sarah: be here. Thank you. So I was just, we were just recording an episode for your podcast and, and now, um, you know, I'm on the other side of the mic and I'm excited to Yeah. [00:08:50] To kind of pick your brain, uh, around art and entrepreneurship because as we just discussed offline, they have a lot to do with each other and it really [00:09:00] depends how you define art. And so I think maybe that's a good place for us to start. Why don't you. Tell our listeners how you define art. Yeah, that's [00:09:11] Miriam: a, that's a great question. [00:09:13] Um, so my book is Entrepreneur, but the truth is, in the way we're gonna define art, every entrepreneur is an art preneur and vice versa. So, when I started writing the book, it's not, it was very, it had to be very clear. This is not just for visual. And it's not. And then we made the definition very broad. [00:09:35] Could be your art, could be writing, it could be um, music, it could be dance, it can be ceramics, it can be fashion. But once you make that definition, definition so broad, your art really is whatever product that you're producing. And so all I'm doing in this book is teaching people who cons. Don't believe that [00:10:00] business lessons apply to them. [00:10:01] I'm showing them. Mm, yes, they do. But the thing is, there's a lot of people who don't define themselves as artists who maybe look at marketing advice and they're sitting there if their arms crossing, oh, that doesn't work in my industry, or, that doesn't apply to me when actually it does. [00:10:16] Sarah: Yeah. Yeah. I I I was just gonna say, like, what, when I was thinking, when I, I was preparing for the episode and I'm like, well, art and marketing. [00:10:27] It's not usually a good marriage, right? People are who are artists, they're like, yeah, that's not for me. Or, or maybe they do wonder, well how do I sell my art? But what they see out there, they always feel like that doesn't apply to me. And so you're saying the same thing. That's what you're seeing usually [00:10:49] Miriam intro: from artists. [00:10:50] Why is that? Well, you know what, I, I get a lot of pushback cuz I, I like to say, you know, anybody. With a, who wants this can do it. [00:11:00] Anyone with a dream can do it. And so what the pushback I get is, yeah, but what about talent? Mm-hmm. And here's the truth, Sarah. Marketing trump's talent every single time we've all seen, um, not so good artists. [00:11:17] Succeed or you know, ones where like, huh, you know, we all seen that. And the same thing is true in, in business marketing is gonna trump every single time. Like the, you know, if you don't, people don't know about you, they can't buy your product or service. [00:11:34] Sarah: Right. It's, it's that just saying, you know, you stay the best kept secret. [00:11:39] It's like, yeah, you're really good, but nobody knows about [00:11:41] Miriam: you. Exactly. Exactly. So, and there's a lot of examples in the art world. So there's this, uh, American artist. Is he, he may not be American. Damien Hurst, is he American or is he from London? Okay. You don't, it doesn't matter cuz you don't know who he is. [00:11:56] It's fine. Um, he sold [00:12:00] a shark in formaldehyde for like a million dollars. Now is that talent? You know, it's like, I don't think so. So that is just a marketing stunt and people who are creating, um, like NFTs, like there was this guy who made this huge gold cube and put it in, uh, central Park to sell as an N F T. [00:12:22] Was, is that talent? No. It's a big marketing stunt, right? So, [00:12:29] Sarah: yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Why do you think then that creative entrepreneurs struggle most with, uh, um, marketing or, or what part of the marketing do they struggle with? [00:12:42] Miriam: Yeah. A a lot of it is is the mythology for artists in particular. There is that whole idea of they, they're taught you can't sell out or like, you're not a true artist if you are trying to market, which is complete BS because we have a [00:13:00] history going back to Michelangelo, where he was very much interested in the commercial side of things. [00:13:06] I mean, he's not just pa uh, sculpting and painting whatever he felt like. He didn't wanna paint the Sistine Chapel, but the Pope said, yes you do. Here's the money I'm gonna pay you. So he, he did projects for monetary reasons, so it's not a sellout to create art that's marketable that the, the market wants. [00:13:26] So that is a big thing that holds people back. But I also see. And Sarah, tell me if you see this too for, for women in particular who are socialized and, and I don't mean only some women are socialized this way. I think all of us women are socialized this way. We're socialized to play small, to not desire money, sex and power. [00:13:50] I think it's, that's probably more true in the US with the, because of the tradition of Puritanism, this is how our country was founded by. Though [00:14:00] that very conservative religion, so Right. Um, not to play small, and whether you're looking at images of thin women, the, the message that women are getting is not to take up space. [00:14:13] Mm-hmm. And that it's wrong to want money. So that plays a significant role because people will continue to sabotage themselves if they don't believe that it's okay. To desire money and success and to play role a bit a role and be visible and be big. So that is gonna sabotage people if they're trying to stay quiet and small when they have, and, and also be visible at the same time. [00:14:43] It just, they don't work together. [00:14:45] Sarah: Yeah, I hear you. That I'm sure there's a, there's something on that belief level, right? Um, I also think it's like, so. Right. Like I often talk about the right brain and the left brain. So I really [00:15:00] also think like creative's brains are wired differently and they're, um, you know, there's so much in the creativity that when they are then seeing, uh, you know, marketing advice that is very structured and follow steps and, and they're like, this is how you do it. [00:15:19] That's when they get turned off. They're like, no, but I wanna. Me, I just wanna, you know, it's kind of like almost rebellious, maybe. Artists seem to be more [00:15:29] Miriam: rebellious in a way. Yeah, I I, I can see why you would say that. I think for, for, at least for me personally, I found a lot of the marketing advice out there, a turnoff, because it was coming f like it was very bro marketer. [00:15:43] It was like, okay. Right. Exactly. You know, these very. Um, hustle style, whereas the best marketing in the world is being your true, authentic sell, right? [00:15:54] Sarah: Yeah. So not in your book, you have this line, embrace your inner weirdo, right? [00:16:00] Yeah. So tell us more about that. What you, what you mean by that. Okay, [00:16:04] Miriam: so the word weird, the original definition comes from Scotland, and it meant fate or destiny. [00:16:11] And then you may recall in Macbeth there were the three witches who were called the weird sisters. So then the meaning meant something associated more with faith, the supernatural. And as time went on and the supernatural became vilified, The word weird took on that negative connotation. So to be weird is really to embrace your destiny. [00:16:39] To embrace what's really special about you. So I, I say love your inner weirdo and be a weirdo in the most affectionate way possible. [00:16:48] Sarah: Hmm, yeah. You also say, um, like one of the examples you mentioned in that chapter is share your values and. You know, that's a [00:17:00] huge part of humane marketing as well. It's like, share your worldview. [00:17:04] Share what matters to you. People don't typically see that as marketing. They always think, maybe especially artists, they think, oh, you have to talk about, you know, this art piece or this book. I've written a book and now I have to constantly talk about this book. Not true. If you share your worldview and your values, that is part of your marketing. [00:17:28] Miriam: Oh, for sure. So there are a lot of artists who are afraid of speaking out. So I live in the US we have very divisive politics, and they're worried of losing business if they have. One point of view and they express a view that me, other people might get them upset. So for me, I'm very progressive. I have a lot of liberal views. [00:17:55] I'm not worried about alienating people who are [00:18:00] conservative. Yeah, I may alienate some people. There are some diehard conservatives though, who like I've had some words with and they're still following me. But people respect that more. And what happens if you don't share your values, they're gonna assume. [00:18:15] So right before we hit record, Sarah was asking me, so you just had an election, what do you think? And I don't know if you were like trying to see where I was at on that political [00:18:25] Sarah: No, I knew from reading the book, I knew. Okay, right. [00:18:27] Miriam: You read my book. But, but let's pretend you didn't now. And I said, oh, I, you know, and I gave a very witchy, rashy response. [00:18:34] You, you may as assume, you might assume that I don't care about politics when, meanwhile, I care very deeply about the unraveling of, of women's rights and what I see happening. So it's important to dive deep into that. I was very impressed Billy Eilish, um, went on record, uh, on Instagram, telling people to vote and why this was important. [00:18:58] Yeah. Other people [00:19:00] say vote, but only if you agree with me. You know? But, uh, yeah, it's, it's, it's really nice to see some people who have big platforms not being afraid of alienating people and the ones who are very big on all parts of the political spectrum. Are not afraid of being polarizing because you can love me or hate me, but there is, when you're in business, there is no money in the middle, and when you're trying to please everyone, you're just striving for mediocrity. [00:19:34] Right. [00:19:35] Sarah: Yeah. Yeah. It's so interesting. Um, I just, I, I follow Guy Kawasaki, uh, you see who he is. Um, he's, he's kind of the, you know, past Apple and then Canva. Um, he's just a spokesperson now, pretty much. And he just really shares his political views and just, I think before the elections he put, he's active on LinkedIn or that's [00:20:00] where I see him. [00:20:00] And he, he was saying, you know, Uh, your influencers, what are they saying right now? Are they saying, you know, go vote and, you know, here's what's really happening because go vote. That's kind of an easy out as well, because that doesn't really share your worldview. That's correct. Um, so he was, you know, being more specific, um, or so, so artie's influencers telling you who to vote for and why it. [00:20:27] Or are they telling you the latest car they bought or you know, which mansion they're staying at and all of that kind of stuff that we're so used to from the bro influencers. Right? Yeah. And I thought that made a lot of sense. That's exactly the worldview that we're interested in and we're not so interested in, you know, the latest car you bought and all of. [00:20:49] Miriam: Yeah. Yeah. And there's actually a very significant, um, population that the data shows, they're called the conscious consumers that they do shop with. They do vote with [00:21:00] their pocketbooks. Of course. Yeah. So they're checking, you know, you know, and they don't all have the same causes that they care about. You know, some people care more about sustainability of a brand when they're shopping, some care more. [00:21:12] Inclusion. I know that when I receive a clothing catalog, if it's all white women, I throw it out now like I'm, you know, they don't care enough to show, have diversity in the catalog. Um, I, I don't shop there. So there is a, a, a large percentage of people who. This is their values matter. And what matters is that the brands are doing it in an authentic way. [00:21:36] Not like, oh, so this is gay Pride week and here's your rainbow smoothie, or whatever, because they people can see through that. It's how you're showing up all year long. That's gonna matter. [00:21:47] Sarah: Yeah. Yeah. And the, the reason again, we're bringing this up is, Oftentimes creatives don't realize that that's part of marketing. [00:21:57] Um, that's right. Yeah. And it's, it's not just the, [00:22:00] you know, follow these three steps to market your art. It's, it, it, it's. A whole package. That's the other thing that you mentioned in your book, um, is honor What Comes Easy for You. And I love that. That's kind of like my motto for life, right? Um, and so you have a, a funny gardening story in there. [00:22:19] Uh, would you mind sharing that? I think that's such a good example of, of how that works. Yes, yes. [00:22:25] Miriam: Okay. So I, I live in New York City. I'm staring at a brick wall right now, but we do have a, a farmhouse two hours away. It's in the Catskills in New York. And my husband started a garden, um, when we first moved there, and we, he went to the nursery and he spent. [00:22:42] Oh, I don't know, a couple hundred dollars on plants, like these starter plants. And then when we were at the counter, he just grabbed a couple of seed packets. So the seed packets, we just scattered in the plants. You know, it made a mess in the back of my car with the dirt. I wasn't happy about [00:23:00] that. And we spent a good back breaking afternoon, putting in these starter plants. [00:23:07] Well, a couple, whatever, whatever the time span was later. The seeds were doing really well. It was like Jack and the bean sprout, like all these, like these stalk came up and we had beautiful string beads. The starter plants on the other hands, like all the bugs ate them. So it was like, here's a situation where. [00:23:27] The seed packets were the easy way to go and they actually were the easier the, the best result, whereas this harder, more expensive thing didn't work out as good for as well for us. But we do this a lot in our business where we try to make things so hard and we have something that comes easy for us and we think that couldn't be as valuable. [00:23:46] Right. [00:23:47] Sarah: Yeah. I just love that story, I guess, because I, I also, I'm not a big fan of gardening, but my husband is, and yeah, I would just totally throw some seeds [00:23:56] Miriam: out there. That's right. Well, it was like the sunflowers came from seeds. [00:24:00] The green beans came from seeds. Um, we tried something else this year. I forget what it was, and it was like, yay [00:24:06] Sarah: seeds. [00:24:07] Yeah, exactly. And it's funny how we often. You know, it's kind of a metaphor. Plant a seed, and I love that also for marketing, where you might just have a conversation and you're not actually pushing it and trying to sell them something, but in your head, you know, I just planted a seed, and this might turn into something bigger that you weren't even expecting. [00:24:33] I love the metaphor of seeds as well, so yeah, that's a beautiful metaphor [00:24:38] Miriam: that you, the way you just [00:24:39] Sarah: used it. Yeah. Yeah. Um, another thing that I know that you love is email marketing. So it seems like you really built your business based on email marketing, so, Maybe you, because right now I feel like people are still understanding. [00:24:57] Okay. Yes. Uh, email [00:25:00] marketing is a good strategy, especially with all the talk about social media going down the tubes and Twitter disappearing and all of that. So how does one start an email list today? Um, you know, starting out as a creative, how do you actually get people's attention? Because I do feel like. [00:25:22] A lot out there. And I know that my people, they're like, yeah, but there's so much also crap out there that I feel like I give my email and I get this one pager that is not even valuable. Um, so what would you say, what would you tell creatives how to get started? [00:25:40] Miriam: Well, let me just start with that last example you gave just because you had a, you meaning the listener had a bad experience with somebody's Jan. [00:25:49] Email doesn't mean you have to emulate that. Right. You be that bright spot in someone's email where they look forward to opening your emails or they love the [00:26:00] freebies that you're sending them. You, you be, you, you make a, you can, you're the one who has control over that and can make a difference. Right. [00:26:07] One thing I like to tell my clients, or what I talk about in the book is emails are really love letters to your audience. Mm-hmm. And that is the best way to nurture a relationship. [00:26:18] Sarah: Right, so, so when you work with clients, when they ask you, well, so how, what do I create? You have some great examples of what creatives created as a download, as a free [00:26:33] Miriam: Yes. [00:26:34] This, this was a very important chapter for my audience because there is so much advice out there for people who are weight loss coaches. You just give them a cheat sheet or a menu and they like, I have no idea what it is that they want, and they come up with things. That really have nothing to do with what they're ultimately selling. [00:26:55] Like I'll see artists have screensavers or something. It's like, yeah, but you're not [00:27:00] selling that. So that is not, and also people don't want your screensaver. They want their kitty as their screensaver or their kid or their doc. So, The, the things are pe again, this is where people make it way too hard for themselves. [00:27:13] So for, for my audience who are selling products, one of the best things to give away is just early access. So you don't even have to create something. And this does work. So a good example of this is in, in April when the war first br, when the war first broke out in March and then Easter in April that year. [00:27:34] Uh, Stanski eggs, which are Ukrainian eggs, I don't know if you you've seen them, but they're very intricate, intricately painted eggs. This was cut out of the preview book that you got, by the way. I think we put it back in for the final version. It doesn't [00:27:51] Sarah: be, you see? Yeah. So there, I thought you were tricking me, but No, [00:27:54] Miriam: no, no, no. [00:27:55] Yeah, so we, we had it in, we cut it out, we put it back in. [00:28:00] So there, there was this artist creating eggs and she sells them for over $200. And they're, they're absolutely gorgeous. These very intricate, and they're made by, um, using I think like a toothpick and putting boutique on to make these fine lines and doing these, the dipping process. [00:28:21] So she was completely sold out at these prices. Now people are gonna wanna join her email list just to find out when they come back in stock. Wow. So people who are creating one of a kind things, this is something that is a reason. If you're selling a service like a class, it's re, it's a reason enough that people wanna be on the wait list when, when it opens up. [00:28:44] So that's like the easiest place to go. Uh, if for, for the visual artists out there, I love the giving them a post, people, giving people a postcard with your art on it. That does require. The person giving you their email [00:29:00] address to also give their postal address, which is more of a commitment, but that means they're more serious about your art. [00:29:06] And again, everything that you're giving as your lead magnet needs to be a free taste of whatever it is that they're ultimately gonna buy. Hmm. So that's why I said a screensaver doesn't work. Um, artists who give away coloring pages, that only works if you're selling a coloring book if you're trying to sell something else. [00:29:26] Not a great idea. Yeah. [00:29:28] Sarah: Yeah. Okay. Um, I'm just trying to figure out how, you know, the, the Etsy website, how does that play into the whole I'm an artist and I'm selling my art because Etsy, it's, its stand. Website and I see a lot of creatives putting their art up there, but, but then how would they, yeah. How would. [00:29:53] Still build an email list and then say, yes, absolutely. It's now available on Etsy. Yes. Something like that. Okay. [00:29:58] Miriam: Yeah, so that, [00:30:00] that is why I encourage clients to build their own website because if you're gonna have to drive traffic anyway, you might as well drive it to your own site. Yeah. The artists who do well in Etsy are driving traffic fair. [00:30:16] Yeah. And then Sarah, do you want me to circle back to the lead magnet thing? Because we can also discuss what lead magnets work? Well, if you're not a visual artist, like what I use in my own business, please. Okay. Yep. Let's do that. So, of course there's the free masterclass, but one thing that I, I've done that works really well is transcribing the masterclass and turning that into an e. [00:30:37] Without the sales pitch, but basically giving the same exact content. So think about all the different content that you're giving them. How can you repackage it and give the same experience? Whether that is a masterclass, some people prefer to read the book, right? You know, like whether it's Terry Potter or the movie. [00:30:55] Like some people rather read the book than see the movie. Right. So, [00:31:00] yeah, to give them different experiences. Yeah, [00:31:03] Sarah: I like that. And then I guess, you know, for. I don't know if you've set that up, but the free chapter for the book is usually what you do when you have a book. Have you set that up? I haven't [00:31:15] Miriam: set that up yet, but I probably should. [00:31:16] You should. Yeah. I know I probably should. I have to talk to my, uh, yeah, my [00:31:21] Sarah: publisher about that. Yeah. I, I feel like people, you know, they, they like, uh, uh, free down download of the first chapter and then decide of course on Amazon. Usually you can kind of see the first couple of pages, but it's not, it's not the whole chapter usually. [00:31:36] Yeah, so it's helpful too. You [00:31:38] Miriam: wanna hook them in. So yeah. What is it that you can give away that will hook them in and want more of what you got? [00:31:43] Sarah: Yeah. Yeah. Now, uh, just yesterday in, in my Humane Marketing Circle community, we talked about actually having freebies without getting people's email, there seems to be a trend [00:32:00] of. [00:32:01] B, because people kind of feel like, well, it's not really free if I have to give my email. And so my people, they're like, oh, I want them in my world, but I don't. I want to have options. I want to have maybe one thing that they can just download for free and then come back for more. What do you think about this strategy? [00:32:24] Miriam intro: Well, you're taking a big chance that they're not gonna ever come back again. It's kind of like a one night stand. [00:32:31] Sarah: Yes. Like it, but it could be, you're so good on this one night stand since we're going with this example, that they wanna come back. Right. Because [00:32:41] Miriam: they're like, they're really, that's the problem that I see with, with TikTok. [00:32:45] It's like the death of and, and reels on Instagram too, but, but we'll just talk about TikTok. It's the death of the scroll. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So, and I know entrepreneurs are spending a tremendous amount of time creating content for. [00:33:00] TikTok, social media and social. But, but especially those videos, they take a lot of time. [00:33:04] Now, if you've been on the consuming end of those videos, you know that before you get to that end of that video, they're already making you push up to the next thing. Mm-hmm. So I found that I can have thousands of views on, on a reel with nobody going to my profile. And I had an artist who created a viral reel. [00:33:24] She got 45 thou, 45,000 views without. Um, like maybe a couple followers, but nobody going to our website cuz you can see the stats. Now with TikTok, the followers there are completely meaningless. You can have, um, you can follow someone and never ever see their content ever again. So somebody who has millions of followers, that's not a relationship with millions of people. [00:33:48] It's kind of a meaningless metric, right? I would be very wary of trying to build a relationship where you can't, you're not in [00:34:00] control of getting in touch with them ever again. Hmm. Yeah. [00:34:03] Sarah: Okay. It's interesting, uh, and I totally agree with the, with social media, people spend so much time on there and oftentimes entrepreneurs are exhausted and, and, you know, to go back to the do what's easy, well, social media nowadays is not easy anymore. [00:34:21] No. It's not really want to get something out of it. So, um, I think it's important to, to say that not enough people. You know, say the truth, how it is, and it's not easy to build a following or, or nevermind a following, just a business, uh, on social media today. So in your opinion then, what's the best way, where would a, a creative, uh, an artist, an entrepreneur start when they're just starting out their. [00:34:51] Miriam: Well, bill, bill, that email list, and I wanna circle back to a question you did ask, but I don't think I really answered. It's like, well, how and where do you start? Mm-hmm. [00:35:00] And there are only three ways to build your audience. There is what I call your universe. So your universe is anyone you come into contact with, whether it's in person or online. [00:35:13] Then there are other people's univers. So that could be like what we're doing now. Sarah, I'm on your podcast. You came on mine. Right. So that's basically, other people call it earned press, earned publicity. Mm-hmm. And then, which is free. And the third category is paid publicity. Mm-hmm. Or paid platform. So those are, there's, those are the three ways. [00:35:39] And they're really, I don't think there is any other way other than those three areas your platform. Other people's platforms and rented platforms. Mm. Yeah. [00:35:49] Sarah: I, I like that. It, I mean, I know that, but it, explaining it this way, it feels like, okay, if you're just starting out, You gotta start in your [00:36:00] own universe. [00:36:01] Yes. Cause you don't have the credibility yet to go, or you can start with the paid, but that's also correct. Yeah. Yeah. Um, but you don't really have the credibility yet to go out there and say, okay, can I be on your podcast? Or can that co Or not just credibility, but maybe also confidence. [00:36:19] Miriam intro: Well, actually, let me. [00:36:21] Circle back so you can get, um, free, free press. And I did that even in the very beginning. But you need to start local. Local. Okay. Yeah. Okay. So you can't jump, jump the ladder. It's like, it'd be great to be on Oprah. Right. But yeah, there's different levels. Exactly. Like there's things like, you know, I would love Brene Brown to invite me to her podcast, but you know, [00:36:45] Sarah: Yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:36:46] It, yeah, it just kind of goes the same with anything in life. It's like, oh, am I on this level or Yeah. Am I evolving to future levels? Yeah. [00:36:56] Miriam intro: And, and that's why we should talk about something, which I don't think I talk about in the book at all, but [00:37:00] who knows? Maybe if I write another book, who knows. Um, so that's why I spend so much time building what I call relationship capital, because the way to get the. [00:37:12] To expand outside of your universe and get some of those earned opportunities is by building relationships, which is why joining communities like yours, Sarah, is so important. Like those relationships, yeah. Can help you. And I never have regretted investing in paid programs, paid masterminds, because those networks have been hugely. [00:37:36] Yeah, [00:37:37] Sarah: don't you agree? Oh yeah, totally. So much so that, you know, the partnership is the seventh p of the Humane Marketing Mandala. Uh, because I really think partnership is the way to, to market and, and, you know, collaborate with others. And, and what you just said as well is there's different levels within partnerships as. [00:37:59] [00:38:00] There's the free levels, which is peers, and then there's the paid levels, which is mentors and coaches, which again, it's just like these unwritten rules. You probably can't go to, you know, ask, uh, Brene Brown if she would, you know, feature you or something because there hasn't been a paid relationship for some things. [00:38:21] There just needs to be a paid relationship for them to pay attention to you. You know, they have so many people they could be paying attention to. [00:38:30] Miriam: Yeah. And, and one thing that I think is very important, especially now with um, let's just say it like it is the demise of, of easy social media, right? Is I think it is a very important to have your own platform because it's one thing to, uh, to, to get media. [00:38:49] But it's much better if you are the media. Mm-hmm. Yeah. If you have a YouTube channel, if you have a podcast, and by the way, blogs are coming back. I have been reading people's [00:39:00] blogs posted on in. LinkedIn. That seems to be the new thing. Have you noticed that too? That trend? Everyone's like running to LinkedIn lately. [00:39:06] Sarah: Oh yeah. No. I've been on LinkedIn for, for years like that. [00:39:11] Miriam: I've been there, but I haven't been like consuming the way I started to. It's like, well that's a good article. Like as people are actually putting some quality things there. Yeah, so that's be be the media. If you want opportunities, give opportunities. [00:39:25] Mm-hmm. People like, if you are one of Sarah's coaching clients, invite her to your platform. Right. Am I putting you on the spot? Is this gonna be edited? [00:39:37] Sarah: N no, no, this is all good. No, we're not editing the, well, we are editing the, but I'm not cutting anything out. Okay. Cause this is, this is a Cuban conversation, so, yeah. [00:39:47] Yeah. No. [00:39:48] Miriam: So lemme, instead of putting you on a spot, I'll just talk about myself. So when I joined Masterminds and I started a podcast, I had my, my first guess was my business coach, right? Then I [00:40:00] could say to my business coach's friends who were like, kind of jumping a level here. Mm-hmm. You know, they weren't my level, they were my business coach's level. [00:40:07] Right. Hey, Jason Van Orden was a guest on my show and I'd love to have you on as well. So now this is already giving me credibility because my business coach. Said yes to me on my podcast, which was an easy yes for me. So now somebody says, oh, well if Jason was on it, I'll do on it. And then I went to the third person, Hey, Jason was on it and such and such was on it. [00:40:29] Would you like to come on it too? So it's like, this is how we build that ladder of credibility is starting with your own network, starting with peers. And then you can add, just go up those, uh, go up that ladder with baby steps. Yeah, [00:40:45] Sarah: that's so. I feel like you, you just said blogs are coming back and I, I was also thinking art is come, coming back. [00:40:55] I really feel like, you know? Yeah. So, so maybe the question would [00:41:00] be like, why does art matter now more than ever going forward? [00:41:06] Miriam: Yeah. Well, because we're going through such an existential crisis in the world, and art is what gives us meaning. [00:41:13] Sarah: Mm-hmm. So good. And, and, and that would've been a nice ending, but I wanna come back to that, to that one point you made when I was on your show about the, you know, in marketing we always talk about these pain points and Oh yeah. [00:41:29] And you have such a good point about. Well, I'll let you explain [00:41:33] Miriam: it. Okay. So this is like, it's not that marketing doesn't apply to creatives. It just may be the way you've been taught. It's not the right way. So we're talking about the bro marketers and a lot of them also they say find the pain point and twist that night. [00:41:49] Exactly. Like if you heard it, that's what, but that's what they say. Yeah. All right. So, but the problem is when you're, when you're selling something that gives people pleasure, like [00:42:00] let's say, I'm the producer of Harry Potter. I'm not gonna market the movie by saying, well, their pain point is their bored. [00:42:08] Watch Harry Potter. It alleviates boredom. You don't do that, right? So, or, or, or what's, what's the pain point of the Oreo cookie? Nothing. We just want it cuz it tastes good. Right? So, And that doesn't mean that your art has to be all rainbows and daisies. Cause there's plenty of art that is dark and goth and emo, and people get a lot of pleasure from that. [00:42:31] But instead of worrying about what people's night sweats are, what their pain points are, what's keeping them up at night, you gotta think what are their wet dreams? What is it that they, they really want, what they really desire? Mm-hmm. Yeah. And sell that pleasure. [00:42:49] Sarah: Mm. Yeah. And, and that ties in with why art and pleasure is so important right now is because, you know, who wants to open their email and, and, you [00:43:00] know, Find out how much they suck and how much their life is miserable and because they're not this and that, and not enough. [00:43:07] No. Like, like you said, we're living in a crisis, so we, we want positive reinforcement, not negative reinforcement. And I think all the right brainers, that's what they're bringing to society right now. Yeah. Yeah. Wonderful. Well, do you tell people where they can find your book in, in your website, and all of. [00:43:30] Miriam: Okay, so if you like this conversation, you will also love. Sarah on my podcast, the inspiration plates. I'm not sure who, I don't remember who is coming out first. Me neither. But yeah. But you can find the inspiration plates if I'm, if she's not there yet, just hit that plus sign or the follow sign and you'll get it very soon. [00:43:50] Cuz we had an amazing conversation, which was completely different, I think, than what we talked about today. Mm-hmm. And my book Art is available. There's a lot of [00:44:00] pre-order goodies, so I hope you'll check that out. Art. Dot com. [00:44:05] Sarah: Wonderful. Entrepreneur book all in one word. [00:44:08] Miriam: Yeah, that's, that's the website to, to get the book Or just search Entrepreneur. [00:44:13] But you get bonuses when you go to my page, so there you go. It's all about the, it's all about the freebies. [00:44:19] Sarah: I always have one last question, and that is, what are you grateful for today, Miriam? More this week? Oh, [00:44:25] Miriam: that is such a beautiful question. Did you tell me ahead of time? I would have to answer. [00:44:29] Sarah: No, I did not. [00:44:31] I put you on the spot because we all have to have something that we're [00:44:35] Miriam: grateful for. I, I am very grateful for my family right now. Um, I'm grateful that I have a husband who lets me be weird. Um, I'm grateful for, for my children who don't give me too much angst. They're adults, by the way. And, uh, yeah, I'm very grateful for my family. [00:44:52] Wonderful. [00:44:53] Sarah: Awesome. Thank you so much for [00:44:55] Miriam intro: being. And I'm grateful for, for this opportunity too. Let's just, let's [00:45:00] just say that too. [00:45:01] Sarah: Thank you. If you're an artist or a creative mind, I bet this conversation resonated with you. So do take some time to find out more about Miriam and her work@schulmanart.com and check out her book called The Art Printer. [00:45:19] Wherever you get your books, if you go to schulman art.com/prophet, you'll find, uh, Miriam's, uh, free download. It's called the Artist Profit Plan Guide, and it helps you dig deep to go beyond the starving artist mindset to uncover what's really sabotaging your success. So again, go to schulman art.com/. [00:45:45] And finally, you can also look up her podcast. It's called The Inspiration Place. And if you look for episode 239, that's the uh, show where I talk to Miriam about humane marketing. So again, [00:46:00] look for the Inspiration Place podcast. And if you wanna hear me on her show, that's episode 239. And if you're looking for others who think like you, then why not join us in the Humane Marketing Circle? [00:46:15] You can find out more at humane.marketing/circle. You find the show notes on this episode@humane.marketing slash 16 one, and on this beautiful page, you'll also find a series of free offers. It is my Saturday newsletter, the Humane Business Manifesto, and the free gentle mini confidence mini course, as well as my two books. [00:46:41] Marketing like we're human and selling like we're human. Thank you so much for being part of a generation of marketers who cares for yourself, your clients, and the planet. We are change makers before we are marketers. So now go be the change you [00:47:00] want to see in the. Speak soon.[

Today we will learn how Easter is celebrated in the United States and Australia. We will hear Tom and Sarah's conversation about their plans for Easter this year. And with a point-of-view story, you will learn grammar in context without memorizing boring rules. Hi! Thanks for joining me for another episode of the podcast. I'm Georgiana, and my mission is to help you improve your fluency. If you want to support me, please share the podcast with your friends and family. It would mean a great deal to me. Thank you! Okay! Let's start! Tom, from the United States, and Sarah, from Australia, were catching up on a video call before the Easter holiday. As they started chatting, they quickly realized they had different traditions and plans for celebrating the holiday. Let's listen to their conversation: Tom: Hey, Sarah! Happy Easter! Sarah: Happy Easter to you too, Tom! I hope you're doing well. Tom: Yes, I'm doing great. So, what are your plans for Easter this year? Sarah: I plan to attend church and celebrate Easter with my family. We usually have a big Easter dinner and spend time together. Tom: That sounds lovely. I'm also planning to celebrate Easter with my family. We usually have an Easter egg hunt and decorate Easter eggs. Sarah: Oh, that's a great tradition. We also decorate Easter eggs but don't have an egg hunt. Tom: That's interesting. Every family has their own traditions. Sarah: Definitely. What other traditions do you have for Easter? Tom: We usually go to church and have a big Easter brunch. We also exchange Easter baskets filled with candy and small gifts. Sarah: That sounds like so much fun. We don't exchange Easter baskets but give each other Easter cards. Tom: That's sweet. Do you have any special Easter foods that you eat? Sarah: Yes, we usually have ham, deviled eggs, and hot cross buns. Tom: That sounds delicious. My family has roasted lamb, mashed potatoes, and asparagus. Sarah: That sounds amazing. It's interesting to see how different cultures celebrate the same holiday.   Get the full transcript here: speakenglishpodcast.com/podcast/

Here's what Natasha got into on today's Equity Monday:Big tech: Marqeta's nine-figure acquisition of a two-year-old fintech, and which bucket of deals I think it falls into. Plus, Stripe's whole 12-month timeline thing and my edit for your incoming thought pieces. Big idea: Natasha's latest Startups Weekly column is all about the latecomer advantage. She talks about the idea, and its nuance, in the context of building startup rivals.Big innovation: We end with a look at Atomos, which landed $16 million to tug vehicles through space, and a bright spot of an analysis, coming from the TC+ world, on Black Web3 founders. As always, follow us on Twitter for more @equitypod!Equity drops at 10:00 a.m. PT every Monday and at 7:00 a.m. PT on Wednesdays and Fridays, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotifyand all the casts. TechCrunch also has a great show on crypto, a show that interviews founders, one that details how our stories come together, and more!

