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DoorGrow has been helping property management business owners transform and grow their businesses for over a decade… what's changed? In this episode of the #DoorGrowShow, property management growth experts Jason and Sarah Hull explore some of the things DoorGrow has been working on in the last 5 years to innovate the property management industry. You'll Learn [01:24] Why DoorGrow Continues to Innovate [06:94] Helping Property Managers Avoid Common Mistakes [13:23] Changes and Improvements to the DoorGrow Mastermind [21:52] Innovative New Sales Strategies Quotables “A lot of people think, ‘I just need more leads. I just need to turn that on.' And they ignore this hose that has six major leaks in it.” “If you ask them the right questions, people will basically sell themselves.” “It's like when you go to a buffet, you're not going to eat everything at the buffet… You only want to eat the things that you want right now.” “You are the sum of the five property management business owners that you're the most connected to.” Resources DoorGrow and Scale Mastermind DoorGrow Academy DoorGrow on YouTube DoorGrowClub DoorGrowLive Transcript [00:00:00] Sarah: Do you have any idea how powerful it is to be connected to a coach? 24 hours a day? Like there is no time in the world that you cannot message us. [00:00:08] Jason: All right. We are Jason and Sarah Hull, the owners of DoorGrow, the world's leading and most comprehensive coaching and consulting firm for long-term residential property management entrepreneurs. For over a decade and a half, we have brought innovative strategies and optimization to the property management industry. At DoorGrow, we have spoken to thousands of property management business owners, coached, consulted and cleaned up hundreds of businesses, helping them add doors, improved pricing, increase profit, simplify operations, and build and replace teams. We are like Bar Rescue for property managers. In fact, we have cleaned up and rebranded over 300 businesses and we run the leading property management mastermind for the industry with more video testimonials and reviews than any other coach or consultant in the industry.  [00:00:59] Jason: At DoorGrow, we believe that good property managers can change the world, and that property management is the ultimate high trust gateway to real estate deals, relationships, and residual income.  [00:01:09] Jason: At DoorGrow, we are on a mission to transform property management, business owners and their businesses. [00:01:13] Jason: We want to transform the industry, eliminate the bs, build awareness, change perception, expand the market, and help the best property management entrepreneurs win. Now let's get into the show.  [00:01:24] Jason: Alright, so today, what are we talking about, Sarah?  [00:01:28] Jason: We're talking about what's new.  [00:01:30] Jason: So we've helped a lot of clients in the past, and if we've helped you three, five, maybe 10 years ago, there's been a lot that's changed at DoorGrow because we innovate and make changes pretty quickly, right? [00:01:44] Jason: And we've got systems for innovation in our business. And so, I think this is why we have the most comprehensive program in the industry and why nobody else can keep up with our pace and our level of creating and innovating and adding new stuff. And so a lot of you maybe have listened to this podcast a bit, maybe a while, maybe you're past clients. Maybe you've never worked with DoorGrow, but I'm going to talk about some of the stuff we've implemented since somebody was maybe a client in our older programs, like our seed program, or maybe did some initial marketing stuff with us back in the day. And so we're going to chat a little bit about what's new since then. [00:02:24] Jason: And so if you are a past client, this will be a great episode for you to catch up on what is new at DoorGrow. And if you'd like us to go deeper, I have a 37 minute video I recorded with slides on this subject going into a little bit more detail, but we're going to skim through some of this and help you understand there's a lot of innovation. [00:02:44] Jason: So if you had some connection with DoorGrow in the past, since then, we have become the world leaders at growing and scaling property management companies. And especially in the long term residential space. We've become the world leaders of property management branding. Like I said in the intro, we've rebranded over 300 companies. [00:03:04] Jason: We have launched hundreds of websites, more than we've done rebrands. And so hundreds and hundreds of websites. And we're still the leader in building responsive mobile friendly WordPress sites for property managers, which is the world's leading content management system. And if you're past client, you might be due for a website refresh. [00:03:24] Jason: We have over 70 different designs you can choose from, and they are clean designs, they're set up so that these sites, we call them seed sites, they're optimized for conversions, they're optimized to build trust. And so if it's, if you have an old website from us, you might be due for a refresh and we can certainly help you with that. [00:03:46] Jason: And past clients, we'll give you a discounted rate. So we're really great at doing websites for those that aren't a past client. And so, reach out, we can help you with that. And we include websites for free in some of our programs. You still have to pay like the support costs monthly, but the design piece, which normally is thousands of dollars to get a site built, we cover and take care of that. [00:04:09] Jason: That's included in our mastermind program. Related to that, we've also launched the world's leading mastermind for long-term residential property managers called The DoorGrow Mastermind. So, do you want to talk about this one?  [00:04:22] Sarah: Sure. I guess. Okay. All right. So one of the things that we had launched, what, like two years ago now maybe? [00:04:29] Sarah: Yeah. Is what we call the DoorGrow code. So what we've done is we've just seen over the many years and over Jason talking with thousands of property managers. He's just amassed a whole bunch of data. And after that happens, then you start to kind of see some patterns. So. What we did is we created this whole map that lays out stage by stage and step by step. [00:04:56] Sarah: The various different ,I'm going to call them stages, of a property management business. So all the way from, "I'm brand new, I have no doors yet, not quite sure I really want to get started, but I, you know, I don't actually have any clients yet" to, "well, now I have my first client and then I'm growing up to, you know, 50, a hundred, 200, 300, 400 doors, all the way up to a thousand plus. So we've created this whole roadmap, and then if you're in the DoorGrow Mastermind, we also have created some corresponding belt levels. So we kind of like a martial arts system, we've created different color coded built levels that corresponds to both your door count and your income because both things are important. [00:05:43] Sarah: And what are the things that you need to do at each different stage in order to progress to the next level in your business? Meaning you are making more revenue, you're adding more doors, and hopefully you're stepping back a bit from the things that you're not loving in the business.  [00:06:02] Jason: Yeah, and we call that the DoorGrow code, like we've cracked the code on growth and this is based on talking to thousands of property managers. [00:06:09] Jason: We started to notice a pattern. So if you'd like a copy of the DoorGrow code and see where you're at and stuck, reach out to us. We'd be happy to send you a copy. Just shoot us a DM on any social platform. Say, Hey. Just send us the word code and we'll, we can send you information about the DoorGrow code and that'll help you get some clarity on where you're at. [00:06:28] Jason: So that's been a game changer. We used to have this old program called the Seed Program, where we would kind of clean up their business and get it ready for growth. And it used to be a six month program. Some clients would take a year to do it. We've replaced that with a 90 day Rapid Revamp program, and so our Rapid Revamp program is even faster and this is where usually I use a diagram of a hose and there's like a faucet to turn on the hose. And that faucet Or spigot, it usually says lead generation. A lot of people think, "I just need more leads. I just need to turn that on." And they ignore this hose that has six major leaks in it, and so we've identified six major leaks, and so as part of this Rapid Revamp. [00:07:09] Jason: We spend like three months with clients, usually our newer clients that come on board, we do this first. This is like sharpening the ax before we go try to chop down trees, you know, try to do the work to grow the business, and we're optimizing it for growth and we're shoring up those six major leaks. [00:07:24] Jason: And the big leaks are branding, reviews, website, pricing, trust, and sales, your pitch. So we call it positioning, perception, presence, pricing, purpose, and pitch. And if we can get those things really well dialed in, we find that companies without even changing their lead gen sources, can double the amount of deals that they're getting on right now. [00:07:43] Jason: So if you feel like it's been hard and you can't see why, these are usually six major blind spots. And this is why it's been so hard. If we can get this stuff dialed in, even without changing any of the lead sources, however you're getting business right now, you could potentially double the amount of business you're getting on just by getting these leaks shored up. [00:08:02] Jason: And do you want to talk about pricing?  [00:08:04] Sarah: Okay. Pricing is actually one of the things that we cover now in the Rapid Revamp. And what we've noticed is even companies that grow to a considerable door count, most of the times their pricing is still just not great. I think we have yet to see a business that their pricing is already optimized, so a lot of times, they're leaving money on the table, which is so awful. Because you're working so hard for your money. Yeah. And you're just not making enough of it. And there's some statistics and data from NARPM. If you ever look at the NARPM data and you look at what like the average property manager's profit margin is, it's pretty abysmal. Yeah. And this is one of the reasons why. [00:08:48] Sarah: It's not the like the only reason, but it's one of the big ones. It's one of the factors. Pricing. So what we've figured out is, hey, a lot of property managers, they just kind of go with the flow. They do what the competition in their market is doing. You know, they just kind of, sometimes they wing it and they go, I think this is good. [00:09:07] Sarah: And they put something together. And when we come in and take a look at it, we can find thousands of dollars more per year. So like Anthony O'Reilly Brookes just said a couple weeks ago on the pricing, he's like, oh, if I just do this one change, I don't even have to do all of these changes. He is like, if I just do this one change, then I can make myself an extra $26,000 a year. [00:09:28] Jason: Yeah. This is one of our clients. It was great. So yeah, so we had an old training. We were the first to roll out kind of the three tier sort of pricing model to bring this to the industry. The basic idea was based around the Goldilocks principle and how it's easier to sell if you have three different types of pricing based on three types of buyers. Pricing secrets, we've rolled out 2.0. [00:09:51] Jason: So some of our past clients, you've gone through our original pricing secrets. You've have maybe a three tier model or maybe at least three plans sort of. Some of you maybe have lease only as one of them, which we don't recommend anymore. But now we've got this three tier hybrid pricing model and I got some of the idea from Scott Brady, really brilliant property manager. [00:10:14] Jason: He was using a hybrid model for pricing out associations. I then put my own spin on it based on what I know about pricing psychology. And I believe this is the most ethical and easiest to sell model. And it allows you to be unique and sell against all your competitors and to kind of poison the well against flat fee companies or percentage based companies. [00:10:36] Jason: And so it gives you competitive advantage and it helps you close more deals more easily at higher price points. So we've got that. The next thing we've made some big advancements into sales. So some of you went through my old Sales secrets training and and this was old school sales, like it was based on NLP neurolinguistic programming. [00:10:57] Jason: It was based on different formulas of communication that some would maybe calm, manipulative, but the idea, and I would present at the beginning, like, don't be evil. You know, like, these are powerful techniques. Well, a lot of the old school sort of sales tactics of high pressure closing and a lot of training you get from most salespeople and people that are known for sales really isn't working in the last three to five years. [00:11:23] Jason: And so there's kind of this new model of selling that needs to be done. And because we're in this post trust era, like everybody's been kind of exposed and woken up a little bit that everything's kind of fake. The news is fake. The pandemic's fake. Voting's fake. Like, like nobody knows who to trust or what to trust because we realize we've just been gaslighted and lied to by everything. Especially the government and powers that are over us. And so nobody trusts anything anymore. And so there's a new model of selling that allows you to create trust that we've learned and rolled out, and we get into some cool tactics like the three dominoes to creating the ultimate pitch. [00:12:05] Jason: I have a model of four phase selling, which is a simple framework for understanding four simple phrases to take people through when having a conversation. And then our Golden Bridge formula, which is even if you learn nothing else, is the ultimate sales hack to just creating authentic trust and connection with somebody, which is the crux of sales. [00:12:25] Jason: You know? And so this is high trust selling, figuring out your personal golden bridge I've used for years in my own sales and in getting on clients, and it's why people trust me so much. And so we'll help you figure out your own. And then we get into this whole new model of selling, which has multiple phases that helps people get their own clarity. [00:12:44] Jason: And what I've realized is people don't understand their problems and what they need, and until you ask them the right questions, and so if you ask them the right questions, people will basically sell themselves. You don't have to push, be pushy In sales, this is more about being empathetic, curious, asking questions, and it feels very good to be sold to in this way, if you could even call it selling. It's really coaching. And so I'm teaching you how to do that as well in this training. And then we've also added recently offer documents, sales trackers, like some really cool stuff that we use at DoorGrow to close deals and that are helping our clients increase their close rates significantly. [00:13:23] Jason: So we made a lot of improvements to our coaching program. Maybe you could talk about some of those things.  [00:13:30] Sarah: Yeah. So there... man, I feel like since I stepped into DoorGrow, we changed everything, so. [00:13:37] Jason: We did.  [00:13:38] Sarah: Which is great because it's like there's a lot of things that we wanted to improve, and there were a lot of things that we wanted to add. So I think one of the best things for me anyway, is I really love the Jumpstart events. So if you join the DoorGrow Mastermind as a newer client, then part of your launch package is going to be an in-person deep dive into your business with Jason and myself, you spend the whole day together with a small group of property managers. [00:14:08] Sarah: We keep it small because I cannot do a deep dive with like 10 people or 20 people. So we do a very small group. Yeah, and we really get into the weeds. We get into the nitty gritty. You walk away with a very clear action plan. You know exactly what to be doing, and you just get so much clarity and connection with other property managers that are attending that event, which is really great because after the event, those people, they stick together for a while, you know? [00:14:36] Sarah: Yeah.  [00:14:36] Jason: Create some nice connections. We rolled out the jumpstart sessions because we started to notice a pattern that when clients would meet us in person or come to DoorGrow Live or conference or anything in person, they would suddenly realize psychologically we were real people. There's just something psychologically about video Zoom calls video trainings in DoorGrow Academy. [00:15:00] Jason: That's not real to our brain. And so I call it the real bubble. And we've realized if we can pop that real bubble from the beginning, clients' perception of and recognizing that we're real people, then that translates into the things that we teach are real. And the things and the results clients are getting are real. [00:15:18] Jason: And so they start to get way better results. And so we want to give people that experience from the beginning, and we've got a much better outcome from all of our clients by getting them to do these in-person things towards the beginning of them joining DoorGrow's Mastermind and they're getting way better results. [00:15:36] Jason: They recognize that this is all real stuff and so they absorb the content in all the information in a completely different way, which is really powerful, so. [00:15:45] Sarah: And I would also say in addition to that too, though, if you had worked with us prior to what, four years ago? I would say probably four is the right answer. [00:15:56] Sarah: If you worked with us anytime before that, we recognized onboarding was very hectic and it was, oh man, it's really overwhelming. Everybody was like, "oh my God, there's so much information and I don't know what to do," and then they try to take it all in and they're overwhelmed and they're focusing on the wrong things. [00:16:13] Sarah: And then they have a bunch of questions and they're trying to like, jump on the calls to get their questions answered. So we did a few things. And the best thing that we have rolled out is. We have a really solid, streamlined onboarding process now.  [00:16:29] Jason: Yeah.  [00:16:29] Sarah: So we take you through a very proven like we have a whole course on DoorGrow Academy on onboarding to make sure that you get into all of the tools. You have access to everything. You know how to use it. Because just because you have it, doesn't mean you know how to use it. Yeah. And then that you're connected with our team. Because there are still some times that people are like, "oh, I didn't even know I could talk to Madi. Oh, I didn't know I could talk to Giselle." Or like, "oh, I didn't realize I could do that." Yeah, you absolutely can. We have a whole team to support you. So we make sure that you're connected with the right tools. We make sure you're connected with the team. You get on like a couple of 15 minute coaching calls with our like onboarding specialist right at the beginning just to make sure, like we're going to walk you through everything. We're going to check everything, we're going to explain everything to you, make sure you're on telegram, make sure you're connected to our entire team. And then they get a brand new thing that we had rolled out in addition that we added to onboarding is our client workbooks. [00:17:26] Sarah: So one of the things that everybody says is, "oh my God, it's like drinking out of a fire hose." I hear this almost from every client.  [00:17:33] Jason: Yeah. That analogy comes up all the time. It's like drinking out of a fire hose. Like they say it all the time. Yeah. Yeah. They're like, oh my God, there's so much, there's so much available. [00:17:41] Jason: Yes, there is. So we help them get focused.  [00:17:43] Sarah: And that's great. But it's like when you go to a buffet you're not going to eat everything at the buffet.  [00:17:48] Jason: No.  [00:17:49] Sarah: You only want to eat the things that you want right now. Yeah. And maybe you're like, oh, I'm saving room for dessert later. I know. Like, I'm going to pace myself because I want dessert later for sure. And that's great because you're not ready for dessert now. So it's not that you skip it, it's just that you don't need it right now. So we have a much better system of figuring out what do you need right now. So it's a lot more personalized, it's a lot more customized and then you're able to go through a proven roadmap that's for your business and for your stage. And a lot of that lives in our client workbooks. And that way there's like one place to refer to, you know your belt level requirements. You know your Rapid Revamp to do items. You know what the homework is that you're supposed to be doing. Your sales tracker lives in there and all of your action items and to do items, they're all in there, so you know exactly what to be doing and there's one document to refer to that makes it really easy. [00:18:45] Jason: And when you talk to a coach, we'll map out exactly what you know, we want to figure out your goals, and then we map out tactical items for you to check off and to work on specific to you. And so, even though we've got some different, you know, paths and formulas and classes, we always tailor this to our clients. [00:19:02] Jason: And the client workbook really helps that communication. It literally gets us on the same page, right? Yeah. Together. So, we've added client Success manager, my daughter Madi, who manages all her social media, does all our video editing. She is now also our client success manager, and she's amazing at that. [00:19:17] Jason: So we've had a couple different client success managers over the years and that's really helped improve the connection clients have, the clarity they have, and we also have giselle on our team who can find anything for clients and help them find things.  [00:19:32] Sarah: Giselle is like ai, but she's not. [00:19:34] Jason: Right. Yeah.  [00:19:36] Sarah: She's the best human AI I've ever seen.  [00:19:40] Jason: Yeah. So, and so we've got really good support systems for our clients. We also now leverage Telegram Messenger. We used to use Voxer. Some of my clients in the past, maybe remember Voxer. So I think we've upgraded by using Telegram Messenger for sure. [00:19:54] Jason: And it's a lot more reliable. And so we coach clients directly through it. Walkie-talkie style. They can answer questions anytime. So that's been really effective.  [00:20:01] Sarah: And I mean, that's super powerful too because, yeah, this is the one thing that I like, especially in the Rapid Revamp. I harp on this a lot. [00:20:08] Sarah: Do you have any idea how powerful it is to be connected to a coach? 24 hours a day? Like there is no time in the world that you cannot message us. Yeah. So you can message Jason, you can message me, you can message our whole client success team, including Madi. You can message us any time at all. [00:20:25] Sarah: It doesn't mean we're going to get back to you immediately. Sure. But we get back to you pretty darn quickly. Yeah. And out of all the communication channels, those are the ones that we check the most. So like Jason will never check his email. So if you ever email Jason, it's a black hole, don't do it. [00:20:41] Jason: Someone else will read it. Eventually  [00:20:42] Sarah: But Telegram, he checks Telegram a lot. And I check Telegram. I mean, I message people sometimes back at midnight, like if they send me a message at 11 and I'm still awake at midnight, I'm like, okay. I'm like messaging you in bed. I have no problem doing that. [00:20:55] Sarah: But you're connected very easily and very quickly to a coach who can rapidly answer questions. And it's not, you know, it's not like this cumbersome thing where you're like, "oh, I have to get on a call and figure out a time that works for me." Right? Like it works for you all the time because you just send a message. [00:21:12] Jason: Yeah. So that's been real effective. We've got three different weekly group coaching calls. We've got a Rapid Revamp class where we're optimizing the product of the business. And getting the business dialed up and ready for growth. Then we've got our Growth Accelerator class that we do. So the Rapid Revamp's on Tuesdays. Growth Accelerator is on Wednesdays, and this is where we focus on just adding doors. [00:21:34] Jason: We work with BDMs, we work with salespeople, we work with business owners to figure out how to grow and working on different growth engines. And then we have our Friday class, which is our operations class where we get into creating scalable operations so that you can handle high paced growth without the business falling apart. [00:21:52] Jason: So, we've also added in our Growth Accelerator, we've added a bunch of different growth engines. These are different sort of vehicles or engines you can build in your business that feed you business organically without having to pay for marketing or advertising. And it's actually more effective than any cold lead advertising we've seen to date. [00:22:12] Jason: We just brought on a client with 6,000 doors that was spending 30 grand a month. Trying to do internet marketing and digital marketing to grow their business, and they reached out to us for help. And so we're giving them a better strategy of leveraging business development managers in each market doing organic outreach, and they're going to grow way faster. [00:22:29] Jason: And it's going to cost them way less money. Way less. Right.  [00:22:32] Sarah: And for those of you that are doing paid marketing, do you think you can outspend someone who's spending $30,000 a month?  [00:22:38] Jason: Right. And the reality is there's very little search volume of people looking for property management on the internet, and that's what all of the companies are competing in that red bloody water. And there's tons of blue ocean of people. 60% are self-managing. There's no scarcity. And so we help you get these different growth engines dialed in and we've got great tactics like you know, product research interviews, realtor intros, which is 10 times more effective than realtor referrals, which a lot of you try and it doesn't work super well. [00:23:05] Jason: We've got you know, some clever tactics of going direct to investors. We also launched this ROI calculator that's pretty brilliant. That goes along with our realtor intro strategy. We've got the neighbor strategy. Which helps you get business from neighboring property management companies, which is really brilliant. [00:23:23] Jason: We've got warm review outreach, which will help you get better reviews, help you increase the lifetime value of your tenants and owners, and help you get more referrals from your existing clients. And so that can be real effective. Any one of these has helped our clients at a hundred to 200 doors a year organically, and you can install as many of these as you want. [00:23:42] Jason: We've got outbound partner prospecting where you can go after lenders, insurance agents, attorneys, vendors, and another example is groups like one to many sales and how to, instead of walking away from a group interaction where you hope maybe you'll get a lead or a referral or something, you walk away with scheduled, booked calls and can make money. [00:24:04] Jason: So, cool. So those are some of our growth engines. Let's talk about, this is new.  [00:24:09] Sarah: I love talking about DoorGrow Hiring. We could do a whole podcast episode on just that alone. Sure. And this is not specific just to property management businesses, this is businesses in general. Yeah. They. Really struggle with hiring. [00:24:22] Sarah: It's hard. It is so challenging and what usually happens is you wait until you're in pain and then you hurry up to hire and then your situation gets worse than it was before. And then, now you've got, you know, some scar tissue and now you're like, oh, I don't think I want to hire. Or like, ah, there's no good people out there. [00:24:44] Sarah: Like, I've been burned before. And it's because people approach everything pretty much the wrong way. Yeah. So we built this into entire system that's called DoorGrow Hiring. And we'll take people through it to make sure that you've got everything in line that you need ahead of time. So that you can actually be prepared to find the right person. We also give you proven processes to help you find the right people. Including things like your R Docs, which is just a fancy word for job description, your company culture. We build out your application, we put it on your website. We give you like the job postings. We give you an interview guide. [00:25:20] Sarah: I literally give you the words to use in an interview, these are the questions you're going to ask. This is the order you're going to ask them in, and these are the words you're going to say, and then that is it. We take you like step by step. So we created this whole system in order to help people find really great team members instead of playing Russian roulette with hiring, which is really dangerous. [00:25:45] Jason: Yeah. So, and the whole crux of it is focused on the three fits, which is finding the right culture fit, skill fit, and personality fit for the role. You cannot create those in people, you have to find them. And finding all three can be challenging and our whole hiring system's built around that. So, just three more things real quick. [00:26:03] Jason: One, we've focused on the five levels of exit. So a lot of property managers can't figure out how to exit the frontline work of the business, so they end up then selling the business because they're miserable in it. So we help you figure out how to get to there's five levels. We help you figure out how to get to somewhere in the middle where you're happiest and you're out of that frontline work without going all the way to exit five and selling the business and having a lack of purpose or you know, not having the business anymore and then trying to start something new and getting to the same level of problem in the video game and you keep losing against the same boss and whatever. So we help you figure out how to beat that boss in the video game. We also launched DoorGrow OS, which is a really robust planning system. [00:26:45] Jason: We have found some fundamental flaws in other planning systems, which are a step up. Just having one like EOS, Traction, Rocket Fuel, some of this kind of stuff. We've built something we believe is innovative and far better after working with some of the most brilliant operations people. And, probably in the world. [00:27:01] Jason: And so this is DoorGrow OS and this is our secret sauce at DoorGrow. And so we're helping people roll out and implement a planning cadence and system and get operators in place that can run this for you, the visionary entrepreneurs. So that your business runs smoothly and you can handle high-paced growth and have goals and get your team focused on the strategic side of the business rather than just being micromanaged through tactical work and task management. [00:27:29] Jason: And then this is the last item you want to talk about this one? [00:27:33] Sarah: Well, we've got our DoorGrow Live conference coming up, so I think you did the first one in like 2018. Then we took a break and then we brought them back. So yeah. We run our DoorGrow Live conference once a year, this is our big event, we open it up to clients, past clients, people who have never even worked with us. People who are in and around the property management industry, including real estate. Because if you're in real estate, you should seriously consider getting into property management, or at least knowing a property manager. And if you need to know a great property manager, there's going to be a lot of them in the room. [00:28:06] Sarah: So, the DoorGrow Live, it's a really powerful event. We bring in some fantastic speakers. It's always very motivational and very tactical, so no matter what it is that you're looking for from the event, you will find it there. And it's a great place to connect and meet people who are doing the same thing that you are doing. [00:28:28] Sarah: Because that is just such a powerful tool to be able to have a network of people that you can rely on and that understand you and understand what exactly you're trying to do and what you're going through.  [00:28:40] Jason: Yeah, and we have some amazing vendors that sponsor the event. One of them told me this is the only event that they now do of all the property management events, because it's their favorite. It's the best one. Even though it's small compared to many. They love this one and they get so much value out of learning and being at it as an entrepreneur. And so that says a lot. And so, these are different property managers. [00:29:03] Jason: These are growth-minded people that invest in their businesses. These are not the people that are just trying to have a shitty vacation and escape and go to a bar. These are people that are focused on growth. And so if you want to be around the best in the industry DoorGrow Live is the place to be around the best, and you are the sum of the five property management business owners that you're the most connected to. [00:29:23] Jason: You know, birds of a feather flock together. So if you're growth minded, you want to be at this event. So, and by the time this airs, for a lot of you, if you're listening to this on Spotify or somewhere else. You may have already missed this year, so, but get your tickets and we've got some cool bonuses that we're giving to people if they attend. [00:29:40] Jason: So. Cool. That's it for today. If you have felt stuck or stagnant or want to take your property management business the next level, reach out to us at DoorGrow.com. Also join our free Facebook community just for property management business owners. We reject 70% of applicants doorgrowclub.com. And if you found this even a little bit helpful, don't forget to subscribe and leave us a review. [00:30:02] Jason: We'd really appreciate it. Until next time, remember, the slowest path to growth is to do it alone, so let's grow together. Bye everyone.

If you were managing a football team and you had someone with the skills to be a star quarterback, would you have them be a kicker?  In this episode of the #DoorGrowShow, property management growth experts Jason and Sarah Hull discuss the pitfalls of having dual roles in your property management business. You'll Learn [01:26] How to Guarantee Your Team Will Fail [06:19] Why Dual Roles Often Do Not Work [09:17] Set Your Team Members Up for Success Quotables “It's never ideal when we have a dual role, but it is possible in certain cases.”  ”Most entrepreneurs, we can do this, we can shift and balance back and forth. The problem is that then we think that's normal. And we expect other people to be able to do that.” “We make the mistake as entrepreneurs of assuming other people think the way we do.” “You probably could wear 10 different hats in your business, but you don't enjoy doing probably half of them at least.” Resources DoorGrow and Scale Mastermind DoorGrow Academy DoorGrow on YouTube DoorGrowClub DoorGrowLive Transcript [00:00:00] Sarah: If you have a star quarterback... [00:00:02] Jason: yes.  [00:00:03] Sarah: And that quarterback...  [00:00:03] Jason: super sharp  [00:00:04] Sarah: can put that ball anywhere on the field with pinpoint precision,  [00:00:08] Jason: right?  [00:00:09] Sarah: Are you going to take that quarterback and make him the kicker?  [00:00:12] Jason: All right. We are Jason and Sarah Hull, the owners of DoorGrow, the world's leading and most comprehensive coaching and consulting firm for long-term residential property management entrepreneurs. For over a decade and a half, we have brought innovative strategies and optimization to the property management industry. At DoorGrow, we have spoken to thousands of property management business owners, coached, consulted, and cleaned up hundreds of businesses, helping them add doors, improve pricing, increase profits, simplify operations, and build and replace teams. We are like Bar Rescue for property managers. In fact, we have cleaned up and rebranded over 300 property management businesses, and we run the leading property management mastermind with more video testimonials and reviews than any other coach or consultant in the industry.  [00:01:02] Jason: At DoorGrow, we believe that good property managers can change the world, and that property management is the ultimate, high trust gateway to real estate deals, relationships, and residual income. [00:01:12] Jason: At DoorGrow, we are on a mission to transform property management business owners and their businesses. We want to transform the industry, eliminate the bs, build awareness, change perception, expand the market, and help the best property management entrepreneurs win. Now let's get into the show. Alright. [00:01:26] Jason: Sarah, what are we talking about today?  [00:01:29] Sarah: We are going to talk about how you can almost guarantee that your team will fail.  [00:01:34] Jason: Guaranteed failure. And the method to do this- yes- we call dual role...  [00:01:40] Sarah: oh.  [00:01:41] Jason: Team members...  [00:01:41] Sarah: yes.  [00:01:42] Jason: Right? So and so, what's the scenario? What do we mean by dual role? And it's pretty common. [00:01:48] Sarah: I see it quite a bit.  [00:01:50] Sarah: Yeah. Do you see it a lot?  [00:01:51] Jason: Yeah. I mean, do you want me to explain the idea or you want to explain what you see?  [00:01:55] Jason: No, I just want to know if you see it a lot.  [00:01:56] Jason: Yeah. I see a lot of people make this mistake when hiring. I don't see it work  [00:02:01] Sarah: Well, no.  [00:02:02] Jason: And I see people try to do it, but I see a lot of failure. [00:02:06] Jason: I've seen companies with, I talked to one the other day with 6,000 doors, which was kind of trying to do a dual role. And I've seen lots of startups try to do more than just two roles. They're trying to get somebody that's like them. They're like, I just need to find the clone. I call that the clone myth, like that's the earliest stage of hiring, the biggest mistake. [00:02:26] Jason: They're like, I just need somebody that can do 10 roles, 10 things. Someone just like me as an entrepreneur that would love to work for me, unlike an entrepreneur. Right. So how about you? You've helped a lot of our clients with hiring. So what what comes up?  [00:02:41] Sarah: So usually, and let's just backtrack and say, alright, by dual role. [00:02:47] Sarah: Yeah. What we mean is, Hey, I need to hire someone and they're going to do this and that. So they're going to do, you know, sales and manage the doors. They're going to do the operations and like help me with the team and stuff and then also they're going to be a property manager or a maintenance coordinator or whatever. [00:03:08] Sarah: Yeah. So take two roles that are not the same thing and mash them together, and this is what we mean by dual role. And this situation gets aggravated significantly if those two different roles are also two different personality types.  [00:03:26] Jason: Yeah.  [00:03:26] Sarah: So if you have someone who's going to do operations and function as an assistant. [00:03:32] Sarah: Okay. I mean, it's not ideal, but it's possible. Yeah. It's possible. If you have someone who's going to function as like a sales appointment setter and a closer or, and a BDM. It's possible. It's never ideal when we have a dual role, but it is possible in certain cases. [00:03:52] Sarah: Okay. Where it never works out is what all entrepreneurs think is, "oh, I'm like that. I can do that." Yeah. So somebody else should be able to do that too. Well, I can shift in and out of different roles and in and out of different personality types, and I can turn it on and off like a light switch when I need to, so then that means everybody can, and it's not true. We are very unique in that.  [00:04:17] Jason: Yeah.  [00:04:17] Sarah: So I can also turn it on and off, like light switch when I need to get into something, I'm like, okay. Like let's go. And then when I'm done, I'm like, oh, okay. Get out of that. And I kind of shift back to my natural normal state. [00:04:30] Sarah: So if any of you guys see me ever in person. That is not my natural normal state. It's just not because it's so high energy. Especially at something like a DoorGrow Live event. Yeah. Like after DoorGrow Live, I crash for about two days, like two full days. This is true. I'm done. I am done. I sleep for like 15 hours, 16 hours straight because I've spent too much time in my opposite. [00:04:54] Sarah: Yeah. And most entrepreneurs, we can do this, we can shift and balance back and forth. The problem is that then we think that's normal. And we expect other people to be able to do that, and most people cannot do that.  [00:05:07] Jason: Yeah. The mistake that a lot of us make, like you said, is we make the mistake as entrepreneurs of assuming other people think the way we do. [00:05:15] Jason: Entrepreneurs do this all the time. They assume other people are money motivated, so they try to bonus them or compensate them with money. Most people are not actually. They assume that people are adaptable and can just wear lots of different hats and be entrepreneurial like that way, but that's also not generally the case. [00:05:34] Jason: And if they are adaptable, usually they go start their own business. So they leave, and I've seen a lot of property managers steal doors from their employers, so their employer's basically just training their next replacement.  [00:05:47] Jason: I love, I think when we don't put the dogs away during a podcast, and I'm being super sarcastic right now. [00:05:52] Sarah: Yeah. Well, I did say this was going to be a quick podcast, but the food... [00:05:56] Sarah: so maybe this is a sign we should wrap it up. Yeah, the food that you ordered is probably...  [00:06:01] Jason: Oh yeah. I ordered some food. [00:06:02] Sarah: ...being delivered right now because it's like six o'clock on a Monday right now. Which is great.  [00:06:07] Jason: They're protecting us from the food. [00:06:09] Jason: So, while we've got a chorus of dogs in the background.  [00:06:12] Sarah: They're just confirming.  [00:06:13] Jason: Yeah.  [00:06:14] Sarah: They're like, definitely they agree with us. Don't try to hire two different people. So here's the idea.  [00:06:19] Jason: Let's break this down real quick and then we'll wrap up because the dogs are going insane, but. People do not have split personalities that you want to hire. [00:06:28] Jason: They're not two different people, and so different roles have different personality types, and it's very difficult to find somebody that can jump into very different roles and personalities that would actually enjoy those. Even you as a business owner, you probably could wear 10 different hats in your business, but you don't enjoy doing probably half of them at least. [00:06:46] Jason: If not most. Yeah. And so that's the idea. So you need to figure out what would a good property manager look like? What would a good business development person look like? They can't be both. What would a good assistant look like? What would a good operations person look like? What would a good maintenance coordinator look like? [00:07:02] Jason: They can't be multiple things typically, and I think we got to end. Okay. It's getting louder.  [00:07:08] Sarah: They're just dropping off the order. That's all. Now we have three dogs barking.  [00:07:13] Jason: It's not stopping.  [00:07:14] Sarah: So we have a big one and a medium one and a very little one.  [00:07:19] Jason: Okay.  [00:07:19] Sarah: But you know, that's a good example though, is so we've got three very different dogs. [00:07:25] Sarah: Like Captain is small, he's maybe 14 pounds, and Parker is pretty large. He's about 85 pounds. So would I do the same thing for the big dog that I would do for the little dog? No, I'm going to feed him differently. I'm going to, you know, get him like a different size harness, et cetera. You have to kind of think of roles in your business the same way. If you're trying to treat every role the exact same, it'll be really hard because you'll be like, I don't know, I don't understand. Like that worked with my sales guy. Why can't I just throw more money at this person and then they're going to be better? Yeah. That worked with my sales guy. [00:07:58] Sarah: Yeah, of course it did. It's not going to work in other roles. And then if you're a dual role and you're trying to constantly bounce back and forth, like, oh, I got to do the sales and I got to like do maintenance coordination and like property management work, like, oh well, which, what am I supposed to do? [00:08:14] Sarah: What do I prioritize? And then when you get busy, when you get overwhelmed and you get stressed, something is going to not get done. And it's really hard sometimes to choose, well, what am I going to sacrifice? Because both things are important, and I can tell you that 99% of the time, the thing that will be sacrificed is the thing that they just don't like doing. [00:08:35] Sarah: Yeah. So if they don't like doing the property management piece. Your delivery is going to tank. And then if they don't like doing the sales piece, they're going to focus on the delivery and your sales. You're going to have none. And you'll be wondering, well, I don't understand. Like I hired you to do both and this is why this is that pitfall. [00:08:53] Sarah: So if you want to guarantee that your team is going to fail, that your business is going to be stressed, and that your team, you are, it's almost a guaranteed like turnover of your team as well because they're not going to, they're not going to stay when they're not happy. And part of them is doing a role that they hate. [00:09:11] Sarah: The other part of them might be doing something that they really love, but part of them, for part of their day, they're doing something that they hate.  [00:09:17] Jason: Yeah. So to drive this home, it's really important that you don't put people in a position that they're going to fail. And here's a big major tip. If you have somebody that's good at selling, and you're having them waste time doing anything else, that is a really stupid way to like waste a resource. Like if somebody can make you money and bring fresh money into the business and you have them doing stupid stuff like posting notices or talking to your existing clients. You are wasting a massively valuable resource. [00:09:54] Jason: They would make you so much money they could pay for multiple other team members if you just let them only focus on business development. And so if they can sell, get them just doing that. If they're good at that. If they are good at property management, don't have them waste time dinking around trying to sell. [00:10:11] Jason: Go get somebody that can sell, that can grow your business. Right. And there's other roles, but we're using these two as an example. But yeah, dual roles work. I doesn't work.  [00:10:19] Jason: I think  [00:10:19] Sarah: that's one of the most common ones. I see.  [00:10:21] Jason: Yeah. It is pretty common.  [00:10:22] Sarah: It's either sales and operations, which like never works. [00:10:25] Sarah: Yeah. Or sales and like property management. Yeah. Those are like the two most common that I see. And the way that I explain it to people is. If you understand sports... [00:10:37] Sarah: we're using sports analogy?  [00:10:38] Sarah: We are. We're going to use a sports analogy. Okay. So on a football team...  [00:10:43] Jason: yes. [00:10:43] Sarah: If you have a star quarterback... [00:10:46] Jason: yes.  [00:10:46] Sarah: And that quarterback...  [00:10:47] Jason: super sharp  [00:10:47] Sarah: can put that ball anywhere on the field with pinpoint precision,  [00:10:52] Jason: right?  [00:10:52] Sarah: Are you going to take that quarterback and make him the kicker?  [00:10:56] Jason: No, that'd be stupid.  [00:10:57] Sarah: Or the blocker... [00:10:58] Jason: that would be really bad.  [00:10:59] Sarah: Or a defensive lineman? No way. How about the water boy?  [00:11:02] Sarah: No.  [00:11:03] Sarah: Why would you ever do any of that? Right?  [00:11:04] Sarah: So people who are like, they're like, oh my God, no. So are you going to see the star quarterback doing anything other than his job?  [00:11:13] Jason: No.  [00:11:14] Sarah: Never. Never. No.  [00:11:15] Jason: That's actually a really great analogy.  [00:11:18] Sarah: I know. I'm really smart sometimes. So there's...  [00:11:21] Jason: you're really smart all the time, and you know this.  [00:11:24] Sarah: I do know this. [00:11:24] Jason: Don't pretend you're humble. [00:11:26] Sarah: Well, I'm the most humble of all of the Zodiac signs.  [00:11:30] Jason: Yeah me too. I'm super humble too.  [00:11:31] Sarah: No, I'm the most humble though.  [00:11:33] Jason: You're way more humble than me.  [00:11:34] Sarah: I'm more humble than all of...  [00:11:36] Jason: you're the most humble ever.  [00:11:37] Sarah: As Scorpios, we all are. Okay, guys. Yeah. So anyway, if you're going to have your quarterback doing anything other than that, like that would just be silly. It would just be stupid. So if you were watching TV and that's what your team did while you were watching...  [00:11:52] Jason: yeah.  [00:11:52] Sarah: And it's like a playoff game. And that's what happens is you're like, why is my quarterback, what are you...? You wouldn't even believe your eyes. But then that's what you are doing in your business is you are taking your sales person, your star sales person, and you're making them do other stuff. So it works the same way. It's divide and conquer. That's like football teams do this. That's why it's not just a free for all when you get on the field, it's like, all right guys, just figure out how to, no. Yeah, they're specialists. They divide and conquer. Your business is the same thing.  [00:12:22] Jason: That's a great analogy. Cool. So it's super obvious in sports, like you've got some guy, man, he could throw it anywhere on the field. Look how accurate he is. He's not super big, but man, he can really throw it. Maybe we should have this guy just be a kicker. Yeah. That would like, that'd be crazy, but somebody's really amazing kicking the ball.  [00:12:39] Sarah: Some of you guys would lose your freaking minds if you saw that happen in a game.  [00:12:42] Jason: Right? But then you're doing it in your business! [00:12:44] Jason: You do it in your own business. You're doing it in your business. They're like, well, they could do both and maybe it'll save money and they can kind of do two things, and you wonder why the business is struggling or not growing. So we need to make strategic hires. We need to be make careful hires. [00:12:56] Jason: We need to get the right personality fit, skill fit, culture fit. We talked about the three fits on previous episodes, but you also want to make sure that personality fit, they are a really great personality fit for that particular role, and you're not trying to hire them for two. All right. Anything else we need to say about this? [00:13:11] Sarah: I don't think so. We're going to go eat.  [00:13:13] Jason: Cool. So if you have felt stuck or stagnant and want to take your property management business to the next level, reach out to us at doorgrow.com. Also, join our free Facebook community just for property management business owners at doorgrowclub.com. And if you found this even a little bit helpful, don't forget to subscribe and leave us a review. [00:13:34] Jason: We'd really appreciate it. Until next time, remember, the slowest path to growth is to do it alone. So let's grow together. Bye everyone.

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. 

Things don't always go as planned in life and in business. It's important for property management entrepreneurs to be able to roll with the punches. In this episode of the #DoorGrowShow, property management experts Jason and Sarah Hull discuss a recent experience where they were forced to pivot and adapt over and over again. You'll Learn [01:58] The Original Plan [05:31] How a Winter Storm Distrupted a Business and Family Trip [08:52] Moral of the Story: Be Prepared [11:08] Your Plan is Not Always the Right Plan for You Tweetables “Moral of the story is be prepared.” “This is how businesses work. Your best plan is sometimes going to fail and you're going to have to come up with a new way of doing it and you're going to have to adapt.” “There may be a reason that things are not going the way that you wanted them to go right now.” “ The only time that you won't have your breakthrough is if you quit.” Resources DoorGrow and Scale Mastermind DoorGrow Academy DoorGrow on YouTube DoorGrowClub DoorGrowLive TalkRoute Referral Link Transcript [00:00:00] Sarah: There is a bigger plan out there for you, and there may be a reason that things are not going the way that you wanted them to go right now. [00:00:09] Sarah: There may be a reason that you're not experiencing the results that you thought that you would at this stage in the game.  [00:00:17] Jason: 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. [00:00:35] Jason: 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] Jason: 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 and Sarah Hull. Now let's get into the show. Alright. [00:01:16] Jason: So, today we are recording this episode at, what time is it now?  [00:01:22] Sarah: It is almost midnight.  [00:01:23] Jason: It is late. On Monday. And this will go live or be streamed later. And so if you're watching this, thanks for watching. And we're not actually like real time live at this moment, but it's because we had to change things up and make different plans.  [00:01:42] Sarah: Live in the moment, we're probably still in the car.  [00:01:45] Jason: Yeah, so we will be driving tomorrow during our podcast episode. So we wanted to record this episode real quick so we can get one out. And in today's topic, we're just going to share a little bit of our adventure. And, you know, the moral of the story will be things don't always go according to plan. [00:02:03] Jason: So.  [00:02:04] Sarah: Sure don't.  [00:02:05] Jason: Alright, so, where do we start?  [00:02:08] Sarah: Alright, well, let's do quick synopsis. Where are we right now? Ohio, I think? I'm pretty sure we're in Ohio.  [00:02:15] Jason: I think so.  [00:02:16] Sarah: I think it's Ohio is the right answer. So, we've been to, in the last few days, we left on Friday, we've been to Texas, we've been to two days in Tennessee, we accidentally went to Kentucky, now we're in Ohio, tomorrow we're going to Pennsylvania. [00:02:30] Sarah: So, I think that's five states. Five states in five days. It's a great time. So, we're driving from Texas to Pennsylvania. It's supposed to be a straight shot, up like this. And it's this crazy record breaking winter storm, and we're driving through some of that. We're missing the big part of it. [00:02:51] Sarah: So we had to adjust our route. So our plan, this was our plan, was to leave on Friday. We're going from Texas to Memphis, Tennessee. Then the next morning, we were going to go to Graceland. We did do that, and then we spent some time in Nashville that evening. And then from Nashville, we were going to go to Morganstown, West Virginia, and then from there, drive into Dallas, Pennsylvania. [00:03:18] Sarah: So, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, we were supposed to get to Pennsylvania on Monday, which is tonight, we are not in Pennsylvania. We are, I'm pretty sure, somewhere in Ohio, past Akron. And where, what's the name of this?  [00:03:32] Jason: Youngstown.  [00:03:33] Sarah: Youngstown, near Youngstown. That's where we are, right now. And so that was our plan. And then because of this crazy storm, we were leaving Nashville. We left Nashville. Roads were fine. Then all of a sudden, a little bit of rain. That was okay. Then, snow. And that was awful. And we were trying to get from Nashville, Tennessee up to Morgantown, West Virginia. Did not happen. Not even close. So we were going to stop in Lexington, Kentucky for lunch around like 3 o'clock or 3:30. That was not the plan. We ended up staying in Kentucky because it took us so long to get to Kentucky because of the crazy storm that we then had to stay overnight in Lexington and then reroute. So we were going this way and now we're going that way.  [00:04:31] Jason: So do you want to share why we're doing a road trip? [00:04:34] Jason: Which is crazy to do.  [00:04:36] Sarah: It's crazy to do. I know, right? I could have flown there in a day. So we're driving my car that I've owned for a couple years now. I'm driving to Pennsylvania, and I'm giving the car to my mom as a gift. She has absolutely no idea.  [00:04:52] Jason: It's a surprise.  [00:04:53] Sarah: That this is happening. [00:04:54] Sarah: I don't think she watches the podcast.  [00:04:56] Jason: No. Probably not.  [00:04:56] Sarah: Hopefully it's safe. But I'm gifting the car to my mom. I want her to have a nice car, and a reliable car, and not have to worry about things. So, I'm gifting her the car. She has absolutely no idea. Coincidentally, it's also in a couple of days, my brother Jason's birthday. [00:05:14] Sarah: So, shout out to Jason. Happy early birthday. We love you. And we're going to do this little trip. We're going to see my family for a little bit. We're going to go out to dinner for my brother Jason's birthday. Give my mom a car, and then fly back home and we are running an event. So that's why we're doing all of this in the first place. [00:05:31] Sarah: The whole crazy part of the story here is when we left Nashville, we were trying to get to Morganstown. It was insane on the road. Just wildly insane. Like snow, ice, there was a mix, there was sleet. We were going like 40 miles an hour. I was just happy to be moving. We saw multiple cars that had run off the road. [00:05:58] Sarah: We saw a couple of tractor trailers that we're in accidents. We saw a few accidents. We were almost in a few accidents ourselves. And this trip is not at all going as planned. We had to move our flight, and then move our flight again, and then move our flight a third time. So then we, last night we almost gave up on this whole thing. [00:06:18] Sarah: I was going to quit and just leave my car in Cincinnati, fly home. back to Texas and then come back and finish the second leg of this trip a second time. Jason woke up this morning and he said, "I think we can do it, babe. I think we can do it." So here we are, but this is not...  [00:06:35] Jason: We were not prepared for this storm. [00:06:37] Jason: This car had pretty bald tires, which was... we were not ready.  [00:06:43] Sarah: No.  [00:06:43] Jason: Yeah. So after sliding off the road a little bit, twice, yeah, on a freeway.  [00:06:50] Sarah: On a freeway.  [00:06:51] Jason: On a highway. Yeah.  [00:06:52] Sarah: And car is supposed to be heading in this direction, and then it turned in.  [00:06:57] Jason: And we were just off to the side, so we were able to get back on the road safely both times. [00:07:02] Jason: Thank goodness. Yeah. And not get hit by a tractor trailer.  [00:07:05] Sarah: Yeah, we didn't get hit by anything. The car didn't get damaged. We are safe. And to that I can only thank God. The whole time I was praying, our fathers, I was saying Hail Mary's, our fathers, the whole time. I was just praying to God and God took care of us made sure that we were safe made sure the car is safe, made sure that we got where we were going, made sure we didn't get stranded in the car because we saw a couple people stranded.  [00:07:30] Jason: Yeah.  [00:07:31] Sarah: It was scary. [00:07:31] Sarah: It was really scary.  [00:07:32] Jason: We eventually pulled off and went and found a tire store  [00:07:36] Sarah: Yeah, we were going to continue out there for a while.  [00:07:38] Jason: Got new tires.  [00:07:39] Sarah: And something told me it might have been God telling me like "go, you need tires. Go get tires." So I said to Jason, I said, "Can you find...?"  [00:07:47] Sarah: Can you find? No.  [00:07:49] Jason: I wanted to get some better tires on that car, for sure. [00:07:51] Sarah: So, I said, "is there a tire place that's like, nearby, that's open right now, that we can go to right now?" So we did. Took a little pit stop detour, but it was very well worth it. I just don't think we would have made the rest of the trip in one piece.  [00:08:06] Jason: The first tire store we went to was closed.  [00:08:08] Sarah: Yeah. Like it wasn't even plowed to get to it. They were closed. The third one was a tread. So we got new tires. That's good. The guy at the tire store, what did he tell you? The tread level was like a four. It's real, it's really bad.  [00:08:21] Jason: Yeah.  [00:08:21] Sarah: It was real bad. Yeah. So, that was fun.  [00:08:23] Jason: So We got fresh tires. Then the car drove really well. [00:08:27] Jason: Plus we had pretty much made it through the worst of the weather, which we had planned. Because there were two ways we could go. The northern route had less weather, so.  [00:08:39] Sarah: Yep. That's why we're in Ohio.  [00:08:41] Jason: So.  [00:08:41] Sarah: And not through West Virginia.  [00:08:43] Jason: Yeah, we'd probably be in a very terrible spot if we had gone the wrong way. [00:08:47] Jason: So.  [00:08:47] Sarah: Yeah. We'd be off on the side of the road frozen like popsicles. Oh gosh. You guys would never hear from us again.  [00:08:52] Jason: So moral of the story is be prepared. Make sure you're prepared. Have a plan. And so we've done lots of plans and changing of plans and so this is part of life. And this is how businesses work. Your best plan is sometimes going to fail and you're going to have to come up with a new way of doing it and you're going to have to adapt. And so one thing entrepreneurs, we are good at is adaptability. We figure it out cause we have to, and we adapt. And so we've adapted a lot today. [00:09:23] Jason: And yesterday. The last couple days. Yeah, the last couple days.  [00:09:25] Sarah: We had a plan, we changed a plan, we changed that plan, we changed a plan again. We just keep changing it.  [00:09:30] Jason: And that causes us. We're just rolling with the punches. That causes us to have to adapt in business. So here we are recording a podcast. [00:09:36] Jason: Here we are.  [00:09:36] Sarah: At midnight.  [00:09:37] Jason: In a hotel room.  [00:09:37] Sarah: Which Jason did not want to do.  [00:09:39] Jason: No. No. I was like, we don't have to do anything that we don't want to do. We don't have to do this.  [00:09:44] Sarah: No. And I said, we are not recording a podcast live from the car because we might die. No.  [00:09:49] Jason: We're not going to do that.  [00:09:49] Sarah: We might die live on camera. [00:09:51] Sarah: Yeah, that would be...  [00:09:52] Jason: All right. So hopefully some of you got some value from this. If you do not have a good plan for your business, then that's something that we can help you with here at DoorGrow, help you come up with a plan, and help you adapt to some of the things that are getting thrown at your way. [00:10:09] Jason: This is why we mapped out the DoorGrow code, our roadmap, for some of the most common challenges and problems. So if you would like a copy of the DoorGrow code, just reach out to us. We'd be happy to give you one and tell you a little bit about how we might be able to help you and hear about your challenges. [00:10:24] Jason: So reach out to us. You can check us out at doorgrow.Com or go to our website or join our free Facebook group by going to doorgrowclub.Com. Make sure to answer the questions. We reject 60 to 70 percent of the applicants that try to join that group. So it's only for property management business owners. [00:10:44] Jason: So if you own a property management business or seriously planning on starting one, then you can request access to that group. Make sure to answer the questions. We would love to have you inside. And that's it.  [00:10:55] Sarah: No, that's not it. No.  [00:10:56] Jason: Oh, there's more.  [00:10:57] Sarah: That wasn't it. I said, what are we going to talk about this episode? [00:11:00] Sarah: I told you what we're going to talk about, then we just... So.  [00:11:03] Sarah: It's not the end of the episode. Surprise! A little bit more. But wait, there's more! [00:11:07] Jason: But wait, there's more.  [00:11:08] Sarah: So for those of you that do have a plan, and you're like, "yeah, no, I definitely have a plan. This is not applicable to me," we had a plan going into this as well. [00:11:17] Sarah: So, when you have a plan and life does not work out the way that you planned, and things don't work out the way that you thought that they would, and you're going through things and you're trying to figure out, you know, "what am I doing wrong? And why isn't this working? And like, why is this so hard? I don't understand why it's not happening the way that I wanted it to happen," and why it's just maybe not happening at all... [00:11:40] Sarah: or maybe it's happening, but it's just so slow, and it's so hard, then you just need to know that sometimes there's a bigger plan in place for you somewhere. And if you're religious, you might believe that God, or the universe, or fate, or whatever you might want to call it. There is a bigger plan out there for you, and there may be a reason that things are not going the way that you wanted them to go right now. [00:12:07] Sarah: There may be a reason that you're not experiencing the results that you thought that you would at this stage in the game. Just like when we thought we would go to West Virginia. Had we actually gotten to West Virginia, we'd be stranded there for sure, because they are getting hammered with snow right now. [00:12:22] Sarah: So the whole, like, West Virginia, D. C. area Hammered with snow, and that was our plan. So I'm grateful, although it's a little crazy, I'm grateful that we didn't end up going that way. I'm grateful that there was a bigger plan in place for us. So just trust that you do have support when you reach out to people like your mentors, and if you're in the DoorGrow Mastermind, there are so many resources for you, including property managers who are in the exact same spot that you are in. [00:12:56] Sarah: They've been there. They've done that. They've experienced everything. So leverage the resources that you have available to you. Know that there's support and know that everything is unfolding exactly the way it's supposed to for you in this exact moment. And you will have your breakthrough. The only time that you won't have your breakthrough is if you quit. [00:13:14] Sarah: See, and now we're done.  [00:13:15] Jason: Good words. Good stuff, Sarah. All right.  [00:13:18] Sarah: All right. We're going to go to bed now.  [00:13:20] Jason: Yeah. Get some sleep.  [00:13:22] Sarah: Yep.  [00:13:22] Jason: So until next time, to our mutual growth. Hope you all crush it. Bye, everyone. [00:13:27] 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!  [00:13:54] Jason: 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's already 2025! What goals do you have for the year for yourself? For your property management business? In this episode of the #DoorGrowShow, property management experts Jason and Sarah Hull discuss their goals for 2025 and how they will impact property management business owners. You'll Learn [01:36] DoorGrow's Yearly Planning and Goals [07:30] DoorGrow in-Person Events in 2025 [13:05] The Future of Property Management: DoorGrow Live 2025 [16:11] DoorGrow's Commitment to Rescuing Dogs Tweetables  ”Strategic time invested in the business is what actually grows businesses.” “Most of y'all are focused so heavily on the tactical, the day-to-day tasks that just come at you and the business isn't moving forward.”  ”Broke people often have a broke mindset.” “You can do it. You just need a really good plan.” Resources DoorGrow and Scale Mastermind DoorGrow Academy DoorGrow on YouTube DoorGrowClub DoorGrowLive TalkRoute Referral Link Transcript [00:00:00] Jason: Most of y'all are focused so heavily on the tactical, the day to day tasks that just come at you and the business isn't moving forward.  [00:00:09] 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. [00:00:27] 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. We're your hosts property management growth experts Jason Hull and Sarah Hull the owners of DoorGrow. [00:01:07] Now, let's get into the show. All right.  [00:01:10] So today, we're going to be... [00:01:12] Sarah: It's new year's eve!  [00:01:13] Jason: It's new year's eve as we're recording this episode. So those of you watching us live, happy new year's. And those of you that are not, then I hope you had a happy new year, and you didn't like drink too much and you are like ready to go for the new year. [00:01:28] So we're going to be talking about the new year. What are we going to chat about today?  [00:01:33] Sarah: I thought we were going to talk about where we want to go.  [00:01:36] Jason: Yeah. So we're going to tell you a little bit about what's up with DoorGrow. We do our annual planning in the middle of the year. We offset it by two quarters. [00:01:45] We find that to be a lot more effective. So we actually coach our clients to do the same. Why? Because this time of year, everybody's a little bit too focused on other stuff, holidays, family, all good things, right? And not as focused, maybe, on the business. [00:02:00] Sarah: Can you imagine if today was the deadline for all of your big annual goals? [00:02:05] Like, man, we gotta do that one thing! Today's the last day. Hard push, guys! Everyone's like, "..." [00:02:10] Jason: Or just even this whole month of December or even like Thanksgiving time. Like just trying to push your end of the year goals and trying to achieve as a team, your team are like, "cool. I'm glad you are motivated, Mr. Business Owner, but..."  [00:02:24] Sarah: "I'm taking two weeks off for Christmas, and I'm off for Thanksgiving, I'm taking time off for Christmas, I'm taking time off for New Year's." [00:02:31] Jason: "That's cool, you want to hit that end of the year revenue goal, or sales goal, or whatever your goals are, but I need to figure out what to get my Aunt Susie for Christmas, and who's bringing what for Thanksgiving." [00:02:43] Sarah: "I'm cooking, and I'm cleaning." [00:02:44] Jason: And, "what party am I going to for New Year's? Who am I going to kiss at midnight?" Like, it's hard stuff. That being said, some of the goals we have for 2025 I think one of the things we've really put a lot of attention into over the last three, four years, maybe even longer is just making our program better and better. [00:03:05] We've just added a lot to the program, like focusing on decreasing churn, keeping our coaching clients longterm improving systems. We just rolled out some cool stuff, our client workbooks. What are some of the things we've done in the last year? We rolled out this new Accountability Sales Tracker. [00:03:19] We rolled out, you know... [00:03:20] Sarah: all kinds of client workbooks content...  [00:03:23] Jason: new courses,  [00:03:23] Sarah: operations revamp.  [00:03:25] Jason: DoorGrow, we get a lot done. Part of that is because of DoorGrow OS and our planning process. It allows us to really focus on Goals and outcomes, strategic growth of the business instead of just tactical day to day work. [00:03:38] And strategic time invested in the business is what actually grows businesses. Most of y'all, because I've talked to thousands of property managers, most of y'all are focused so heavily on the tactical, the day to day tasks that just come at you and the business isn't moving forward. So our goal for this year, because we've got a really good program, we're getting great results. [00:03:59] We're keeping clients for a decent time now. You know, we even got rid of over the last several years, we got rid of any sort of annual contract. A lot of vendors like DoorGrow have annual agreements or whatever. We got rid of those because we could keep clients longer than a year. And so we didn't need that. [00:04:16] Like it increases the risk of people wanting to like get on board with us. So we're like, let's lower the risk to come on board with us, prove ourselves and just keep them. So the next goal for us really at DoorGrow is to focus on lead generation. That game has changed so much over the last decade plus that we've been in business. [00:04:37] We've used LinkedIn to get business for a while through automation. We used our Facebook group and we've used organic stuff through SEO. Like we've used a lot of different strategies and we still have several things going at a time, but the game always changes. And so lead gen is something where we're shifting our focus. [00:04:57] As you focus on the business, we've got our six core functions, lead gen, nurture, conversion, delivery, lifetime value, pricing, retention, et cetera. And then financial finances. And so we're shifting our focus every year towards what's weakest. Where does our attention... yeah. [00:05:17] Sarah: Every quarter, we're like, "okay, Hey, we solved that problem. Now we have this whole other problem.  [00:05:22] Jason: So our weakest thing right now is probably lead generation. Like we've got a lot of tools for nurture. This podcast or newsletter. We've got lots of content on YouTube. Yeah. Nurture's strong.  [00:05:35] Sarah: Yeah. [00:05:36] Jason: Delivery and fulfillment is strong. Conversion, like we're pretty good at conversion.  [00:05:40] Sarah: Hassan follows up with people like crazy. He's just on top of it. He's done everything.  [00:05:45] Jason: So lead gen, we've been getting a lot of leads, you know, through Facebook ads and through our Facebook group where we funnel people to, but we're getting a lot of unqualified leads. [00:05:54] Like basically there's a lot of startup property managers that are broke and don't have money and we can help them with that stuff if they're willing to invest. But broke people often have a broke mindset. So if you're listening and you're not growing, you're probably not investing any money towards growth. [00:06:10] Like who are you paying to coach you or teach you or help you figure out how to grow? If you're not paying somebody, you're selling yourself short. And we eat our own dog food. How many masterminds am I in right now? I don't know, two, three? [00:06:22] Sarah: I don't know. You just added another one.  [00:06:24] Jason: Yeah, but they're for different areas of the business. [00:06:26] And and we leverage them and allow the team to leverage them and to make sure that we're always innovating or getting new ideas and moving things forward.  [00:06:35] Sarah: Think the answer is four.  [00:06:36] Jason: I think I'm in four different masterminds right now. Yeah. We're in plenty. So, yeah. So, and yeah we've got two online programs that we're in right now related to just leads. [00:06:49] Oh, I wasn't counting those.  [00:06:50] Ads. So we've got access to at least, you know, at least two focused on lead gen. So we're going to be putting our attention and focus this year on lead generation. Like how do we attract more property managers that are struggling, that want to grow, or that are struggling with being able to scale their operations and adding doors is causing a problem for them? [00:07:14] These are problems we solve and we're really good at solving it. So we're going to be shifting our lead gen from just like, "Hey, are you a property manager? Join our free Facebook group and then we'll give you free stuff." We're going to shift it more towards, "Hey, do you have these particular challenges we want to help?" [00:07:28] So that's going to be our focus this year.  [00:07:30] Sarah: I also want to focus on doing some cool events this year.  [00:07:33] Jason: Yeah.  [00:07:33] Sarah: Those are so fun for me. I love that. Like even our jumpstart events.  [00:07:37] Jason: Yeah.  [00:07:38] Sarah: It's a whole day, so it's a lot. Like I am tired afterwards, but I walk away feeling really fulfilled I walk away... [00:07:45] Explain what a jumpstart event is  [00:07:46] ...and I just feel like we just changed the trajectory of people's lives and businesses. [00:07:52] Jason: Yeah, they're powerful. Explain what a jumpstart is for those that are like, what's that? Yeah.  [00:07:56] Sarah: What's a jumpstart session? So the jumpstart session is available for our mastermind clients. They're held here in the North Austin, Texas area, and they're a one day deep dive into the business. So, there's no pre selected topics. [00:08:08] Sometimes I get, "well, what are we going to talk about?" I don't know, what do you need in your business? What are the problems? What are your challenges? What are you working on? What has not been working for you? You know, what questions might you have that you're like, "man, I just, I know I can do this better. I just don't know how." That's what we're going to talk about. So whatever it is. We've done a couple of them we've done pricing. Some of them have been focused on sales. Some of them have been focused more on the back end, like delivery and team operations.  [00:08:37] Jason: Yeah.  [00:08:38] Sarah: So they're different every single time and we never know what we're going to talk about really until we get there and we start diving in and we start asking questions. [00:08:48] So, they're usually smaller events. I like to keep them small because if they get too big, it's hard to go really deep into a business if there's like 20 businesses in the room. Now it's not a deep dive. Now it's just, we're going to talk about some stuff. So we keep them generally pretty small. [00:09:03] There are usually about like three, maybe four businesses there. And it's like a one day deep dive. We do break, we get some really good tacos. We go for lunch and then we dive right back into it. But every single time people walk away with an action plan, they walk away knowing what to do. We update our client workbooks. [00:09:22] So they get a lot of clarity and then we wanted to mimic that, but build on it and do this a little bit in a more robust way. So we're actually hosting an event. This is open to anyone who wants to join. It will be called Thrive 2025 because as we're talking with people, we're realizing we're at the end of the year. [00:09:44] The clock is about to reset. Some people, they have an idea of what they want to do, but they don't know how the hell they're actually going to get there. So, we're going to get into the nitty gritty and help them figure out, well, what is your plan? What are your goals? And then, how are you going to get there? [00:10:01] What are the things that you need to do? And by what time frame do you actually need to do them? So that you can hit this goal that you're trying to hit in all of 2025. So at this event, we're not just planning for like, "Hey, here's what you're going to do for maybe the next month or the next couple of weeks." [00:10:18] "Here's what your 2025 is going to look like, and here's the entire roadmap for your 2025." So that you can be on track and hit the goals that you're looking to hit so that you don't have another year where you're like, "man, it just didn't happen again. I just don't know what's going on. Maybe I'll just never do it." [00:10:38] You can do it. You just need a really good plan. You need a solid plan put together. So we're going to spend the day with a room of property managers. We're going to brainstorm. We're going to create some goals, figure out what is it that you really want for your business? Why do you want it? [00:10:53] And then, what are the action steps that you need to take so that you can get there? So this essentially is going to write the business plan for your business for 2025. And we're going to do that in a really cool place. It's going to be in Nashville.  [00:11:07] Jason: Yeah, we're going to take you through a bit of our planning process the way we do this at DoorGrow I really think this is the technology that has allowed us to surpass any other coaches in the space it's our planning and it's the planning process gets our team in alignment It gets them out of that transactional sort of leadership system. [00:11:28] It gets them focusing on objectives. It gets them functioning more like like intrapreneurs, instead of just waiting to be told what to do. And if you're frustrated and always having to tell your team what to do and always having to answer all their questions, you have a transactional leadership system because that's the least risky thing for them to do is to let you do all the thinking and decision making. [00:11:48] So when we start focusing on a team, figuring out what is the business need? What are the objectives to like brainstorm as a team? And you're the last to speak as a visionary or the people that are running the business and you get feedback, real feedback from your team who are on the front lines, who know what challenges they're running into, then we can start to innovate as a company. [00:12:09] Then they start to focus on those outcomes and they start to move things forward. And so we're going to take you through that process. And come up with a plan. So we're going to spend a day and just dig in. And this will be a game changer for you and your business. So we're going to have a small group. [00:12:24] How many are we allowing to come to this?  [00:12:26] Sarah: There's going to be eight spots total. And some of them are already spoken for.  [00:12:30] Jason: Okay. Eight businesses.  [00:12:32] Sarah: Eight spots.  [00:12:33] Jason: Eight people.  [00:12:34] Sarah: Eight. Yep. Eight human beings. So, a business might just have one person.  [00:12:39] Jason: Or bring a plus one. It can bring a plus one. Yeah. Okay.  [00:12:43] Sarah: Two, two max. [00:12:44] Because if someone goes, Oh, I have three people. So it might only be four businesses. Four people. Like now that's really.  [00:12:49] Jason: Okay.  [00:12:50] Sarah: It's hard then, because it takes up so many spots.  [00:12:52] Jason: So we're going to be doing events as another goal for the year.  [00:12:56] Sarah: Yep. Yeah, so we're going to kick it off with right in January Thrive 2025. [00:12:59] Jason: If you're listening this podcast later on like iTunes or something then you probably missed it, but we'll have other stuff.  [00:13:05] Sarah: But don't worry because we have our DoorGrow live event coming up. [00:13:08] Jason: Okay, that's another event So we've got DoorGrow live coming up. You want to talk about DoorGrow Live?  [00:13:13] Sarah: Yeah, let's talk about DoorGrow Live. So that is going to be a Friday and Saturday. It's May 16th and 17th. And you'll want to make sure that you come in on the 15th because that Thursday, the day before from 7pm to 9pm, we're doing a mixer. [00:13:27] So we're doing some networking. You'll meet the DoorGrow team. You'll meet a lot of other business owners and property managers, and we're going to have some live entertainment. So you're going to get to see some dancers. We're going to have a singer. It's going to be a good time. So make sure that you travel in the day before, attend the mixer. [00:13:46] And then this year we're talking about innovating the future of property management. So we want to talk about where is this whole industry going? Because things change really quickly, especially with all of the developments in AI. So things can change really quickly. So we're going to have some great speakers there. [00:14:07] You can go actually right now. You can go to doorgrowlive.Com and you can get all of the event details. You can book your rooms at the discounted room rate that we've negotiated with the venue for you. It's at Kalahari Resorts in Round Rock, Texas. And you can check out some of the speakers that are going to be there at the event. Every year we do one of these we always try to make it a little bigger a little better, and this year is no exception We've got some great stuff planned.  [00:14:39] Jason: You know, I think a lot of people are burnt out on conferences. A lot of you maybe have gone to a lot of events and conferences. But there's something special and different about DoorGrow Live. [00:14:49] I've been to a lot of different events as well. And there's just something special and different about DoorGrow Live. And one, we're creating a lot of momentum for property managers too. I think we're a lot more holistic in our approach. We're not just focused on property management. All of y'all know plenty about property management, but what I find is usually what's holding you back in business is not even related to business, it's everything else going on. And that's why we take a much more holistic approach. And so we're going to benefit you in a lot of different ways. Like people walk away from these events and become better people. That's our goal. And so, and better people have better businesses and better families and make more money and more contribution and make a bigger difference. [00:15:33] So, so get your tickets to DoorGrow Live. That's coming up as well. And any other events?  [00:15:39] Sarah: Well, there's this secret one that we haven't talked about yet. When we were in Mexico, we were talking about it.  [00:15:45] Jason: Okay, well I guess we're not talking about today 'cause it's a secret . So, so sorry, everybody. [00:15:51] All right. So something cool is coming. All right, so we've got events coming up and then so what other goals do we have for DoorGrow? Those are kind of the key ones for us internally. It's lead gen. Yeah. Yeah. It is going to be our focus, so.  [00:16:04] Sarah: I want to just find it to help more people and [00:16:07] Yeah. [00:16:07] I don't care what that looks like.  [00:16:08] Jason: It doesn't  [00:16:09] Sarah: even matter what it looks like, really, so. Oh, and then my, I have some personal goals, too, I'm going to help more dogs. We're going to save more dogs this year. Jason's going to kill me, probably. I might be divorced by the end of the year. Hopefully not.  [00:16:22] Jason: I will not kill her. [00:16:22] Sarah: What's the number of dogs that we can get before we talk about divorce?  [00:16:28] Jason: Is this, like...? [00:16:29] Sarah: On the pod, we're going to record it, yeah. So, like, what's the number? Because we're at three right now. We just rescued enough.  [00:16:35] Jason: There's no amount of dogs that would make me divorce you. There's plenty of other things you could do that would probably lead towards that, but it's not a dog thing. [00:16:44] Sarah: So we're going to have 99 dogs.  [00:16:46] Jason: We just adopted. Yesterday, we officially just adopted our third dog, who was a foster. We had for, what, a month? And then...  [00:16:55] Sarah: we had him for a month.  [00:16:56] Jason: And then he got adopted. We got him adopted.  [00:16:58] Sarah: We did our job.  [00:16:59] Jason: We took him to farmer's markets and places and we met somebody at one of the things we took him to and got him adopted. [00:17:06] Sarah: And it was a great situation for him. We were super sad because he's such a great dog. He's so perfect for him. And then when we dropped him off, I was just I was crying. I was a mess.  [00:17:15] Jason: Yeah, it was, that was hard.  [00:17:16] Sarah: I was so sad.  [00:17:17] Jason: He's just like the sweetest dog ever. Like, he's so, like, loving, he just loves everyone, like, well, loves us, not everyone. [00:17:24] And yeah, so we got him adopted and then they took him back to the animal shelter.  [00:17:30] Sarah: Yeah.  [00:17:31] Jason: Which is sad. I guess.  [00:17:33] Sarah: Husband wasn't really on board.  [00:17:34] Jason: Husband wasn't really on board with it. No. The wife had adopted him and.  [00:17:37] Sarah: She got him while he was in Florida like. He was out of town. Rebuilding houses from the storm. [00:17:43] Jason: Yeah.  [00:17:43] Sarah: And he was like, yeah, babe, go ahead. And he comes home and there's this dog.  [00:17:47] Jason: I'm coming to Texas. And he's like, I don't know if I like this dog. Yeah. Hans doesn't like new people, so he was probably like a little iffy about him, and it probably just didn't go well. I don't know.  [00:17:57] Sarah: Well, he let me know that it wasn't going to work out, so I said, okay, bring him back, and we'll foster him again, and in fostering him again, we both just, we knew we can't, we just can't, we can't give him up.  [00:18:12] Jason: So we're on number three. If we keep doing this fostering, we may end up with 20 dogs eventually. We'll need to buy land and a farm for dogs.  [00:18:21] Sarah: Y'all heard it. He said there is no amount of dogs.  [00:18:25] Jason: I'm not going to divorce you over dogs.  [00:18:26] Sarah: He said there's no amount of dogs. [00:18:27] So this is recorded. I have video evidence  [00:18:30] Jason: that doesn't mean I'm going to allow any number of dogs. There's only so many we can handle. Do you like taking trips? You like taking trips?  [00:18:37] Sarah: I do, but that's... [00:18:38] we're not boarding 20 dogs. [00:18:40] No, we just need a farm. Need a farm. [00:18:43] Need some volunteers. We'll start a nonprofit.  [00:18:47] Jason: Okay.  [00:18:47] Sarah: Get some people to help out. I'm going to save all dogs.  [00:18:50] Jason: This is Sarah's goal for 2025.  [00:18:54] Sarah: We'll have buses full of dogs. And he's not going to leave me, so that's great.  [00:18:58] Jason: God help me.  [00:19:00] Sarah: Seriously.  [00:19:00] Jason: Please, protect me from this woman and all of her dogs, so. Okay, so that's it. [00:19:07] That's our goals for DoorGrow. What are your goals? Figure them out. Let us know inside our Facebook group. You can go there by going to doorgrowclub.com . And let us know what your goals are for the year. And if you would like some help, we would love to help you with your goals. You know what your default future is. [00:19:25] You know what you achieved last year. You know what you achieved the year before that. And if you're anything like the majority of the property managers I've talked to over the last decade, your results probably aren't super great and you're probably not super excited about it. And you're probably getting a little bit burnt out on your business. [00:19:43] And you probably do not want to keep doing things the way that you're doing it for the next year or the next five years. And so if you would like to have a different year this year than you had last year. Like a great year, like things really going well, like adding a lot of doors, getting a team that actually makes your life easy and you feel like you can just take vacations and step away and the business works swimmingly well, then reach out to us. Reach out to us. This is stuff that we're helping clients do all the time, and you would be amazed how much we can get accomplished even in your initial jumpstart session as a new client, but certainly within the first 90 days, we are changing lives, and we would love to change yours. [00:20:26] We love getting to do this. We just we want to help more people and reach out to us. Have a conversation. We're expensive. Yeah. Not going to lie, like we're expensive, right? But we help you make so much money that you're not going to be worried about the expense. So that's the goal.  [00:20:43] Sarah: What's this, what's the, I don't know what it's called, but there's this framework where you have good, you have cheap, and you have fast and you can never have all three. [00:20:51] Jason: You can only pick two.  [00:20:52] Sarah: There's only two. There's no combination in this world of anything. No product, no service, no nothing that's good and cheap and fast.  [00:21:00] Jason: Yeah. [00:21:00] Sarah: So  [00:21:01] Jason: Yep.  [00:21:01] Sarah: So figure out which one you want to sacrifice, right?  [00:21:04] Jason: Reach out to us. You can check us out at DoorGrow. com and until next time to our mutual growth and happy new year. [00:21:10] Bye everyone. [00:21:10] you just listened to the #DoorGrowShow. We are building a community of the savviest property management entrepreneurs on the planet in the DoorGrowClub. Join your fellow DoorGrow Hackers at doorgrowclub.com. Listen, everyone is doing the same stuff. SEO, PPC, pay-per-lead content, social direct mail, and they still struggle to grow!  [00:21:37] At DoorGrow, we solve your biggest challenge: getting deals and growing your business. Find out more at doorgrow.com. Find any show notes or links from today's episode on our blog doorgrow.com, and to get notified of future events and news subscribe to our newsletter at doorgrow.com/subscribe. Until next time, take what you learn and start DoorGrow Hacking your business and your life.

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. 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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.

In the world of entrepreneurship, there is a lot of conflicting advice on how to make it and become successful.  Property management growth experts Jason and Sarah Hull recently came back from a masterminding event. In this episode, they sit down to debrief and share how humility, hospitality, and transparency can be more effective than trying to be “cool.” You'll Learn [01:10] Masterminding with fellow entrepreneurs [04:04] Humility as a business owner/visionary  [10:41] Example of hospitality and care [15:37] Humility comes from being grateful  Tweetables “Transparency kills the cool vibes, but creates followers like you wouldn't believe.” “By building that goodwill out in front of you, it helps everything in the business go better.” “I think really humility is born or created out of gratitude and being grateful.” “It's not all you. And because it's not all you,  that doesn't mean you're not great. It just means that part of what makes you great is that you're able to work with others.” Resources DoorGrow and Scale Mastermind DoorGrow Academy DoorGrow on YouTube DoorGrowClub DoorGrowLive TalkRoute Referral Link Transcript [00:00:00] Jason: It's not all you. Other people believe in you. Other people are supporting you. With others and with God you can do amazing and great things.  [00:00:09] 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 are 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. [00:01:07] Now, let's get into the show.  [00:01:10] All right. So we were talking about what we should talk about this morning, and we recently just got back from a mastermind event. We're in a mastermind with some kind of a mastermind put on by coaches, I guess for coaches. Is that accurate?  [00:01:27] Sarah: It's not only for coaches. [00:01:28] It's a mix of entrepreneurs that do different things. A lot of them do happen to be coaches, but not all of them are coaches. There's like the people that run the like the tree house Airbnb's and I was like, that's not a tree house. That's really cool.  [00:01:44] Jason: Yeah.  [00:01:44] Sarah: So there's people like that. [00:01:46] He's also, I guess, a musician. He's like a rock star. I learned that this time. So there's a mix of people. Some of them happen to be coaches and some of them are not, they're just entrepreneurs, but these are high level entrepreneurs that are focused on investing in themselves and learning and growing and being better all the time. [00:02:07] Jason: Okay.  [00:02:08] Sarah: So quarterly, we meet, we go out to Tennessee, which is where one of the hosts live. So it's like right outside of Nashville, which to me is like a second home. Like I just, I love it there so much. And it was a really great event. I mean, it's always a really great event. I don't think we've ever gone and then said, oh, that wasn't so great. [00:02:33] It's good every time. Because you never know, and this is what I personally like about it, is you don't know what you're going to get out of it all the time ahead of time. So sometimes, you know, if there's like an event or a conference or something like that, and they go, Oh, and we're going to talk about this one topic. [00:02:51] Well, what if I don't need this one topic? So what I like is I don't know what people are going to share. I don't know what the topics are going to be ahead of time. So we always get something out of it. And we rarely know what that will be.  [00:03:08] Jason: Yeah. Yeah. It was really helpful. And you know, the two gentlemen leading This particular mastermind that we're in, we're in several different things, but this particular one is Sharran Srivatsaa. He's the CEO of Real which is a multi billion dollar real estate company and Aaron Stokes runs a multi million dollar coaching business, coaching auto repair shops called Shop Fix Academy. So it's really cool to hang out with both of them and they're just really wise, lots of insight, great people, you know, and they attract great people around them. So it's just a high caliber group. There's kind of a, at least from Aaron Stokes' side, a very Christian sort of focus. [00:03:51] But Sharran also a very moral person. I don't know. He doesn't seem to focus on that as much, but it's not a religious thing, you know, but we're learning from these two men that have really strong values and really care about the people that they serve. [00:04:04] So I think one of the biggest things that stood out to me was the conversation that they had that related to just who we are. As a coach, I thought was really interesting, and I can touch on that a little bit.  [00:04:21] So I think for me that the thing that I really liked is, one of the phrases I wrote down, I take a bunch of notes. And one of the notes I wrote down is "boastful people are exposing their insecurity. Honor is positive things being said behind my back." [00:04:37] And "hospitality builds goodwill out in front of you" and "master the ability to have confrontational conversations." So there's kind of a conversation a lot about hiring and team, but I really enjoyed the conversation about you know, this idea that when we try to look cool in front of other people, we're not being as transparent and transparency kills the cool vibes. [00:04:58] So we don't maybe look as cool, but he said it creates followers. Like you wouldn't believe. You know, increase trust. And so I think in the past I was very much focused on trying to look cool. And it was, it definitely was born out of insecurity. And it was like, I need to appear great at all times. I need to look like a leader because I just felt maybe insecure. [00:05:23] I wasn't really confident in my ability to perform or to do stuff. Sarah's giving me the nudge to stay further back. So, I'm not too close to the camera.  [00:05:34] Sarah: On what episode does Jason remember to stay behind a lot. I need to put like a... [00:05:39] Jason: I want to get in your faces! Get excited! All right.  [00:05:42] Sarah: What episode does that happen? [00:05:45] I've got a hundred dollars on none of them.  [00:05:47] Jason: Yeah, i'm going to stay back here. Okay, so Yeah, so in the past I was very focused on that and it was kind of a blind spot I had I didn't realize that I was trying to be cool, but part of it was you know, I had some insecurity that i'd never even had a property management business yet somehow, I ended up coaching hundreds of property management business owners. [00:06:08] So there was a bit of imposter syndrome and there was a bit of insecurity and it took coaches to prompt me and push me to like, Hey, you should make some changes to this industry. You can benefit people because I cared, but I was like, it should be somebody else. And so maybe somebody that has thousands of doors or something like that. [00:06:28] And, you know, I did a lot of things trying to look cool, trying to look cool online and stuff like that. And and maybe it's just that I'm getting old I don't know, or maybe I'm getting wiser or I'm learning, but you know, some of the things I've been through recently in life, I'm like, I'm less and less attached that I need to look cool or interesting or special or something, or to try and get some people that perceive me as important. [00:06:54] And I think it's because I'm starting to just value myself more. Right. And And so, you know, transparency kills the cool vibes, but creates followers like you wouldn't believe. So that's, that was one of the key things that stood out to me. So, I,  [00:07:10] Sarah: on that note, something that he was talking a lot about and he's, he has said this before. [00:07:15] It wasn't like, this is not the first time I've heard him say this. And in fact, we've asked him specifically about like some of our events. Like, what can we do to just like blow this thing up? Like, we want to have a conference with like, you know, a hundred people there, 250, 500, a thousand at some point. [00:07:33] So like, how do we do that, Aaron? And, you know, Like the conferences he runs and he did not start large at all. He had 19 people at his first conference and then 19 people at a second conference. So we have more than that, but it's not hundreds yet. And now he's at the thousands. Thousands, multiple thousands of people. [00:07:57] So I had asked him, we were like in our little like van and Jason and I were sitting in the front row and he was driving. So I peeked up and I was like, I think Jason asked him about events and I said, okay, but Aaron, before you answer, I was like, what did you do when you were our size? [00:08:15] Because him telling me what he does now doesn't help me. I don't have a million dollar budget for a conference. Like I wish I did. At some point I might. I don't. I can't pay freaking Jay Leto $500, 000 to come and speak. Like not unless we're going to go bankrupt. So it doesn't work. But the one thing that he talked about, I think he just said it differently or maybe it hit differently this time is like the hospitality aspect of it.  [00:08:46] Jason: Yeah.  [00:08:47] Sarah: Like, don't just run an event and have people like show up and do whatever. It's like, if you were attending this event, what would you want it to look like from start to finish? So this coming DoorGrow Live in 2025, which we're already starting to plan, it's going to be very different. [00:09:04] Like all of our events that we do, any in person events, whether they're small or large, they're going to be very different. So we're going to incorporate some like fun, cool things into it. I mean, we live in Austin. Like there are so many fun, cool things here. We don't, there is no lack. So we can build some of that into. [00:09:24] Our events and give a like a much better experience overall, and that I think will help actually create more connections and networking. amongst the people. So that's, that was something that I kind of on that note. It just hit me different this time, you know?  [00:09:44] Jason: Yeah. Yeah. I like it. Aaron puts a lot of focus in his events hospitality for his auto repair shop owners. [00:09:51] Yeah. So, let's take a quick time out to go over our sponsors here. So, if you are 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 V E N D O R O O dot AI slash DoorGrow and experience maintenance done right. And we've got clients getting some great results with them. We just got to hang out with them here in Austin. [00:10:43] Yeah. Came out for a conference or event and we went out to dinner and they're great guys. Like there's a lot of fun. They're great.  [00:10:50] Sarah: And you know what I liked? Yeah. When I, when we met up with him, so oddly enough, we were also running a very small event that day. Yeah, we were. And one of the people who attended the event was new with Vendoroo. [00:11:02] Yeah. We're trying to figure out, there was like a gap somewhere in like their portal or the system or something. And he had our client voice that to us. And I said, well, this actually happens to be. Perfect. Because we are meeting almost like their whole team later tonight for dinner. So when we were waiting for them for dinner, one of them walks in, David. [00:11:26] So David walks in and he says, Oh guys, like, I'm so sorry. I'm late. Cause he was late, but it's not a big deal. He's like, Oh guys, I'm so sorry. I'm late. I was actually on the phone with Ron. I was like, wait, like my Ron? And he's like, yeah. Ron, and I was like, Oh good, because I was going to talk to you about Ron. [00:11:44] He's like, it's already done. It's already handled. He's like, we are on top of it. And I'm like, that's amazing. So like, there's not a lot of companies that focus that much on like customer service so much so that at seven o'clock at night, they're going to be on the phone with you. Yeah, but that's what David did. [00:12:03] He's like you need me. I'm going to handle it right now. I don't know. Oh, it's seven o'clock at night. I'm not working. Don't call me. I won't get back to it tomorrow. He was like, I'm doing it right now. And if I'm late meeting Sarah and Jason, I'm late meeting Sarah and Jason.  [00:12:15] Jason: Yeah.  [00:12:16] Sarah: And that to me was really cool. [00:12:17] Jason: Yeah, it goes right along with the totality. [00:12:20] Sarah: Like, we were sharing, like, the feedback and they were like, oh my god, we all have to fix this, like, right now. It wasn't like, oh, that sucks, like, oh, that, oh well, what do we do about that? Oh, give it to the other team. No. All of them were like, we need to fix this right now, like, call him now, like, what can we do? [00:12:35] I'm going to talk to him tomorrow, I'm going to look at his portal like, as soon as I get done with this. It was awesome.  [00:12:39] Jason: Yeah.  [00:12:39] Sarah: So I will say that.  [00:12:40] Jason: Yeah, and part of it was, I think the Vendoroo team, were wanting to maintain relationship, healthy relationship with us as well. Right. They're like, we're going to take care of our mutual clients. [00:12:50] And that's that hospitality aspect, you know, where we're focused on their comfort and that's a way you can stand out really more cost is what Aaron had talked about. He says it doesn't really cost anything extra to just show a little bit more care, to be a little bit kinder, to like focus on hospitality. [00:13:11] If you've already got team members that you're paying a salary, there's some costs, get them to focus on more hospitality and that's way you can stand out. And it. It builds goodwill out in front of you. And by building that goodwill out in front of you, it helps everything in the business go better. [00:13:26] So let me mention our next sponsor True Submeter. Attention, multifamily property owners and managers discover True Submeter, the number one water and sub metering company in the U S say goodbye 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 DoorGrow 10. [00:13:58] That's DoorGrow 1 0 visit truesubmeter. com today for intelligent utility solutions and substantial savings. That's truesubmeter.Com. All right.  [00:14:09] Sarah: So everybody in the multifamily space.  [00:14:13] Jason: Yeah.  [00:14:13] Sarah: Where you've got your tenants. Like I literally had a tenant one time, she was so mad, she, and she was a little bit off. [00:14:20] She was just really mad. She would run her sinks just for fun. She would turn on water in the sink, turn on water in the bathtub. She would overflow her bathtub, and it's like, well, we're paying for the water. Well, like the owner was. When we, like, a 1, 300 water bill.  [00:14:36] Jason: Now you can figure out which units, even which state for a device is causing the water issue. [00:14:42] Yeah, and bill accordingly.  [00:14:43] Sarah: And you can help your clients be more profitable, because that's something that they have to eat the cost of. And if you are a real estate investor, because I know there's some of you listening that aren't property managers, you're real estate investors yourselves. [00:14:57] If you've got multifamily and the water meters are not separate and in larger multifamily, they're usually not. Maybe if you have a duplex or maybe a triplex, Sometimes like a little bit bigger, but not normal. It's usually like one water meter for the entire building. So this, I mean, this will help you make more money and actually more profitable. [00:15:24] That would have been great for me. Like I had so many small multis that the water was just included. So we had to then try to like raise the rent to compensate for that. It was just messy.  [00:15:37] Jason: So I guess today's topic was humility and you know, hospitality, you know, or just hospitality and kind of revealing yourself or transparency. [00:15:49] So, you know, the last bit I'll touch on is Aaron talked a little bit about humility and I've always believed humility is recognizing. Humility it's not debasing yourself. It's not putting yourself down. And I think a lot of people think that. And I think Aaron, even though he's got wealth and you know, a lot of things and stuff like this. [00:16:06] He's doing very well as well Sharran, they have this they have humility about them And I think what humility really is created by or what true humility is instead of putting yourself down and saying Oh, i'm like not so great. I don't think that's it at all. What I believe humility is recognizing God and others' hand In your results, that's it. [00:16:28] I think it's just not it's not attributing everything beneficial in your life to yourself It's recognizing that other people around you are having a positive impact and That's why you're able to get results. And so I think really humility is born or created out of gratitude and being grateful And so that's what i'll leave the listeners with if you are feeling really prideful and you deep down don't really feel good about yourself or insecure, then just start to recognize where have others or God or the universe or whatever you're into, where have these things impacted your results and helped you get positive results and start to recognize and, you know, gratitude. [00:17:12] And you'll start to recognize that, Hey, it's not all you. And because it's not all you, that doesn't mean you're not great. It just means that part of what makes you great is that you're able to work with others. Other people believe in you. Other people are supporting you. With others and with God you can do amazing and great things. There's no limit and you know being around other people in programs and masterminds and things like this that are playing a high level game that are maybe ahead of you that are doing really well is one of the main reasons to be in these sort of programs and this is the environment that we, you know, aspire to create and facilitate for our clients is to give them something better to look forward to and to look up to and to be a part of and to be around. [00:18:02] And this is why I think a lot of clients are able to get such great results. If you are struggling in your property management business or you're doing well, but you just know it could be better, you know, your day to day in your life could be better. It's not quite where you want to be. Like you, you want more freedom. You want more time with your family. You want more time with your spouse. [00:18:22] You want to take more vacations, more trips. This is what we can help you get towards and what we can help you accomplish and what we can help you focus on so that you can get the business to serve you instead of you feeling like the business is your master and controlling you. And it's a high chair, tyrant, flinging food in your face, controlling you every day. [00:18:43] Telling you what to do. So let's turn that around reach out to us. You can reach us and find us at doorgrow. com and schedule a call right from that website. Check out our funny videos right at the top If you'd like to you know experience a little humor and levity for the property management industry And make sure to join our facebook group at doorgrowclub. com, and join our free community and until next time, to our mutual growth. Bye everyone. [00:19:09] 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!  [00:19:36] 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 food insecurity rising the world over, we cannot escape the reality that climate change is changing our food supply. This means people's livelihoods and lifestyles are changing too, particularly in developing countries. Join us on the Leading Voices in Food podcast as we discuss the rising impact of climate change on food security and livelihoods in Central America, specifically Honduras. Host Norbert Wilson, Director of the World Food Policy Center, along with co-host Sarah Bermeo, delve into the challenges and solutions with experts Marie-Soleil Turmel from Catholic Relief Services and Ana Andino from Duke University. Learn about the Dry Corridor, the effects of climate shocks, land restoration practices, and the role of international support in building community resilience. Interview Summary Sarah - Marie, some of your work with Catholic Relief Services engages with smallholder farmers in an area known as the Dry Corridor of Central America. Can you explain what the Dry Corridor is and provide some context about the food security situation in that area, and how much do residents depend on their own crops to provide food for their families? Marie - So, the Dry Corridor of Central America refers to a region that stretches across the Pacific side of Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, and Nicaragua. The region has a long dry season and a rainy season when the crops are produced. In the last 10 years, this region has been characterized as one of the most vulnerable to climate change. Mainly due to prolonged dry spells in the growing season and more unpredictable rainfall patterns. This region is made up of many small holder farmers in the rural population. These are small hillside farms growing staple crops, maize or corn, and beans with relatively low yields. And most of the household consumption is coming from these farms, and they're selling any surplus that is produced in a good year. These are rain-fed production systems. So, the amount of food that the farms produced is directly tied to the amount of rainfall, making them extremely vulnerable to droughts and climate shocks. And also the region has a very high degree of soil degradation. It's estimated 70 percent of agricultural soil is in a state of severe degradation. This makes farms even more susceptible to climate shocks. So, this is a region that's already struggling with poverty. Close to 8 million people are living in a situation of food insecurity. And now with increasing climate shocks that are affecting crop yields, it's sending more people into a situation of food emergency and requiring food aid. Norbert - Thank you, Marie, for providing that context. Ana, let's now turn to you. I understand that you've worked with the Honduran Ministry of Finance and the Inter American Development Bank on issues relating to economic development in Honduras. What do you view as some of the key development challenges facing the country? Ana - So Honduras faces several challenges which have been dragged out for many years. And now some of them have even worsened, particularly since 2020 when we were hit by the pandemic and the storms Eta and Iota. It's tough to pinpoint just one or a few of them since it's a convergence of complex scenarios, but if I had to mention one - and going along with the conversation we're having today - I would mention intersection between climate change and economic vulnerability. As we heard Marie talking about the Dry Corridor, there are many rural communities that rely heavily on agriculture. But climate variability has made it even more difficult to maintain stable food production, affecting income and food insecurity. So, by mid-2023, about 25 percent of the population was suffering from food insecurity. Nationally, agriculture provides employment for approximately 30 percent of the country's workforce. And there's verification agriculture is also limited, which, this dependency constrains sustainable growth and resilience. Also, I cannot leave behind the access to basic services such as water and electricity. Of course, I'll include in this education, right? It is important, and it's not only a matter of access to them, but also the quality of their services. Many households lack access to clean water. This impacts their daily life, but also their agricultural productivity. And even in the main cities, there is an inconsistent access to water and electricity, which affects livelihoods, but also small businesses to larger industries. Education is a no-brainer, since both access and quality remain a serious challenge. In this list, I would also like to add crime and violence, which remain high. And even though there has been an improvement in the last years, particularly reducing homicide rates, it still remains as one of the highest in Latin America. The situation is even worse when we look at femicide. Because Honduras is still one of the highest or has one of the highest rates of femicide in the region. That often goes along with high levels of impunity. And finally, we're almost getting there to my list of challenges, I would say that there is a lack of infrastructure, particularly in rural areas. There is no reliable access to roads or markets, which affects a lot of smallholder farmers. This also affects connectivity for roads. It limits access to health care and education. And these all are challenges that compound together. And yeah, to finally wrap it up, it's that without institutions that can effectively implement policies and manage resources, it'll be hard to, to have development efforts and to see growth in the country. Norbert - This sounds like a daunting set of challenges. And I realized that obviously in this conversation and the work that's going to happen later this week, we're not able to address all of those. But I would like to pull back and ask you both about issues around climate. And so, for the both of you, I'd be intrigued to understand this. Central America is believed to be highly susceptible to climate change, and Marie, you've already mentioned this. What are some of the key effects that climate change is having on the region? And I've heard you already talk about issues around availability of water. But how do these affect the livelihoods and particularly, how does this affect food security? So, Ana, let's begin with you. Ana – So, as Marie mentioned, there are a lot of extreme weather events going around, such as prolonged droughts, intense rainfall, tropical storms. And these weather patterns have a direct and severe impact on agricultural productivity. Especially in regions where families rely a lot on subsistence farming. It becomes a challenge to plant, to harvest crops. This leads to a reduction in yields. Also, people have less income, referring to income losses, which in the end has a cascading effect on food insecurity and poverty. So basically, what happens is that families have less to sell, but also have less to eat. If we transition to urban areas, climate change could cause floodings and damage to infrastructure, affecting severely industrial activity as well. This will disrupt the livelihoods of the people. In urban and rural areas, it exacerbates difficulties in accessing food, in accessing clean water, in accessing electricity. And just to give you an example, this happened back in 2020, right after Eta and Iota. We had long lasting effects, causing damage to agriculture, to livestock, to infrastructure. The effect on GDP was approximately eight to nine percent of GDP. And unsurprisingly, poverty rose 14 percentage points, which is a big increase. If you see national surveys going around, they have shown that people are having issues with getting access to food. And many people have also had to change their diet, leaving behind some proteins and introducing more carbohydrates or, or foods that are less expensive than proteins, right? And I would leave it there. Yeah. Norbert - This is really important. Thank you for sharing that. Marie, what about you? Marie - Ana really summed it up well, but I would add that it's really important to understand that that these farmers don't have crop insurance to fall back on like farmers in the U.S. So, we're seeing more frequent climate shocks, sometimes years in a row. Droughts and hurricanes. And farmers might be able to borrow seed or money, or to buy inputs to replant the next year, but after consecutive bad harvests, they run out of options and resources and really can't recover. And also keeping in mind that about 60 percent of the food in the region is coming from smallholder farms. And these climate shocks resulting in yield damage have implications for food prices and food security at the regional level, not just at the farm level, right? Sarah - So, Ana and Marie, you do a very nice job laying out the multiple challenges that are facing in urban areas. Turning from that to thinking about adaptations or policy changes that could be successful, can you think of some that might help in decreasing the negative impacts of climate change on farmers, particularly in the Dry Corridor? And, have you seen evidence? Can you bring evidence from your previous work for this to think about pathways forward and whether or not those would be scalable to additional farmers. Marie - So, a focus on land restoration and soil restoration is really key to building climate resilience. As I mentioned, these are areas with really highly degraded soils that are even more susceptible to these climate shocks. So, we're talking about managing the soil to manage water. And I just want to take a moment to explain why soil is so important for climate resilience. A healthy soil will capture and infiltrate more rainwater. These are rain fed systems, depending on every drop that falls. They store more water for plant production and also percolate more water down to recharge groundwater, which has an implication for water availability in the whole area. In a degraded soil, like much of the agricultural land in the Dry Corridor and other parts of the world, soils have lost this function, and the rainwater runs off, it's not captured, it's not stored, and the resulting, the crops grown in that soil are much more susceptible to periods without rain, and there's overall less water availability. When soil and water resources are degraded, agricultural productivity is low, the families are susceptible to climate shocks, and this keeps them in a cycle of emergency and recovery and poverty. The good news is that the ability of soils to capture and store rainwater can be restored with good agricultural practices that build soil organic matter, protect, and protect the soils from erosion. In Catholic Relief Services and in our programs, we call this Water Smart Agriculture Practices. In one of our programs from 2016 to 2020, we monitored a network of farms where we tested these practices with farmers on their farms and side by side plots comparing the water smart agriculture practices with conventional practices. Within that period, a very severe drought in 2018 hit. It affected the whole region and we found that these soils during a very severe drought could store up to 26 percent more moisture during this drought period. And on average yields were 39 percent higher. In a drought year, this can make the difference between a family producing enough food to still meet their household needs or being in an emergency situation and having to rely on food aid. And also, we found it in good years, yields were also much higher because of these good management practices. Meaning that farmers could produce and sell more surplus and improve their income savings. And this also contributes to greater overall resilience. And just to note also that these practices also sequester more carbon in agricultural systems, which also has climate mitigation impacts. Now this alone, soil management alone, is not going to bring farmers out of poverty. We need to build on this foundation of good natural resource management with market access, diversification with more lucrative crops access to financing and, of course, increasing opportunities for women and youth. But all this needs to be built on this foundation of restoring soil and water resources so that we can be successful with these other types of development interventions. We're working to scale these practices in the Dry Corridor by working with a network of partners, including other local NGOs, government agencies. And one of the main limitations is that farmers have is gaining access to any type of agricultural extension services. So, we're really working to strengthen local extension. We're using a hybrid model that combines field training with digital extension tools and radio for mass communication to reach more people. And we know from some of our work and some of the work I'm doing with Sarah and Ana to look at the adoption of these practices, that when farmers do have access to extension services and training, they are in fact applying and adopting the practices. Sarah - Thank you, Marie, for providing the detail about some of the programs that you're seeing and that the evidence, these are evidence-based practices that are actually making a difference for the farmers that you are working with. I want to turn to Ana now and shift the conversation just a little bit. You know, Marie was laying out potential ways to turn things around and ways that life could become better for farmers. But what do you see as some of the consequences of inaction if we don't keep on with these programs and if programs are not scaled up to help smallholder farmers and others in the region. What do you think will be the consequences of that for poverty and food security in Central America? Ana - Sarah, that's a great question. Again, it's hard to give an exact answer on what would be the exact results of this. But there was this one thing that popped into my mind immediately, which is an accelerated flow of people migrating both within the region and towards the U.S. as well. Because people are seeking to escape these harsh living conditions, right? So, food insecurity will get worse, particularly in susceptible areas like the Dry Corridor where farmers are already struggling with this climate unpredictability. Rural families will also face greater challenges in meeting their basic nutritional needs. potentially leading to malnutrition and health crises. And even in urban areas, high prices and food shortage will disproportionately impact the most vulnerable communities, exacerbating inequality. Now, in addition to that, failing to act now will result in a greater cost in the future. And I believe another concerning consequence of inaction is the displacement of young people. And here I must add that right now Honduras has a demographic difference and we're not taking advantage of it. Many young individuals migrate in search of better opportunities, leading to the so-called brain drain. Or they even leave the country without any further motivation to help the country while they're abroad. So, with insufficient opportunities for education, for employment, we are risking youth becoming trapped in cycles of poverty. We're losing people that are capable of helping the country, and this will undermine long term community development and stability. Norbert - Ana, thanks so much for providing that context for the need for action and what consequences of inaction might be. You know, this has been a challenging conversation. We've talked about a number of things that are going wrong or where some of the challenges are. I actually want to turn the conversation to see some ways forward. And so, what are some of the positive changes that can take place? And, you know, Catholic Relief Services is doing some really important work. And I want to hear more about that. But I also want to hear about it in the context of what could happen if policy makers, government officials or decision makers in the international development institutions, if they changed policy or created new opportunities. What would you say are still some really pressing needs and where would you focus money and efforts to get the biggest impact or hope for the most people? Marie? Let's start with you. Marie - I want to emphasize again just the importance of investing in land and soil restoration as a foundation, as a strategy to build climate resilience. Now, we really need programs that are also creating economic opportunities and developing markets for farmers, but this needs to be linked with land restoration initiatives in order to ensure resilience and the sustainability of these activities. You know, when land and soil is restored, these practices aren't just implemented, and they're not just implemented at the farm level, but like over whole landscapes. This improves productivity, but also water availability for households, urban areas, and other activities. So even programs that promote irrigation technologies as a solution for the Dry Corridor, which is really like a way forward also. These need to be linked with the land restoration activities because this water needs to come from somewhere. So, we need to ensure that we're protecting our water resources and ensuring the availability for these other activities, or else we won't be successful. And they also won't be sustainable. We also really need to invest more in capacity-building aspects of our development programming. Not just focusing on asset replacement, which is necessary, but we need a good balance of investing in capacity building. This means farmers, agronomists, agricultural institutes to strengthen the extension systems and improving access to information around soil and climate, for improved decision making and management of these resources in order to also take action to reduce overall risk and climate risk in the area. So really building the capacity in the management practices that can in the long term reduce dependencies on external aid. Norbert - Ana, what about you? Ana- I think Marie summed up everything very well. But if I had to rephrase what she said in my own words, I would focus a lot on infrastructure development. Both physical and digital. This is essential. Investing in better roads, market access, but also digital connectivity would enable the population of farmers and entrepreneurs to reach bigger markets, fostering economic growth and development. And I'll also include improvements to infrastructure to be climate resilient and friendly to the environment. And going along to what she said about capacity development, I would also give focus on improving productive skills. Many companies in the region and especially in Honduras highlight the limited ability of the workforce to generate high value opportunities as a major constraint. So, concrete advances in competitiveness and innovation are needed in this sense. And I would wrap this wish list saying that for any policy to be considered if you want to talk to them to any government official or international organization, there has to be more focus and importance on inclusive policies. They have to engage local communities, they have to engage women, they have to engage youth in decision making processes. Basically, we want