This week, Natasha interviewed Sarah Oh, the co-founder of T2, a Twitter rival, and Twitter's former Human Rights advisor. We get into a lot, not limited to but including:What her job title really encompassesThe danger of going viralRe-building a cloneGenerative AIWe also talk about what moderation 3.0 looks like and T2 daring to dream when building a Twitter-like company with safety at its core. Oh is clearly is a change maker, considering that the 30 minutes Natasha spent with her already expanded our understanding of how platforms think about - and invest in - trust at scale.Equity drops at 10:00 a.m. PT every Monday and at 7:00 a.m. PT on Wednesdays and Fridays, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. TechCrunch also has a great show on crypto, a show that interviews founders, one that details how our stories come together and more!

ICT4Peace is delighted to release Episode 6 of Brown Bag, the ICT4Peace podcast series on social media, politics, democracy and society from a Global South perspective, hosted and produced by ICT4Peace Foundation's Special Advisor, Dr Sanjana Hattotuwa. In Episode 6, Hattotuwa speaks with Sarah Oh, who works with technology companies to launch new programmes focused on responsible growth, equitable partnerships, and social impact, with an emphasis on human rights.

We hear about the dangers of pornography, rightfully so. But can pornography ever be helpful in the process of healing from trauma and with one's sexual identity? In this podcast Sarah bravely shares her story as a faithful LDS who experienced sexual assault and how pornography helped her reclaim her identity and heal from the abuse.    0:00:00.0 Speaker 1: Welcome to Improving Intimacy, a podcast to help single and married Latter-Day Saints strengthen their family connections and marriages. Daniel A. Burgess is the host of Improving Intimacy. Daniel's a marriage and family therapist, father, husband, and author. Here's Daniel on this episode of improving intimacy.   [music]   0:00:24.6 Daniel A. Burgess: Welcome to another episode of improving intimacy. On today's episode, we have Sarah who has offered to go into a very vulnerable and maybe even scary past with sexual assault and what you did to... Is it fair to say, heal or recover? Thrive in spite of that tragedy. So welcome, Sarah, I'm glad to have you here. This is a topic I haven't discussed yet, so one, I wanna be sensitive to your background and history, and I'll let you guide the conversation, but you've expressed the importance of sharing this for other people, so I'm excited to hear what you have to say. So Sarah, tell us a little bit about yourself. Why are you here today, and what is it exactly you wanna share?   0:01:11.7 Sarah: Well, thank you first of all for having me on. I am very passionate about this because I remember growing up thinking that this was... I was surely the only person who this was happening to, and then as we'll discuss later, some issues that came up in marriage that just increased that feeling of isolation and shame and loneliness, and I vowed at the time to... If I ever have an opportunity to talk about it, to talk about it so that someone out there is not feeling the same way I did. So that's why I'm so passionate about this, and I think we can just start with that kind of history of what it was like to grow up and date and then move into a marriage and have some of those same issues with little education.   0:01:53.5 DB: Yes, it's an important topic that we don't discuss a lot now, I appreciate your bravery in doing this, so let's... We don't need to go in, you're welcome to go into as much details you absolutely want, but for context, are you comfortable with sharing maybe the age this happened? So that we have a little understanding of the history of what's going on there and any details that you're comfortable with sharing.   0:02:18.0 Sarah: Sure, so I grew up just in a normal LDS family, a very strong LDS family, all my siblings remained active, so I had great role models, looking up to them, I was active in a Young Women's, everything was just in line for the perfect fairytale story. And I never really dated much in high school, and I just remember thinking, "Oh, I just want a boyfriend so badly," and I watched all my friends date and I just thought, "Oh, that sounds so wonderful. That's something that I'd really like." And then I had my first boyfriend, and we went out on a few dates, and I was 17 at the time. And I remember thinking, being so excited for the first kiss, and then the first kiss happened and when within maybe five to 10 seconds, my shirt was off and he was un-fastening my bra clasp and I thought...   0:03:12.7 DB: So you mean he took it off...   0:03:14.1 Sarah: Yeah, yeah, he... It was like first kiss, peck, and then I thought I was gonna have this time to like, "Oh, kinda float away and enjoy this moment of happy ever after", and I was like, "Whoa, what is going on?" And I didn't know what was going on, I didn't know what these things I was feeling, what they were, and I was just very overwhelmed with the situation and I didn't stop anything, 'cause I think I was just struck with terror and just being overwhelmed and thinking, "Well, no one's talked about what this is, I don't know what is going on." And I don't actually even remember how that ended, but I remember leaving, sitting in the car feeling like I can't go home. My parents are gonna know that I broke the Law of Chastity, I wouldn't have to talk to the bishop who's my best friend's dad...   0:04:06.0 DB: You felt responsible for it.   0:04:09.7 Sarah: 100%. It was my fault, 100%. And just that was the beginning of... And I was 17 years old, that was the beginning of not talking to my parents about these experiences, thinking that I was the only one, but also thinking that that's what every girl was experiencing.   0:04:26.9 DB: You had no idea?   0:04:27.6 Sarah: Yeah. I was the only one, yeah, I was the only one responsible but every other girl surely had to be having these experiences, but it wasn't their fault. So that was just kind of the beginning of a long trail, and I didn't necessarily at that time know that that was sexual assault. I just kind of thought, "That's dating, here we go." [chuckle]   0:04:49.3 DB: How scary.   0:04:50.9 Sarah: So scary. And he was preparing to go on a mission, and so I was like, "Oh well, he's this great guy who's gonna go and serve the Lord and do all these things, and surely it's my fault." And I'd been raised with this mentality that modesty is my responsibility and how I dress will directly impact what boys do to me and how boys think.   0:05:12.6 DB: And that's what you're thinking was your fault?   0:05:16.6 Sarah: Totally.   0:05:17.1 DB: Was because... Do you feel like you were dressed immodestly that evening?   0:05:19.6 Sarah: No, actually, I had come from playing a volleyball game, so I had been wearing athletic gear and in my mind, I'm like sweaty and gross. [chuckle] No one wants to do that, right? And also, I should note that I developed rather quickly as a child, I was... I started puberty at 10 years old, so at 10 years old, I was fully grown as a woman, and I think I internalized a lot of shame about that, of having this really grown-up body and this little girl's brain and not really understanding how to handle both of those mindsets. So when that happened, it was like, "Oh, well, that's because I have this grown woman's body, [chuckle] and he can't control himself."   0:06:03.9 DB: And therefore, it was your fault.   0:06:05.3 Sarah: Oh, totally. Totally. So that was the first experience. Then I graduated high school, he went on a mission, and I just kept having experience after experience with these boys who were raised in the same faith that I was raised in, who had just no concept of boundaries. I just started to think that if I was going to be kissed, I was gonna be touched, and there was nothing really that I could do to stop it, it was just normal. I came to expect that of good return missionaries, good boys who were leaving on missions, that was just what dating was for me. I didn't think anything different.   0:06:49.7 DB: I think that's the most tragic thing I'm hearing... Well, one, the most tragic thing is that you were abused, I guess the close second is that you weren't even aware that you were abused and taken advantage of, and at what point did you look back and say That was wrong. That wasn't my fault?   0:07:09.4 Sarah: Not until I was married.   0:07:11.3 DB: Oh, wow.   0:07:14.3 Sarah: Yeah. And because I had nothing to compare it to. I didn't know anything about sex, I didn't know anything about consent, I didn't know... And at this point, I didn't even know that girls could masturbate. [chuckle] I literally thought that it was just a boy thing.   0:07:27.2 DB: Oh, you mean physiologically.   0:07:29.4 Sarah: Yes. I didn't think it was possible. I knew absolutely nothing about sex and about body, so this was happening, and I was just thinking, "Oh, this is just normal." So I didn't equate it with abuse, I wasn't having traumatic reactions to it, but I did start to kind of spiral a little bit where I just kind of thought, "Well, if guys are gonna do this to me, then I'm just gonna kiss and have fun with whoever I want and do whatever I want and.   0:07:54.2 DB: Interesting.   0:07:56.0 Sarah: Not worry about the consequences."   0:07:58.1 DB: Tell me a little bit more about that line of thinking, what led you to that as opposed to not dating at all, maybe, or some other... I don't wanna put words in your mouth. What gave you that conclusion, you're just gonna have fun, you're gonna kiss and regardless of the consequences, what led you there?   0:08:19.4 Sarah: I think part of it was I was seeing my dear friends get married, from what I understand, and maybe they had been through similar things and just hadn't talked to me about it, but they were getting married and I wasn't. And so I kind of thought, "Oh, well, I'm just like the girl who's gonna get passed around.   0:08:38.7 DB: Oh my goodness.   0:08:38.7 Sarah: So, I'm gonna have fun in the meantime."   0:08:41.3 DB: So you were taken on a narrative that you were broken or undesired, or would that be fair to say, or what were your feelings or thoughts?   0:08:49.9 Sarah: I wasn't feeling broken, but I was feeling very much... They're just interested in my body, they're not interested in a long-term commitment, they're not interested in marriage, I'm not like these other girls, they're the marriageable type, they're just in it for my body, and at the same time, I was kind of having this body awakening where I was finally feeling my brain match up with my body in maturity, I was feeling like, "Oh, I'm coming into this woman's body, I'm feeling myself become less impulsive, I'm feeling myself develop as mentally as a woman, I'm leaving that childhood teenage years behind, I'm feeling empowered in my body. And at the same time, I'm only being wanted for my body." So I was like, "I'm just gonna use my body however I want."   0:09:42.7 DB: I'm curious, we talked about this a little before we started the podcast, and we shared some thoughts and ideas here, but for the listeners, you're in your mid-20s, just for context, so we're talking about a younger generation, and I realize... I have a good 20 years on you, and dating has always been a struggle, and so I don't know if there's a way to say it's worse now or better or the same, however, in the context that it seems like we as a church have been doing more, whether it be through fire sides or church manuals, really emphasizing how men are supposed to treat women with respect, I think they've done more with that in the last 20 years, yet, you're not alone. This is a story I hear all the time, you're just one of the first, who've been willing to come and talk about it. Tell me what are your thoughts, what's your opinion of why the young men are thinking this way, why do they think this is, okay, or do they think it's Okay?   0:10:49.2 Sarah: Well, and we know that sexual assault and rape has been around for as long as people have been on the earth, that's just... It's just the downfall of man... Well, and woman, both can be abusers or perpetrators, but I think in the context of this, there was this generation of 60s and 70s where it was free love and the world was going so radically in one direction that the church narrative pulled so radically in the other direction. I remember talking to my mom like years later, after I had actually been more assaulted and saying, "Why didn't you tell me, why didn't you tell me what to expect or tell me anything about my body, or just tell me what sex is? And she said, "Your father and I felt like if we talked about it, we were giving you permission to do it." And that to me, was just that mindset of that generation, the policies that were coming out from the church in that generation was all fear-based, shame-based and at the same time, there's more material available, so our children at this time are educating themselves with porn, which is a terrible sex educator, and they're not learning, they're not reconciling what they're seeing, what feeling and what the person in the porn is doing.   0:12:09.5 Sarah: And so if the person in porn who's on the receiving end is showing fear and showing discomfort and these young boys are watching it enjoying it, how are they to not know that it's gonna be different in person with a partner? Now how are they not... They're not gonna know, "Oh, this is a boundary that I'm crossing. This person is scared, their body is showing scared, their face is showing fear, their voice is showing fear, they may not have said, no," but... We've set them up for failure, we've set them up in this position of not knowing they're crossing boundaries, not knowing what consent is, because we've been so afraid to talk about it.   0:12:54.6 DB: I think you articulated it perfectly, this is a constant problem I'm seeing. I usually see two extremes where young men refuse to date or they don't know how to engage in dating at all, and so they don't even... It's not even a physical thing, they don't even know how to involve themselves, and again, this has always been the case, but I've been seeing this kind of this extremism getting bigger and bigger.   0:13:23.1 Sarah: The divide.   0:13:24.4 DB: And then we have the others who, while they understand that porn is bad, and it seems like in the church we've done, we've talked more about porn, we have more anti-porn programs and organizations out there than we've ever had yet this is becoming a bigger and bigger issue. And I think what I was hearing you say was, "Yes, we're told... " And I wanna clarify for the audience too, 'cause it could sound like we're saying, "Oh gosh, the church screwed up in all of its teachings there... " Do you consider yourself an active member now?   0:13:55.0 Sarah: Yeah.   0:13:55.1 DB: And this is...   0:14:00.1 Sarah: Yep, active member, temple holding member, half callings... I was the Young Women's president just barely.   0:14:03.7 DB: Forgive me, I didn't wanna make that as though that was the most important thing here, I just wanna give context that this isn't just criticism, this is crucial for a healthy, engaging dating behavior. Absolutely, and so what we see here is young men who're told what not to do, and you said it before the interview, it's because they're not taught what to do. We could talk all day and night about what not to do, but when you're placed in a situation, all you have to go off of is what you've seen and heard, and that's the don'ts and the bad role models of porn.   0:14:43.4 Sarah: Exactly. And at the same time as a girl, the rhetoric that I was receiving was not what not to do, dress your body in this way so that the boys can control their thoughts, you act this way so that you're not tempting to the boys. There was all this don't, don't, don't. And it very much was my responsibility how the boys and the men in my life treated me, and I have a fantastic father, and I have fantastic brothers who never once crossed any sort of sexual boundary, never even came close to it with anyone that I'm aware of, not with myself and not anyone else, but it was... I remember walking up to the stand to give a Young Women talk thinking, "Oh my gosh, are the men in the ward like looking at my butt?"   0:15:28.3 DB: Oh my goodness.   0:15:29.1 Sarah: As I walk up there, "Is my skirt too tight? Are my hips too wide? Am I... [chuckle] Are they cheating on their wives by lusting after me?"   0:15:37.6 DB: Because... Oh my goodness.   0:15:38.1 Sarah: And I was like 16.   0:15:41.8 DB: First of all, the thought that comes to me is, "No youth, should ever be concerned with that thinking about that," and you're saying those fears and concerns were present because of the modesty lessons that you've received.   0:15:53.0 Sarah: Totally.   0:15:55.7 DB: And thinking that you need to do everything you can to help protect these men, young and old from being tempted.   0:16:03.8 Sarah: Totally.   0:16:06.0 DB: That's heavy.   0:16:07.4 Sarah: Super heavy.   0:16:07.9 DB: This is heavy, and I'm gonna diverge just a little bit here, because I think it's important to speak to... People are probably listening here and saying, "Oh gosh, Well, if young men understand that porn is bad, then why are they behaving... " Okay, I hear that they weren't taught how to behave correctly, a little insight that I've discovered in working with young men is this kind of same thing again, they have been tempted, they cannot resist their urges... Sorry, this is the scripts that they're told once they experience desire, they're on a dangerous path. One support group, and I don't mean to be critical, but the concern is one support group actually says it's Satan's Chemical, and this is an LDS support group, so imagine... So the reason why I'm bringing this up is you as a 16-year-old, you were concerned about married men sinning by looking at you.   0:17:10.4 Sarah: Yes.   0:17:10.4 DB: And now, with young men, what I've seen is something similar, different, but similar in that they start to have this experience where they're getting aroused, they have an erection, they immediately think, they're doomed. I had one 14-year-old tell me, I thought... I thought he... I'm not trying to be loose with my words or silly at all, this is the impression and his countenance when he came in, I thought he killed somebody. This kid was scared and he looked at me and he started to say things like, young man saying things like, "I'm on the path to becoming a rapist, I'm on a path to become a serial killer." He was saying these things, and then he said something that just... That alone was scary and heavy, but where I'm going with this is, he said, "I've also destroyed my... " What was the word he used? He said something to the effect of, "I've disappointed my future wife and let my future kids down."   0:18:18.6 Sarah: That's so sad.   0:18:19.9 DB: Just like you... Well, again, different, but like you're carrying this huge weight, so these young men, what I'm seeing is they feel like they're at this impossible journey.   0:18:32.0 DB: And so, they just give up and they say, "I'm just doing it, I'm already gone." And this poor kid, he was scared out of his mind. So people are probably listening say, "Still why would... " Well, because they're not taught what is good, so all they're going off of is their fear and they're giving in because they recognize, they can't even resist it, it seems impossible. That relate to your experience or what are your thoughts?   0:19:01.9 Sarah: Totally. Well, it's... Looking back now, and even at the time, I thought, "These were good guys." In every other regard, they were good guys. And then, I think it just was... There was no boundary, there was no consent. It's hard because we've damaged both, both genders in this talk, we've told the girls that it's their responsibility and they're... Sorry for the strong language, but they're damned for having the female bodies, and we've told the boys they're damned for having physiological responses that they can't control. [chuckle] And this is the extreme that I think we deal with is... I was 21 years old and my minor was sex education, and I remember sitting at the University of Utah, going and my professor saying female masturbation and going, "That's not possible." I was 21, and I had no clue that that was something that girls did, because I had only ever heard masturbation in reference to boys in the church, and that was the extent of my sex education, that was a mind-blowing thing of like, "Holy cow." We have hurt each other so badly just by not knowing, A How our bodies work. B, our bodies are working normally, and C, let's now communicate with each other. None of that was in my vocabulary.   0:20:30.0 Sarah: So to kind of continue with my story...   0:20:31.2 DB: Please.   0:20:31.5 Sarah: I kinda went through this rough patch where I was like, "I'm just gonna kiss anyone who has two legs and walks into the room." And at the same time, I'm still... I'm the secretary in the Relief Society presidency in my singles ward, and I feel like I'm living these two separate lives. There's the version of me who is dating and there's a version of me who's going to church and I can't reconcile them. And then the age I turned in my mission papers and I said, "I'm gonna go on a mission, that's gonna be what's kinda turned my life around, I'm gonna go on a mission." So I got myself straightened out, I went on a mission, I had a great time, I came back, and then I started dating again. And this guy who I was dating, I thought, "This is gonna be different." He took a couple of weeks to kiss me, we went out for a couple of times, and my mission for me was very empowering because I learned how to speak up and out for myself, I think it's really hard to go on a mission and not kinda gain that confidence, a little bit in yourself. So I came back with that confidence of, I'm gonna...   0:21:47.6 Sarah: Now I know how to say no. And then I started dating this guy, and it's like, "Oh, it's different." He's being such a gentleman. And this could be, this could be the long-term thing, and then things started to change again.   0:22:01.3 DB: My goodness.   0:22:03.7 Sarah: So we had to hung out one night and his parents had left out of town, and he was like, "Why don't you come out, you come over, and we'll just, hang out and it'll be a really good evening, and... " I ended up spending the night. And nothing like nothing happened during the night, we just fell asleep in the bed, we cuddled all night long, there was no sexual pressure, and then it was in the middle of the night, something changed, and then suddenly it was like he was begging me to do all of these things, and I just said, "What is wrong with you? What has happened?" And...   0:22:44.2 DB: You called him out.   0:22:45.2 Sarah: I called him out, and he... And then I just said to him, "When was the last time you looked at porn?" And he disclosed to me that he... And he said he'd had a porn addiction since he was 14. And at this stage in my life, I was like, "Oh, well, that's okay. I know a lot of guys deal with that, so this isn't gonna end our relationship, but I want you to work through it and I want you to talk to the bishop, and I don't expect perfection, but I do want respect." So I'm thinking, I'm so grown up, I'm having this really grown-up conversation. This guy is telling... I won't go too far into what I think about that now, but for the context of the story at this time, I was thinking, "I'm so great that I can work through this with him, and he's so great that he's being honest with me." So I think we're on a great path and we keep dating, and then he just starts walking across that boundary again, and I just keep thinking, "Oh my gosh, I've gotta fix him, I've got to be sexier, so he's not looking at porn. I've got to... " And I was trying so hard not to do the things that he was wanting me to do, and at the same time he was telling me, "If you don't do these things, I'm gonna look at porn."   0:24:02.9 DB: Oh my goodness.   0:24:04.8 Sarah: So again, I'm like, "Holy crap, how am I back at this spot where I'm again responsible for this guy's sexuality?" At the same time he's telling me he loves me and he wants to get married, there was just something about the relationship that was making me stick my heels. And if, "We're not gonna be exclusive, we're gonna date other people, 'cause you can't figure this out, and until you can figure this out, I'm not jumping in with you." And I think honestly, that was probably, is the spirit trying to keep me safe, and I didn't recognize it at the time, but... This was the relationship where it turned violent pretty quick.   0:24:42.4 DB: Physically violent?   0:24:43.3 Sarah: Sexually violent. So there was just a lot of fear involved in it, there was a lot of manipulation, there was me saying, No. Me begging to stop, and there was just, No, I'm gonna do what I'm gonna do." But it had never turned into full penetration, and then he at some point in the relationship, he brings up marriage again, "If we get married, I'll be able to stop looking at this porn because we'll be able to do everything that we want. It won't be... "   0:25:14.2 DB: Such a lack of education there.   [laughter]   0:25:17.1 Sarah: Huge lack of education.   0:25:17.9 DB: Or bad education.   0:25:21.6 Sarah: Yeah.   0:25:21.7 DB: Oh my goodness, and...   0:25:21.8 Sarah: And I'm believing it, because I don't have any education either, so... And my minor now is in sex education and I'm like, "Sure...   0:25:30.2 DB: Yeah, I was going to bring that up.   0:25:30.3 Sarah: Great. This will fix it." 'Cause that's what we've been taught in the church is like, you get married and then it's, "No, it's no, no, no, to go, go go, and all your sexual problems are gone."   0:25:38.4 DB: Yeah, it's one of the biggest myths. I don't think it's fair to say a lie, because I think the leadership and the people who are saying this truly believe it, I don't think they're being deceptive, but it just goes to the core of this whole podcast episode is the lack of education. The lack of good education, not just in the negative, but in informative strategies, and I don't even know where that idea came from, that if you get married, the porn habit goes away. That couldn't be further from the truth.   0:26:11.0 Sarah: Right?   0:26:12.1 DB: If it does, it's coincidental. That's mere coincidence. We could talk about that a little bit more, but this is sad, this is the thing that is most upsetting to me when working with people who have a lack of sexual education, 'cause all they know is porn is bad, but they have no idea of what it looks like to have a healthy relationship. So you're dealing with this. Are you able to say... Can you say, how you got out of it, or what did you do?   0:26:46.4 Sarah: Yeah. So there were... So while we were dating, I kept thinking, there's this other guy who I know, we're really good friends. If he would just come to me and just say, "Hey, would you marry me? I would do it in a heartbeat." I just felt so strongly about this friend, and at the same time this other guy is treating me so poorly, and I'm thinking it's all my fault, and I'm feeling so guilty and I'm going to my Bishop and I'm telling my Bishop, "These things are happening. How do I fix them?" And he's giving me more tools than anyone ever had, he's giving me books about pornography, he's giving me... Which were I think, [chuckle] very skewed towards the church's narrative. I don't think they were necessarily a scientifically-based, they were much more along the basis of, "It's an addiction. It's the same thing as doing cocaine", which is absolutely not true.   0:27:44.9 DB: I wanna get into that. And of course, I don't wanna diverge you... I do wanna come back to that. So he was helpful. Was that... At what point... Okay, so what you're saying is that guidance was helpful in ending this current relationship?   0:28:00.5 Sarah: It was helpful in knowing that it wasn't just my fault.   0:28:03.0 DB: Okay.   0:28:03.3 Sarah: And that I could be empowered in the relationship, and he was the first person who kind of said to me like, "If this isn't the future you want, then you don't have to be in it."   0:28:14.2 DB: Good for him.   0:28:15.1 Sarah: Right? And so, but there was still... And that's the hard part about Bishops is that, I think if it had been someone with clinical understanding, they would have said, "This is an abusive relationship," and instead it was like, "If you just don't want porn to be a part of your relationship, just date someone else." And I was like, "Well, that would be nice, but open your eyes, that's not possible."   0:28:40.3 DB: Exactly.   0:28:40.8 Sarah: So at this point, I'm taking my garments off, 'cause I just feel so unworthy and...   0:28:48.7 DB: You weren't instructed to, you just chose to.   0:28:51.1 Sarah: No. And I'm just myself choosing not to take the sacrament, 'cause I just feel so unworthy. And then this guy who I've thought so much about calls me out of the blue and he's like, "Hey, let's go to lunch." And we go to lunch one day and I just thought, "Okay, I'm ending it. I'm ending it because there's something about this guy, I'm gonna end it." So I did, I ended this relationship, then I didn't hear from this guy again. [chuckle]   0:29:20.6 DB: The guy you were interested?   0:29:21.7 Sarah: Yeah. The guy that I was interested, who kinda gave me hope again for men, and I was like, "Well, that's probably better, 'cause I'm in the spot where I probably need to do some healing and working on myself and... " So I don't date anyone for a while, and I work on myself, and then I'm getting lonely, getting really lonely, and I run into this guy who I had been... This guy who I'd been in the relationship with, and I run into him on campus and he's like, "Hey, do you wanna come over?"   0:30:00.3 DB: Even though you've cut it off?   0:30:00.5 Sarah: Yeah, I've cut off. It's been months and I was so lonely that I was like...   0:30:03.9 DB: 'Cause, there's no boundaries.   0:30:05.0 Sarah: Yeah, there's no boundaries and I'm just lonely. So I'm like, "Yeah, of course," it's like, we're good friends and I still cared about him even though, 'cause I didn't know that it was an abusive relationship.   0:30:14.5 DB: Right. And I'm making an assumption here. You just said that you were really lonely, and do you feel like that played into you saying yes also, or...   0:30:26.4 Sarah: Yeah, totally. I just was... I was lonely, all my friends had been married, I'm just back from my mission. [chuckle] It's a hard transition back. We've been dating for seven or eight months when we ended it, so now it's probably like nine or 10 months after, and so we just start talking again, we just started being friends. And then, the other guy who I was interested in at the other time, he calls me up, and he's like, "Do you wanna go on a date?"   0:30:57.9 DB: His timing is interesting.   0:31:00.8 Sarah: At the same time. Yes. So at the same time, these guys are like back in my life at the exact same time, and... So long story short, I ended up saying... This is gonna be so confusing probably to the listeners, but I ended up saying to this guy who I had been dating, "Hey, this other guy asked me out." And, 'cause we were just friends and something... I saw something in his eyes switch. He was like, "Oh, well, yeah, you always talked about him and how much you liked him and how much you respected him, and he's kind of the obstacle that was in our path of us moving forward." I was like, "Not really."   0:31:37.6 DB: Rather he's... The hope in saving you?   0:31:38.9 Sarah: Yeah, I was like, No, it was probably the narrative, but I had, was that I was responsible for your sexuality, for your porn use, and I couldn't fix that anymore, so he ended up asking me to join him for the middle of the day for lunch, and I went over...   0:31:58.3 DB: Which one?   0:31:58.3 Sarah: The guy who I had dated.   0:32:00.7 DB: Okay.   0:32:00.9 Sarah: So I went over to his house during lunch, we left campus together, he drove me there and we were... I remember thinking, "Okay, are we ever gonna eat lunch?" 'Cause we just sat in his room for a while, and then he raped me. And I just remember laying there and it just started off as just normal kissing, and I was like, "Hey, this is weird, but where is this going?" And then it was right back to 17-year-old me who suddenly was being touched and this time I was saying, "No, please stop. No, I don't want this." And it happened anyway. And so that happens, and I looked at him afterwards and he got up and he said, "Let's go back to school." And I looked at him and I hugged him. I hugged him, and I said, "I didn't want that to happen." And I hugged him, 'cause I was so scared that I wasn't gonna be, like I wasn't gonna survive or something, like... My brain just went in to do whatever you need to do to get out of there.   0:33:09.1 DB: Trauma mode.   0:33:09.9 Sarah: Oh, totally. So we got back at school and then I called my... I texted my friend and I texted her and I said, "I just had sex. What do I do now?" And this friend had had sex before marriage as well when she was dating.   0:33:26.6 DB: Not, I was raped, and how do I report him, but what do you do?   0:33:30.1 Sarah: No. No. 100 percent, in my mind it was, "I had had sex." So I call her and she's like, "Oh, it's okay, you'll be okay, it's hard, but you can... You might not be able to take the sacrament for a couple of months, but you can get back and call your Bishop and... " So at this point, I am about to go into work, I'm sick to my stomach, I am shaking and I think, "I just had sex for the first time." So I call my Bishop, I go to the Bishop's office or I go to his house, 'cause it was a Friday night and I'm just devastated, and I walk in and he's like, "What can I do for you?" And I slide my temple garment across the table to him, and I'm like, "I'm no longer worthy of this." And he was like, "Okay, well, tell me what happened?" And so I start saying, start describing to him what happened, and.   0:34:24.6 DB: Is this is the same Bishop that provided you good resources? .   0:34:27.2 Sarah: Yes. Thank goodness.   0:34:27.8 DB: Yes.   0:34:28.4 Sarah: Same Bishop, and he stops me and he says, "No, you didn't have sex. You were raped." And it just suddenly was like, "That's what that was."   0:34:39.2 DB: He called it out.   0:34:39.4 Sarah: He called it out.   0:34:41.1 DB: Excellent.   0:34:41.6 Sarah: Yes, and he said, "I have, I've known you for a while. I've been working with you for a while, from what you've described, your relationship with this guy, you've tried really, really hard, and he has not respected that, and he took full advantage of you and he raped you." And I just sat there stunned. I finally had a word for what was happening, and thank goodness, this Bishop was so in tune and he said, "You know, I don't know how to help you." He said, "I can help you with spiritual healing if you need it, but I don't know how to help you and I'm gonna pay for you to find help." 'Cause at this point, I also didn't have insurance and I was too afraid to tell my parents, so I'm like, [chuckle] "Ah, what do I do?" And I didn't go to the hospital to get any forensic exams done, 'cause I didn't know I had been raped, and suddenly here's this ecclesiastical leader pointing me in the direction of help, and it was life-saving, so he paid for me to see a therapist and I was in therapy within a week, and that made all the difference in my life. And I had a male therapist where... He said, "I'm gonna send you to a male therapist" and I said, "What have you been smoking Bishop? I'm not gonna go sit across from a man and tell him what happened." And he said, "I think that you need a man to listen to you." And so I had to sit...   0:36:02.1 DB: This Bishop wasn't a counsel, he had no training.   0:36:05.1 Sarah: No. No training.   0:36:07.6 DB: This is interesting. Sorry, I think this is actually an important concept that a lot of...   0:36:12.6 Sarah: Totally.   0:36:12.7 DB: People don't realize. When I was working, in my training, I was serving the community in a community center, and that was the first time that I found women who had been raped were asking for male therapists, and that was before I really understood something called Gestalt therapy, if you're familiar.   0:36:30.3 Sarah: Yes. Yeah.   0:36:32.4 DB: And this is their opportunity... There's many reasons to do this, and there are some... I wanna be clear, there are some reasons not to do it either also, and so what this allows, and I'm curious to hear your experiences is, I like how the Bishop said, is it gives a man an opportunity, you get to have a man listen to you and validate you. It also provides the victim an opportunity in a gestalt model for those who aren't familiar, there's this concept of empty chair or imagining that the therapist is your aggressor and you lash out at them in a therapeutic way or whatever, you confront them that way, and so it can be very therapeutic if you're ready for that. It's always hard to tell. But what was your experience? So he suggested this, it looked like you're a little surprised.   0:37:25.1 Sarah: Totally.   0:37:26.4 DB: But you followed through and you found a male therapist?   0:37:28.0 Sarah: Yeah, he actually gave me a referral, he said I... He had had a friend who was a therapist or was very aware of clinical concepts or whatever that... She suggested I see a man. So he gave me the number, I called and made the appointment myself. And I walked in not really knowing what to expect. I had never been to therapy before, and I walked in and I sat down and just kind of started talking about my life and my past and everything that was going on in this relationship and being stuck on the concept of like, "I had lost my virginity." One thing that he said in that first day was, "No. No, you don't lose your virginity, that's a social construct, you don't lose your virginity. No one takes that from you." And that was the beginning of realizing, "Okay, I've got some very unhealthy and harmful narratives in my mind, and I need to change them."   0:38:26.9 DB: So, you're presenting this is as very accepting and like, "Oh, yeah." What's it like that for you at the moment? Did you push back at all? Did you... What was your awakening, healing process like, was it difficult to receive that information or was it healing?   0:38:43.5 Sarah: The difference was, is that he was clinically trained, and so he... As opposed to saying it to a bishop or a parent, he had this clinical training to... I could see the surprise on his face when I was telling him these things that I thought were normal. And so, much like, right now, I'm telling you things and you have these surprise looks on your face and it's so validating.   0:39:04.9 DB: Oh good. [laughter]   0:39:06.9 Sarah: Right? It is 100% validating to think, "These things that I thought were normal, that every girl experienced, are horrifying to this man, and he would never treat a girl this way or a female this way." And I can see it on his face. And he's a member of the church, and this isn't right.   0:39:24.4 DB: The therapist?   0:39:25.3 Sarah: Yeah, this therapist. So that was probably what made me actually accept it, was that, "Here's this guy who believes the same thing I do, who is horrified and shocked and in tears at some point with what I'm telling him and how I've assumed and accepted as a normal behavior."   0:39:47.6 DB: You can't... I don't know, I can't speak for every therapist, but I've heard stories and no two stories are the same. Everybody's experience is unique, but it's heart wrenching each time. I hope, one, I hope I never get used to hearing it. If I do, I need to check myself.   [laughter]   0:40:11.7 DB: It's heart-breaking, and again, to repeat what you're saying, this at the beginning... This is why it's so important for you to speak out and I appreciate that. So, continue from there. What was your journey like? How long were you in therapy? What was your discoveries along that path?   0:40:28.7 Sarah: Well, I think the most important discovery that we made in therapy together was I had this pattern of dating guys who I thought I could fix. 'Cause that was also a narrative that I had taken on is like, "As a disciple of Christ and as a woman of Christ, I have to fix people and I'm gonna make them better." And he said, "You date these people who you think you need to fix, and this is... So, this is like you're going along in your car, and I want you to think of your rape as like you've hit a brick wall. And that brick wall is stopping you from what could be." And I remember thinking, "Oh my gosh, if I had married that guy, this would have been my life, and I would not have known." And it always shocks people when I say this, but I will say it, I'm so grateful for it. I'm so grateful for that experience because I walked out of therapy going, "Not again. No one will ever treat me that way again, and I'm not gonna date a guy who's gonna treat me like that." And long story short, I ended up marrying that other guy.   0:41:33.8 DB: The one that was...   [chuckle]   0:41:34.1 Sarah: Yeah. The one who I always wanted to date while I was dating this other guy. We got our act together and we ended up getting married. So, that was... And he was the exact opposite. He was the guy... And ironically, I thought before this experience, I was never good enough for him, either. He's this amazing, incredible guy, and I was like, "I'm not good enough." And I walked out of therapy going, "Oh, I am so good enough for him, and he would be so lucky to have me."   [laughter]   0:42:06.6 DB: What a wonderful discovery. And you brought up something that we kind of glossed over it. I can't tell you how many women end up marrying a situation like that where, because they don't have this discovery, and I'm not... This is tragic. And it's years later that they discover this was horrible. So I appreciate, and I realize it's probably difficult for a lot of people to hear it. We're clearly not saying the abuse was okay.   0:42:36.4 Sarah: No, not at all.   0:42:39.3 DB: But that, as a result, you were awakened, it was an opportunity to get help and to discover more. I'm sure it wasn't as simple as having that discovery and everything's better.   0:42:53.6 Sarah: No, not at all.   0:42:53.7 DB: What was that journey like from there on out? So, you're dating your husband, and...   0:42:58.3 Sarah: So, we're dating, and I'm thinking, "Okay, that's the end of our... The end of my sexual problems." [chuckle] And again, great guy, we start dating, he takes like a month to kiss me and then it's just like little pecks here and there for months, and I'm finally like, "Hey... "   0:43:14.0 DB: Is he aware of this recent experience yet?   0:43:18.1 Sarah: So at this point, no, at this point...   0:43:21.0 DB: So, he's acting all on his accord, he's not... He's not like over...   0:43:23.2 Sarah: Yes. He's not being over-aware or over-sensitive or over-thinking anything.   0:43:28.6 DB: I think that's important for the listeners to know.   0:43:29.0 Sarah: Totally. Yeah.   0:43:30.2 DB: So this is... You found a guy who's true to his behavior here. This is...   0:43:35.5 Sarah: Yeah. He is living his behavior, he is showing me his behavior. And I'm starting to get worried of like, "Okay, why is this not unfolding? Why are we not progressing at all?" And...   0:43:46.8 DB: Isn't that interesting? You're expecting this will happen.   0:43:51.3 Sarah: Yes. I'm expecting that this will happen, 'cause I wanted to, know... I wanted to be able to say no, I like, I was gonna set those boundaries and like we're gonna talk about them, there's gonna be none of this business going on. And he kisses me one night and I pull away from him and I go, "Why won't you kiss me for longer?" And he goes, "I don't wanna have an erection." And I was like, "What? [chuckle] What are you saying?" And he said, "If I have an erection, I'm being disrespectful to you."   0:44:19.0 DB: Wow.   0:44:19.5 Sarah: And he said, My... He had a Bishop when he was 16, tell him the erections were breaking law of chastity, and I was like, "Hey, buddy, if we're kissing and you don't have that response, there's something wrong. There's a bigger issue." [laughter] I was just was so shocked.   0:44:38.7 DB: You had such insight... You had that insight at that time?   0:44:41.7 Sarah: Yeah.   0:44:41.9 DB: Is that something you learned... Forgive me, I'm coming from maybe a place of ignorance here in making some assumptions. After your traumatic experiences, it would seem like, my naive response here, "Oh, good, you're not. You would... " Some people might feed that behavior and say, "Oh good, now I know I'm safe." What allowed you to say, "Oh, this is actually unhealthy?"   0:45:08.6 Sarah: So, my therapist and I worked a lot through that. 'Cause my therapist was very concerned that I started dating this guy, 'cause he said, "You know, I don't want that...   0:45:16.8 DB: Your now husband.   0:45:17.7 Sarah: Yes, my now husband. "I don't want you to feel like that you're getting into this relationship where he's saving you and you're working through some really traumatic things, and we don't want to get that tied up in your relationship."   0:45:29.1 DB: Good.   0:45:29.5 Sarah: So we worked very closely to... And I was very transparent with my therapist with this, now relation... My husband. And so I was talking to him about these concerns and he said, "Well, why don't you just ask him?" I was, at this point, and we had talked about how it's, an erection is a normal response to any sort of stimulus and not to fear it. So I didn't. I wasn't fearing it. And he said, "Any guy who's gonna respect your boundaries is gonna be able to say, 'My pants will calm down,' and I won't touch you." [chuckle] And I... Yeah, I just... I knew this guy was gonna be that way, there was just something about him that he... From the very beginning, he respected me. So, I have this discussion with him and I'm like, "Why are you not kissing me longer, and he's like, I don't wanna disrespect you, is disrespect for you." And I'm like, "Well, I would like to make out. [laughter] So, I'd like to kiss you a little bit longer." And we've been dating for months and let's see if this is going somewhere, and... So, long story short is, he had a lot of that narrative in his mind that he was so afraid of disrespecting women and girls that he had shut down everything.   0:46:40.8 DB: Like I was saying at the beginning.   0:46:41.8 Sarah: Totally. He is the opposite.   0:46:42.7 DB: That extreme. Yeah. I wanna point out, and I hope you don't feel like I'm putting you on a pedestal here, but it sounds like, and I realized, we're reflecting back on the past, the maturity that you gained to have that conversation is amazing.   0:47:00.8 Sarah: Thank you.   0:47:00.9 DB: It's... I don't want that to come out in a way that if others have been through a traumatic experience, can't do that, as any way shameful.   0:47:10.0 Sarah: Not at all.   0:47:10.1 DB: But I wanna emphasize how significant that is, that you didn't just run away or stay or not say anything at all. There's this culture of, "Don't talk about it at all." But you used it as an opportunity to connect with him. Which is a huge part of what I believe is healing, creating connection.   0:47:31.9 Sarah: Totally.   0:47:32.9 DB: Have an awareness of each other as opposed to assuming and labeling and ignoring or just not discussing. That is... I'm trying not to be extreme in my language, but that is truly impressive.   0:47:47.8 Sarah: Thank you.   0:47:48.7 DB: And I think it's important for the listeners to understand both how difficult that is and the fact that you were able to do it, was beautiful.   0:47:56.7 Sarah: Thank you. Well, and I do... It was so helpful to be falling in love, at the same point in therapy, weekly, [chuckle] and at the same point, having these really open discussions with the suitor. So, we'll fast forward to a couple of weeks and he's doing something playfully, like I think he picked me up and twirled me around and I had a traumatic response and I shoved him. And he stepped back and looked at me and was like, "I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry." And I was like, "Oh, no, no, no, no, no, you're fine. I just don't like... "   0:48:35.6 DB: You're still taking the responsibility.   0:48:36.9 Sarah: Yeah. I was like, "I just don't like being picked up." And later that night, I thought, "Okay, I've got to tell him what's going on. I don't want him to think that this is his fault, and, well, this needs to be... "   0:48:47.9 DB: Oh, that's right. 'Cause you hadn't shared with him yet. So this was your opportunity.   0:48:49.0 Sarah: Yeah. So, at this point he has no idea what's going on. And so I sat him down on the couch and I said, "Listen, this is what's happened, and I understand if you wanna walk away." And he was like, "Why would I walk [chuckle] away?" And he just sat and cried.   0:49:04.7 DB: What a different experience?   0:49:05.9 Sarah: So different. He sat and cried with me, he held me while I cried, and he... I don't know how he did this, but he managed his traumatic response in front of me. So, he cried, he... And I told him, "This is a lot for you to handle, I understand that, if you need to tell someone, if you need to tell your parents, if you need to tell a bishop, if you need to tell a friend, please tell someone so you're not holding this by yourself. I have my people who are holding it with me, please get your people." And he... That's when he had his traumatic response of like, "I'm gonna kill this guy, I'm gonna find him... " That's when he had his response to my trauma, but that I was... I didn't have to carry it. And I think that's why we are married. [chuckle] He was able to separate that. [laughter]   0:49:51.1 DB: Yes. And I'm gonna point that out. How crucial that is, again, not to put you on a pedestal, but your ability to create differentiation in the relationship early on and not feel like, while you're communicating and being open and creating connection, you also emphasized, "I'm carrying my load, I've got my people, and if this is concerning, the most effective way to deal is get your own people. Let's not blend our trauma together. Let's support each other, but let's not be each other's therapist."   0:50:22.7 Sarah: Oh yeah.   0:50:23.0 DB: There's a fine line there, of course, but... Very impressive.   0:50:28.5 Sarah: And his mom has been a therapist, and so I said, "Please talk to your mom about this." And I was trying to not be ashamed, and so I didn't want this to be a secret. So I didn't want... You know, [chuckle] to be like, "Oh, my girlfriend's gone through something, but I can't tell my parents about it." It was like, "If I'm a part of your family, this is a part of my life, like this, we're not gonna put it in the closet, it's just gonna be out there. It's what it is." And so our relationship progressed. He went to therapy by himself. He came to therapy with me a few times, and we fell in love, and we got married and I was like, "Okay, here we go, here comes sex. Real sex."   0:51:05.5 DB: Oh-oh.   0:51:06.1 Sarah: Good sex.   0:51:07.1 DB: So, it is good, everything's great, happy ever after, right?   0:51:11.4 Sarah: We would like to think, right? So, back to my Bishop, great insightful Bishop, where we are... We're getting ready to get married and he pulls us in his office and he says, "You guys, this is gonna be hard for Sarah. It's gonna be really hard for Sarah to go from these traumatic experiences to, Let's do it all in one night." And he says, "I'd like you to explore each other's bodies." And he said, Your only... He gave us limits and he said, "Your only limits are oral and penetrative sex."   0:51:45.5 DB: Your Bishop counselled you this?   [chuckle]   0:51:46.6 Sarah: My Bishop.   0:51:47.3 DB: I want his name and number.   [laughter]   0:51:49.3 Sarah: Alright.   0:51:50.4 DB: This is phenomenal. When you heard him say that, what was your response?   0:51:56.0 Sarah: Well, I was like, jaw dropped. Because my husband's bishop, at that time, he was like, "You can't touch each other at all. Satan's gonna be trying to destroy you as a family, and if you... "   0:52:08.4 DB: Oh, yeah. I hear that all the time.   0:52:09.7 Sarah: Yeah. [chuckle] "If you touch each other at all, you're gonna have sex, the passion is just so alive, no touching yourselves"   0:52:14.9 DB: You no longer have agency.   0:52:16.3 Sarah: Right. Like, we're children again. And then we had my bishop who was like, "Please get to know each other before you have sex." And we talked about it as a couple, and we decided, "Okay, what is appropriate for us? What do we feel like we can handle? What's our plan in case we start to feel overwhelmed? What happens if I have a traumatic response? And what are our boundaries?" And we talked about those things that people don't talk about in their marriage for years. And it just set us up on what I thought was the perfect happy ever after.   0:52:51.2 Sarah: So, we get married in the temple. We have a great sex life for a couple of months and then I can't get there. I can't climax. And I remember, [chuckle] it was Valentine's night, I had bought, on a meager student income, I had bought this red piece of lingerie and I was so excited. And I was anticipating it so much and looking forward to connecting so much, and then I was feeling the feeling, feeling the build-up and then, boom, exhaustion, can't get there. My husband gets up and puts his garments back on and I just remember thinking, "Oh my gosh, I'm so broken. I am so broken." And that was my spiral back down hill, that night. That's when everything changed from it being something that my husband and I participate in together where my pleasure matters as much as his pleasure, and we need to be clear that my bit does. My husband has never once pressured me, he's always been 100% understanding. We both just didn't have the tools. So, this is the spiral of...   0:54:06.0 DB: You not only didn't have the tools, 'cause that's my concern in general, is no one's taught how to have intimate relationships, sex and orgasm. Who teaches that? But you're up against also trauma.   0:54:20.1 Sarah: Yeah.   0:54:21.3 DB: And so you've got a few fronts here that you're battling, and this is happening at this moment. So, where do you go from there?   0:54:29.3 Sarah: So months progress and I'm just becoming increasingly more depressed and I'm feeling increasingly more isolated. I started seeing a different therapist, I had moved, so I had a different therapist. It was a sex therapist. And the sex therapist kept telling me it's this trauma that's in the way of you being able to connect with your husband, and I was sitting there saying, "It's not the trauma. I've worked through so much of the trauma. Of course, I have bad nights where something triggers me and I can identify the trigger and work through it, but it's not the trauma that's preventing me from this." So I tried a different sex therapists, and I tried an OB-GYN. And I tried a different OB-GYN. And the problem was, is I would feel the build-up and I would... We'd be in the moment and we'd be feeling really, really good, and then I would just hit this wall of exhaustion. And it felt like I was being knocked off my feet. And it was time and time and time again, and I just started feeling like, "I'm only here to be like this vessel for other men's pleasure. And it's not... My husband's not making me feel this way, this is how God designed my body to be a vessel for other men's pleasure, not my own, for other men's pleasure."   0:55:45.1 Sarah: And that was the beginning of just months, years of severe depression and anxiety, and it got so bad that I had suicidal ideation. Because my husband and I have always been able to be so transparent from the beginning, I was able to disclose to him, that I was having these ideations and he said, "Okay, you've gotta get help, like this is obviously not working." It terrified him enough that I could see on his face of like just the idea of that was so scary, I don't think I could ever go through with it, which kind of brought me back to reality. But... So, nothing's changing, I'm just super depressed. I'm seeing doctors who are saying, "We're just gonna prescribe you these anti-depressants, it will kill your libido. Here's some anti-anxiety, work on your trauma." So I start EMDR. And so, for those of the listeners, it's a great form of trauma therapy where you process it without really describing it, so you're not re-victimizing yourself, you're processing more of what your body is holding on to. So, I go through it and I'm like, That's not the trauma. It's not... There's something that's stopping me, physio... My physical body is stopping me.   0:57:01.0 Sarah: There's something in the way. I can feel it. So again, I'm just hopeless. No one's believing me. Every single person is telling me it's your trauma, which was at this point, more traumatic than my trauma.   0:57:13.5 DB: Interesting, yes. I was actually gonna point that out and... Well, I won't jump ahead here. I wanna reflect back on that but... So what was it? What did you end up discovering?   0:57:27.2 Sarah: So I... So we move out of state, and I'm talking to this woman in my new ward and something... She was a doula. So for those who aren't aware of what a doula is, they're basically a birthing partner. So they... She professionally goes in and helps women deliver their babies as their advocate, and I had... She had mentioned to me that what got her interested in it was she had had a traumatic response giving birth because she had been molested as a child, and that resurfaced for her during her birth. And I was like, "Holy crap. That might happen to me." And so I disclosed to her my history of sexual assault, and then I disclosed to her my problem of not being able to climax. And she didn't bat an eye. She said, "Oh, go visit a pelvic floor physical therapist." And she gave me a name. So I made this appointment and I go in, and at this point, I have kind of like this PTSD from visiting providers. 'Cause none of them believe me. Everyone is telling me... It ranges from, "It's your trauma," to, "Let go of how you view yourself. Your body image part... " And I'm like, "I've never once said that I don't like the way I look in sex."   [laughter]   0:58:36.5 Sarah: Everyone's pointing out these emotional things or these things that we've put on women that I'm like, "It's none of those. I'm not telling you like... Listen to me, please." So I walk in, and I sit down, and she started crying, this physical therapist, and she said, "You are the hardest client to get in my doors because everyone gives up on you."   0:59:01.7 DB: Mm-hmm. Yes. Gives up on you in the sense of they think it's something else?   0:59:09.4 Sarah: Yes.   0:59:09.6 DB: Yes.   0:59:09.9 Sarah: They think it's something else. And she said, "It is so common." She said the clients who have it the most are religious clients, which I think is ironic.   0:59:17.2 DB: That's well-studied, actually.   0:59:18.1 Sarah: Very religious people and athletes. And I was both. So she... I remember her saying, "You'll have an orgasm within a month." And I was going like, "Yeah, right."   0:59:27.8 DB: So let me pause you there before we get on to the healing, hopefully, is...   [laughter]   0:59:32.4 DB: That's what I was wanting to speak to, is in no way is this a criticism. I am so thankful for the research and the skills that trauma therapists and trauma training in general has brought to clinicians. However, what I'm seeing is an imbalance in assessment. A lot of clinicians are jumping to trauma, which isn't wrong, and trauma is still playing a part of your life.   1:00:04.3 Sarah: Totally.   1:00:07.5 DB: However, there's... Your body is made up of a bunch of more things than just trauma and just the things that you were bringing up. Everything needs to be explored, and I think that's a critical part of assessment. And I'm in a tricky spot as a male therapist who often will engage in thorough assessment. Like yes, fully recognize there's trauma. Is there potentially anything else biologically going on, emotionally going on that's disconnected from that? And that's often perceived as minimizing trauma, and it's a tricky place to be in because... Absolutely, there's trauma there, but I'm seeing a lot of what's happening, what happened to you, where your actual health concern wasn't related to the trauma, at least not the majority of it. And finally, somebody found out. You found the right person, rather, and they guided you. So do you mind sharing what the procedure was? I think I know where you're going with this.   1:01:04.1 Sarah: Yeah. So it was just pelvic floor physical therapy. So it was all internal work. So basically she inserted her fingers into my vagina and was able to release the tension. And what she said that was so profound was she said... And at this point, I have my MSW, and I'm like, "I'm a therapist. I'm gonna be a therapist. This is my passion." So I'm talking to her about all these terms, and she's like, "Yeah, don't you guys like read that book, The Body Keeps the Score, and don't you guys understand that you hold trauma in your body?" And I was like, "Yes. Actually, I do know that." And she's like, "Well, where do you think you hold it?" And I said, "Well, I don't know. Like my whole body?" She said, "In your pelvic floor." Mind blown, right? So what she did is in her assessment, she found that... And she likened it to bicep curls. She said, "Your vaginal walls have to go up and down like you would do a bicep for you to orgasm." And she said, "Yours are so tight that they can't loosen. They can't physically make that sensation happen. They can't have that... They won't.   1:02:15.0 Sarah: So we did some exercises and I had to relearn how to do certain things. I had to essentially learn how to orgasm, and that was the beginning of happiness. That was the beginning of the fairy tale, for me, it was. [chuckle] Learning, becoming one with my body, and when I say one with my body, for anyone who has a period, who has a uterus, who has a pelvic floor, that includes you man, understand what's going on with your pelvic floor. That is where you're holding your stress, where you're holding your trauma. And since then, I have been able to identify when I suck in, and I know I do it. When I am triggered or when I'm stressed, or if I'm uncomfortable or if I'm feeling vulnerable, I can suck in my muscles, and I feel it. It's like this, "Please don't look at me," and I'm sucking in. It's totally this trauma-fear response, and I can now push myself back out and to relax, and I have control of what's going on with me. And that's the first time that's ever happened. I was able to orgasm. We have a great sex life now. We've had... Since had a baby and that didn't break me. I thought that was gonna ruin me again. I wasn't afraid to have a child, and it helped bringing a child in. I used the same things that I learned in therapy, and I survived.   1:03:46.8 DB: What a story. Not a story. What a life.   1:03:51.8 Sarah: Yeah.   [laughter]   1:03:52.7 DB: My goodness, that journey. So was it... What the doctor did, did that get you to successful orgasm? Was there other things that you did to help yourself along?   1:04:03.3 Sarah: Yeah, so basically, what she would do is she would use her fingers on muscles and release them so much like you would lengthen a muscle or much like going to the gym, right? You learn how to turn your muscles on and off when you're lifting weights, and she helped me learn how to do that, then I had to learn how to breathe again. 'Cause I was breathing incorrectly, like who even knows that you can breathe incorrectly. But I was breathing in, sucking in, doing... Any time I worked out, sucking in, holding that pelvic floor in tight. I learned to masturbate. That was a big one, right, learning my body.   1:04:42.2 DB: What is the purpose of that? Just to... Was it to help heal? Or what was the purpose of masturbating?   1:04:47.9 Sarah: The purpose of that was to, A, figure out how my body worked, right? How... What feels good? Now that I know my body can react to pleasure, what feels good? We started over, basically. So... And that came from... And this is the part that blows my mind is how we expect our young people or any people to walk into a marriage not knowing their body. So I learned my body with that. I've helped my husband learn my body, so his confidence grew, my confidence grew, our intimacy was connected. For the first time, it felt like it was a partnered experience.   1:05:23.8 DB: This is important for a lot of Latter-day saints to understand. And I'm not gonna sit here and say that masturbation should be a part of everyone's life. However, when we as... Especially Latter-day saints who are clinicians make a blanket statement, which I've seen recently in social media and some pretty well-respected therapists who are LDS, say that any therapist who encourages masturbation is not in line with their faith, right? It's... Yeah, thanks for the eye roll.   [laughter]   1:06:07.1 DB: It's... The potential damage of that message is destructive to say the least. I've seen so many women who have been abused, who have had similar life experiences, and they carry that on with them because that message was communicated to them, and they feel understanding their body is breaking some eternal covenant.   1:06:40.7 Sarah: Oh. Totally.   1:06:42.8 DB: It's the only thing we see... In the medical industry that seems to be the exception within our faith, is you go to a doctor and get some drugs to help you or you do... And I hate to use that analogy because I don't even think they're the same in a sense of risks or anything like that. But masturbation is a form

Today's conversation fits under the P of Product of the 7Ps of Humane Marketing. Today I'm speaking to an online bestie based in Norway. Solveig Petch [she/her] who goes by Petchy is a brand strategist and designer for values-driven business owners who want to build brands their way; without compromising their integrity or resorting to predatory business tactics. She believes that building an impactful and profitable brand can be done without screwing people over or working yourself into a pulp. From her home office in rural Norway, Petchy crafts strategic brand identities for clients all over the world. She's passionate about helping business owners discover and define their brands' unique purpose and personality, find the confidence to own their sh*t — and tap into their uniqueness to spark meaningful connections and attract more of those omg, yes! clients. She is also the creator of the Brand it!™ framework, and host of the Brand it! with Petchy podcast. In this episode, you'll learn about building community through your email list as well as...   Personal branding vs. branding: what's the difference Branding vs marketing: what's the difference there? Pros and cons of using our name in our brand Alternatives if we're not branding our name? What if you have outgrown your current brand? Branding architecture What's the future of branding? And so much more Solveig's Resources   Solveig's Website Brand it! with Petchy Podcast Mini Email Course Brand Archetype - A Quick Guide Connect with Solveig on: LinkedIn Facebook Instagram   Sarah's Resources Watch this episode on Youtube (FREE) Sarah's One Page Marketing Plan (FREE) Sarah Suggests Newsletter (FREE) The Humane Business Manifesto (FREE) Gentle Confidence Mini-Course Marketing Like We're Human - Sarah's book The Humane Marketing Circle Authentic & Fair Pricing Mini-Course Podcast Show Notes We use Descript to edit our episodes and it's fantastic! Email Sarah at sarah@sarahsantacroce.com Thanks for listening!   After you listen, check out Humane Business Manifesto, an invitation to belong to a movement of people who do business the humane and gentle way and disrupt the current marketing paradigm. You can download it for free at this page. There's no opt-in. Just an instant download. Are you enjoying the podcast?  The Humane Marketing show is listener-supported—I'd love for you to become an active supporter of the show and join the Humane Marketing Circle. You will be invited to a private monthly Q&A call with me and fellow Humane Marketers -  a safe zone to hang out with like-minded conscious entrepreneurs and help each other build our business and grow our impact.  — I'd love for you to join us! Learn more at humane.marketing/circle Don't forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes or on Android to get notified for all my future shows and why not sign up for my weekly(ish) "Sarah Suggests Saturdays", a round-up of best practices, tools I use, books I read, podcasts, and other resources. Raise your hand and join the Humane Business Revolution. Warmly, Sarah Imperfect Transcript of the show We use and love Descript to edit our podcast and provide this free transcript of the episode. And yes, that's an affiliate link. Sarah: [00:00:00] [00:01:00] [00:02:00] [00:03:00] [00:04:00] Hey pet so good to hang out with you today.  Petchy: Hello, Sarah. And likewise, thank you so much for inviting me.  Sarah: Oh yeah. When I looked at, , you know, our conversations, me being on, your podcast and doing some other things together, all of a sudden I'm like, I'm pretty sure I have PE on the podcast already and I realized I hadn't. So I'm [00:05:00] so glad we get this chance now to, yeah. To talk about branding. , I think I did tell you that we're featuring this episode under the P of product of the humane marketing podcast or humane marketing mandala. And so, yeah, it's this idea of creating a product and what we kind of discussed before, , recording is this idea of, well, how, how does branding fit into us being the product? Maybe a lot of entrepreneurs. That's what it is. We are the product, we are the brand. , and so, yeah, that's what we wanna talk about today. So maybe just kind of, yeah, take us right in there. I don't do long introductions. I kind of already introduced you in the, in the intro. So just take us into this concept of branding that quite honestly, I think you know this, and, and I know it, it's a scary thing sometimes for entrepreneurs, this word [00:06:00] branding, it sounds so official. And, and so, yeah. Tell us your approach to brand.  Petchy: Yeah. So, when we spoke before this, this recording session, we were chatting a little bit about, you know, why do you actually need a brand? So maybe that's a good starting point. We can look at at that and then go into what a brand is. Mm-hmm and isn't, and then we'll just take it from there. So the thing with branding is. Some people are like, well, do I, do I really need a brand? But the thing is you already have a brand and that is whether you like it or not. So the question, I guess, is more, is it's a deliberate brand that you are actively taking control of. And that's, I think where a lot of especially smaller business owners go a bit wrong because they have a misconception in their heads about what a brand actually is. So. Because a brand, [00:07:00] a lot of people tend to think it's just the logo, the colors and how your visual brand looks. Right. But that is really just the tip of the iceberg. And your brand is really it's. What other people think of you mm-hmm and that's something that you just cannot ever be a hundred percent in control of. Cause you can't go into people's. Brains and dictate, you know, this is how you should feel about my brand. , so you can't control it fully, but you can try and steer people's. Views of your brand in the right direction. So a brand is what other people think of you, but branding is what you do to try and influence how people see your brand. Yeah. Yeah. And within branding. So branding are the actual activities that you do, right. , and that can include a lot of things like positioning, messaging, your brand identity, of course. , but. Your brand [00:08:00] identity, isn't just the visual either. It's your verbal brand identities. So all of those actions that you take to try and influence people's perception of your brand, that is branding I love that so much. So actually that cleared  Sarah: up a little bit. Yeah. That, that definition of a brand is what people think of you, , when, when not there often, right? yeah. And then, and then branding is what you do. Also, let me do the question. Well, then what's difference between branding and marketing. Obviously we know that we overlap on certain things, but what would you say is the difference between branding and marketing?  Petchy: I, I would say that branding is more who you are and how people see you and then, or how you want people to see you. And marketing is more how you tell people about who you are, like, how do you talk about your products? How do you talk about your brand and how do you reach [00:09:00] those people that you need to reach your ideal? Audience and those like marketing activities, I guess, is like, what do you do to get your brand out there? right.  Sarah: Okay. So there's the brand, which is again, what people think of you branding. You said it's doing the thing. So, so because marketing, you said is then communicating, right? Yes. That would be a good word for community. Yeah. That's a really good way of putting it. And so when, when you say branding is doing, what is the doing.  Petchy: That can look so different from brand to brand. But it's those, so it's, it's your visual identity. It's how you speak as well. It's how you put yourself out in the world. So I think. For, for smaller business. And it's really important to re remember that your, your visual branding is actually just a tiny, tiny piece of the whole branding puzzle. Mm-hmm . Yeah. You also [00:10:00] need to, once you've established your brand's foundations and you brand core, and you know who you are, you know what you stand for, you know, your values, you, you rock solid on that part. Then you have to go out and like actively. Infuse that into every activity that you do for your brand. Right. So, and that, isn't just when you go to do your marketing, but it's also when you, , so say when you recruit people, how you build your company culture, that has to be rooted in your brand's core, but also how you treat people when they come to you with complaints, for instance, on like, so your customer service representatives, how should they. Behave when they act on behalf of your brand. Right. What, where do you spend your money? You know, when you invest your money or buy services from, from other brands, are you conscious of where you're putting your money and whether that's aligns with your core values? [00:11:00] Because if, if there's a mismatch there. People are going to figure it out and it's not going to be good for your brand. Let's just put it that way.  Sarah: Yeah. Yeah. It's so good. And, and thank you for those examples. , I'm currently working with the, a company for, LinkedIn profile for their executives and they did send me their branding guidelines and it's like a document with like a hundred pages or so. And so. That shows that, , they have clear guidelines about their brand and yes, that includes visuals. But it, for example, I always ask, what kind of tone do you want your LinkedIn profile to have? And so they have examples of tone in that branding document. So that would be the difference between marketing and again, branding is it's yes, it's doing things, but it's more like guidelines for how you are then gonna market. and that's my thinking or my understanding of it.  Petchy: Yeah. So your, your brand [00:12:00] strategy in a way is what informs every single business action that you take, right? Including marketing. Yeah, I guess. Yeah. , cuz you could put it that way.  Sarah: That's good. Yeah. We often hear the term also personal branding. So where does that come in and how is that different from, you know, the branding that we're talking. Petchy: Well, I kind of guess it's, it's in the name. There's a clue in the name, personal branding is more like how, how are you putting yourself out into the world and how are you being conscious about how you want other people to see you? But what I find is that with smaller businesses, smaller brands, where there is one person who is the main, character of the brand, I guess, or product of the brand. As, you said earlier, I find that the. Get really blurry mm-hmm between like the personal brand and the actual brand. And to a certain extent, I think that's how it has to be for the smaller brands. If that makes  Sarah: sense. [00:13:00] Yeah. Yeah. That's true. Because at least for my humane marketing, I always say bring more of you to your marketing because who I mainly talk to is entrepreneurs, but I even feel like the, the bigger brands. We do have this trend of wanting to make it more personal. So it, I would say personal branding somehow even applies to bigger brands. , it is just that it's probably gonna be more worldview and value oriented than specific to just one person,  Petchy: right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I would say that. I actually, I don't think that as a solo business owner or a small business owner, that you can remove yourself a hundred percent from your brand mm-hmm. Because with the smaller brands, you, you just, you can't rely as heavily on sheer size, you know, or your market share or, or your reputation. So that personal connection, that human to human connection becomes more important, really because you wanna build trust. [00:14:00] And that trust is much, much easier to gain for a smaller brand, if there's a personal connection, human to human. So I guess that's a strong argument in itself. Mm-hmm um, whereas like a big household brand that everybody knows about, they probably don't need that same level of human to human connection in the, in the big scale of things, but on, on a more personal level, The human to human connection becomes important. And that's when it's really important that, so if you, if you are a small brand now, and then you have big plans and you grow, and then you are becoming a bigger brand that human to human connection will go, it will trickle down into your employee level rather than yourself. And that's when it's important that your employees are on board with the brand values and the brand approach and like the brand personality so that they can act. On behalf of your brand. Yeah. And create, create those connections yeah.  Sarah: For your brand. And that's [00:15:00] not easy. That's not an easy job, especially if you have like a huge brand, every, store clerk and everybody needs to be informed about those values and  Petchy: yeah. Yeah. That's where it can fall apart. If you aren't clear on those foundations. Right. Day one. Yeah, because if you are not clear on them yourself, and then as your team grows, it's going to get more and more difficult to communicate that to your team so that they can take that and act on it. So I would say. Even, that's why it's so important, even for the smaller businesses to have a think about these things, even if it's still just the early days or even if it's still just you Sarah: Yeah. Quotation marks for, for those who are not watching the video. yeah. Yeah. What it makes me think also obvious is, if you are just a one, person brand, , a lot of the first things you need to decide is yeah. On the [00:16:00] name of your business and on your domain name that you're gonna reserve your website. And so there's always this question. Well, do I use my name? As my brand or as my website domain or, or do I use, you know, a name for my business and then use that as a domain name. So kind of like, what are the pros and cons of using your name or not using your name?  Petchy: Oh, well again, this is very individual. Yeah. So I guess my. My first thing that I wanna say is you don't have to do anything if it doesn't feel right for you. So it is not like you have to use your name to build a, like a brand centered around you as a person. And it totally depends on your circumstances. , for some people it really makes sense to use their name and they want to use their name, that comfortable using the name and putting it out there. Maybe they know that, okay, I want this business to be centered around me. Maybe it's not even going [00:17:00] to grow. And that in that case, it just really makes sense to, , to use your name as a brand name and build on that personal brand. But there are businesses who are run by just one person who also like, can absolutely have a very different brand name. Right. So I think. I think it's very personal decision to make, and it depends a little bit on what, what is it that you're putting out there? So for a, for a coach, for instance, or someone who works with a very sort of tight closed, personal connection with their clients, it maybe makes a lot more sense to be using your name. Whereas if you are selling a product or if you're selling or a program, a one to, oh, a program or one to many mm-hmm , , Service then it makes more sense to have a, a brand name that's separate from your own name. Right. But that doesn't mean that you have to [00:18:00] remove yourself completely from your brand. , So I, I guess what I'm saying is it, it kind of gets down to brand architecture and how you want to build the layers of your brand as the founder. Sarah: Mm we'll get to that term in a minute. Cuz I think there's more to UN unpack under the term brand architecture. Now we're getting like super into it. , now we're gonna get geeky. exactly super geeky. , Yeah. What, what came up for me also is, you know, kind of my evolution of, of brand. So I have my website, Sarah and acro, and that's where I built my LinkedIn consulting, brand over the last decade or so. And so that was. , very clear to me, this is me as the LinkedIn consultant and, and, and I never, obviously you can't use LinkedIn in the brand, so that was already kind of a limitation, I guess, in that yeah. Needs to be taken into consideration. You can't just make up a brand name using, you know, [00:19:00] existing terms and, and names. , and then. You know, started thinking about the gentle business revolution and, and gentle marketing and, and, you know, the story behind that trademark mess. And so that's kind of another thing that I guess if you go with a brand name, then you are really, and I did not realize that I just went, you know, very naively into that thing. , but you do get into other territories where all of a sudden. It's not just your name anymore. , you're claiming a brand name and, you know, the story that happened to me, , you know, it published a book two weeks after I got a seasoned desist letter that I cannot use that name, gentle marketing anymore. So in a way it does feel like there's more considerations to think of when you are using you. Words and make up your own brand name rather than just using your cause. Nobody can, [00:20:00] you know, kind of season desist your name. That's your name? You are. No,  Petchy: nobody can, nobody can go after you using your name. So there's safety in that, of course as well. Yeah. But I guess if you are a person who isn't super keen on being the face of your brand, Then one way to do that is to focus, your efforts more on like branding your products or your services, or maybe your signature method, finding like a brand name for those. And then. Still remaining in the background or the foreground, however much you're comfortable with as the creator of So, , for instance, I have a, a framework that I've, , spent probably 20 something years developing. , and I call it the branded framework and I then can say that I'm, I'm the creator of that framework, right? Yeah. So if that, at some point, if that grows bigger than me, Yeah. I don't know if it will. , , I don't have any fixed plans for that, but if it does, if it, if it blows up and it gets bigger than me, [00:21:00] then I can still be, I can still, say that I'm the creator of that framework. Yeah. Yeah. So I would then possibly lead with my framework rather than leading with my name. Exactly. You would take a new domain name. What's right. Yeah, what's right. And what's wrong.  Sarah: Is no, it's very individual and it's a personal choice. It's personal choice. And it comes back to your definition of success. And yet it's not an easy choice because so often we hear either one or the other being the right. Decision, right. Oh, you gotta scale and go big and you want to exit, you know, your, your business at one point and that's why you need a brand or on the other hand is no, you want that personal connection. And that's why you need to use your name as your brand. Well, the pens, you know? Yeah. You need to actually think about how you see this business. Do you want to grow it? And if you don't, well, you're perfectly fine using your name and, and, and for me, even if you do. [00:22:00] You  Petchy: can still use your, your name. Exactly. You see? I mean like, yeah, you see big brand names based off a real person's name all the time where you know that they are this huge brand with lots of employees, worldwide presence. And it's still exactly person's name at the top. There's no  Sarah: correct answer. Really? No. And I  Petchy: think that's something that's one of my pet peeves in the business world. This whole notion that my way is the right way. And then you have three or four different people claiming that it's their way. That it's the only way. Right. And really there is no right or wrong answer. It's only down to you what path you like to take. Yeah. And, and you can course correct along the way. So if you, if you start out using your own name for instance, and you feel like that's not. It's not quite right. Then you can, you can twist it and you can take a different turn.  Sarah: Yeah. You know, what I noticed do Petchi is it's, it's easier for people to [00:23:00] be told this is the right way, right? They're like, oh, this is the easy answer that I, you know, I'm looking for. And so. When we tell 'em, oh, it's up to you, you know, you have the choice then they're like, oh, I don't know. And then, so really what we're saying here is like, if you feel like you are don't know which way to go, well, sit with it, then actually do the work and figure out, well, what. Do I want to do with this business? Do I want to grow it? What's my definition of success, all these questions that take some deeper work, because yeah, the gurus day will tell you, it's only this way or it's only that way. Mm.  Petchy: And of course it's easy. It's I mean, I like the idea of just being able to take someone else's approach and make it work for me outta the box. But I think in reality, That works for very few people. Yeah. And I see it all the time when I work with my clients and the work that I do with my clients. [00:24:00] I will never design just a logo for a client for instance, and that BEC that's because I, I need them to do that deep in a work first, so I can do a, a good job and the resistance there to actually go and do that deep work is, is present in. 90 something percent of all of my clients when they come to me and they're like, oh, I just need a logo. I just wanna want it to look good. And oh, do I really need to look into these deep questions? It's, it's hard. and I'm like, well, you really do need to. And that's why the process takes longer than just like a couple of weeks to, to complete as well, because these are. Really big, really heavy questions and they take time to process. , yeah, for,  Sarah: I really feel like we do the same groundwork because it's the same with the clients who just want marketing, you know, they just want clients. And so it's like, okay, just tell me how I need to market. Right. Do I need to be on Facebook on Instagram? Like, no, you need to actually go into [00:25:00] these deep questions. And I feel like. That's what we have in common. You then go into branding and I go into marketing, but the deep core level, figuring out, you know, who you are and what you want that needs to come first in both cases.  Petchy: It does. Yeah. And what I will say also is after that initial period of resistance and feeling like, oh, it's too hard. It's too big. I can't do this. Once they start to. Like find the little golden nuggets within themselves that, that they already had. Like, all of this is already, inside. You, you just need to extract them. And sometimes you just need someone to help you. like, right. , that sort your thoughts around things, but really nobody else. But you can do the actual work of doing that in a work. And, and then. What I find is when people start to find those golden nuggets within themselves and they have those aha moments, they emerge on the other side [00:26:00] of that, really quite what feels like a bit of a Rocky road to them, I think. And they emerge with such clarity. Mm-hmm . That it's, , it's amazing to see the transformation and how they then talk about their brand or talk about themselves as a brand differently. Yeah. Afterwards  Sarah: mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's kind of like the, the labyrinths I talk about in the marketing, like we're human book, you go in you rumble, you have to ask all these deep questions, then you stand in the middle of the labyrinths you rise. You realize how you are different, , from everybody else. And then you walk back into the world and you resonate, right? Because you are now clear and you can tell these stories that, yeah. That just resonate with people. And that's what the branding. Does you know that deep foundational branding, not the, not the logo, the logo doesn't do that. Right. Cause there's not, yeah, not enough deep inner work. , that's amazing. [00:27:00] Yeah. I wanna, I wanna kind of come to some other questions as well. Well, the, actually that term that you mentioned, , before brand architecture. So tell us a bit more about that and the different layers of brand.  Petchy: Yeah, I'll, I'll try and, uh, make it, oh, well, simplify it a bit.  Because brand architecture can be really complex, but we can also think about it in really sort of simpler terms. So in essence, brand architecture, it's the layers of your brand. So how many levels. Does your brand have, and on the one side you have what we call a branded house. And on the other extreme, you have what you call a house of brands. And then of course there are all sorts of hybrid models that you can adopt in the middle there. And a lot of us smaller business owners will probably find ourselves towards, leaning towards a hybrid model or, , maybe a, a [00:28:00] branded house. So somewhere towards that end of the scale. , and that's because we are naturally, we are naturally the focus of our brands, but we then might have certain product brands that then lie on the next level. Below us like, so if you, if you place yourself as the mother brand of your brand, , Sarah is, , on the top there mm-hmm and then you have your, your method, that's kind of a subbrand to your main brand , and any other like product or services that you decide to brand separately. So it's brand architecture is more about figuring out how all of these little puzzle pieces, , fit together. Mm. And then. You can also look at whether you want that. Do you want there to be a difference between your personal brand, , and your corporate brand because, and that goes back to what we were just talking about as well. And it's, it's really is up to you how visible you are as the brand owner. So if you're leaning more towards a [00:29:00] corporate brand, then you would perhaps not use your own name so much, but if you're leaning more towards. A personal brand, you would lead with your name. So, or in the corporate  Sarah: brand brand, just be featured as like the founder or yeah, mm-hmm  Petchy: yeah. And I mean, you have examples of this. So you have some of the big household brands where, you have Unilever, for instance, they obviously that's the mother brand, but it's not really that visible. When you go out and look into the world, you don't really see the mother brand as much because you see the, the sub brands, you see the product brands, right? They are the ones who take center stage. , and the reason why a lot of these like bigger brands that have a lot of different products do it that way is because it then allows them to go into the marketplace and compete. Against itself, if you know what I mean, they can have several different products, very distinct product brands, so, and they can be competing against [00:30:00] each other. Mm-hmm  Sarah: so that would be the, the house of brands. Right. That would be the more the  Petchy: corporate model. That's more of the corporate line. So for instance, if you have a very. A very strong, but hidden mother brand. Maybe they do lines of cleaning products. Maybe they even do like two different brands of washing powder, like detergent mm-hmm because they are structured in that way. They can do that. Like they can put the brands up to like against each other. But that's not the approach that most small business owners take. So we are more in the, on the other end of the scale, where, where we just focus on building a, like a solid core around ourselves. And then you can decide whether you want to have a prominent role in that, or whether you wanna step back a little bit and let your approach or your signature service. If you. Those to [00:31:00] lead instead. So it's, it's just figuring out like the prominence of the different levels as well and how it all works together. But, I dunno if I mentioned it to you, but I do have a little guide on this. Just a one page PDF that I will happily let your listeners. Have so I will send that to you. Sarah: Oh, awesome. Sarah, I'll definitely make sure that they can download that because I think that's when it gets complex as well. As you know, we were talking before we, , recorded this idea of what, if you have outgrown your brand and now you need to rebrand and you know, all these questions. Well, what do I need to change? How do you communicate about it? That's when it gets complex. And that's when people really need to ask for help from someone like you, because then it can quickly get in into very messy brands. Right. where it's like, yeah, I see it all the time. It's like that one times it's like that and yeah, it's just kind of gets confusing. Petchy: It's [00:32:00] one of the scenarios that I come across. The most, actually, when I work with my clients is some, they, they will come to me. They already have a brand and they they're doing fairly well with that, but it feels like something's a little bit off. It's not feeling aligned anymore. , and maybe they feel like they've outgrown their brand, as you said. And, and yeah, I think that's when it becomes even more important to take that step back and look at the foundations before you do anything else, because maybe that was the missing piece, right? , from the previous brand and a lot of the. I find that they don't have to throw everything out of the window and start all over a lot of the time we can take what they have and we can mold it and we can tweak it and we can turn that into the next iteration of the brand. So it's not, it's not always necessary to go right back. Yeah. Start from scratch.  Sarah: I have a very personal question about my brand. You know, I have the humane marketing. it's more of. An idea as a brand, because my company is not [00:33:00] called humane marketing. , the website is humane marketing, and then I have marketing, like we're human selling, like we're human. Those are the, the books. So would you say marketing, like we're human and selling? Like we're human are kind of like the subbrands, even though I'm, I'm not really branding them, but I'm often talking about. This idea of selling or marketing or now LinkedIn, like we're human. Is this kind of a sub-brand even though I'm not really, you know, branding it per se. Mm. Yeah, I  Petchy: think it's kind of just naturally falling into the category of sub-brand. Okay. , maybe you're just doing it sub subconsciously , but, and it feels like natural, but also I feel like you are a whole approach. The whole sort of human centered way of doing things has potential to become a brand. Of its own something bigger than you eventually. Yeah. Like if, if that is the direction that you wanted to take it,  Sarah: That's so humane marketing. That's kind of the reason why I, you know, didn't [00:34:00] put it under my name. I was like, well, if I'm. Wanting to create a movement, then it's not all about me. It's about the movement and the idea behind the movement. And, and so that's why I went with humane marketing and the trademark and, and all of that. So, so yeah, I, I was just wondering, you know, what is this. A subbrand in a small business example. So for you branded, you said, that could become a its own subbrand eventually. So, so I'm thinking maybe marketing, like we're human is another example. Petchy: Yeah. Yeah. I would say that's, that's exactly how it would work. And then, , for now maybe you are more prominent than humane marketing. Yeah. But at some point you might find. That the roles change and that's okay. And you can then make a conscious decision of whether you want to lead with yourself or whether you want to lead with your approach or your method or your movement. Yeah. , but also it kind of gives you a lot of [00:35:00] cred too. If this thing grows bigger than you. If you managed to create this worldwide movement. Then imagine what effect that has on your personal brand to be able to go out there and say with confidence and pride that, hi, I'm Sarah, I'm the creator of this movement, you know, I'm the founder of this. Yeah. So they all, they're all connected.  Sarah: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I see how the personal brand plays into that now. Yeah. There's there's one, kind of final topic I wanted to touch upon. And that's this idea of the future, you know, what does the future of branding looks like? Which direction are we going in in terms of branding? Petchy: Oh, well, I, I don't think I have a crystal ball , but I, the way I see it and the way I'm experiencing it as, as a part. Like the business world right now [00:36:00] is that those personal connections are going to become even more important for, for brands as we move forward, because people are craving that human connection. People are craving to be seen, to be heard, to be taken seriously by a human and not, and to not just feel like there are a number in a sales spreadsheet or. Or in a CRM system. Mm-hmm I know for myself that makes me feel very, it feels like it's dehumanizing somehow. So yeah, those genuine, genuine connections, and not trying to present yourself as anything other than what you are not trying to con people just, just. Don't be an asshole. Sorry. Am I allowed to swear on your yes, that's fine.  Sarah: totally fine. Yeah. And it's funny. Cuz just yesterday I, I got on a call from, with a new circle member, a human [00:37:00] humane marketing circle and I offered these coffee chats and. The guy actually said, you know, I really appreciate having this chat with you. I was really impressed by this human connection, cuz usually in these memberships, we don't get that. And, and that proves what you just said. It's like, Yeah, we're, we're used to just being a number, right. We're used to kind of just paying monthly subscriptions, but not actually counting as, as human beings or not having that connection with the, you know, the, the other people or the founders. So I think, I think you're totally right. What about in terms of go ahead. No, sorry.  Petchy: I was just saying, I think we're moving from the sort of spray and pray approach to a more. Focused, deeper, but narrower kind of connection. Yeah.  Sarah: Yeah. The, which also maybe means, you know, smaller businesses, not giant, [00:38:00] you know, kingdoms of, of businesses. Like some of the big names had in the past, You know, smaller communities, but very meaningful communities. I, I think that's where we're, we're heading. Yeah.  Petchy: I think there will still, we will still see those big brands as well, because they are so established by now that they, they just own a certain market share by now. But. When you see a lot of smaller brands emerging, it's, it's a lot easier for people to find a brand that really resonates with them, you know, that they really feel onboard with this brand's vision and what they're trying to do and the values and what they stand for. And that connection of feeling like you are a part of something. Yeah. And not just a, an invisible, insignificant little, little puzzle piece. Mm-hmm I think that becomes more important for. People wanna feel like they're making a difference or that they're doing good. Right. And, , whatever that [00:39:00] might be. So, I mean, I will find a lot of brands out there that stand for the complete opposite of what I stand for. But there will be people who resonate with them too. Yeah. And then I can go and find the brand that resonates with me. Mm-hmm and then that, that's my way of being able to influence the world in that direction. I wanna see it is choosing what brands I support and what brands I buy from. Right.  Sarah: What about visually? , I remember you and I talked about the visual aspect also of future design. , what's your, future vision.  Petchy: Ah, this is a big question as well. , there's this term that I've seen, going round the block, lately and it's de branding Okay. so the, some of the like bigger, more established brands have ditched, slightly complex logos and gone back to basics with just the, the sort of flat logos, very simple like logo types. , and I've seen. Some like [00:40:00] controversy around it as well. And like, people are like, oh, what do you think of this before and after? And you have a lot of designers, especially the younger designers going, oh, why are they doing that? Now? They don't look like, you know, they are not distinct anymore. They just look like one of many. And for me, I'm classically trained. I'm a bit of a dinosaur. I'm gonna age myself enough for saying this, but I'm trained the old school way to. To develop visual identities. And especially if we talk about the logo, that it should be able to work in its simplest form. Right. And then, so that was, that was the initial approach. And then like maybe in the, the old days, you didn't have all of the, digital channels that we have now in all of the different reproduction methods for. Digital print and all of that. And so your logo had to be simple, right? It had to communicate in a, in a really simple, way and be really distinct, , just in one color and just flat. [00:41:00] So that's where like I come from and then you can add things to it. And I think with the, with technology, just moving so fast, we were able to do so many things to these logo. So easily, we could just like add a drop shadow, or we could add a gradient or we could make it look fancy or we could animate logos and and somewhere in that, I think we lost the simplicity. That's really powerful. Mm-hmm because we just started adding things because we could . Right. , and the way I see it now is more brands are returning to. The basics, because even though we have now, all of these options are how to, how to place our logo. And really, we aren't limited to anything, but it's, it's just going back to the basics and  Sarah: seems, seems to be a movement kind of everywhere. Right. And it's, it's bad to me it's going in the right direction and we need to simplify everywhere, you know? [00:42:00] Yeah. And that's  Petchy: not to say that you can't start with a simple logo and add something fancy to it, but it's. Then you will always have that really solid recognizable icon that, that you can go back to. So, okay. So all of these special effects, they're all just fashion, you know, they're all just like trends, pleading trends. So maybe one year gradient logos are all the rage. Everybody wants a gradient logo and they're like a year after. That trend is gone and it's nice then to have a, just a clean, timeless logo that you can revert back to him and then yeah, tweak it. Sarah: I'm just also thinking, you know, about. I don't know, printing, for example, like every time you print such a complicated logo while you use more ink. Right. And, and so just sustainably thinking also it, it [00:43:00] needs to go into the direction of simplifying and going back to basics and, and yeah, to me, that seems to the right direction. Anyway, I think we kind of got lost. Just like, yeah, everywhere. We got lost with technology and robots and chatbots and all of that. And now we just need to come back to basics and,  Petchy: and, but there's no wonder I'm, I'm an early adopter of all like kinds of technology. I love new technology. I love new gadgets. So I get that. It's, you know, it's fun to play with. But I don't think we should lose the sight of the basics and right where we came from either. So finding a striking a balance there, I think is good. Yeah. Is the future of branding finding that sweet spot and what works for you? Mm-hmm yeah. So not necessarily looking to a different brand or other brands, like bigger brands to figure out what's right for you. Don't don't just copy. Just. That sort of introspective mm [00:44:00] wonderful things.  Sarah: This has been really great. Thanks so much. Petchi for having this conversation and sharing so much wisdom. I always, I think for inviting me. Yeah. Thank you. I always ask one last question, , before you share where people can find you, but what are you grateful for today or this week? Petchy: , today, well, not just today and not just this week, but just this, this year or this decade. , I'm just really grateful for living in a very safe country. I have food, I have clothes. I have a roof over my head and a wonderful family. And, that's something to be grateful for. I think in these. These times where we see what's happening around the world. Yeah.  Sarah: Yeah. Happy for you. Thank you. Share with us where people can find you and, mention maybe that PDF. Do you want to just send me that or is there a link that, , I can,  Petchy: , yeah, I can send you that. Afterwards and you can put it wherever you, you. [00:45:00] Yeah. So wish, , yeah, no, the best place to go and find me and learn more about me online is my website. You'll find everything there from like my approach, , and what I'm all about and ways to work with me and how to find me in other channels. And that's pet.co. , I also hung out on Instagram quite a lot. And on LinkedIn. But you won't probably see me pop up in your feed because the action is all in the sort of DMS and, , and that, but it's petri.co on, on Instagram as well. If you wanna follow along there. And, , like I said, my feed is a static evergreen, nine grid. So the best way to connect with me on there is just to slide into my DMS and say, hello. .  Sarah: Wonderful. Thanks so much. This was amazing. I learned a lot. So thank you for that pet. Thanks for being here.  Petchy: Thanks for having me.[00:46:00] [00:47:00] 

  Hear ye, hear ye… Knight School from Ritter Insurance Marketing has arrived! Find out more about this online training experience for insurance agents, and start your own quest for knowledge.   Start Your Knight School Adventure   Sarah: Welcome to Knight School! Are you ready for your training? Knight: Yes, I'm eager to learn. Sarah: Great! Simply choose your quest. Knight: Hmm I think I'll go with swordplay. Sarah: What? Sir you realize this is for insurance agents, right? Knight: You mean I'm not going to learn how to ride on horseback? Sarah: No Knight: Or joust? Sarah: Nope. Knight: What about going on a crusade? Sarah: Not at all. Knight: Then what is knight school? Sarah: Well, I'm glad you asked. Knight school is a multimedia training experience that insurance agents can use to learn on their own schedule. It was developed by our experienced sales training staff right here at Ritter. Knight: Huh, that does sound interesting. Almost like a crusade! Sarah: Not a crusade, per se, but there are 5 pathways that consist of short videos with transcripts and downloadable resources. The courses cover product fundamentals and sales tactics, as well as using our software applications to grow a business. And this is a self-guided learning experience so wherever you are in your journey, we've got you covered. So are you ready to take on this new adventure? Knight: Still sounds like a crusade, but yes, I think I am! One question, can I keep the suit? Sarah: Oh, why not, after all this is Knight School! Sarah: Hey there! It's me, Sarah Rueppel, host of the Agent Survival Guide, and also part of the Knight School team here at Ritter Insurance Marketing. Knight School is our interactive training experience specifically for insurance agents. We separate the learning experience into paths depending on where you are in your selling journey. Then, within each path, we break learning down into modules. Each module contains a series of lessons so you can learn in bite-sized chunks.  Best of all, Knight School works on your schedule. It's on-demand learning for when you have time to complete it… whether it's morning, afternoon, or night. You can get started on your own Knight School quest by visiting school.ritterim.com. That's school.ritterim.com. As per our usual, we will have the link to Knight School in the episode notes, along with the other usuals, additional podcast episodes, eBooks and Guides, articles from our blog, and articles you can share with your clients. Lots of great stuff in the notes, and we put all of that there because this is your survival guide to life as an insurance agent. It doesn't matter what part of the journey you're on right now, we've got resources to come alongside you where you are and we can also help you get where you want to go. Make sure you're following along with us, because the conversation about Knight School and all things insurance will continue, and you can be a part of that! If you've got a topic you'd like us to tackle here on the show, let us know! You can email us at ASGPodcast@ritterim.com call in to the hotline at 717-562-7211, reach out on our social accounts, we would love to here from you.  Thanks for listening, we'll see you next episode!     Mentioned in this episode:   Ask the Agent Survival Guide!

Augmented reveals the stories behind the new era of industrial operations, where technology will restore the agility of frontline workers. In episode 3 of the podcast, the topic is: Re-imagining workforce training. Our guest is Sarah Boisvert, Founder and CEO Fab Lab Hub, LLC and the non-profit New Collar Network.In this conversation, we talk about re-imagining workforce training, industry 4.0., what do you mean by “New Collar” jobs? We discuss the mushrooming of Fab Labs. What skills are needed? How can they be taught? How can the credentials be recognized? .What has the impact been? Where do we go from here.After listening to this episode, check out Sarah Boisvert's online profile as well as the New Collar Network: Sarah Boisvert https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarah-boisvert-3a965031/ The New Collar Network (@NewCollarNetwrk): http://newcollarnetwork.com/Fab Lab Hub (@FabLabHub): http://fablabhub.org/Augmented is a podcast for leaders in the manufacturing industry hosted by futurist Trond Arne Undheim, presented by Tulip.co, the manufacturing app platform, and associated with MFG.works, the open learning community launched at the World Economic Forum. Our intro and outro music is The Arrival by Evgeny Bardyuzha (@evgenybardyuzha), licensed by @Art_list_io. Thanks for listening. If you liked the show, subscribe at Augmentedpodcast.co or in your preferred podcast player, and rate us with five stars on Apple Podcasts. To nominate guests, to suggest exciting episode topics or give feedback, follow us on LinkedIn, looking out for live episodes, message us on Twitter @augmentedpod or our website's contact form. If you liked this episode, you might also like episode 3: How to Train Augmented Workers. Augmented--the industry 4.0 podcast. Transcript: TROND: Augmented reveals the stories behind the new era of industrial operations, where technology will restore the agility of frontline workers. Technology is changing rapidly. What's next in the digital factory? Who's leading the change, and what are the key skills to learn? How to stay up to date on manufacturing and industry 4.0. Augmented is a podcast for leaders in the manufacturing industry, hosted by futurist Trond Arne Undheim, presented by Tulip.co, the manufacturing app platform, and associated with MFG.works, that is M-F-G.works, the open learning community launched at the World Economic Forum. Each episode dives deep into a contemporary topic of concern across the industry and airs at 9:00 a.m. U.S. Eastern, every Wednesday. Augmented — the industry 4.0 podcast. In episode 3 of the podcast, the topic is Reimagining Workforce Training. Our guest is Sarah Boisvert, Founder and CEO of Fab Lab Hub and the non-profit New Collar Network. In this conversation, we talk about reimagining workforce training, industry 4.0, and what do you mean by new collar jobs? Fab Labs, what skills are needed? How can they be taught? How can the credentials be recognized? What has the impact been, and where do we go from here? Sarah, how are you doing today? SARAH: I'm doing well. How are you? TROND: I'm doing fine. I'm excited to talk about reimagining workforce training, which seems to be an issue on your mind, Sarah. You are a founder yourself. You have been actively involved in advanced manufacturing. I understand part of your story is that your company manufactured and sold the Lasik eye surgery back in 1999. So you've been involved in manufacturing for a while. We're here to talk about something very exciting. You say new-collar jobs is the big focus. I know you didn't invent the term. Can you give me a sense of what new-collar jobs refers to, first of all? SARAH: Sure. It is a term that was coined by Ginni Rometty, who was then the CEO of IBM. She's now the executive chair. And it refers to blue-collar jobs that have now become digital. And so many of our jobs...if you just think about your UPS man who now everything's not on paper, it's all in a handheld tool that he takes around on his deliveries. And all jobs are becoming digital. And so I thought that Ginny's term encapsulated exactly what's happening, and the technologies that we used to use just in manufacturing are now ubiquitous across industries. TROND: You have also been instrumental in the MIT spinout project called Fab Labs. Just give us a quick sense, Sarah; what are Fab Labs? Not everybody is aware of this. SARAH: Fab Labs are workshops and studios that incorporate many different kinds of digital fabrication. So we are taking the ones and zeros, the bits of CAD designs, and turning them into things that you can hold in your hand. And it covers topics like 3D printing, and laser cutting, and CNC machining. But Neil Gershenfeld, who founded the international Fab Lab Network, likes to say the power of digital fabrication is social, not technical. TROND: You know, this brings me to my next question, what skills are needed? So when we talk about new-collar jobs and the skills and the workforce training, what exact skills is it that we need to now be more aware of? So you talked about some of them. I guess digital fabrication, broadly, is another. Can you go a little bit more into what kind of skills you have been involved in training people for? SARAH: Well, when I first started this project, I had always been interested in workforce training, obviously, because I had a manufacturing company, and I needed to hire people. And we had worked with the community college near our factory to develop a two-year curriculum for digital manufacturing. But I had in mind exactly what I needed for my own company and the kinds of skills that I was looking for. And so a lot of Fab Labs, because we have about 2,000 Fab Labs around the world, heard about this program and started asking me, "Could you make a curriculum for us?" And there were so many of them that I thought I needed to come up with something that is going to fit most of the Fab Labs. And so I interviewed 200 manufacturers in all kinds of industries and from startups to Fortune 10 and so companies like GE, and Boeing, and Apple, and Ford, as well as companies in the medical device space. What they all told me they wanted was...the number one skill they were looking for was problem-solving. And that's even more important today because we're getting all these new technologies, and you haven't got some guy in the back of the machine shop who has done this before. And we're getting machines that are being built that have never been built before. And it's a whole new space. And the second thing they were looking for was hands-on skills. And I was particularly looking at operators and technicians. They were also looking for technical skills like CAD design, AI. Predictive analytics was probably the number one skill that the international manufacturers' CEOs were looking for. And I got done, and I thought, well, this is all the stuff we do in Fab Labs. This is exactly what we do. We teach people how to solve problems. And so many of our labs, particularly in places like Asia or Africa where there was tremendous need and not enough resources, necessity is the mother of invention. And so many of our Fab Labs invent amazing things to help their communities. And I thought, well, we don't need a two-year curriculum because the need for the employers was so extreme. I thought we need something more like what we do in Fab Labs. TROND: And how can these skills be taught? What are the methodologies that you're using to teach these skills that aren't necessarily, you know, you don't need to go to university, as you pointed out, for them? But they have to be taught somehow. What are the methods you're using? SARAH: Well, I did a lot of research trying to nail that down when I got done figuring out what it was people needed in the factories. And it seemed like digital badges were the fastest, easiest, most affordable way to certify the ability of a badge earner to work with a particular skill set. And they were developed by IBM and Mozilla probably decades ago now and are used by many organizations to verify skills. And it's a credential that is portable and that you can put on your digital resume and verify. There is an underlying standard that you have to adhere to; an international standards body monitors it. And there's a certain level of certainty that the person who says they have the skill actually has it. TROND: That's a good point because, in this modern day and age, a lot of people can say that they have gone through some sort of training, and it's hard to verify. So these things are also called micro certifications. How recent is this idea to certify a skill in that digital way? SARAH: I think that these particular badges have been around for decades, and people like Cisco, and IBM, and Autodesk have been using them for quite a long time, as well as many colleges, including Michigan State, is one that comes to mind that has a big program. And they can be stacked into a credential or into a higher-level course. So we stack our badges, for example, into a master badge. And that combines a number of skills into something that allows someone to have a job description kind of certification. So, for example, our badges will combine into a master badge for an operator. And so it's not just someone who knows CAD. They know CAD. They know how to run a machine. They know how to troubleshoot a machine. TROND: So we touched a little bit on how these things can be taught. But is this a very practical type of teaching that you are engaged in? I mean, Fab Labs, so they are physically present, or was that kind of in the old, pre-COVID era? SARAH: Well, yes, we were typically physically present with COVID. This past summer, I spent a lot of time piloting more online programs. And so, for our design classes, we can still have people online. And our interns 3D-print their designs, and then they can look at them via photography or video, if it's a functional design, and see how the design needs to be iterated to the next step. Because, as you know, it never comes out right the first time; it takes a number of iterations before it works. And we just recently, this week, actually completed an agreement with MatterHackers, who are a distributor of tabletop 3D printers, to bundle their 3D printers with our badges. And so someone can then have a printer at home. And so, if you have a family and you're trying to educate a number of children, it's actually a pretty economical proposition. And they offer two printers that are under $1,000 for people who are, for example, wanting to upskill and change careers. They also offer the Ultimaker 3D printer that we use pretty heavily in our lab. And it's a higher level with added expense. But if you're looking at a career change, it's certainly cheaper than going back to college [laughs] instead. TROND: So I'm curious about the impact. I know that you started out this endeavor interviewing some 200 U.S. manufacturers to see that there was...I think you told me there was like a paradigm shift needed really to bring back well-paying, engaging manufacturing careers back to middle-class Americans. And that's again, I guess, pointing to this new-collar workforce. What has the impact been? I mean, I'm sitting here, and I see you have the book, too, but you generously gave me this. So I've been browsing some of the impacts and some of the description of what you have been achieving over the past few years. What has the impact been? How many people have you been able to train? And what happened to the people who were trained? SARAH: We've only been doing it a couple of years. And in our pilot, we probably have trained 2,3,400 people, something on that. And it's been a mix of people who come to us. Because we teach project-based learning, we can have classes that have varying levels of experience. So we have people who are PhDs from the Los Alamos National Lab who drive the 45 minutes over to us, and they're typically upskilling. They're typically engineers who went to school before 3D printing was in the curriculum. And they are adding that to their existing work. But we get such a wide range of people from artists. We're an artist colony here. And we get jewelers, and sculptors, and a wide range of people who have never done anything technical but are looking to automate their processes. And so my necklace is the Taos Pueblo. And it was designed by a woman...and her story is in the book. So I should add that the book you're referring to has augmented reality links to the stories of people. And she just was determined. She, I think, has never graduated from high school and is an immigrant to the United States. And she just was determined to learn this. And she worked with us, and now she designs in CAD, and we 3D-print the molds. And her husband has a casting company, and then he has it cast in sterling. TROND: I find that fascinating, Sarah because you said...so it goes from people who haven't completed high school to kind of not so recent PhDs. That is a fascinating range. And it brings, I guess, this idea of the difficulty level of contemporary technologies isn't necessarily what it was years ago. It's not like these technologies take years to learn, necessarily at the level where you can actually apply them in your hobbies or in the workplace. Why is that, do you think? Have we gotten better at developing technologies? Or have companies gotten better to tweak them, or have we gotten faster at learning them? Or is the discrepancy...like, this could be surprising for a lot of people that it's not that hard to take a course and apply it right afterwards. SARAH: Learning anything comes down to are you interested? It comes down to your level of motivation and determination. A couple of things, I think the programs, the technical programs, and the machines have become much easier. When I started in the laser business, every time that I wanted to make a hole, I would have to redesign the optical train. And so I'd have to do all the math, so I'd have to do all the advanced math. I would have to put it together on my bench, and hopefully, it worked, and tweak it until I got the size hole I needed in the material I needed. Today, there's autofocus. It's just like your camera. You press a button; you dial in the size hole you want, and away you go. And it's interesting because many of the newer employees at our company Potomac Photonics really don't have the technical understanding that I developed because they just press the button. But it moves much faster, and we have more throughput; we have a greater consistency. So the machines have definitely improved tremendously in recent years. But I also think that people are more used to dealing with technology. It's very rare to run into somebody who doesn't have email or somebody who isn't surfing the web to find information. And for the young people, they're digital natives. So they don't even know what it's like not to have a digital option. I think that a number of things have come together to make that feasible. TROND: Sarah, let me ask you then this hard question. I mean, it's a big promise to say that you can save the middle class essentially. Is it that easy? Is it just taking one or two courses with this kind of Fab Lab-type approach, and you're all set? Can you literally take someone who feels...or maybe are laid off or feels at least not skilled really for the jobs they had, the jobs they want, and you can really turn them into highly employable in a matter of one course? Has that really happened? SARAH: In one course or one digital badge, it is possible to get some jobs, but it probably takes a combination of courses in order to have the right skill set because it's typically not one skill you need. It's typically a combination of skills. So to run the 3D printers, for example, you need CAD design. You need to understand design for 3D printing. And then you have to understand how to run the machines and fix them when they break. So it's probably still a more focused and condensed process. So you could do our master badge, which comprises five or six badges, and get a job in six months for about $2,000. With one class, you could get a job part-time and continue the other badges and be paying for school while you're working in a field that is paying a substantial increase over working at McDonald's. TROND: So give me a sense. So this is happening, in your case, in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Where do we go from here? Is this going on anywhere else? What are the numbers? How many people are being trained this way? How many people could be trained this way? How easy is the approach you're taking to integrate and scale up? And is it happening anywhere else? SARAH: Our non-profit, which is the organization that issues the badges, has, right now, I think, 12 or 13 members, and they were part of our pilot, and they are all over the country. So in my team, Lemelson, the Fab Lab in El Paso, the Fab Lab in Tulsa, MakerspaceCT in Hartford, Connecticut. And so we have a group that just started this year was when I started the scaling after, I was really pretty confident that it was going to work. If it worked in Santa Fe, which is a small town and in a very rural, very poor state, I really thought if I could make it work here, we could make it work anywhere because there are a lot of challenges in our state. So we started scaling this year, and each of our pilot sites is probably putting through their first cohort of 4, 5, or 6 badges, and they each have about 10 in that first cohort. We have a lot of requests for people to join our group and start issuing the badges. I've really come to see the success of our online program. And so, our online program is instructor-led at this point. And I'm working to create a self-directed program that people could do online with a tabletop printer at home. But we will still continue to scale the New Collar Network that actually disseminates the badges. And I really see enormous interest. As you know, college enrollment has been declining for the last ten years. There has been an 11% decline in college enrollment. And people are looking for alternatives. And I think that I've had requests from school systems. I had a request from a school system back East that has 45,000 students that they want to get badges. We have had a request from a school system in the Midwest where they get a lot of teachers who are getting 3D printers, and they don't know what to do with them. And they'd like for us to train the teachers. So I really see a huge opportunity. And these tools that we're using are not just being used in manufacturing. One of the people that we worked with on the HR side in research was Walmart. And their big worry is now they're putting in these janitorial robots. And their big dilemma is who's going to program them, and who is going to fix the robots when they're not working? And it's everywhere. It's not just am I going to get a job at that manufacturing company? It's also your local retail store. TROND: Fantastic. This is very inspiring. I thank you so much for sharing this with us. And I hope that others are listening to this and either join a course like that or get engaged in the Fab Lab type Network and start training others. So thanks again for sharing this. SARAH: Oh, it's a pleasure. It's a real mission, I think. [laughs] TROND: Sounds like it. Have a wonderful rest of your day. SARAH: Thank you. TROND: You have just listened to Episode 3 of the Augmented Podcast with host Trond Arne Undheim. The topic was Reimagining Workforce Training. Our guest was Sarah Boisvert, Founder, and CEO of Fab Lab Hub and the non-profit New Collar Network. In this conversation, we talked about reimagining workforce training, industry 4.0, and what you mean by new-collar jobs and Fab Labs; what skills are needed? How can they be taught, and how can the credentials be recognized? What has the impact been, and where do we go from here? My takeaway is that reimagining workforce training is more needed than ever before. The good news is that training new generations of workers might be simpler than it seems. Practical skills in robotics, 3D scanning, digital fabrication, even AR and VR can be taught through experiential learning in weeks and months, not in years. Micro certifications can be given out electronically, and the impact on workers' lives can be profound. Thanks for listening. If you liked the show, subscribe at augmentedpodcast.co or in your preferred podcast player, and rate us with five stars. Augmented — the industry 4.0 podcast. Special Guest: Sarah Boisvert.

This week's conversation with Lisa Evans fits under the P of Promotion of the Humane Marketing Mandala. We are talking about telling the stories that matter for your business. As you'll hear in the episode there is a fine line between being vulnerable in telling your story and oversharing. Lisa is the Director of Speaking Savvy and the Lead Trainer of the Soft Skills Academy. She is a Certified Speaking Professional, Certified Virtual Presenter, TEDx Speaker Coach, Host of the Business Chat Podcast, and Radio Show Host. She has been coaching clients to become stand-out presenters and speakers for over 10 years and her area of expertise is helping senior leaders to tell better business stories. Before becoming a coach Lisa spent over two decades as a health professional and began her career as a midwife. One of her clients named her The Story Midwife and it kinda stuck! In this episode, you'll learn about telling the stories that matter for your business as well as...   How to know which stories matter (every story has a reason and a season) Your origin story and ways to tell it Lisa's personal story and how a health setback led her to be an exceptional speaker Encouragement and tips to start with storytelling And much more… Lisa's Resources   Lisa's Website Lisa's Podcast: Business Chat with Lisa Evans Get a complimentary 30-minute coaching call with Lisa Connect with Lisa on: Twitter Facebook Instagram LinkedIn Sarah's Resources Watch this episode on Youtube (FREE) Sarah's One Page Marketing Plan (FREE) Sarah Suggests Newsletter (FREE) The Humane Business Manifesto (FREE) Gentle Confidence Mini-Course Marketing Like We're Human - Sarah's book The Humane Marketing Circle Authentic & Fair Pricing Mini-Course Podcast Show Notes We use Descript to edit our episodes and it's fantastic! Email Sarah at sarah@sarahsantacroce.com Thanks for listening!   After you listen, check out Humane Business Manifesto, an invitation to belong to a movement of people who do business the humane and gentle way and disrupt the current marketing paradigm. You can download it for free at this page. There's no opt-in. Just an instant download. Are you enjoying the podcast?  The Humane Marketing show is listener-supported—I'd love for you to become an active supporter of the show and join the Humane Marketing Circle. You will be invited to a private monthly Q&A call with me and fellow Humane Marketers -  a safe zone to hang out with like-minded conscious entrepreneurs and help each other build our business and grow our impact.  — I'd love for you to join us! Learn more at humane.marketing/circle Don't forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes or on Android to get notified for all my future shows and why not sign up for my weekly(ish) "Sarah Suggests Saturdays", a round-up of best practices, tools I use, books I read, podcasts, and other resources. Raise your hand and join the Humane Business Revolution. Warmly, Sarah Imperfect Transcript of the show We use and love Descript to edit our podcast and provide this free transcript of the episode. And yes, that's an affiliate link. Sarah: [00:00:00] [00:01:00] [00:02:00] [00:03:00] [00:04:00] [00:05:00] [00:06:00] [00:07:00] hi, Lisa, how are you today?  Lisa: Hi, Sarah. I'm delighted to be here.  Sarah: Oh, I'm so happy to have this conversation. It's kind of, is there a second or third? At least I know that I was on your podcast earlier. And so now I get the pleasure to have you online, which is wonderful. And we chose this topic of storytelling, which I know. Close to your heart. And so I wanted to know if you have always considered yourself a good storyteller. Tell us about that.  Lisa: Yeah, well, I've [00:08:00] always considered myself a storyteller. Not necessarily a good storyteller, mainly because of my age, because definitely before the internet, we didn't even have a color TV until dad bought one home for the Montreal Olympics. So that was a long time ago. So I grew up. On stories when I was little. And then that carried on into my, of late teenage years and early twenties when I began my nurse training. So when I became a nurse at a young age, I was 17 and a half. We didn't have counseling, we didn't have psychology services. We had to suck it up and get on with it. So when we had a bad day and we saw a lot of trauma, which you do when you're a nurse who working in acute care, the only outlet we really had in order. Debrief with our colleagues about our day was through stories. So stories also can be used to heal as well. So I guess that I became a natural storyteller and it was then later in life that I joined. [00:09:00] The pieces of the puzzle together and got more interested in helping entrepreneurs and business owners and even large organizations in how to tell several different stories, their own story, their signature story, their leadership story, and the story about their brands and their services and, and products. So I've definitely learned how to tell stories better, but I think we're. We are all storytellers. We all have the, the, the information that we need. We've got a lifetime of, of stories. It's just learning how to get those out and feel comfortable sharing the stories. Wow. Sarah: I'm yeah. I'm so curious uh, about one thing as well, because when I heard you speaking, I was thinking. What about what does reading have to do with storytelling? Right? Because when we're reading, we're not actually well telling a story, but we're definitely absorbing stories. So were you also a, a big reader? Lisa: I was a big reader. And I think that today definitely reading helps you to experience the [00:10:00] characters and the landscapes and the plot and the, and the story in a very sensory way. And of course we need that sensory language, but I think that we need to always be mindful that writing is, is very, very different to, to speaking. And when somebody. Reads from a page or speaks something that they have completely memorized or that it's been written to be read. It doesn't sound right when it's, when it's spoken. So definitely yes. Read to immerse yourself in, in characters and, and sensory sensory language, but never read your story out loud. Sarah: Mm, that, yeah. Okay. That's interesting. So, so it helps to tell better stories, I guess, because we. You know, we kind of, I noticed that when writing my own book it helps to, I'm a, I'm an avid reader. Like I read so many books just like you, I know that you are always posting about the latest books you're reading. Yeah. And, and, and yeah, I think [00:11:00] reading books definitely also then helps you with writing because you just kind of know. You know, the turns of phrases you just kind of yeah. It, it just kind of flows better, I guess, as compared to if you weren't reading at all. But yeah, yeah. With the storytelling that it's not the same. If you read your story,  Lisa: obviously. And you definitely don't need to be a good writer, cuz that can be a barrier for many people. A lot of my stories, I don't even write down, I just use my phone. I hit voice record. I've got an idea for a story. I'll just speak it into a voice memo. I might be walking around or doing something. I get an idea in my head or I'll draw it. I, I like doing little graphics. So if, if you don't consider yourself to be a good writer, Doesn't mean to say you can't share stories. I  Sarah: think that's a good reminder for people because sometimes we do get stuck with the, you do writing, right. And, and another thing people tell me, [00:12:00] tell me about my books is like, it's an easy read. And, and so at the beginning I was like, is that a compliment or like a hidden criticism, but I do kind of write, like I would speak. Right? Yeah. And so I'm not a, you know, a novel writer. Definitely not. And so I think for stories, if we think about, you know, social media, it, these stories need to be told exactly how you would tell them, I guess, in spoken words, would you agree? Lisa: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Makes it more authentic. Makes it more real. And I think that's definitely a, a compliment, sir. If somebody says that it's an easy read. that's good. Nobody wants a hard read that they've got to struggle to get their head around. So that's awesome. Well done.  Sarah: thank you. Yeah. Like the inner critic voice kind of like, well, I wanted it to be sophisticated but, but yeah, no, that's not who I am. How do we then [00:13:00] know which stories to tell? Because I think I even notice myself sitting, you know, I use mainly LinkedIn and so I sit there and go, okay, what kind of story can I tell? And you're surrounded by stories all day long, but then when it comes to actually sharing them, your brain kind of blocks you. And you're like, well, which one.  Lisa: Yeah. I, I think the best thing that I like to do, and I encourage others to do is to start a story bank, just like a piggy bank. You're collecting your, your stories. There may only be little, little snippets of information or anecdotes or examples, and you just store them up somewhere. Some people use a note. Book or an index card system or an app like Evernote or, or OneNote. And so you're capturing your, your stories. And then when you want a story down the track to illustrate a particular point, you've got lots of material at hand and, you know, stories have got a, they've got a reason. They've got a season and. The most [00:14:00] important thing about a story is it's gotta be ready to tell it's gotta be ripe. It's gotta be that perfect moment because there may be stories in our lives that for whatever reason, we're not yet ready to share. And I think that we've always got to remember that we are the curators of our own stories and we get to choose which stories to tell and who we are gonna share them with. But the most important thing of all is. The story that we're telling ourselves. So we've gotta get rid of our own negative narratives and those stories that don't help us in order to be able to step up and speak and share whether that's marketing your book or writing your book or believing yourself, or putting out things in business. So we've really got two sorts of stories. We've got our internal stories and our own narratives. And we've got the stories that, that we share. So I think it can be hard just like it can be hard to sit in front of a blank workbook and, and come up with some [00:15:00] writing, same with finding stories. But if you, if you start collecting stories, like have a, have a bank of them, then you'll, you'll never run out. Sarah: Hmm. Yeah, that's a good idea. It could be, could be like a notebook, but it could also be like snippets. You know, if you're more into using online tools, it could be Evernote or whatever Trello  Lisa: board yeah. You using, or even Pinterest or voice notes, you know, voice notes are great because they sync across all your devices. It doesn't matter where you are. You can hit record and just do a 62nd voice note and give it a, a tag. Or a keyword and you'll be able to, to find it again. So that's the important thing, particularly as, as you get older is you, you might see something or hear something, oh, that that'll make a great story and you forget all about it. So not only you wanna quickly capture the essence of that story, but you also also want to take a moment and tune into how that story made you. Mm, because it's, it's that [00:16:00] emotion that, that has that impact. So you ask yourself, you know, if you see something and you, and you think, you know, that's not right, or isn't that wonderful, you know, it's evoked an emotional response in you. So it's important when we capture our story to also put. And I felt joy or I felt gratitude, or I felt frustrated or angry about something that's that's happening. Cuz that will also help you when you are then telling your story. You're reliving that story and that experience to dial into that emotion that you felt at the time. Sarah: Yeah. So good. So many different things I wanna kind of go back to that you just said. So the first thing is obviously the emotion. Yeah. That's where we connect. Right? If we're telling a, a story in, for example, what I sometimes see is, is, you know, stories being told in the third person, like on someone's website, you know, the about page, for example, if it, if I read an about page and instant in the third person, [00:17:00] There is no emotional connection. I don't feel connected to the person. And so I think that would probably be a, be a first, I don't know if you agree at this telling your story, obviously, and your first person.  Lisa: Absolutely. Yeah. Present tense. First person is always better. And, and often when I'm coaching people in their, in their story and we might do the, you know, stop, stop, start when I'm coaching them, they might say something like and then we broke up and I moved to America. I go, hang on, hang on. You broke up. How did you feel? Mm. Yeah, I was devastated. I couldn't stop crying for a week. You know, they were brushing over that emotion. Right. And, and that's the important part. Even if you don't, don't decide to share at all, but you've still gotta think about, okay. How did you feel when you got that call and the breakup happened? Yeah, yeah. Yeah.  Sarah: That's so good. I think you're right. We're we. Wanting to kind of quickly get our story out there. And so we [00:18:00] just kind of share headlines and when you read it, it's like, you know, nothing, nothing happens where on the other hand, you don't have to exaggerate. I as the humane marketer, I'm always careful also about, you know, using pain points in, in, in stories and things like that. So you don't have to exaggerate feelings either and, you know, make people, people feel bad or, or, or worse. But yeah, that's how we connect is with the emotion and with the feelings. The other thing you brought up is this idea I guess kind of a vulnerability, because you said there's a, every story has a reason and a season, and I love that. It's such a good way to remember. You know, what's the reason of the story. And is it the right season, I guess, to tell this story and, and that goes with, you know, timely, current events out there, I guess, but it's also for ourselves. Do I feel like I am [00:19:00] willing to share this story or, or not? So what's your take on vulnerability and probably also kind of this trend of sharing too much information to get something. Yeah,  Lisa: that has become very apparent, you know, the work of the wonderful Brene brown Brene brown has been around for a long time, but her work was popularized through the Netflix series. And I think that your vulnerability became the word. And I think there was a very fine line between vulnerability and overs. We do need to be ready to tell our story. If you are standing in front of a group of people and you cannot get through your story without breaking down and falling apart, probably not the right time to tell your story, you probably haven't done the inner work. You haven't done enough. Growing you haven't done enough healing. Now we can get caught off guard and our emotions can bubble to the surface, but generally you've gotta have done the inner work. And then I [00:20:00] also see I've been in, in audiences where somebody's done the inner work and they feel that their story is ready to share, but they haven't really thought about how their story is potentially going to land and impact. With the audience. We don't want to trigger our audience and leave them walking out, feeling low and feeling, feeling horrid. So we've gotta carefully craft that story that even if we're sharing a story that doesn't have a happy ending and that's life, not every story has to have a, a happy ending, but we are leaving the audience with something to take away that. Inspirational or poignant or has a real meaning and purpose to it. So every story does need to have a, a, a carry out. Yeah. So I think that there's a very fine line with the vulnerability and, and the potentially oversharing, but at the end of the day, it's gotta feel right for you because if you're up. In front of an audience, whether it's in front of a [00:21:00] camera or on stage. And you feel as though you've gotta push yourself to be more vulnerable, you're going to look awkward and uncomfortable. If that's how you feel inside people are going to see that. And then if you are up the front looking awkward and uncomfortable, how does that make your audience feel? They feel awkward and uncomfortable too. Right? So it's really picking. Right time. It's tough.  Sarah: Yeah. And I, I totally agree with you and I, I would go even further and say you know, there there's been marketers, unfortunately also who, who kind of are in this authenticity trend and then use stories with a lot of vulnerability in order to get something, to, you know, sell more of them or sell more of their coaching or sell, you know? And so that's also not. What we want from our or audience, we don't want to use our story in a way that gets something we want to [00:22:00] yes. Connect with our audience, make sure that they resonate with our story, but not in a manipulative way. This, like I've seen this trend where marketers could start telling all these old stories Just because, you know one guy started telling that he was abused when he was seven years old and then all of a sudden it was like one after the other. And, and so you start to actually question the truth of these stories, which is sad because you know, who knows maybe they were all true, but it kind of became this thing where we felt like what's going on here. This is a marketer. Is he doing this? You know, for a reason and for the wrong reason,  Lisa: maybe. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that, you know, these days people have got more of a BS meter that they can possibly sense when one of those stories is, is coming and, and people switch off to that these days, I believe.  Sarah: Yeah. Yeah, you're right. The BS meter the [00:23:00] last, last two years for sure has gone, gone up a lot. And so yeah, I I'm just, and I think that's also, I told you before we started recording I'm kind of not a big fan anymore of this idea of the, the hero arc story, you know, where they started to feel like. All the same to me where, you know, there's a struggle, we overcome it. And then there's a huge, happy ending. And now a millionaire. And I don't have any problems anymore to me, even if that's true, that's just not an interesting story to me anymore. And, and yet it's used and recommended in coaching a lot. So what's your take on, on kind of these artificial stories?  Lisa: Yeah, I think that it definitely helps to have a structure to your story and to have a framework, particularly if you are learning to tell stories, it, it does give you some, some guidelines. You don't have to follow the arc from one point [00:24:00] to another. You can start at. At any point, really? I think that definitely a story does need to have an element of tension. A story does need to have some conflict and some change. So every story is evidence of a transformation that's taken place. But the thing is, people think about struggle on conflict as huge people think about transformation. As I became a millionaire, I climbed Everest. I conquered the world. No, it can be a very small transformation. It can be somebody said something. And that made you think about your own behavior or your actions, and you decided to do things differently or you decided to apologize. That's a transformation. So it doesn't have to be huge. You don't have to have a rags to richest story to make a great storyteller there. The best stories are in the simple, the best stories are in the ordinary. If you think about a trip to the supermarket, particularly in the tough times that we're in now, you know, [00:25:00] you never get a whole lot when you're just getting to go out these days, a ride on public transport, an interaction with a stranger, a customer service experience. They're all. Possible stories that you can, that you can tell. And we certainly want to move away from stories that are all about me. Nobody wants to hear an all about me story. Nobody cares about your story until they care how much your story helps them. Right. So we also need to be mindful of, of that. What's the point, what's the purpose of your story? We need to set an intention in all of our speaking, even more so in our storytelling. So I do like the, I do like the arc. I do like some frameworks and, and formulas, and I certainly sort of teach modifications of those, but just think about the small things, because the small things that are more ordinary are more relatable. Sarah: Yeah. I like that a lot. What I also did in, in [00:26:00] the marketing, like we're human book. Instead of telling this hero a story I told the beginning of the hero, a story, and then I said, look, I'm still in the middle of this thing. Right. I'm not there yet. And I feel like it, this really connects with a lot of my readers because they can relate. They're like, Look, she's not the hero. She's just like us in the middle of figuring things out. She has a message to share, but it's not like, oh, you know, she's now made it and has figured it all out. So I feel like instead of always sharing stories where we have figured it all out these smaller stories, like you mentioned before, That really show we're human as well. And we're just in the middle of things, just like everybody else. Those are the stories that really speak to me.  Lisa: Yeah, absolutely. And, and it's often a good story. We'll have somebody else as the [00:27:00] hero. In that story and you as the business owner or the leader or the organization, you are the mentor in, in the story. You're the guide. You're the guru who offers a, a handout and a help to, to somebody else to make their life better. So you can also think about where you wanna position yourself in, in the story and often the best place for you is as the mentor. So you're really shining a light on somebody else's journey. mm-hmm and yeah, there's a little piece about how you helped, but that's very much in, in the background,  Sarah: us introverts. We really like that. Right. We like to shine the lights on, on others.  Lisa: Definitely. Yeah. All about us. Yeah. I love that. Definitely.  Sarah: What about your story then? I, I know it, I kind of read it a bit in the intro, but I would love for you to explain a bit about your story. Lisa: Yes. I began my career as a midwife. I'm from London and I trained as a nurse and became a midwife. And then I specialized, it [00:28:00] became a neonatal intensive care midwife. And I always wanted to be a nurse. I knew that I wanted to be a nurse and that was to be my, my forever career. And it was through my career that I got the opportunity to move. Australia. And I spent almost two decades working as an intensive care midwife. So much joy, helping to bring new life into the world and look after tiny babies on life support. And then one day my life changed drastically when a virus destroyed. Most of my hearing, I was left with a tiny amount of sound on one side only. And because the intensive care environment is very technical, very challenging and demanding. I could no longer do that job. So I literally had to reinvent myself and, and think what an earth am I going to do? And that was tough. I was already 40 wondering, you know, who's gonna have me, what am I gonna do? And also navigating permanent and severe. Hearing loss. I got on a research trial and I got the amazing [00:29:00] gift of a cochlear implant. And that was the beginning of me learning to hear and speak all over again in a very different way. And that was a very long journey. And it was in that journey, rehabilitating using the cochlear implant that I got interested in speaking, and I started to sign up with mentors and coaches and various programs. From around the, the world and went on this speaking journey and reconnected with my, my love of, of storytelling and then decided that I wanted to be a, a speaker coach and a storyteller and a professional speaker, and, and to also teach and, and help and help others. So these days I work with. With leaders, helping leaders to have high, high impact communication skills, presentation skills, speaking of course, business storytelling. And a couple of years ago, one of my clients, when he was introducing me, we'd had a bit of a chat and he asked me, have I always been a speaker? And I told him, I used to be a midwife. And some people are like, whoa. You know, it's a chalk and cheese. [00:30:00] And when he introduced me in front of the crowd, he introduced me as the story midwife and is kind. Up because I do still bring life into the world, but very different. I encourage people to bring their stories into the world. So I still feel as though I've got a wonderful position of privilege, being able to nurture and, and birth those stories. So, you know, sometimes in life we don't get to choose. We get sent on this huge detour and. hopefully the detour ends up to be a scenic route. So there's not a day that goes by when I don't miss being a midwife. But I absolutely love, love what I do now.  Sarah: Mm. What a beautiful story. Yeah. That is just wonderful. And it just, it just strikes me like this, you know, connecting the dots backwards, and now you are. Really into speaking and telling stories and, and having [00:31:00] lost your hearing, it just kind of like strikes me as well. Obviously that was the next step. If you lose something right, then you really want to highlight it and make this your thing now because you gained it back and it's.  Lisa: Yeah, just, yeah. And I hadn't really thought about it at the time. I had no idea I was lost for quite some, some time and right. And in that space of, you know, why me and what am I gonna do? Yeah. I felt sorry for myself for a while, which is that natural or grieving process. But I, I remember I had a, an interview on, on radio and when they wrote up the blur for the interview, They gave the piece, the title in losing her hearing. She discovered her voice. And I thought, I like that. I'm gonna use that. And it's true. And I remember when I went to see the professor in order to get onto the research trial, it was competitive and he only had so many places. He had a lot of people who could have done with being part of the program and.[00:32:00]  We did all the clinical tests and the, and the sort of health related questions. And then he turned to me and he said, you know, I've got more people who could benefit than there are places available. If I choose you to be on the program, how will you share the gift? And I had no idea what he was talking about. I, I really was sort of stumped and I looked at him and I said, oh, I'll, I'll become a better listener. And he said, okay. And I thought, well, that, that would be a good step. We can all do with becoming a better listener. And it was only several years down the track that I thought my role in life, my purpose is now to help others to use their voice because I've discovered. Sarah: Hmm. Yeah. It's beautiful. When you were speaking also, I paid attention when you said, well, I paid attention all the time, but when you said you know, I learned to listen and speak differently. And I think you highlighted that before. So I I'm curious how, how. [00:33:00] How is it different now?  Lisa: Yeah, it's a good, it's a good question. The sound that I get from the cochlear implant is artificial and it sounds a completely different to natural, natural sound mm-hmm . And so you not only have. To learn to hear, but you've gotta lay down new neural pathways in order to be able to turn that sound into something that resembles human human speech. And initially when you get the device and you have the sort of the turning on ceremony you can't hear anything at all. It, it, it is completely artificial and it just sounds like noise. And because I've got a small amount of natural sound remaining. My brain has to merge those two signals together. The artificial sound that comes from the device and the natural sound that, that, that I'm hearing. So you are bypassing the natural way of, of hearing. So it is a, it is very much a learned. [00:34:00] Process. And it takes a huge amount of focus and a lot of rehabilitation in, in learning to, and, and maybe it's a lot easier for younger people who, who get a cochlear implant. And I also think that it's potentially easier for people who have never heard. Who were born deaf. I mean, you've gotta have a particular type of hearing loss to be able to get a cochlear implant. It's not suitable for, for everybody, but yeah, it was a considerable, a considerable journey and a lot of frustration. Yeah. And a lot of trial and error with the amazing research team.  Sarah: Mm. Yeah. Yeah. Just to tell you from, you know, the outside and, and listeners don't see that, but if you're watching the YouTube video, whenever I speak, I really. See on your face, how you're listening intensely. And obviously now I know your story and I know [00:35:00] why, but it's just so beautiful to have someone listen to you so intensely, you know, it feels like, wow, she's really taking in my information and paying attention to me. So, so I can, yeah, I can see the, the really huge benefit and I'm sure all your clients. Are like, wow. I really feel heard and seen by  Lisa: Lisa. Thank you. That's a compliment. I hope they feel that way too. yes.  Sarah: So we, we are getting to wrap up, but I, I would like you, if you can, to just share some final encouragement and, and maybe tips that you could think of for someone who who's yeah. Struggling with this idea of telling stories.  Lisa: Yeah. So look around you. There is a story in everything, whether it is a trip to the supermarket or remembering your first day at school, or applying for a job, getting turned down for a promotion. Yeah. These are all [00:36:00] potential story opportunities. Write them down, capture them and remember that every story does need to have a point. Or a purpose. So ask yourself, how did I feel? What did I learn? And what's that lesson that I want to share with others. And remember that the most important story is the one that we tell ourselves. So do the inner work, do the inner work to get rid of those unhelpful stories that no longer service that perhaps we've had hanging around for a long, long time. Because if you have got whatever your own story is, you know, you get to choose what the next chapter. It's in your control. Yeah. Get out there and share your story. Start off small. But other people are always fascinated by our stories because humans are hardwired to tell stories. We've always done it. Sarah: Yeah, thank you so much. I, I wanna repeat the point and purpose. That's what I really take away in the reason and season that's a, a good one to an easy [00:37:00] one to remember as well. Like the, every story needs a reason and there needs to be the, you know, the season needs to be right and feel right. To you as well. This has been very beautiful. Thank you so much for this conversation. Lisa, do you tell us I have one more question, but before that do tell us where people can connect with you where they can find out more about your work.  Lisa: Sure. Thank you for inviting me. I love your work. Sarah people can connect with me via my website, speaking savvy.com.au. I'm also on LinkedIn, always happy to have a chat and share a story with anyone online. So I do do a complimentary discovery call and obviously I love hearing stories. So that's how people can best reach out to me. Wonderful.  Sarah: And then my last question is what are you grateful for today or this week,  Lisa: Lisa? Today I'm this is probably gonna sound strange where the [00:38:00] opposite sides of the world. I'm grateful today that it's a little bit cooler. I was actually able to have a good night's sleep. The 1st of March, we are now in autumn. Here in Australia. And so we've got temperatures that are really beautiful and to see the, the flowers and the birds and the breeze. So today I'm grateful for the, the wonderful climate that I live in here in Perth, Western Australia.  Sarah: Wonderful. Yeah, I could, the sun is shining today here too, but I could use some warmer temperatures as well. thank you so much for taking the time. Lisa, it's been an absolute delight. Thank  Lisa: you, Sarah.[00:39:00] [00:40:00] 

You're listening to From the Desk of Alicia Kennedy, a food and culture podcast. I'm Alicia Kennedy, a food writer based in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Every week on Wednesdays, I'll be talking to different people in food and culture, about their lives, careers and how it all fits together and where food comes in.Today, I'm talking to Sarah Lohman, a food historian, and the author of Eight Flavors: The Untold Story of American Cuisine. We discussed how she went from art school to historic cooking, making a career as a blogger, and how she defines American for the purposes of her work. Alicia: Hi, Sarah. Thank you so much for being here. Sarah: Well, hello, Alicia. Good morning. [Laughter.] I feel we’re both still a little just rolled out of bed. Yeah, I did put a face on for you.Alicia: Thank you, I put a face on as well. I was completely ready to have this conversation and was sitting at my laptop at like 10:50. Like, ‘All right.’ And then at 11:01, I looked up and was like, ‘No!’ [Laughter.]Sarah: It's fine. I'm just here with my tea. Just getting a start on the day. We're just gonna have a lovely chat, as per usual.Alicia: Well, can you tell me about where you grew up and what you ate?Sarah: Sure. So I grew up in Hinckley, Ohio, which is a rural town about, oh, like 30 miles south of Cleveland. So Northeast Ohio. So I actually grew up in the house that my dad lived in from a teenager onwards. My grandmother gave it to my mom and dad the year that I was born. And so, that was how my family was able to have a little bit of property. And when I was growing up there, it was really pretty rural. I didn't have any really close neighbors, and we had a couple acres of our own. As far as what I ate, some of it was regional and some of it was at—the crap that we got fed in the ’80s and 90s that I look back on, and it's just totally remarkable. Do you remember things like Squeeze-its and Gushers? And I'm like, ‘I guess we just didn't know better back then.’ But those were real foods that we ate. And my mom was an exceptional cook. But it was very Midwestern. We did do some lasagna. We did do some chili, nothing particularly spicy. And then, kind of the regional cuisine in Northeast Ohio is very Eastern European. So there was also a lot of pierogi action. There would be some chicken paprikash, some beef stroganoff, those kinds of things. I think the most sort of resonant experience I had with food growing up is that my mom was an award-winning baker. So basically, as soon as I could stand, I was baking with her. Iit's funny, I didn't realize that baking was hard until food reality TV started coming out. All the chefs were like, ‘Oh, no, I don't bake, I don't bake.’ So it was really valuable to me to get that experience first and do the ‘harder side of cooking things.’And then as I got a little bit older, my parents both went to work when my brother went to college. And so, it was sort of my job to come home from school and start dinner. And so, that was the moment that I started to learn how to cook.Alicia: Wow. And so yeah, that's a really interesting mix of things. Because people associate, I think, the Gushers side of ’90s youths with other new processed foods, I guess. But it seems you had a real mix of home cooking and eating the—Sarah: Oh, definitely.I also feel many—at least in my world growing up, many families households are—I think a lot of families’ households are a blend. I think that we do a lot of culture and class shaming by saying, ‘Oh, you only go to McDonald's, blah, blah, blah.’ I mean, we can go into all of that, too. Yeah, of course, my family went to McDonald's, because how else you get a 6-year-old to shut up? McDonald's. And they wanted you there. And we’d go play on the playground afterwards, too. But yeah, my mom also cooked meals from scratch for me, because this was still the era where some people had the luxury of having a parent at home full time, which I feel is really hard for someone who would even, who would choose to want that and choose to want to spend time with that child. I feel economically, that's becoming less and less available. So my mom got to raise us up until I was in eighth grade, when she went back to work. And so, that allowed her the access and the ability and the time to be able to make meals from scratch as well. And kind of interestingly, her mom didn't really cook very much. Her mom did a lot with sort of processed food. But then, I don't know, my mom moved out to the country and just started baking pies and making stew from scratch. Something came alive inside her. And to this day, she's still an incredible cook and incredible baker. There's no stopping her from doing an all-out Thanksgiving or Christmas meal, even if it's just going to be the three of us eating it. And she’ll the table too. I think that’s her favorite part.Alicia: Aww. That's really great. And I talk so much, I think, about—in writing and in interviews and stuff—it's like, how do people eat differently? And it's always that answer is, you give them the time and you give them the access. And that's such an important thing to talk about, I think, in terms of our food upbringings.Sarah: Absolutely. And I feel that the time issue is one that I especially get very irritated with. I remember seeing a video a couple years ago with two very famous male food writers that are making a roast chicken with roasted vegetables. And they're like, ‘This only cost $14.’ And ‘Oh, isn't this so hard to do? People think this is so hard.’ And I'm like, ‘A*****e, you have no idea. You have no idea what it's like to be raising two jobs. You have no idea what it's like to be a single parent, and you have no idea the real choices that people are making. And you're just like, ‘Oh, just people hate making chicken. They're so stupid.’ It just pisses me off.And then of course, the caloric content when you're like, ‘Man, I'm hungry. I've got all these kids to feed.’ Of course, you’re going to pick fast food as opposed to making a roast chicken with roast vegetables, which I had for lunch. I'm starving two hours later. It's just such a lack of connection to everyday people. But also, I think in my case, it was just the ’90s and you bought your kids Gushers and Fruit by the Foot. And that's just kind of what you did.Alicia: Right? You fell in love with historical food while working at a living history museum as a teenager and went to art school. I wanted to ask, why did you go to art school?Sarah: Well, I didn't really think history was my career. I ended up at that job because my mom worked there. And so when I turned 16, she was like, ‘You're too old to stay at home all summer. You’ve got to get a job.’ And I was like, ‘Ok, well, I'll apply at Hardee's and work with my friends.’ And she was like, ‘No, you're coming to work for me.’ She was a manager there. So I got the job. And I was, didn't want to. I wanted to go be with my friends and not do this super-nerdy thing of working in a museum in costume. And it ended up obviously changing my life. Mom was right. Because the people that I worked with were such just exceptional, passionate individuals. And for me, I just wasn't in history in high school because you're not really learning about the lives of people. You're memorizing dates, and it's always very war-focused as opposed to any of the life that people led in between, right? You're learning about sort of governments and dates that this happened, duh-duh-duh. There's nothing there that makes you think that history is populated with human beings. Yeah, but museums, like the one I worked at, or probably more famously people know Plymouth Plantation or Colonial Williamsburg, they are focusing on social history. So day-to-day life. And then in the house there that I worked in with my ‘family,’ there was a wood-burning cast-iron stove. And so, that's when I just loved working with the fire and with the stove, with this really kind of simple piece of equipment. And we were also working from historical books, too. I started to get the sense of what that era in history tasted like, and being able to read old recipes like that. But I went to art school because I liked art. And that's what I sort of excelled out when I was in high school. And I was lucky that there was a really, really excellent art school near, far enough away from home that I could move but close enough that I wasn't too scary. So the Cleveland Institute of Art. I didn't know exactly what I was going to do. But that was my plan. And then interestingly, it sort of led me back to food history. I majored in a digital arts major with a fine arts minor in food and—not food, in photo and video, which obviously I do a lot of food photography now. And it was a five year program. So I had to do a thesis project. And so I ended up doing an installation of what today would call a pop up restaurant that served colonial-era food for a contemporary audience. So although after that I sort of dropped it for a couple years ‘cause I was sick of it, it clearly was this combination that I had. I realized I had this sort of unique perspective, because of my—already for a couple years, had worked in this very strange work environment. And that I'd had this background in food and cooking at home, and it just kind of came together as part of this really great program that I was in.Alicia: How has that art education influenced your career and food?Sarah: Hugely.It's funny because when people ask me ‘what I did in college,’ and I say that, ‘I went to art school,’ go like, ‘Oh, you’re really using the degree,’ which is just what people love to say to people who went to art students anyway, which I think is b******t. But I mean, in a very practical way, it has helped me immensely in that as part of my degree I received training in terms of working with freelancers. Working with clients, I should say. So being able to run my own business in a certain—just learning things, invoicing. That was all part of what I was learning. So when I wanted to quit my full-time job and start working for myself, that was much less intimidating. And I designed and launched my own website, because I knew both graphic design and some basic HTML when I first started blogging. Obviously, photography is a huge part of being in the foodie world. Whether you're blogging, or now, of course, a lot more on Instagram, or writing for a commission, you're often required to provide your own photographs. So my photography skills have been hugely helpful. And when I'm sort of working with people who want to get into food writing more, that is often one of the hard, most difficult hurdles, that food writing and food photography are often sort of intertjoined. You're building that Instagram audience. So I'm feel very, very, very lucky to have that background too. But I think in a bigger way, that sort of community and my professors that I work with, it, they encouraged you to think big. To think conceptually, to think of projects. And so, even formulating this idea of back when I got started: what if I did start a food blog and I looked at food history, and used to connect to the present, instead of doing all even the concept of doing this thing that I didn't really have any other—I didn't have a mentor at that point. I didn't have a concept of what my career could look like. Even just thinking about it and getting started on it, I think came from the education that I got in college, too.Alicia: Right.And you moved to New York, where that was—where you kind of got started doing this sort of work. Why was New York the place for that, at that time?Sarah: I mean, I think a couple things came together. I mean, I mentioned to you earlier, too, that really professor—I was in my fifth year, and I'm doing this restaurant. And it’s all very crazy. And he was the one that was kind of like, ‘You need to go to New York. There just isn't space for what you're doing here right now.’I went to school in Cleveland as well. And especially in 2005, when I was graduating, Cleveland wasn't doing great. People were already talking a lot about brain drain and college graduates leaving the Midwest and going to the coasts. It sounds harsh to say there wasn't the opportunity there. Because in a way, I did move back to Cleveland for a couple years, from 2018 to 2021. And it was because there were really exciting things happening here. And actually, because a lot of people had moved, went to the coast, got new ideas, and then brought them back to the Midwest. There's hugely positive things happening in Cleveland now. But I think to me, the tipping point was I'd never lived anywhere else in my life. I’d been on one trip out of the country at that point, which I felt very fortunate for. But my family just didn’t have the money to do a semester abroad or anything. I was working. I was paying for a lot of things myself. And I just thought it was really important to live somewhere else and get a different perspective on the world. And sort of a soft landing, I'd had a couple friends that moved out there the year before. And then really fortunately, I had a professor that said, ‘I'm from New York. I keep an apartment out there. If you ever need a place to stay for a month, just let me know,’ I was like, ‘Actually, thinking of moving there.’ So I had a place to stay when I first moved out there. And then I also then had roommates, and it just sort of happened. And then I ended up spending 13 years there. Alicia: Wow.And now that you've left after being in New York for so long. How has that influenced your work?Sarah: Yeah.Yeah, I was thinking about this the other day, because I really became an adult in New York City. And I do feel kind of douchey now being like, ‘Oh, but I live—I've lived here for a long time.’ [Laughter.] I moved when I was 23. And I left when I was 36. So that to me. I mean, obviously that's a time, a lot of growth. And a really incredible place to do that, as you know, being from New York yourself. But honestly, I decided to leave at the moment when I was really happy. I felt I had done it. I was a success in the city and my life was happy there. And it was the moment that I was happy as opposed to some great disappointment of disaster that I was like, ‘Ok, I'm ready. I'm ready to go. I've done this. I'm ready to go.’So the first move, I decided to come back to Cleveland. My parents were still here. And it was in a way a test to see if my business could exist outside of New York. This was pre-pandemic, moved in 2018. But I moved somewhere that was both close enough that I was still planning on coming back to work every week or two months and seeing if—I mean, God, when I moved to New York City, if you had an out of state or out of city telephone number, you couldn't get a job. There was so much of this very insular—you have to be in New York, have to be a New Yorker. That was the most intimidating part. You'd have seen like, ‘Can I still do events in New York? Will people have any respect for me?’ Obviously, a lot of that has changed since the pandemic. And if there's any positives to come out of it, the fact that you don't have to be located in a certain place, whether you want to be or not to do your job. So it was my first kind of experiment with it. And it did end up being a lot more traveling back and forth to New York, which could be really exhausting. But also part of the reason I moved at that moment to is I knew I was about to start a new book project. And I wanted to try living somewhere with a lower cost of living, and just a different pace of life. And I just knew that I didn't want to live in New York anymore. So I knew there wasn't going to be any sort of big regrets. Just wasn't quite sure what the next step was. So I was in Cleveland for three years. Well, a little more than. I’d said two to three years when I moved out there. But then there was this pandemic thing. I don't know if you heard. And I was really relieved to be there, too, because I could be there and support my parents, which would have been so scary. And I'm sure has been so scary for a lot of people. And like I mentioned to you, I just moved to Las Vegas at the end of August. A great new opportunity came up. I really love the city. I love its natural wonder. And so now, it's a little bit more of seeing like, ‘Ok, a lot of my money comes from doing live events,’ which obviously weren't happening during the pandemic. But it's also become sort of a weird time for doing online classes. People are sick of being online. But I did just come back from New York to try to do first in-person talks and events since the pandemic started. And people are also still a little hesitant to show up in person. All of it's understandable. I'm sick of the loss of connectivity that we get through Zoom too. But it makes total sense. If someone feels under the weather, they're not going to show up for class. Things have sort of hit a weird moment, but I'm just trying to ride it out. Hopefully, one day be able to expand the branded events a little bit more to the West Coast, too. And I don’t know, Alicia. I'm all about learning and experiences. And part of that is just I want to live in a different part of the country so I can understand that better, and maybe sort of understand our country as a whole better, too.Alicia: For sure. And so, I know you started out writing about food as a blogger, you—Four Pounds Flour. How has your relationship to being a food person online changed since you started in the industry? Because it is, like you said now, probably a lot more visually focused than it was. When people were bloggers. You could take a real shitty picture and use it. [Laughter.] Sarah: You're not gonna get those Instagram likes!And that's the coming from art school, too. I wasn't just like, ‘My content has to be good.’ So I didn't really think of myself as a writer. I still don't, in a way. The writing, to me, is a means to an end, a way to have a conversation about food and to express ideas. So coming from art school, it was like, ‘No, my photos are absolutely not going to look shitty.’ I'll tell you this. And bless him. My friend Jay, who I haven't talked to many years—Part of the article process is going through the critique process, which, I think, is honestly one of the most valuable skills I learned there. And so in my fifth year, and I'm in my major, and we're this really tight group of people. And I'm working on opening up this pop up restaurant, I’m and doing a website. And so, I did food photography for the first time. And so I had this critique of my food photographs, and my friend Jay went, ‘That's looking like some Chinese food. China, frankly—’ How do you say it? Some, he said, ‘That's looking like some Chinese fast food menu photographs.’ And I was like, ‘Oh, nooooo.’So it was this real kick in the pants. I mean, I think maybe the closer equivalent is it looks—it looked a little bit more like the collages that you see on the sides of bodegas. That kind of photography I was doing. Because it is a really specific skill to be able to get in there and understand. Just portrait photography, or landscape photography, or animal photography, are all very separate skill sets. Food photography, there are certain tricks that you had to learn. And so I really had to push myself to get better very, very quickly so that I didn't have Chinese takeout slash side of the bodega. Which, by the way, I'm obsessed with bodega collages. And also noticed the aesthetic is changing recently, the last time I was in New York. Maybe that's a different definition. So to me, the visual elements were extremely important. And I knew the food had to look delicious, or at least interesting. Is every photo on that blog that I wrote from—what 2008 to 2018? Is every photo a banger? Absolutely not. But I do feel proud of that. It is super visual. But interestingly, a lot of my work has now shifted away from individual dishes to more broader storytime about food as culture. So my photography has become much more documentarian of the travels I’ll do and the people that I'm meeting, and then the foods that we're eating together.So the transition to Instagram was super natural for me. See, this is the thing. I'm not in Writer Twitter. You're so in Writer Twitter and Food Twitter; I just kind of lurk and retweet. So in some ways, again, even though I have a book out. I’m working on my second book that started as a blogger. I'd never think of myself as a writer. That’s what I try to say when I’m—when somebody asks me what I do for a living. And I don't really want to have a conversation, but it still doesn't work. And they're like, ‘What do you want to write about?’ It's fine. [Laughs.]Alicia: Can you tell me what your next book is about?Sarah: Yeah, I can. So I'm looking at foods that are on the verge of extinction in America. And I traveled all over the country to talk to different people who were the shepherds and the harvesters and the farmers of these different foods. And the reason the foods are becoming endangered are for a variety of reasons. But I think most importantly, that all these foods are tied very deeply to, often, a people and a place. And the peoples that they belong to are peoples that within America have been historically and systematically oppressed. And so, that's one of the ways that America colonizes, is by taking away culture, which means taking away food. And it's looking at what happened, and honestly a lot about the history of American colonialism. But also, the stories of survival. Survival and thriving, too, and how these different peoples throughout America had been able to hold on to these foods, too. And then a little bit of call to action. My hope for this book is that the people and the products that I'm featuring will get the attention, the money, the support that they need and want. Maybe even the legislature. I'm hoping that this book serves these people and serves as a platform for their voices, too. I don't want to get into too much detail because I'm still writing it. Once it’s in the publication process, you can talk and talk and talk about it. But yeah, at this point, someone could probably write it faster than me. I don't think I'm a slow writer. It just takes time, Alicia. You know the work. Alicia: I know. It sucks. It's the worst thing I've ever done. And I am a writer and I hate writing a book. I mean, I hate writing a book because for myriad reasons that I probably shouldn't talk about publicly, but—Sarah: It’s exhausting. I mean, I'll talk about them for you. It's mentally exhausting. It's physically exhausting. I mean, it gives me anxiety. I'm thinking about it all the time for multiple years of one's life. The financial support isn't there. You said something on Twitter that I was like, ‘Same’ so hard that you—Paraphrase. You said, ‘Writing a book takes a lot of thinking. But how do you have time for thinking when you need to pay the bills?’ And that actually, with both of these books, is the hardest part. The money runs out. People are gonna get in advance. Yeah, well, lasts me about eight months of living and doing the research. It all got invested back into the book. I'm not living the high life here. And then you have to work, because you still have bills to pay. So where do you find the time to get the space, not just to write but to think about these ideas of making a great piece of work when you're also doing whatever you need to do to get those bills paid? You're working two full-time jobs when you're writing a book. It’s absolutely exhausting. It’s exhausting.Alicia: Yeah. The third of my advance that I've gotten so far, it wouldn't have paid my rent for two months. Yeah, it sucks. I don't know. I shouldn't have agreed to it.Sarah: It absolutely sucks. And then yeah, I kind of did a second one. ’Cause I was like, ‘Wow, I don't know how to make money.’ And after this, I really have to give it a think. In some ways, I feel guilty, because obviously, this is—What we're talking about is aspirational for probably a lot of people who are listening to this podcast. I mean, I've spent 10 years of my life on two books. And yeah, I'm really proud of my first book. And I think that the second book is going to be something that I'm proud of, too. I've gotten to work with great editors, and we've made something great together. And I think that the book has done something—I think that the big benefit of it, and probably the way you're motivated to do it, is that we can put something good and thoughtful into the world that will—I hope with my first book, too, bettered somebody's life in an indirect way. Just created more understanding around food and culture in America. But man, am I poor. I'm single. I should say to everybody. And happily so. This is where I want to be. Now I live with a housemate, but I was living by myself for a while. And I just read some big article about how society isn't designed for people to stay single who want to stay single. And so, it's really hard. It does feel like, really, an accomplishment every month that I do it where I'm like, ‘Yeah, rent, paid you.’ And it's hard to sort of juggle that between people's perceptions of me. And you probably feel the same way, too, where it's like, ‘I'm successful. I've got a book out. I've got some name recognition.’ I'm not a major food celeb. That's totally fine. But I think people need to look at what I'm doing. They're like, ‘Yes, that's what I want to be doing.’ But everybody—Phew. It's tough some days. It's a real haul. And I don't want to say that love makes up for money. To get through those times of real stressful uncertainty, you really have to be—love and be invested in what you're doing. So definitely after this book, I have to really think about what I want the next step of my career to be because it's just incredibly exhausting. This will be another five-year process from proposal to publication. The financial stress is real. The artistic physicality of writing a book is really draining and uncertain and difficult on your sort of mental health. But I got to meet amazing people and do amazing things that I wouldn't have had the excuse to do otherwise. And I think that that's the addiction and the appeal that keeps bringing me back. If I pitch this book, that means I get to go to this place and meet these people and meet them on their level and in their space and in their life. And to me, that is really—it's the access that being a writer gives you, both that people might be open to speak to you but also the allowance it gives myself to be like—I went to the Navajo Nation and volunteered at a festival that celebrates the Navajo-Churro sheep, and assisted this cook and butcher in butchering a whole animal. I'm sorry. Course you're vegan. [Laughter.] I forgot about that. I’m so sorry.Alicia: I’m a vegetarian, it's ok. [Laughs.]Sarah: Oh, I actually am too. But for me, learning about, meeting people where they're at is also about learning about their food in every single aspect. I had never butchered an animal before. And especially someone who has eaten meat and does still occasionally eat meat, I feel—I've always felt that experience is really important to be with that animal. But I never, I'm not just gonna pick up and volunteer fly to Arizona and then drive for hours to volunteer at a sheep festival. And I do want to do that. If someone asked me if you want to do that, it’d be like, ‘Absolutely.’ But writing it in this book allowed me to do that. And now, I've met people that I feel so connected to. And I'm just rambling now. But, yeah.This book is really special. I feel connected to the people that I interviewed and spent time with in a way that I didn't get to do in the first book. And in this really meaningful way. So that's amazing. That's a moving life, right?Alicia: [Laughs.] It is great. I am too bitter about the book process. But I also like to talk about it because I do feel as writers, we feel a little bit like we owe it to the fact that we make a living being writers to be nice about it. And I think that that's not fair necessarily to people who are coming up and get a, an idea of it as something—I grew up looking at magazines and looking at the contributor page and being like, ‘These people are living the great life.’ And now, I know that that's not true. [Laughs.]Sarah: It’s f*****g hard.And you really have to fight to get paid. I mean, especially now, both the amount of money paid for both articles and books has just dropped in the past 10 to 20 years. And a lot of it comes from online. For some reason, when your words live online as opposed to on the page their value’s less. Which doesn't make any sense. I'm gonna write just as good, no matter where that's appearing. And I don't think that the publishing industry as a whole actually supports great art right now. I mean I appreciate that every publisher has got a couple authors that's making bank, and that they're essentially taking the gamble. It's literally gambling on us, where they're investing money. And they're gonna see if they get their investment back. But I have been with two publishers now. I have never felt financially supported. My third publisher, I feel supported in many other ways. But money is one of the most important ways to be supported. And I also don't like this culture of you’re an artist, you can't talk about money. I got bills to pay. I got food to buy. How do you have space to create good work when you don't feel secure in those things?I teach a nonfiction book proposal and publishing process class with a friend of mine who published an amazing book about bedbugs. She's a science writer. And one of the things we talk about is we're also very brutally honest about what this process is like, what your financial situation is going to be like, especially as a new author. Unless you were already a super famous name, you're not going to be pulling in the big bucks on your first book. The fact that you might never see royalties. My first book, Eight Flavors, has done really, really, really well. I have not seen a dollar. That being said—and this will, I think, happen for you Alicia—is the best part about it, maybe even more so than the getting to go out and connect with people, not writing the book, is that then for at least a year after the book comes out, you get to talk about it. You get to engage in this conversation that you don't have to give any introduction to, because people have read the book. And you can engage with people about these concepts. After the first book, I got to travel for almost two years. There's no official book tour. People are surprised about that nowadays too. But now, they'll do a media tour. But for certain authors, public speaking becomes a part of your job. And I got to speak in a huge diversity of places. And that was really amazing, getting to talk to people about this work that I had done and have these conversations that I've wanted the book to prompt feels so good. And then that, for that one year, you're also just in the money. There's just money coming everywhere. And then you’re like, ‘You know what? I could do this again. I could do this again.’ And the cycle just repeats. And now, I'm 40. So this is why we have to figure things out going forward. But when your book comes out. It's going to be amazing. You're going to have great conversations and—about something that I know you're really passionate about, too. And then that will make you start to think you can do it again. And then you might.Alicia: Ha! [Laughs.] The next one will be very, very different. But in your book that actually is out there that people could buy and read, and hopefully get you royalties, Eight Flavors: The Untold Story of American Cuisine—Sarah: But in the end, I don't care enough. Now that the work is out there, it's like, ‘Get it from your library. Buy it secondhand. Borrow it from your friend.’ To me, in the end, now that the work exists, the money part, in my mind, should not be on the reader. It should be the publisher, right? And the full system that doesn't support artists. Now the book exists. Don't steal it. Don't steal this book. Buy it from a small, independent bookstore, if you want to. Yeah, get it from your friend’s shelf. I don't care if you enjoy it.Alicia: I actually did buy yours second hand at Unnameable Books in Brooklyn. Or was it Book Revue in, on Long Island? I don't know. But it has the price in pencil, so I know I bought it second hand. [Laughs.]Sarah: I'm totally fine with that. I think that’s lovely.Alicia: [Laughs.] But I wanted to ask how you came up with parameters for your definition of American cuisine.Sarah: Yeah, I mean, I think that that's the idea that I wanted to play within this book, because I think American cuisine is famously difficult to define, right? And if people do define it, it's in this really negative way. ‘Oh, it's all McDonald's, all hot dogs and hamburgers, or whatever.’ And I think that internationally, that's often what people think of American food. And I think that Americans often do that to themselves. When, in my experience, I find quite the opposite, that there's a lot of worry about American food becoming homogenized. But it's so often that I'm doing an event and people will come up and be like, ‘Oh, have you tried this local dish? And do you know about this thing? And if you go to this restaurant–’ People are so immensely proud of their local culture and cuisine. So I think a lot of American food is based on physically, graphically, where you grew up. And then of course, I think that saying American food is hot dogs and hamburgers presents a very narrow and, dare I say, racist view of who an American is. Because I'm an American. You're an American. Someone whose family immigrated from China in the 1840s is now fourth, fifth, sixth generation American. Someone who came from India in the 1960s is American if they want to define themselves that way. So it's both a, you mentioned the word sort of erasure when we were talking about this. Using that narrow definition of American is erasure of all of the facets and complications of who Americans are, right? That being said, the fact that—acknowledging the fact that we were a really diverse country, I then got curious about how individual ingredients. What cook doesn't have black pepper and  vanilla in their kitchen? So how can someone come from this huge variety of backgrounds—And I mean, when you travel around this country, it often felt like I wasn't going to different states. It feels like I'm going to different countries that both have their own idea of like, ‘This is what America is,’ but one state over, it's completely different. And they’re speaking a different language one state over, too. So why, then, are there these handful of ingredients that both define us and that Americans consume in massive levels compared to the rest of the world? Why do we have a particular love for these? I think American cuisine can be delightfully undefinable. I think that the idea of cuisine, of a certain way of eating and doing things has a more specific definition. And I think then there can be lots of arguments about what is or isn't American food. And I think that that's all a fun, interesting conversation to have. But so, then I got curious about what does unite us? And apparently it's a few pantry items. And why.Alicia: Right, right. Which is so interesting. And I loved when you wrote about Food Network. Again, as a person who, born in the mid ’80s, watching Food Network, reading Food & Wine, reading Travel + Leisure as a kid was how I understood food other than what my mom was cooking. And you point to how they kind of led to this increase in sales for whole black peppercorns versus powdered. And I think that that's such an interesting thing, because we don't think in the U.S.—Or even I, as a food writer, it's difficult to talk about what ingredient people use that is actually, I don't know how to sit—But people don't use things in their whole forms necessarily in an American kitchen. It is a rare thing to grind your own coffee or grind your own peppers. But for whatever reason, whole black peppercorns really became a thing. It was a joke on SNL that, the huge waiter with, the waiter with the huge pepper mill. ‘Tell me when.’ [Laughs.]But people take for granted the whole peppercorns now. But I wanted to ask, I don't think it's Food Network anymore that's influencing how people eat. What do you think is influencing how people eat now?Sarah: That's a great question. I mean, the Food Network stepped in to fill such a gap that wasn't, that was there. A lot of food magazines, at that point, even in mid ’80s were super high end, let's say. Or very, very low end, Budget recipes. And the Food Network just sort of normalized cooking, and normalized olive oil. And just these whole and fresh ingredients that weren’t out of reach in any way, that you could get at your grocery store, that it didn't cost that much more money that we weren't using. It sort of leveled up home cooking in a lot of ways too. Even for people who mostly were just watching it, as opposed to try and replicate every recipe. I mean, I think that the major food influence right now is Instagram. And I think that there is some negative aspects to that, in that ugly food is delicious. And Instagram really only elevates beautiful food and incredible colors. I try not to be a crabby, elder millennial. Just hates things ’cause they're new. But something really bothers me about venues that are clearly just setups for Instagram pictures. You know what? I just like honesty and logic in any viewing. And so, I don't want food to be set up so that it looks good on Instagram. And I see that in retail and restaurants. They're like, ‘Well, this is going to be our Instagrammable dish.’ But then on the flip side,then I’ll get that. I'm like, ‘Oh, it's gonna be such a tight Instagram photo. I’m sure I’m gonna love it.’ So in some ways, it can be a really negative influence, I think, ‘cause if we're just thinking about—Obviously, we do eat with our eyes. But if we're just thinking about the visuals, we're missing the whole ugly, delicious panoply of amazing foods out there. That being said, it has sort of a positive things, too, because a lot of those really vibrant colors are coming from East Asian ingredients. And so, now things like ube and matcha—Matcha, I did predict being an up-and-comer in Eight Flavors, but I never would have called ube being a thing now, which is not only beautiful, but really delicious. And so, even though I think there can be some negative aspects to just judging food visually, I think that it has allowed us to not ‘ew’ when something is an unexpected color, which I think is a very Midwest, white Midwest, to do, to be like, ‘Eww, why is it that color?’ I think that embracing the beautiful, the beauty in food that often comes from around the world. And I would say particularly East Asian countries do these incredible exclamations of color with their ingredients and flavor and appearance and trompe l’oeil, and all these amazing presentation things that I love seeing embraced in American food, because that also means that those people are being embraced as Americans.Alicia: Right.Well, that leads me to my question of so many of the ingredients in the book are so many ingredients that we have come to kind of consume in the U.S., aren't indigenous to the U.S. And so, you write that in the conclusion that it's our lack of tradition that is allowed for this diversity. And of course, diversity is good in every aspect, but at the same time, I'm always wondering now, what is the difference between assimilation and erasure of origins of food. And what is lost when something becomes American versus retaining its identity at origin? One thing I've been talking about with my husband because he's applying for PhD programs right now in history, and he's going to focus his research on rum and Puerto Rico. And we were talking about people calling coquito ‘Puerto Rican eggnog.’ And then talking about how is that erasing the idea that it probably has roots that are deeper than U.S. colonization and industrial canned products coming. But it's so hard to find that. But then the story ends up just being like, ‘It's eggnog with coconut.’And especially now that you're writing about Indigenous foods, but what is that difference between assimilation and honoring origin? Sarah: Yeah, couple things to comment on. And I'll see if I can start on a larger thought here. I do think that assimilation and erasure are the same thing. I think that when, we are for a large part, especially the last 100 years being an immigrant nation. And so when someone comes here and you say, ‘You have to speak English, you have to cook this way, you have to dress that way.’ That is both assimilation and erasure. And I think that's a horrid concept. And I think that it's a way that, luckily, immigrants have been able to resist in different ways, too. But I spent many years working at the Lower East Side Tenement Museum teaching immigration history about the Lower East Side, but in this broader way. And we did these tours in a way that we could also learn from the people's experiences on the tour. And maybe one of the most heartbreaking things that got sent to me said to me pretty frequently is that someone whose parents were, for example, whose grandparents are from Italy would talk about how they were so sad that they didn't know how to speak Italian because their grandparents would not speak it in the house. They’d refuse to and they're really upset they didn’t get that cultural connection, but then will turn around and talk about how immigrants from Central America don't want to be American and don't want to speak English. And luckily, I had a job where I could call people out. That was part of the process of like, ‘Oh, didn't you tell me earlier that you duh-duh this?’ So I hate that turning around and shitting on the next person, because it just means that we all sort of lose. And luckily, because of the stubbornness of Italian immigrants, we have this really incredible Italian American food way here to go get, to experience and enjoy. But one of the downsides, though, of having a culture that is made up of people all, from all over the world coming to this country, is that we also have erased Indigenous foods and Indigenous ingredients. And that was done purposefully, again, because the American colonial government wanted to come in and take that land, and just push Indigenous peoples into the least desirable sections, or in some case, people—It's an incredible story where people were able to stand their ground and stay, remain on their sacred land. In the face of the deception, manipulation and violence of the American government, that was a very, very difficult thing to do. So we have an incredible number of native ingredients and spices, plants. And in some ways, it has spread all over the world, like tomatoes, and peppers. But I'm seeing a resurgence of American spicebush, which is a native spice from the Midwest and the East that has notes of clove and nutmeg and allspice in it, that's just a plant I could probably go into the woods and find right now. But we’re totally unaware of it, because it wasn't cinnamon. It wasn't these spices that were revered in Europe.That being said, too, Indigenous people have also adapted and brought in new ingredients and new animals and new ways of living. Indigenous people in the Americas are incredibly adaptive. And so, they took the best parts of the colonist’s culture and the parts that suited them, and then made that a part of their culture too. So of course, all of modern Mexican cuisine, a lot of that has to do—I guess the biggest thing I can say is that the Americans didn't have many domesticated animals. And so, that was one of the biggest ways that Indigenous people's lives changed. And Indigenous food changed here, too. But of course, also, there's no way we can also say, ‘Well, that's not real Indigenous food.’ For example, coming back to the Navajo. They've been shepherding the Navajo-Churro sheep for 400 years. So we also tend to have different ideas of tradition. If a white person does something for 100 years, it’s traditional, but if a native person does something for 400 years, it's like, ‘Oh, we just took that from the colonists.’So all that aside. I think that there's also a really positive ways to think about it. Because we are such a jumble of people, both in our country and our cities, we get to look in each other's cooking pots and go to someone's house to experience a new recipe, or Google a restaurant in our neighborhood. So there is also this mutual sharing of food, and I think in particular flavor. It's always like, ‘What is that spice? What is that ingredient?’ And I think that's why I was drawn to looking at individual flavors, individual ingredients, because often it's not necessarily the whole dish that comes into our broader culture at once. It's the sriracha sauce or it's the cardamom. It's this introduction of something that's new that we begin to play with. And when I say American, too, its broad American culture. You see that same kind of playing with a new ingredient for someone who is white Midwestern, or Mexican descent in the southwest. It is this broader idea of a grilled cheese sandwich is delicious, probably no matter where you're from, so that everyone gets to play as opposed to the dominant culture, I think. And maybe think about it as more mainstream than dominant. Alicia: No, no, that's super fascinating. And I think that that's a really great way of thinking about it. Because I do think that the conversation has been really skewed, especially online and food conversations around, what is cultural appropriation? And a lot of people will say, ‘Oh, does this mean I can't cook tacos in my house if I'm not Mexican?’ And it's like, ‘No, of course. That's great. Everyone should eat tacos.’Sarah: Just don’t claim you invented the taco!It seems very simple in some ways, right? I mean, one class I taught, I wish I'd gotten this woman's name. But we were talking about the importance of attribution. And we're talking about it specifically in just recipe writing. I was like, ‘Even if you were just inspired by somebody else, why wouldn't you attribute that person and create a community? Why is there this pressure that we have to—No item of food is new. It's all inspired. No item of art right is new. It's all inspiring to be something else.’And this writer in my class turned to me and said, ‘When in doubt, shout it out.’ And I was like, ‘Yeah, when in doubt, shout it out.’ If you're worried that you’re appropriating someone's culture, shout it out. Credit somebody. But also, if you're worried that you're appropriating someone's culture, maybe don't do whatever it is that you're about to do. Is this appropriation? It probably is. I think that cooking within someone's culture is an incredible way to learn about someone else's life and mode of living, especially at a time when we can't travel very much right now, right? Because it's not just the food and the flavor. It's the process of making it that teaches you about how other people live. And that's an incredible bond. And interestingly, speaking of American erasure and assimilation, food is often the thing that people are the most prejudiced against. 100 years ago, we stopped eating garlic, because Italian and Jewish immigrants smelled like garlic. And that was seen as a negative. The ’80s or the ’90s, kids coming from India or South Korea, or opening up their lunchboxes and getting the ‘ew’ and all they want is Lunchable. So there's definitely that side of it. But at the same time, those same kids grow—Italian food exists because of stubbornness. We have an incredible amount of Korean food, Korean American food now. There's also a stubbornness in giving up our food culture that then ultimately benefits everyone. It's one of the things that almost a dominant culture allows people to maintain. But also, thankfully, it's one of the ways that we can make incredible connections with people, even if we don't speak their language or believe in the same faith. Sitting around the dinner table, experiencing those foods, we all taste, we all eat, we can all talk about food. And it's really an amazing thing. Alicia: Right.And I wanted to ask, because working on my book, a lot of narratives around vegan and vegetarian food for the last 50 years, has—it's been historicized as a white thing, which is just so wildly inaccurate. Even within the United States, this is—there is diversity in people who eat ‘alternative natural foods’ or eat a vegetarian diet. And I wanted to ask, how do you—what are your techniques? What are your methods for helping you see beyond the narratives of the dominant culture, or the dominant historical narrative? Because also, a thing that is perpetuated because we're creating so much content online. I've perpetuated this myself, is that we're just writing stories. And we're grabbing a random source, and we're just repeating it. So as someone who's actually digging into history, what is, what are some good resources? What are some good techniques for not just perpetuating stories that are incorrect?Sarah: Yeah.I think that the biggest way I want to frame this is just because they're the easiest source to find, doesn't mean that they're the best source. Going into the book that I'm currently writing, someone is going to perceive this as racist. But here I go. I wanted to make an effort to include as few white men as possible, because when you do a Google search for anything, the first hits that people with the most media attention, that people with maybe the most sort of money and power and businesses, are going to be white men in this country, because they are the dominant people and have been for a very long time. Does that mean that that white man is the best resource for you? It absolutely doesn't. So the easiest, the most powerful, even the most written about person may not—and in fact, probably is not the best person to talk. Does that mean never talk to any white guy ever? No. Absolutely not. There are white guys in this book. But just making that promise to myself made me keep pushing and not be satisfied with the first answers that I got. Because even in maybe that first phone call with that white guy, they start talking about other people who have inspired them or who they support or who they're linked to. If I just stop at that one phone call, I wouldn't get to all those other people that actually that guy thinks is really important to talk about. There was an Amazon review for my first book, which you should never read. But of course I did. And someone said, ‘It seems like she went out of her way to be inclusive in this book.’ And the answer is, yeah. [Laughter.] Yeah, I did. But also, I also wanted to tell the real history, which is an inclusive history. That's why I study food history, because looking at what we eat finally allows us to access the stories of women and people of color in a way that traditional histories do not. And traditional histories are several generations of both saying that white male history is the only important history, and also because only white men were allowed to do things for so f*****g long in this country means that we never get to acknowledge that everybody else was there too. That we were all there at the same time. So my advice is to keep pushing. Don't go with the first Google search. Don't go with the first phone call. Keep pushing till you find the person you're like, ‘Whoa, this is it. This is where the story is. This is how I can understand this deeper.’That being said, I think part of the issue is that the money doesn't support that kind of writing, whether things get repeated again and again online because maybe you're getting 100 bucks or $150 to write your 250, 500 or 800 word. Or maybe you’re not not getting any money, because you're trying to break into the industry. So when you are making negative dollars per hour to write an article, of course, you're going to take that first Google search. And of course, you're on deadline. And of course, your editor just pressure you to copy something else if they're not a very good editor. So that's how those stories get supported. So it also takes a certain denial of like, ‘Oh, man, if I didn't do this much work, I would be more financially stable.’ But that's also just not the right thing to do. So it really is a battle and it's not easy, and the system is not supporting good journalism right now. That I think is the biggest issue.Alicia: No, absolutely. Well, for you is cooking a political act?Sarah: I've been thinking about this a lot as I know this is your question. I think for me, it is a cultural act, which is a political act in its own way. When we cook, when we cook from home, when we cook within our own cultures, it is an act of preservation. It can be an act of defiance. I mean, sort of speaking about veganism, a friend of mine who is a devoted vegan, which I really do respect, said, though, that he thought that everyone was gonna eat this way in the future and this is definitely the way that we should be going. And at that point, I had just come back from the Navajo Nation. And I'm like, ‘You're gonna go to these Indigenous people and tell them that they can't eat meat anymore, because it's bad for the planet, despite the fact that this particular animal has been a part of their culture and their religion for 400 years? So that's not like a colonizer attitude at all.’ So I realized at that moment that food is religion in a lot of ways. It can be directly tied to religion, but it is such a big part of culture to march in and tell someone you can't eat that way, is—it's really destructive. That can be erasure, too.So just, I think sometimes living your life and eating the foods you want to is this political act, but I think that most people would see it as a cultural act. An act of preservation. And especially around the holidays, that is the time when even people who are maybe many generations removed from an immigrant or enslaved or colonist ancestor, that's when they're cooking the foods to reconnect to that story and to their own history.Alicia: Thank you so much, Sarah.Sarah: My pleasure! Yeah, I got really riled up about some things. [Laughter.] I may have offended some people. It's probably fine. This is a public episode. Get access to private episodes at www.aliciakennedy.news/subscribe

As states ramp up their efforts to distribute broadband funding, policymakers will need data to help them identify the areas of their state that are in dire need of investment. On the latest edition of Two Think Minimum, Scott Wallsten, Sarah Oh, and Nathaniel Lovin discussed TPI's broadband mapping initiative, which aims to put existing metrics into context and provide decision-makers with actionable intelligence. By harnessing the power of cloud computing, TPI's broadband map allows users to seamlessly combine datasets and arrive at insights that would have been impossible to glean from a single source.

The Skeptical Witch Youtube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWYaJlQZ7zGSfJv-INEgo1A www.obscureclouds.com   S3E6 TRANSCRIPT:----more---- Mark: Welcome back to the Wonder: Science-based Paganism. I'm your host Mark. Yucca: and I'm Yucca. Mark: And today we have a really exciting episode. We are interviewing Sarah, the skeptical witch who has the skeptical, which channel on YouTube. And it's just a super interesting, fascinating person for us to introduce to our listeners. So welcome, Sarah. Sarah: It's really great to be here. Thank you guys for having me on.  Yucca: And thank you for joining us. So we were trying to narrow down all of the things we could talk about before we started too, before we pressed record, because it sounds like we could spend about five hours just going over everything, but why don't we start, Sarah? Will you, will you introduce yourself? Let us know a little bit about you, about your channel and about who you are and what you're doing. Sarah: Yeah, sure. So I'm yeah, Sarah, the skeptical, which on YouTube I also have a blog of scare clouds and that was kind of like my, my beginning of like kind of putting my, my practices with like witchcraft and paganism online. It started with that blog and both that, and my channel kind of came out of a synthesis of my own spiritual practice and kind of what my academic interests are. So, I first came to like witchcraft and paganism through academia actually through like a school project that I was doing. and kind of fell into it that way and started to craft my own practice. Out of that, out of what I was learning out of the kind of communities that I was engaging with. And I was a student in anthropology for my undergrad and my masters. And within that, I started to engage with like various peg in witchcraft community is, and a lot of, a lot of, kind of like what I was experiencing. There was a very, I guess, Wu or like, You know, SU superstitious or like magical these kinds of things that we, that we might say about it. And didn't really necessarily find that there had to be that kind of connection there. So I kind of began to craft my own kind of like skeptical witchcraft practice and a more like naturalistic kind of paganism or like non-theistic paganism as well. And that just kind of grew into to what I put online now. And I just kind of documented my journey through that and try to combine my, what I'm learning with my, my own practice and Yeah.  Yucca: And was there something that really drew you to the pagan stuff when you were doing your master's and undergrad? Sarah: Yeah, I think well, first of all, the kind of the nature aspect of it was what really, really drew me in. I didn't start studying paganism intentionally. I kind of went into studying alternative, like spirituality with a focus on like new age practices. And from there kind of discussed. Paganism and Neo paganism and these things. And I found that to be really, really fascinating and, and just something about it really clicked with me. So in a kind of an anthropological sense in doing ethnography you'll, you'll often, you know, join in with various community rituals and things. So it was joining in all these rituals. I was talking to all these people. I was learning all about the religion and that, yeah. It just, I felt like the nature part, especially really just clicked with me as well as the kind of like self-improvement aspect of it and the kind of like inner exploration and transformation and things like this. So that was what really drew me in and kind of, got me hooked, I guess.  Mark: you know, it's interesting as you say this, because it seems as though naturalistic paganism is something that just gets invented over and over and over. You know, so many of us have kind of created our own and then discovered that there were other people out there who are also doing it. So it's it's kind of wonderful that way. It apparently there is, there's something out there to be found in the wedding of a naturalistic worldview and a scientifically skeptical mindset with a nature earth worshiping or revering kind of practice. So tell us a little bit about your approach to your witchcraft, to the sorts of ritual. And I don't know if you call it spell work or not, or. That's tough. So the practical kind of implementation stuff.  Sarah: Yeah. So, yeah, I guess I do like what I call like skeptical witchcraft and it has a lot of overlap with like atheistic or like secular witchcraft as well. So like you said, there, there were a lot of people like doing this at the same time that I just didn't really like realize we're doing it and it, it kind of took me a while to find that. So it's cool that like, so many of us have kind of been like crafting our own practices. And there's a lot of like similarities there. So, so yeah, my like my particular approach to it is yeah. Using things like spells or like divination or ritual things that would be kind of in a more mainstream witchcraft practice and kind of taking the. I guess the more like supernatural magical elements out of it. So for me, it's largely psychological the way that I approach my witchcraft. So it's, it's largely about you know, setting intentions and like manifesting these intentions, not through transforming like actual physical reality, like out there in the world, but through kind of changing my own mindset, the way that I think about things improving my confidence in a lot of circumstances, you know, changing the way that I see things so that I can then change my own reality. Right. So it's Yeah. less about kind of changing the external world. And a lot of it has to do with like the placebo effect as well as kind of like a suspension of disbelief. And then I also kind of, I don't practice, like what's called chaos, magic and witchcraft necessarily, but like I do like the kind of idea coming out of chaos magic that belief can be used as a tool. And it's not so much necessarily like explanations that matter, but experiences that do. So sometimes I will use that like suspension of disbelief to kind of like allow myself in the moment to like believe in the reality of magic, believe in like the reality of stereotypes or, or something. And, and use that to, to benefit me, even if I like rationally know, like, like that kind of underlying level, that it's not actually true. It's, I'm using belief in the moment as a tool to, to kind of create these experiences and allow myself to to have those really like transformative moments.  Mark: Yeah, that's, you're, you're really singing our tune here. there's, there's so much power in that suspension of disbelief and the acting as if, you know, we, we all talk about the imposter syndrome, how we find ourselves in these roles where there's this voice in us going, I don't really know how to do this. How did they give me this job? Right. And that, that acting as if makes us able to do the job and to grow into the ability to do what we were, you know, what what's expected of us. I, I just think that all of that stuff is so fascinating and it's very similar to the way that I do my own ritual practices at my, at my focus or alter and in rituals, out in the world, Yucca: Can we, can we come back around to, to the too skeptical? Right? So you've got the skeptical, which, and what does that part mean to you? Right. So what is it to be a skeptic or skeptical? Because that has some strong connotations, that word in our, in our culture. So how are you using that? Sarah: Yeah, for Sure I guess that's just like where I was coming from it with with the skeptical idea was kind of just always questioning things. Never, just kind of accepting things like at face value, always having that like kind of inquisitive mind. And I think that that's important when it comes to like, you know, anything really. So like whether it's the supernatural or whether it's, you know, mainstream science, like, I think it's always important to be kind of asking questions and, and having like a skeptical outlook and not necessarily in like a negative way, but I think that that can be a positive. But then, yeah. But on the flip side, I also do kind of. I think that embracing mystery and sometimes knowing when to stop asking questions can also be a good thing as well. And I do try to find that balance too.  Yucca: Nice. Mark: skeptical, but not cynical. Sarah: Yeah. exactly. I like.  Mark: Yeah. So, you, the, the other part of, of introducing you is that you are a PhD camp. And religious studies and you're doing your work on naturalistic, paganism and naturalistic religious paths, which is so fascinating. I mean, if, if I had, if I were in grad school again, if it were 30 years ago or whatever it was that is a direction that I almost certainly would have gone. So I'm really interested in what you're learning and what those experiences are and what, how that's changing your perspective on the world. And what's important. All that kind of thing.  Sarah: Yeah,  Mark: There. Wasn't a question in there. I'm sorry. I. Sarah: No, no. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm, I'm very happy that like, yeah, I guess the state of. Yeah, academia right now is such that I. can kind of study these more like obscure topics, things that probably would have been like laughed at like 15 years ago. So it's cool that this is becoming more and more acceptable. And actually one of the one of my committee members has actually studied atheopagan in the past as  well. So it's really interesting to know that it's kind of, spreading within the academic world as well. Yeah. So yeah, I'm, I'm really interested in my own personal research is probably going to be focusing on the connection between like religion and science and the environment. And these are topics that are sometimes discussed in relation to one another, but never like all three of them usually, like there isn't much kind of discussion around the intersection of all three of those. So that's kind of where I'm hoping to fill a bit of a gap. And I guess I'm really interested in like the question of secularization and like how that's transforming religion and religious meaning and spirituality and how. How people find transcendence and kind of, meaning beyond the individual ego within the modern secular world. And one of the ways that people are finding that is, is through nature now. And that's kind of replacing more traditional, like organized religion or like church structures nowadays. So that's yeah, that's the one kind of aspect of it. And also just how, like, even scientists are reporting feelings of like transcendence kind of just in the lab, looking at, you know, natural phenomena or astronauts kind of looking at it, or having these moments of awe and like, really like spiritually profound moments. So I'm really interested in, in how transcendence and like that experience is shifting and changing today. And Yeah. Also considering contested relationships that exist between like religion and the environment, and also like science and the environment. And so, and, and also religion and science, like for a lot of people, religion and science seem to be like polar opposites and that's not necessarily the case and religions like atheopagan ism and other forms of religious naturalism are really like challenging that binary. And it's just kind of interesting to explore how things are really shifting today.  Mark: Yeah. I, I find it fascinating, you know, kind of, you know, Yucca and I are both kind of in the middle of it because we're kind of working to get, put this out into the world. And to me, it just seems so natural now. I mean, I think when I was first exploring these ideas, religion and science were kind of bashing against one another, but when I stopped. Looking at it that way they seem to dovetail very well. And that, that sense, I don't really like the word transcendence very much except for sort of transcending the individual into some, you know, larger state of some consciousness of, of connection and place in the universe. It seems to me that what's happening is we're moving into an era of spiritual agency where people are able to choose their own paths rather than having them kind of force fed to them. And what they're going back to is what is most inspiring and nature is what is most inspiring and space. I mean, space is very, very inspiring. It's part of Yucca: nature, right? Nature. Yeah. It's all connected. Right? We liked it as humans. We like to separate. Okay. This is chemistry. This is physics. This is space. This is neat, but no, like it's all connected, right? Yeah. Sarah: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Mark: So I think this is a very exciting time to be getting involved with these questions. And there are a lot of people out there who are hungry for this. Have so many experiences of it on the atheopagan doesn't Facebook group of people coming in and saying, you know, I had no idea that anybody else felt this way. And I thought I was the only one and I found my people and this is just the most wonderful thing. And it, it makes, it makes me imagine a world. Where people could be taught from a young age that their spirituality is their own and they could be taught ritual skills so that they can sort of discover for themselves what's meaningful. I find that the further I go down this path, the more my vision of the world is veering away from the way it actually there's a lot of change that needs to happen. Sarah: Yeah. Yeah, no, that's an interesting point though. And I think that that's like a really wonderful vision for the future too. And I do wonder, like, as someone who studies like alternative spirituality, like I do see things kind of going in that direction in some sense. So like a lot of like American spirituality today is, is very individualistic and it's criticized for that in some ways, but it can also be a good thing and that it's, you know, it's more about discovering what works for you and you know yeah, exactly. Like kind of giving you the, the, the tools for ritual and then kind of letting you discover what you will with that.  Yucca: Hmm. So Sarah, how does one go about studying and researching these topics? Because these are amazing questions, but w where does one even start? Right? This is such a huge, huge field, right? Sarah: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So, I'm actually in the midst of doing my my comprehensive exams right? now. And I just did my general comprehensive exams and I'll be moving into my field comprehensive exams. And so I'm going to be studying kind of my committee is just going to put together a large list of books for me, like on these topics to kind of give you that, that foundation for, for actually going and then doing the research. And then the research that I'm hoping to do is going to be a mostly online ethnography, I think. So I'll be hopefully like engaging in various like religious naturalist kind of communities online and learning about it from the people who actually practice it. Like the, the secondary research is important. But it's, it's really that primary research. Define what we learned from this, what I learned from it, I guess.  Yucca: Right. So, so for our listeners, the secondary would be what you're talking about, digging into the existing research, right? Like you're going to learn, read all the books that you can find everything that's out there. And then you're going to do your primary research, which is the unique. Nobody has done this before. You're going to be, go into communities, ask questions, observe, be recording. What you, what you see and hear is that, am I understanding correctly?  Sarah: Yeah. yeah, exactly. Yeah.  Mark: Well, we have a golden opportunity for you coming up in may. If you want to do some field research, we're doing the century retreat in Colorado Springs in may. We would be delighted to have you come and join. A bunch of atheopagan is doing atheopagan things, rituals, fellowship, and all that. Sarah: Yeah, that. sounds fantastic. Yeah,  Mark: I'll send you some information about it. Yeah. Sarah: perfect. Yeah. that'd be great. Thank you.  Mark: You're welcome. Be great to have you there. Yucca: So after, after your, your kind of literature review set part of your studies, then you're going to be coming up with a specific question you're looking for an answer to, that, is that how it works?  Sarah: yeah. Yeah, exactly. So after these exams, they kind of, the literature review. I'm gonna create my, my proposal basically. That will then allow me to go and actually figure out what the answer to that question is. So  Yucca: then you create a lot of literature of your own to add to that body, right? That's part of the process, Sarah: hopefully that's the goal. Yeah.  Mark: and so, and I realized that this is a really dirty question to ask a PhD candidate. What is your vision for what you'll do with this is your plan to go into academia and teach in religious studies or to be a chaplain or to be a naturalistic clergy member of some kind or. Sarah: Yeah. I mean, I, I'm hoping to go into academia further, but unfortunately right now it's, it's it's not looking good for new  Yucca: the changing world. Sarah: Yeah.  So unfortunately, you know, we'll see if that's actually a reality, but I, I do hope to, to write a lot on kind of what I've discovered, like that's kind of my number one passion. And I think that got me into academics in the first place was just a love for writing. So hopefully that's something that I'll be able to do, regardless of whether I actually get hired in a university or not.  Mark: great. Great. You could write the the naturalistic paganism drawing down the moon for the 21st century. It'd be great.  Sarah: Yeah.  Mark: Yeah. I was listening to one of your or watching one of your YouTube videos recently, and you were talking about post humanism and I'm really interested in that because I feel that. a lot of, a lot of how our spiritual orientations are trying to sort of steer the ship of history is in a more nature revering ecosystem, respecting direction. And of course it's very slow, but that perspective of getting beyond humanism, beyond the focus, simply on the human and the benefit to the human and that's, that's not discounting the human as I, at least as I understand it, it's encompassing of the human, but it expands to be so much more. What, tell us about that. That would be.  Sarah: Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah post humanism is kind of like a philosophy worldview or just kind of a an approach to kind of thinking about things. That's very much a reaction against like enlightenment humanism, so that focus on human beings as these like bounded rational subjects that exists in kind of like this isolated world of their own. They're kind of separate from the rest of the world. They're separate from other people. There's an emphasis on dualisms and humanism. So kind of creating that separation between self and other self and world human and, or like nature and culture and postmodernism is just reacting against that and really trying to deconstruct those dualisms. And there's a lot of like that enlightenment humanist kind of thinking, that's still within a lot of our modern systems and like a lot of our modern ways of thinking about things. So, that's, that's kind of where post-feminism is coming from. And it especially plays a role in how I approach, like thinking about the environment and ecology, and also spirituality is like part of that. So, I guess one of the Major kind of criticisms of, of like environmentalism or like conservation ism today. And this is something that you guys can maybe enlightened me about a little bit as well, is that there's a very like subject object. Dichotomous way of thinking about things. So the researcher or like science in general, like this kind of scientific body of knowledge will often be positioned as having this like neutral kind of God's eye view. That's like separate from the actual natural world, separate from things as they are. And, and it's like a very disembodied kind of way of thinking about things that doesn't think about human beings necessarily as, as part of that like natural world. And I guess we see this a lot in kind of like resource management kind of based ways of thinking about ecology and Ways of thinking about it that are very focused on like the economy and things. So I, the post-human approach and like new materialism, which is a part of that. And all of this is kind of part of a of a critique of that and a critique of like, this is a barrier that's really constructed between like nature and culture. And I know that that's like also something that like atheopagan ism is, is concerned with and the, you guys have kind of discussed on the podcast as well. And so. There have been arguments within like science and technology studies or like environmentalism that say we need kind of like a, a spiritual perspective almost to kind of combat that, that divide and to kind of be thinking about forming more like ethical reciprocal relationships with the non-human world in ways that are like actually helpful to both us ans and the non-human world. So, yeah, so I think like a post-human perspective and a spiritual perspective can go hand in hand in that sense. And I, that's kind of how I connect them in my own thinking. So yeah. I wonder what you guys think of other thought as well.  Yucca: Oh so much. Mark: Yes, Yucca: so much in that. Yeah. Sarah: Yeah.  Mark: have no dispute here. Yucca: Yeah. I mean, there was, there was just so, like, I love everything that you were saying and just, you know, my mind just went full of things to comment upon that. My, my original background is in resource management, so, range, ecology and management, and then agricultural ecology before I went into planetary science. So I still actually work as an ecologist and a restoration ecologist specifically for range land. And one of the, the things that I've seen in the field is that a lot of science we're coming from this reductionist point of view and reductionism is really, really helpful and useful way of thinking. It's a tool. And in ecology, we've been starting to move away from that into a more systems thinking emergence, sort of. That starts to see the connections, but there's, there's still more right? There's that the ethics piece that you were talking about, which is what I think things like permaculture tries to address that's guided with the like, oh, let's have, you know, people care and fair share and are sharing all of that. But there's this tricky place where we get into where we run into things like our confirmation bias that we talk about a lot on this podcast that we haven't figured out a way to do really good science and also bring in the, the systems thinking enough, I think because we, we get into this place where we were humans. We're not very good at telling the difference between what we think and what we feel. And we confused my, my emotional response to what this land looks like or what, you know, I believe about this particular animal or that animal. And we kind of let that in. And so I think there's a lot of resistance with scientists of not wanting the, all of that bias to come in. And that's part of, what's like trying to hold back. The let's not think about that side of it because we, we don't want to be doing bad science, but we haven't gotten to the point of where we need to bring more, to expand our understanding of what these systems are kind of rambling here, but yeah, Mark: No, I, I, I, I think what you're saying is absolutely true. And part of the problem is that in the scientific frame, we discount the experiential and subjective Yucca: right. Mark: and the experiential, we discounted to the point that we throw it away entirely. Yucca: Yeah. So we're putting the baby out with the bath water because it's important, but we also don't want it to take over the objective part, right? Mark: Yeah. You don't want to romanticize the, the natural system that you're looking at to the degree that you can't make any decisions anymore about how to relate to it. Yucca: yeah. Sarah: Yeah. Yeah. And I guess kind of like adding to that, like another aspect of post-feminism is giving voice to people's who have been previously silenced by who have not necessarily been considered human because they have not been considered, you know, rational. Communities people. So like indigenous peoples for example and post-feminism kind of is trying to center those voices a little more. And I think that that's also like something in ecology as well, that we're seeing too, like taking these more kind of like spiritual, not necessarily like Western science-based kind of perspectives and applying that to how we understand our relationships with the environment and how they can be improved and things. So, is that something that you've noticed as well? Like maybe more so  Mark: Some  Sarah: ecology today? A little bit.  Mark: it, the challenge that I've experienced, because most of my involvement has been well, there've been kind of two buckets of what I've done. I've done a lot of advocacy, a lot of public organizing and advocacy on behalf of, of nature. And then I've also worked in the restoration field. Basically generating the funding to pay for restoration projects. I'm not designing those projects. That's not my area, but what I've seen, especially on the advocacy side is that there is such complete contempt for the experiential on the part of economic interests. Then it becomes very difficult to even get them in the room. You know, there's the whole NIMBY thing, right? Not in my backyard is an accusation that gets made by everybody who wants to do some God awful earth ribbing project. And their, their response is, well, this is my land. And I want to maximize the economic value that I can get out of it. And it doesn't matter, you know, if it doesn't matter what a complete. Blight on the land. It's going to be, as long as they can quantify that there, they won't have polluted runoff or air quality impacts or any of those kinds of things. You know, the simple fact that something is an abomination, doesn't get into the discussion. Yucca: My, my situation we live in, in very different areas. I'm in Northern New Mexico, which is very interesting cultural area. And there's a lot of, of tensions that are, are, you know, centuries old tensions around land use and management. Because we have, we, we talk about it as being three different main groups, but it's it's much, much more complex than that. So we have the pueblos here, so we've got the tribes and then we have the old Spanish families and then we have the newer Anglos. And then a lot of that land is managed now by forest service and BLM and from almost everyone's perspective, it was stolen from them. So there's a whole. Going on with that. But what I have been often involved with, because again, my area is actually in range. Ecology is dealing with public lands where there will be people with very, very strong ideas about what animals are good and what aren't and what things should look like and what things shouldn't look like. And I think a lot of it is also like they would never admit it, but I think a lot of it is, is racially motivated because the people who are. Ranchers. Aren't Anglo. And so there's a, there's a lot of like people who come in, especially from, other states and Northern, sorry, Northern California can come in with very strong ideas about how the land should be managed and about what's environmentally right. And not, and have a really hard time listening to what the people are saying. And to, to even be able to see that something like a cow could be good, right. If the people have these really strong ideas, they come in with the, like the super vegan bias and all of that. And like, oh, you can't don't touch the land. And it's pristine wilderness and forgetting, but people have been here for thousands of years and people have been here for hundreds of years and that there, that there's there's. There's the science, there's also the way that people manage culturally. And we have to consider all of those things, not just, and also that some of the signs that they're bringing in might not be good science that they're claiming, right.  That they don't understand how ranges work and how these systems work. And so where I live, it's, it's there's just a lot of, of tension and there's a lot of, people trying to work this out and different, cultural groups clashing and not really being able to talk about what's really going on. And it's a lot of, it's very emotional and old trauma and people totally oblivious. And I mean, that's, this could be a whole, it is many, many podcasts. Lots of people do this. But it's a very interesting area. So I know that you, you kind of coming back to your question about do we see that in our fields. That the, there being a, a growing awareness. And I think that there, there is a growing awareness. I see a lot of places where we need the work. Right. It's a very where I live. It's, it's very raw. It's very, very real. And it's right. Like I, you know, I, I don't know if you can hear it, but I, you know, have very strong feelings about it because I look at as a range of colleges, I look at the land and I, and I see that it's, that it's very, very damaged land. But then, you know, it's hard to say that because there'll be people who, who go, but it's so beautiful. Right. You know, leave it alone. Don't do anything. Don't touch it. And then ecologists like myself going, if we don't touch it, we're losing it. Mark: It it'll get covered with star thistle and nothing else. Yucca: or nothing. We're talking about land that has, that is we do not have soil in these areas and they're going, oh no, this is natural. And I'm like, this does not look that this erosion here, like we have to do something and they say, no, no, no humans have messed it up. Humans can't go in and touch it. You know, we we've messed everything up, but it's like, well, okay. But if the broken bone is broken, you need to set that bone. You've got to get involved. Or else, I guess we could let nature take its path in that. And just as in, let it degrade even further and lose even more biodiversity where we can take some steps. Right. so Mark: the big piece that I hear missing from your description of the situation, and it's the same one that I experienced up here is the concept of reciprocity that we have. Responsibilities to land and animals and water and air and trees and all that kind of thing. And that, that w what we take has to be balanced by what we give. And that's just such an alien concept in the west that it, it almost never even gets voiced. Yucca: Well, and, and at least for this half of the continent, I think it it's, we're not at a point of balance. We're at a point of, we need to be giving more because we have such degraded lands and, and being that humans have such short lifespans, we may not recognize that at first, right. We might look out at the west or we might look out at the planes and go, oh, this is beautiful. And it is beautiful, but it's also hurt and sick and we can, we can see that it needs to be that. That it is degrading and that it's going to keep degrading unless we do something. So, Mark: Okay. Yucca: Yeah,  Sarah: yeah, no, for sure. Yeah. And I think that that's also, I guess, I guess like a perspective that could tie into post you as, as well just like kind of going back to that like the, the idea of like pure nature is, is just an illusion and to have that human intervention is not a bad thing. And yeah. And I guess there have been some like, oh, sorry, go ahead.  Yucca: part of nature, right? Like that's showing this idea that like, human shouldn't intervene. Well, no, but, but we're here and at least where I'm sitting right now, we've been here for about 20,000 years, right. Or more, but at least 20,000 years, we know that, right. Like humans, we talk about us as if we're oh, humans intervening, but, but no matter what we do, we're influencing. The system so we can choose what we're like, we're making choices either way. So, and I'm sorry, Sarah. I jumped, I was very excited and  Sarah: Oh no, Yeah. no, no. Yeah. exactly. No, that's a great point. And yeah, it was just going to say, like, this is also something that like, you know, indigenous people, like who have been on this land for thousands of years, like they've, they've known that for, for millennia. And you know, that's kind of where I think listening to these voices can be really important and then kind of learning from that. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: Yeah. And indigenous people, some, some indigenous people have in their history, the experience of the disaster of mismanagement of land, right. There are, you know, abandoned civilizations where, you know, soil got so depleted that it just couldn't produce food anymore. And people had to move out and go somewhere else. The end. That's very powerful lesson, you know, I would think you would learn a lot from having to disrupt your culture that seriously. So I've been thinking a lot lately about vision for the future. I mean, I, I think of atheopagan ism is as having a definite political component to it and and it, and a visionary component for how humans can live with one another and with the earth with the rest of the earth, because we are of course the earth. And I wonder. wonder whether your research is going to move, it will include any like speculation about where naturalistic spirituality is going. Or if you have thoughts about that or, you know, what the trends are that you see happening,  Sarah: Yeah. Yeah, for sure. I think that that's, I mean, like, that's honestly, probably like one of the big questions that my research is going to be asking, because I think that is like a really important question. And I think, you know, what, what I've seen so far is that. What's really important is this shift in mindset that we've been talking about, like kind of moving away from like that, that divide between like peer nature and like human and nature and culture, and like, you know, breaking down those barriers and entering into like more reciprocal relationships with the non-human and kind of seeing it in more of a kinship sense. And I guess, yeah, like one of the big questions that I do want to ask is like, how can religions help us in this? Like it beyond the context of those specific religions, right? Like how can this become more of a, a political or global kind of thing that we're thinking about? And You know, I don't necessarily like have an answer for that yet, but that is something that I do hope to answer. And I think that it's, it's really going to be the people that I talk to or who are going to be answering that. And like, it's going to come out of, you know, seeing, seeing the work that they're doing and the kind of mindsets that they have and the approaches that they take to engaging with the environment and considering how, how we can learn from that in, in a, in a more broad kind of sense. So, yeah, it's definitely an important question.  Yucca: One of the things that you talked about being really interested in was how, how people find meaning and importance and talking about how in, in some of these forms of paganism, like an atheopagan ism and other alternative religions that are more nature-based and science-based how people are, are looking for that meaning. Is that something that, I mean, can you speak to that a little bit?  Sarah: Yeah. Do you mean like from a personal  Yucca: no. Oh, either way, like from a personal sense or things or trends that you've been seeing, I know you're just getting started with your research, but are there particular trends that you're seeing. Sarah: yeah. Yeah, so I think that like in general they're often like when thinking about like modern, secular society from, from kind of a mainstream perspective, there's often been this idea that like, you know, rationalization and like this kind of. The more scientifically become the less and chanted the world becomes. And the less like, meaningful the world becomes an kind of like an ethical or like sacred sense. And I think from what I've been studying, this isn't the case at all, like secularization may cause like, a decline in more organized forms of religion. But I think it also increases religious pluralism and it increases like more kind of individual approaches to, to finding spiritual meaning. And I think that we're also really seeing like a blurring of the sacred and the secular and that's, that's also something I'm really interested in is how you know, things that would have once been considered secular, like nature are becoming very spiritual and people are finding kind of their own version of the divine in that, whatever that may be. Or the transcendent and I don't mean that in like a God way necessarily. I just mean it in, I think kind of what you said, mark, like, something that's bigger than, than you kind of sense or like a, a sense of yeah, just, just meaning that, that goes beyond that, like ego or, or kind of our, our everyday lives that we're caught up in and things like that. So, yeah, so nature is kind of one area even science, sports, you know, also like popular culture and materialism, like even, even that can be like a place where people are finding like maybe not spiritual experiences, but like different kinds of, like, of meaning and, and yeah, if that kinda makes sense.  Mark: Sure. Well, I mean, under, under capitalism, what you accumulate is who you are. So, you know, the, your identity gets all bound up in the meaning of your life. It's all bound up in, you know, your wealth and your possessions. Oh, that kind of stuff. So, I mean, I'm, I really hope we can move away from that because it's incredibly destructive, but there's no doubt that acquisition is something that many people find gives them meaning in their life. And I think that's why we have a lot of people who have kind of a hole in the middle of them. Sarah: Yeah. Yeah, sure, sure.  Yucca: So Sarah, when you, when you speak of secular or secularization, what do you, what do you mean by that? Right. Because a lot of the, cause you're talking about religion, but secular this, it could be a little bit like I'm a little bit confused sometimes on what does that really mean? Right? Is it just not organized religion or is it no religion at all? Is that word changing? Its meaning over time. Sarah: Yeah, for sure. I mean, yeah, that's a good question. I should have addressed that kind of going into it, but it is like a really complex question too. So like secularization, as we generally think about it kind of comes out of like the 1960s sociology and like that general idea was just like a decline in religion in modern society. So that's like, that's the typical way of thinking about secularization is that like, you know, as you know, we learn more about the world and we have kind of more scientific knowledge about the world around us religious religions they were thought anyway to that they would be declining. And, and we're not necessarily seeing that. So. The secular in general is more just like this idea that we live now in a society where, well, the way that I see it anyway, there's many different ways of approaching it, but like it's more than we just, we live in a society where we, where religion is, is an option. Now it's one option among many kind of, so, You know, whereas like 200 years ago it would have been pretty like unthinkable that you weren't religious in some sense. Right. But now it's, it's, you know, it's just an option and belief isn't like the default anymore. And so that's kind of like the idea of the secular as I'm talking about it. And Yeah. So, secularization is also something that I'm going to be kind of looking at in my own research. And it's something that my supervisor is kind of looking at and just like this idea of, we need to redefine what secularization actually is, because we're not seeing this decline in religion. That was that was predicted in, in the way that it was predicted. Religion is changing, but it's not disappearing Yucca: So, was it referring in the beginning when, like not being religious to not being one of like the big three kind of,  Sarah: kind of,  Yucca: religion at all? Cause I know there's been over time, there's been back and forth about what people consider religion. That's one of the things that atheopagan get thrown at them a lot. So he can't possibly be a religion cause you're not, you don't believe in a God. Right. And people have said that about Buddhism and people have said that about, you know, a lot of the Eastern religions or things like that. Sarah: Yeah, no, for sure. It was definitely like thought that kind of yeah, like religion in general and like, just like a religious way of seeing things. So like, I guess in opposed to like a scientific way of seeing things. But also there's no necessarily no necessarily kind of like harsh divide between those things but, but yeah, I guess like secularization in the, in the 1960s, when it was first kind of theorized was, was very much of a, like um, yeah, these kind of main organized religious traditions and they are kind of declining. I think that. but in like an organized sense. more just they're changing, I guess.  Mark: Sure because I mean, the spiritual impulse is something that's baked into us. You know, many of us have kind of culturally headed hammered out of us. Particularly men. I mean, when I, when I look at mainstream men, I they're, they're permitted an effect is so narrow. They're allowed to be aggressive or angry. That's their emotional range. And they've got this work ethic about, you know, work yourself to death and, you know, don't, don't acknowledge when things are going wrong with your body and all that kind of stuff. But it seems as though. Given an opportunity given, given a culture that fosters it, the spiritual impulse is something that pretty much everybody has because it answers big questions about who am I and what does it mean to be alive and how should I live? And, you know, those are, those are important questions to get answered for yourself. So I think this idea from the sixties that we were going to become more and more rational actors in a sort of economic sense it just flies in the face of reality. I talk about this in my book a little bit. You know, the reason that Richard Dawkins is barking up the wrong tree is that he assumes that humans are these rational creatures. If they can just get all that damn religion out of their minds. And we are inherently biologically, not rational actors, the nature of our brains as they evolved, prevent us from being rational actors, which is why science is so valuable because it enables us to kind of filter out the subjectivity as best we can and draw conclusions. But I dunno, I'm ranting now, but I, I just feel like spirituality is something that's always going to be with us for as long as we're human.  Sarah: for sure. And I really like appreciated that part of your, your book was kind of discussing like, that aspect of human cognition that is just kind of inclined towards spirituality or religion, or like finding meaning in some way. And I think it's, it's very true and this kind of assumption that we would just become like overly rational and kind of let go of that spiritual impulse. I think it was kind of fundamentally flood and that's why we're not seeing it. And Yeah. Mark: Well, let me ask this. Is there anything you would like for our listeners to know about you're thinking about, you know, what you're learning that you're you find surprising or edifying or something that really people really need to know? Sarah: That's, that's a good question. One thing that I've just kind of experienced, I guess, just from like, Do we like having this YouTube channel and having a blog and everything and kind of putting what I'm learning online is that my thinking is constantly changing. And I'll go back like, and listen to like a video that I did a year ago. And I'll think like, you know, I still hold some of those beliefs, but a lot of them have changed and it's just kind of constantly changing. And I think that, I guess that's maybe something that I'd want people to know, like if they watched my content. But other than that I guess just the importance of finding your own path when it comes to spirituality and religion and witchcraft. I get like a lot of. Comments from viewers saying that, you know, they, they always felt like they couldn't practice witchcraft or they couldn't be religious because there's just this very, you know, they kind of see the mainstream dominant way of practicing witchcraft or being religious and, and they, they don't see themselves in that. But I think that, you know? having discussions like these and like your, your your podcast and like, your work and everything that kind of goes to show that there are different ways of, of being a Pegan today. And there are different ways of practicing witchcraft and, and being religious. And you don't have to kind of conform to. but what seems to be expected in that sense. And even if people find it weird, even if people find it confusing there is always going to be someone who thinks similarly to you. And it's just a matter of finding that, I think. Mark: But I saw a bumper sticker once it said something like there are others. Go find them.  Sarah: Yeah,  Mark: However alone you feel there are others go find them, Yucca: well, and that's how it always starts. Right? What's normal to us and expected today was weird and strange. And there were just only a few people doing it at one point, right. We, today we can sit here and talk about mainstream paganism. Right? Think about that for a moment. That was not that wasn't something we, that one used to be able to do. Everything was weird and confusing and kind of, you know, looked down the nose at, but now the whole movement is growing and, and it's going to be changing and. And, you know, you can fit into it or not. There's a way that works for you. Sarah: Yeah.  Mark: When WCA has been referenced, recognized by the U S government as a, as an official religion for purposes of the military, that's a, that's a pretty big step. Yucca: Yeah. Sarah: Yeah. Yeah. definitely. Yeah. It's not so fringe anymore.  Mark: Right? Right. Well, you know, do believe that a lot of what's happening with the, the, the rise of the nones, N O N E S in, certainly in the United States has to do with people flocking away from the hardcore right-wing ideologies of many of those religious entities and paganism by and large is not. It's generally something that's much more inclusive, much more tolerant, much more progressive. It's about people developing themselves and being the best people they can be. And it's about a better world. And I, you know, for the same reasons that people are attracted to star Trek, I think they get attracted to, you know, being part of a movement. That's about being better people and being part of a better world.  Sarah: Yeah, definitely.  Mark: Well, Sarah, this has been wonderful. It has really been enjoyable to talk with you about all this. And as Yucca said, we could go on for another three hours about all the, all the things. I really encourage people to check out your YouTube channel the skeptical, which Yucca: LinkedIn, the show notes. Mark: Good. Okay. Very thoughtful, very interesting engaging stuff. So, and we, we really appreciate your coming on the podcast. It's been great to have you here. Sarah: Yeah, it's been really great to be on here. So thank you guys so much.  Yucca: Thanks Sarah.  

The role of local government-owned and operated broadband networks in the United States has been the subject of considerable debate for a while now. More recently, the Biden administration has unveiled “The American Jobs Plan,” which proposes $100 billion in spending on broadband to reach 100 percent coverage. The plan, among other things, “prioritizes support for broadband networks owned, operated by, or affiliated with local governments.” Is this a good idea? And what does it mean for the taxpayers? Sarah Oh, Senior Fellow at the Technology Policy Institute, talks about the empirical evidence behind municipal broadband and shares her perspectives on these important questions.

Welcome to the Uncensored Podcast with Tumbo N Black Moses. The crew sit down with Mya b and Big Nique and finish the conversation about who should eat first the HUSBAND or the CHILDREN? And the conversation makes a left turn when someone brings up who would he save if his wife n child was drowning. Tumbo N Black Moses is on the opposite sides on can a male n female be friends with each other. Some how the conversation made A huge left turn when Tumbo talks about his P**ping days and his wife said you haven't.........listen to the podcast to see what happen next..... follow us IG @ (Uncensored_Podcast)(King_tumbo)(Blackmoses_uncensored)(2020tumbowife)