to ensure that these groups have voice in policy development. Sarah - Great. Thanks Ana. I want to, you know, turn this attention now to thinking about research. So, Duke is an institution where research is one of our primary functions. And thinking broadly about the impacts of climate change on agriculture and food security, where do you see the biggest need for additional research? And maybe to think about in another way which research questions if they were answered could be transformative? And how might academic research and researchers partner with organizations like Catholic Relief Services and others doing work in the field in order to answer some of these questions about practical applications that could help on the ground? And Ana, let's begin with you. Ana - Thank you for your question, Sarah. I would say our work with Catholic Relief Services has given us a lot of ideas on how we can improve in this sense. For instance, we need to understand how different technologies and practices performed in diverse kinds of conditions are crucial. What factors influence farmers' adoption of one technology more than another, considering the heterogeneity of each farmer and each living condition. But I would also be interested in exploring how climate change impacts household dynamics and whether there is a shift in roles. Men and women, right? If there is an increase in women empowerment within the agricultural context once they're exposed to these new technologies. How they make the decision on what to eat, how much to eat, what to produce, what not to produce. And I would say also, and this is my Santa wish list of the things I want to research about as well is understanding their desire to migrate even under these improved conditions. Like even though we're giving them this technology, it's like what is actually keeping these farmers that we are helping stay and keep doing or producing what they're doing in involving improving with time. Sarah - Marie, what about you? Marie - Yes, so from the development organization perspective, collaborations with academic institutes can really provide an opportunity for us to go beyond the scope of the kind of monitoring and learning that we build into our development projects. And bring in different levels of expertise, and research methods. So definitely something that can be beneficial for our programming. I see two main areas that require more research and where, you know, collaborating with academic organizations or institutes could be, could be a benefit. The first is really around the whole biophysical type research on agricultural systems. Practices to accelerate land restoration, drought tolerant crops and varieties to improve resilience to climate and market shocks. And calibrating and applying different tools for decision making around soils and water resources. And then the other area is really research in development. So, what's the effectiveness of our different delivery methods of our programs, our extension models, and strategies for reaching and including women and youth. Understanding the scaling strategy and how we can reach more farmers. And also, translating these results and program impacts into policy recommendations. So really, research that informs our development strategy to ensure that programs are really leading to transformative, sustainable change and improvements in livelihoods and food security and resilience. Norbert - I really do appreciate hearing this. As a researcher, it's, it's so easy to get, sort of, how do I get the next paper in a journal. But what you're talking about are research questions that really move the development efforts forward. That are, sort of, informed by what's happening on the ground to make sure that the work that you all are doing is the work that leads to the best outcomes for the largest number of people. BIOS Marie-Soleil Turmel is the Scientific Advisor for the Catholic Relief Services Water Smart Agriculture Platform in the Latin America and Caribbean Region. She is an Agronomist/Soil Scientist with 15 years of experience conducting research and extension to promote soil health, productivity, and climate resilience of smallholder farming systems in Latin America. Before joining CRS, she worked as a Research Scientist for the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and Bioversity International. Marie holds a Ph.D. in Soil Science from McGill University and an M.Sc. in Agronomy from the University of Manitoba.   Ana Andino is a PhD student in Public Policy with a concentration in Economics at Duke University's Sanford School of Public Policy. Prior to joining Duke, Ana worked on development issues in Honduras with the Inter-American Development Bank and Honduran Ministry of Finance. She is now an integral part of the Duke team collaborating with Catholic Relief Services. Her research interests are in political economy, climate migration, food insecurity, and international development. She holds a Master of Science in local economic development from the London School of Economics. 

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. 

In over a decade of coaching and working with property management entrepreneurs, we have realized that the mindset stuff is often more impactful than the tactics and strategy. In this episode of the #DoorGrowShow, property management growth experts Jason and Sarah Hull discuss some of their favorite mindset hacks for property management business owners. You'll Learn [03:09] Having a Bad Mindset [11:15] Hiring and the Process Myth [13:28] Limiting Your Own Growth [16:18] Shifting Your Mindset [21:59] The Myth of Needing to be Happy Tweetables “If you really want to grow your business, you have to get off of this high horse of you being special.” “Whatever you believe is going to be true.” “You can either have excuses or you can have wins and results.” “A lot of times we can't see the future. We know our current past and the past doesn't always equal the future.” Resources DoorGrow and Scale Mastermind DoorGrow Academy DoorGrow on YouTube DoorGrowClub DoorGrowLive TalkRoute Referral Link Transcript [00:00:00] Jason: If you believe that you're special and nothing applies to you and nothing will work in your market, you're going to be right. [00:00:07] But if I get the right client that has an open mind in your market, I can help them crush you.  [00:00:13] 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 at DoorGrow. [00:00:56] 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. [00:01:17] Now let's get into the show. All right.  [00:01:20] So today we're going to be talking about mindset. This is this distinguishing, determining factor between clients having success or business owners having success and business owners that don't, even if you know all the tactics. And a lot of times people come to us for the tactics and they think, "Oh man, if I could just learn the right things to do, I'll suddenly have success." [00:01:43] But in the end, when I asked clients, "what really made the difference? What did you really get from us, from DoorGrow?" The usual answer historically has been, "you've shifted how I think about things. You've shifted my mindset." And mindset is probably what's holding you back more than just tactics. [00:02:00] Now, this is what we're going to talk about. Before we get. Into this, I want to share a sponsor that we have for this episode. Vendoroo really cool tech company. If you are 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 by going to Vendoroo. ai So that's V E N D O R like vendor and then O O. Vendoroo.ai/ DoorGrow and experience maintenance done right. And we've got clients already getting great results with them. I think this is like the next awesome big thing. So go check them out. Okay. So let's talk about mindset and let's first, let's show some contrast, right? Sometimes we get some clients and they don't have good mindset. What do you notice with those clients?  [00:03:13] Sarah: They always get stuck. They overthink everything. Everything just seems hard or harder than it has to be. A lot of times these are the clients that are like, "this isn't possible." It's like, "yeah, Sarah, I know that's how you ran your business, but like, I just can't do it that way. It's not possible in my market." So there's been a lot of I feel like it's justification. "Well, why isn't this possible for me? Like if Sarah can run her business that way, if like Jeff Garner can run his business that way, like if other people can run businesses the way that I would like to, but it just doesn't seem to be happening for me. There must be a reason, right?" So then there's a lot of justification. That's what I see.  [00:03:55] Jason: Yeah. So they'll be like, "this won't work for me or this won't work in my market." [00:03:59] Sarah: "My clients would never..."  [00:04:01] Jason: "my clients would never go for that." Yeah.  [00:04:03] Sarah: "They would never do it that well."  [00:04:05] Jason: There's kind of this attitude of superiority that they just know more than everybody else. "There's no way, even though it's worked for countless others in a variety of different markets, there's no way it would work for me because I am so special and my market is so special." Let me tell you, you're not that special. Nobody's that special that things are not going to work for you that have been proven and time tested to work. That's the case. And so if you really want to grow your business, you have to get off of this high horse of you being special. "Well, I'm so special. My situation is so special. I'm so unique." And as long as people hold on to this myth that they're so special, that means nothing else applies to them. Nothing else can work for them. And so they stay stuck in their dysfunction and bottom line, the thing I think that's really important for people to look at when evaluating their current situation and whether their mindset might be off or not is just look at reality. [00:05:05] Look at your results. Results do not lie. If you have not grown significantly over the last year, your results are shit. Your results suck. Bottom line.  [00:05:16] Sarah: Did we trade places today? Are you the bad guy today?  [00:05:19] Jason: Maybe.  [00:05:20] Sarah: That means I have to play good guy? I can't play good cop.  [00:05:22] Jason: We can both be bad cop today.  [00:05:24] Sarah: I don't know how to play bad or good cop. I can only be bad cop.  [00:05:26] Jason: We're both bad cops against bad mindset. I mean Here's the thing, like whatever you believe is going to be true. That's what I think. So if you believe it's tough, you're right. If you believe that you're special and nothing applies to you and nothing will work in your market, you're going to be right. [00:05:46] But if I get the right client that has an open mind in your market, I can help them crush you. I can help them like totally destroy you. Like your business. They could acquire you. They could eat your business for lunch because they're willing to believe something different. And so take a look at your beliefs because your beliefs create your results. [00:06:07] And if you don't like your results, your beliefs are garbage. Bottom line, and this is the tough love dad and me coming out. Like if you don't like your current results in life, you don't like the clients you're dealing with. You don't like the tenants you're dealing with. You don't like your business. [00:06:23] You probably have a crappy belief system, which means you are not setting healthy boundaries. You're tolerating too much abuse. Maybe you've got some past trauma that led to this. I don't know, but you need to change your thinking and you need to change your story because your story creates your results and you cannot change your results dramatically and keep your old shitty story and your old excuses. [00:06:45] You can either have excuses or you can have wins and results. You can't have both. You've got to change the story. And so really healthy mindset is a process where people are continually evaluating their own beliefs and their own story to, to just decide and ask the question, "is this serving me? Is this getting me what I want?"  [00:07:08] "If not, then I can choose to change it. I can choose to believe differently about that situation that happened to me in the past. I can choose to believe differently about my market. I can choose to believe differently and find evidence to the contrary or figure out what works." [00:07:22] And if you're trying to do it all on your own, it's kind of like trying to look at the back of your own head. This is the challenge is if you don't have good mindset, you need to go be around somebody that can install a healthier belief system into your brain. This is what we do at DoorGrow. In every training that we have, I'm not so secretly injecting new mindset into your brain because in order for you to take action on the things I need you to take action on, I've got to get you to understand it and believe something different or you won't do it. And I think this is one of my areas of genius, I think, historically, is I've been pretty good at persuading people to actually believe in themselves. [00:08:02] I've been pretty good at persuading people to actually think a little bit differently about a subject so that I can get them to do crazy stuff, like completely overhaul their pricing with their existing clients. They're like, "no, it'll hurt them, they'll be upset," you know, "they'll all cancel," whatever. And then they're making more money, right? [00:08:19] Or getting them to change their business name. "No, this is my baby. You called it ugly and said it needs plastic surgery." No, right? So their branding or whatever it is, we get them to think differently, which, gets them to take different actions. And you are the person creating your current results with your actions because of your current mindset. [00:08:40] All right, that's my soapbox rant. This is a good place for me to share our next sponsor. And then we'll get into how to install healthy mindset  [00:08:47] Sarah: and yell at you some more  [00:08:49] Jason: Do it! Get good mindset. What's wrong with you people? All right, cool And we're going to talk about some healthy mindset things And maybe challenge some of the beliefs you have we'll do that and this won't take too long. [00:08:59] Our next sponsor for this episode is True Submeter. This is some cool technology. Attention, multi family property owners and managers! Discover True Submeter, the number one water submetering company in the US. 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. DoorGrow 1 0, use that code. Visit truesubmeter. com today for intelligent utility solutions and substantial savings. That's truesubmeter. com. So this is a cool tech actually for small plexes and yeah.  [00:09:50] Sarah: I would have loved that on my multifamily because that was so irritating. You have to try to like increase the rent to offset the water cost, but how much is the water cost going to be? And then sometimes you price yourself out with the rent being too high and You can't track. [00:10:04] You just can't. And then every once in a while, you get the tenant like I had, you know who you are, who just ran the sink for fun because she was pissed. Yeah, that was great. Oh, man. Oh, I hated her so much. Yeah, you, like, man, I wish I had that true submeter device on her, like a bill for that.  [00:10:23] Yeah, she would just run the sink, she would turn on the water, she would walk away, it would flood the apartment downstairs and it would jerk up the water bill. [00:10:30] Yeah oh, yeah, it was great market I was in guys. It was so fun. I miss it every day  [00:10:35] Jason: Wow Okay. You good?  [00:10:37] Sarah: I think so. All right.  [00:10:38] Jason: Can we move on? Yeah. All right. We're going to talk about healthy mindset. [00:10:42] Sarah: This is a great episode. You're cute.  [00:10:44] Jason's yelling at people. I'm yelling at people. This is a good one.  [00:10:47] Jason: Okay. Healthy mindset. I'll give you some examples. I actually, because I kept having clients say, like I would say, what was the best part of our program? Or, you know, things like this. And they would say mindset. [00:10:58] And I was like, what? I don't even have anything about mindset I didn't think. It's just kind of what I do. It's built in, but I actually then created a training. I'm like, "I'm going to create a training that's legitimately mindset stuff." So I have a training called mindset secrets. So let me share some mindset ideas. [00:11:15] One of the things that I've noticed in negative mindset is one really unhealthy mindset that would shift everything for property management business owners I see happen, especially between the stage of going from a hundred to 200 doors is this mindset that "I need to hire and build the team around the business" and it's so unconscious. [00:11:37] It's just so wired. "Oh, like the business is getting stressful. I need to get a team member" and we just hire based on what the business needs instead of what we need. And so this is where I see business owners end up in two to 400 door range and they're more miserable than they've ever been and they stop focusing on growth and getting doors or they can't because adding more doors makes their life painful and they are more miserable in their business than they've ever been. [00:12:03] I talk to people every week that are in this situation there and we've signed like how many businesses in the last two weeks did we sign up in our mastermind? Like seven. Yeah. Something like this. The majority of them are in our super system tier of our mastermind because they're dealing with this problem. [00:12:21] This problem. And they're not happy. They don't have a rockstar team. They have sometimes an okay team, or they have a terrible team where they've really struggled with hiring. And they think they have a good team, but then they think, "well, we just need better processes." Let me tell you, if you think your biggest problem is you just need more processes so you can handle growth, you don't have a good team. Your team is not the team that you need. A good team can still perform amazingly without process documentation. They will figure it out.  [00:12:52] I call this the process myth. [00:12:53] This is really unhealthy mindset. You cannot out process bad team members. And you cannot build the right team around the wrong person. So if you are showing up in the business still wearing hats you don't enjoy wearing, still doing things you don't enjoy doing, you then are building the wrong team by default. [00:13:09] If you still wear a bunch of different hats you don't enjoy wearing and you have an entire team, you have the wrong team. Period. This is bad mindset because you haven't been taking care of yourself. You haven't been building the business around you because you're probably not even clear on you and what you really want. [00:13:24] And so that's caused this problem. So that's mindset. Another mindset issue. People come to me and I'm like, "what do you want?" They're like, "I want to grow, but maybe only to about 250 units or 300 units. I hear this all the time. It's like they, they have a cap." What would you say about that? [00:13:39] You've heard me talk.  [00:13:40] Sarah: So that's one of the things that I think it really holds people back. And if you're limiting yourself right out of the gate, then you're not, first of all, you're not living up to your full potential clearly. But in addition to that you're creating the glass ceiling. That we're all, like, pissed and fighting about. [00:14:01] It's like, you know when you get a job and they're like, "Oh yeah, but this role, it maxes out at this salary. Like, you can't make any more. This is, like, the top. Okay? So, no matter how great of a job I do, I can't just make more?" Well, no. That's, like, you would have to get promoted, or move laterally to a different role, and that's how you would make more money. Oh, well, you're creating that for yourself now. You're putting a limitation on yourself and your business. And then what happens is it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. And that's where you get stuck. And sometimes you can't even reach that because you know that it's the end. So sometimes you're like, "okay, I want to get to like 250, 250 would be like really good. Then you can't even get to 250 because your brain already knows it's done at 250. Especially if you're Power and Achievement. If you're Power and Achievement and you say, "Okay, 250 and then I'm going to stop." Your brain will literally never let you stop. Because you have to keep winning if you're Power and Achievement. [00:15:03] And once you hit 250 and then you're done, then you're done winning. Your brain is going to go, Nope, not for me. Not doing that. I'll play in that game.  [00:15:11] Jason: So what I've noticed is our brains were really good at kind of creating and predicting the future. I mean, if I asked you right now, imagine what you could be at in a year and what you could be doing. [00:15:22] Like you can instantly come up with something. And so the problem is when I ask people what their goals are, instead of just thinking of the ultimate amazing possibility, they think of the pain. There's part of us that always focuses on, "well, I want this great outcome, but I also know there's going to be some pain involved. [00:15:42] And so they have this false mindset that adding more doors is also going to be, which is, can be true, which is true for people that end up in the second stand trap. And so they're a little bit like magical and seeing the future. They can see their future that somewhere between two to 400 units, life's not going to be as good for them. [00:16:01] And it's going to get hard. And so part of healthy mindset is being exposed to a different possibility. So here's a different possibility for everybody that thinks that would be the max level pain that they could tolerate would be maybe 250 units, 300 units or whatever. I want you to ask yourself this question. [00:16:18] Do you think it could be possible that if you do it the right way, that the more doors you add. Every door you add, the more doors you add, the more money you could have and the better the team members you could get and the easier your business could get over time. Could you see a possibility in which a thousand doors, managing a thousand door business could be easier for you as a CEO than managing a hundred? [00:16:44] I think most of us can see that's possible, but if you don't know how, then that's why you would maybe come to DoorGrow. Like, we would help you see that future. We would help paint how that's going to map out and how that's going to work so that it can become a reality. But a lot of times we can't see the future. [00:16:59] We know our current past and the past doesn't always equal the future. It does if you don't get some sort of injection of something new, you don't bring something new into your space, some new ideas, a new mindset. And this is why it's very important to be around people that have health mindset. I think that's one of the best benefits of our mastermind is that it's full of people that are around Growers, full of people that are believers. [00:17:22] It's full of people that are optimistic, that believe in potential and possibility. They're growth minded and not everybody out there growth minded. There's a lot of worn down, sad property management business owners and they won't admit it. You might be one of them. They won't admit it, but there's a lot of them and they would love to get out of the business. [00:17:45] They just can't see a way out. I've had clients we just signed up that wanted out of their business. And as soon as they can paint a picture of how they can stay in the business and that selling it may not be the only way to escape the shittiness that they're experiencing, that they also could just change how they're running their business and do different types of exits. [00:18:08] They can exit some of the frontline work. They don't have to sell the whole business. And that the business can be good because mindset wise, they are off, right? And I just show them the possibility. I show them evidence. I show them results from people that have done this. I share testimonies of people that had felt exactly how they did.  [00:18:27] So I had, it was an interesting experience yesterday. I signed up a client in the morning that wanted to get rid of her business. [00:18:35] She hated it. And the husband wanted to like keep it and she was miserable and I helped paint a picture of possibility of a different future that we could create. And I was excited to her, like emotionally, she was like, it got her. And she was like, "yeah, let's do this." Ironically, I had a call later that afternoon with Annemarie Sunde. [00:18:55] If you go back and like, check out her podcast episode, this was a past client. She eventually sold her business. She did exit the business eventually, but when she first came to me, it was the same story. So I told her the story and she's like, "Oh my gosh, I have so much to say about that." But it was the same story. [00:19:11] Annemarie came to me and was like, "I hate my business. I want to sell it. I want to get out of it. And after listening to her," I just said, "you're just doing it wrong." Like, let's just change what you're doing. And she was letting me know on this call yesterday, just catching me up on her life, like how grateful she was and and what she's up to now. [00:19:29] And it's awesome to see that contrast. Because I've helped so many clients get out of that spot where they hate their business and they're miserable. There's no question. I know it's super possible that we can change how they show up in their business and we can change their mindset and things can be really good. [00:19:47] And that gets me really excited. I'm excited for them because I know what's on the other side. They don't know it. They just have hope. And sometimes that's all people need to shift their mindset is an injection of hope. So come over to DoorGrow. We'll give you a little bit of hopium. We'll throw some hope in your face and get you to start to believe in some possibility that's, and that'll shift your mindset. [00:20:07] So what other mindset things?  [00:20:09] I [00:20:09] Sarah: think the only other thing I would add to it is going back to your story and your excuses and everybody, this is what I'm realizing is everybody kind of is going through their own shit for most of us. It's not easy, right? Like, we don't just grow up having everything that we want and life just gives us the perfect scenario all the time and it's rainbows and butterflies and everything's just perfect all the time. [00:20:40] It's just not reality for most people. We grow because of the things that we've been through. And I think that the best thing you can do is realize that first of all, you're not alone in it and second, it's what you do with it that really makes a difference. That's what counts. It's not the shitty thing that happened to you. [00:21:02] It's what you do with that because you can have this horrible, awful thing happen to you. We all do and then go, "okay, that's the reason. That's the reason I don't feel love in my life. That's the reason I can't run a successful business. That's the reason I'll never make money. That's the reason I can't have a great relationship or great friendships. That's why I don't trust people. That's why I can't do this. That's why I can't do that." Or you can take that and say, "you know what? That's the reason I'm going to do it anyway. That's the reason that I am going to be successful. That's the reason that I am going to have trust in people, earned trust." [00:21:41] Right. It's like it's what you do with it that makes the difference.  [00:21:46] Jason: What you decide about it and what you decide about what it means, and you can decide, yeah, that it makes you a victim or you can decide that it taught you valuable lessons and empowered you. For sure. I love that. That's good mindset. [00:21:57] People listen to her. I think one of my favorite things I've been thinking about lately is a lot of times people, mindset wise, a lot of times people think the goal is to be happy. And I think that's a really shitty goal. I, ironically, I know, people are like what's wrong with that? I think people mistakenly think the goal of life is just to be happy all the time. [00:22:18] And so every moment they're not happy, they're not experiencing this one set of emotion that they think that there's something wrong with life. And I think a healthier mindset is that life should be full. You should experience a fullness. You should experience everything. Life is beautiful in its totality, if you are willing to experience everything. Can you imagine a life where you never felt lost? You never felt sorrow? There's beauty in all these things. I have a friend whose father just passed. And I was just thinking about that, you know, and she wrote about like what she's realizing, how she hasn't shown up for people that are grieving, didn't know how to, and she's like made a little list of the things that she thought would be beneficial to those, you know, in the future for people to know about those grieving and like what they would want. And it may be a bit different for everybody, but I think the point of life is to be able to experience everything. And that's where I think things get beautiful. There's some beauty in missing someone. [00:23:20] There's some beauty in wanting something that you don't have. There's beauty in feeling sorrow. There's beauty in feeling loss. And if we're always trying to just manipulate things so that we can only experience one thing, we're going to be way less happy, I believe. [00:23:34] And we're going to be way more focused on all the lack and the loss. And we're just unwilling to experience all these different emotions. Who's to say that a happy emotion is better than a sad emotion. They're just different emotions. And maybe we're supposed to be experiencing everything all the time and not trying to control it, just being willing to experience. [00:23:55] And when we're willing to fully experience things, and we're actually in the present moment, instead of in the future, worrying about things or in the past, worrying about stuff that's happened. We're actually in this moment, we're far more likely to experience the good stuff, but we're experienced everything real time. [00:24:10] So that's a mindset thing that I've been kind of chewing on me in noticing other people because I see people so caught up in their own misery that they're not experienced all happiness all the time. And there's so much beauty around them that they're missing out on in their relationships and their connections. [00:24:25] This was just so focused on staring at the garbage. So that's my little mindset bit for today. So if you don't feel like you have the right mindset, you feel like things are unnecessarily hard. You don't feel like you're growing. Maybe you still are like, "man, Jason, I still really isn't in tactics." [00:24:45] Cool. We can help you with that. Come check us out over at DoorGrow. Let's have a conversation and see if we might be able to help you out and figures your situation out and see if we can help you grow. Set up a call with us that won't hurt. It won't hurt anything like set up a call with us and we will help you figure out if this would be a good fit for you or not. [00:25:03] And we only want people in our program that this is something that's really going to benefit them and it's going to be a good fit for you. So we're careful and I know you, you want to be careful. And so let's have a conversation, reach out to us. You check us out at doorgrow.Com and if you're wanting to join our free online community, our Facebook group. [00:25:21] Called the DoorGrow club, which is just for property management entrepreneurs, your team members, just entrepreneurs, the business owners go to DoorGrow club. com and you can join through there. And that's it until next time everybody, to our mutual growth. Bye everyone [00:25:38] 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!  [00:26:05] 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.

In this episode of the Humane Marketing podcast, I'm joined by Pauliina Rasi to explore the art of effortless and authentic social media post writing. We dive into why writing for social media can feel daunting, and how you can overcome those challenges by finding your unique voice and style.  Pauliina shares practical strategies for brainstorming fresh content, maintaining consistency, and offers a sneak peek into the powerful frameworks we'll cover in our upcoming workshop.  This conversation is designed to inspire and empower entrepreneurs to write with more ease and flow, aligning your social media presence with the principles of humane marketing. Here's what we talked about: + Why writing social media posts can feel so daunting + How to find your unique voice and style in your social media posts without feeling like you're copying others + Strategies for brainstorming ideas and generating fresh content for your posts + Tips for maintaining consistency + And a sneak peek of the frameworks that Pauliina will share with us in our upcoming workshop on September 4th - https://lu.ma/f64hyojw And so much more... --- video1182592561 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 Zanacroce, 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. 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 can find out more at humane. marketing forward 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 at humane. marketing. com. Dot marketing. Ep 195 intro: Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Humane Marketing Podcast. I hope you're doing well and had a wonderful summer. Maybe didn't even notice that I skipped one of the episodes this August, but I'm back. I'm back with another conversation. Today's conversation fits. The P of promotion, and I'm talking to Paulina Razzi, a communication strategist and [00:03:00] copywriter about effortless and authentic social media posts writing. If you're a regular here, you already know that I'm organizing the conversations around the seven Ps of the Humane Marketing Mandala. And if this is your first time here, well, a big warm welcome. We're all about humane business, humane marketing, humane selling. And if you don't know what I'm talking about, you can download your one page marketing plan with the humane marketing version of the seven piece of marketing at humane. marketing. com. 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 and help you with your foundational clarity for your marketing and business. So, my friend Paulina Razzi is a writer, communication strategist, and trainer. With 20 years of experience as a journalist and communications consultant, she helps [00:04:00] businesses, projects, and professionals communicate their messages with clarity and confidence. Paulina's work focuses on breaking writing strategy into actionable pieces so that professionals and entrepreneurs can turn into. Effective content effortlessly and cut through the digital noise to share their message with people who matter. When not typing on her laptop, she can be found on the slopes of the Swiss Alps or spending time in nature with her family and friends. Yes, you guessed it, uh, Paulina is local here in Switzerland and we've actually, we're one of these people who have met in person. So that's always extra special. So here's what we talked about on this episode. Why writing social media posts can feel so daunting, how to find your unique voice and style in your social media posts without feeling like you're copying others, strategies for brainstorming ideas and generating fresh content for your posts. [00:05:00] Tips for maintaining consistency, and then a sneak peek of the frameworks that Paulina will share with us in our upcoming CoLab workshop on September 4th. So without further ado, let's dive in. Sarah: Hey Paulina, so good to see you and hang out with you for a bit to talk about social media posts. I'm very excited to have you here. Pauliina: Likewise. Thank you for having me, Sarah. Sarah: Wonderful. So we are doing a collab workshop together. And, uh, this time the topic is all around kind of like very pragmatic information around how do you structure and write, uh, those social media posts, which we know a lot of people are struggling with, right? It's, yeah. Is that also the feeling that you get? Like, because I think people are struggling with several things around this social media [00:06:00] presence kind of thing. Um, one of them, I think is consistency, but let's talk about consistency later. Let's first talk about this idea of. writing these posts. What do you see when you work with your clients? Why is that such a struggle for people? Pauliina: Well, writing is terrifying. I've been writing in one way or another, most of my career, and I can also relate on the emotional level to, to that struggle. And I see it in my client's lives and I experienced it in my own life as well. If not on a daily basis, regularly anyway, and that would, that would be maybe my first message that even though you are a professional writer, you can write a lot, but you can still sometimes feel that struggle because there's a lot at play there really when you're trying to write, especially when you write about yourself and your own work. And, um, and, uh, it's, it can be sensitive. It can be, [00:07:00] it can make you feel vulnerable. And there's a lot of authenticity at, uh, at play when you're writing about yourself, but, uh, but it can be, it can be overcome as well, when you, when you work through, through it, uh, well, enough, uh, enough, and when you develop different capabilities, capabilities around that. Sarah: Yeah. Yeah, no, I hear you. I think, I think there's. There's this fear of really truly showing up and. You know, I have this, I I've, as you know, I've been, uh, my first business was a LinkedIn consultant. So I've been growing up on LinkedIn. And to me, it's not scary at all to completely make a fool of myself on LinkedIn anymore. But I have, uh, like one very good friend who's been on LinkedIn for years as well. But she's still. still kind of feels like, Oh, but this is the professional network. And can I really, truly be myself? And w you know, and so I think a lot of people have [00:08:00] that with LinkedIn, especially, um, and of course also with, with other platforms, but LinkedIn kind of has this heaviness to it still because of how it came about. And it's changed a lot, but. I think it's also because a lot of maybe our clients moved out of the corporate world, and so they had to kind of like, wear this professional mask, and now they're going into their own business, coaching, consulting, and all of a sudden they're, they're asked, To show up as authentic and, and it just kind of feels weird. Right? So I think one of the big things is like, how do I find my voice on these platforms? How do you help people find their voice? Pauliina: Absolutely. And I think you're onto something there, especially when you say about LinkedIn and how rapidly the platform has changed. So many of us might be feeling that we aren't, we haven't really fully caught [00:09:00] up yet. And, um, and when you, when you feel that way, finding your voice and knowing. What part of your voice you actually want to project might be a little bit tricky, and it comes to down to defining your strategy and setting your goals. When I see people struggling on LinkedIn or on other platforms, if we backpedal a little, is it can be for the lack of strategy. So not really knowing What to say what they're trying to achieve, not not being sure how they're going to reach that. That's a big building block. And if you don't have those questions, it might be very hard to do with confidently the other reason or the other part that people might be struggling with is the confidence that you that that you also maybe your friend might be suffering from not having the confidence or the courage to say what they want. Know what they need to say. And then the third third element. There is the practical practical part like how am I? How am I going to say, say [00:10:00] exactly, but you need the three or three of them so you can be consistent. You can be confident and that you can be clear about the message, knowing what you're going to say, finding the inner courage, the confidence to to project your voice and then the practice finding the ways the strategies, the template, the frameworks that work for you. And when you have all. All three in place, it gets a lot easier, but I would also like to say that it's okay if it doesn't always feel easy. Like some of, some, some of us might feel like I don't care if I make a complete fool out of myself. I've already done that. And for others, I have clients who've been very, very visible, very present for years, and they still get the wobble of it every, every now and then. And that can be part of the process as well. And that can be, that can be okay. Sarah: Yeah, I always encourage my, my change makers to, to embrace that role. Like that is truly the role of a change maker and change is not easy. Right. [00:11:00] And so it, it, it almost is part of the change making is that you have to put that message out there and yes, it's not going to be easy, but. It will get easier because everything gets easier by practice. So exactly. And you can Pauliina: get better at February. It might still feel scary at times, but I think it's also a good thing to go towards what's scary or what you're afraid of, because it tells people that you're doing something new. And it's also a part of finding that voice. If you, if you never feel scared, if you always feel super comfortable, maybe you're not fully using your voice or spreading your message. So that's, um. That's something to keep in mind as well. Sarah: Yeah, that just gave me goosebumps. I think that's such a good point because a lot of people who come to me for humane marketing, they tell me that they've just gone through the motions of marketing, meaning they've just gone through, you know, posting things kind of like they. Took some [00:12:00] class and some guru told them, well, this is how it works. This is how you have to do it, but without helping them to find their own voice. And so it's these empty posts that just feel like marketing messages. And, and that is it. Look, totally less scary, right? The scary thing, like you mentioned at the beginning is the vulnerability. Uh, but that's where the human connection and that's where you really resonate that this frequency level and not just like, oh, there's another marketer or there's another copy writer. So. You're totally right. It's like, if, if you haven't, if it doesn't feel scary, then ask yourself, well, are you really truly putting yourself in those posts or, or not? Yeah. Pauliina: Exactly. Exactly. And often what we often forget on social media is that authenticity and that connection, it's much more important than perfection. Like, you don't need to be the best writer out there. You don't need to write as well as [00:13:00] maybe some professional writers, writers do, but you need to have something, some, something of you in that message. So it resonates. And that's often a discussion I have with my clients and people in my network as well, because they might come to me and ask, like, could you write this for me? I could, but actually most of the time they do much, a much better job writing themselves for themselves. Even though it's maybe a little bit less. Perfect on the surface, or maybe the turn of the phrases aren't as polished as they could be, but their authenticity and their voice and their experience shines through. And it's much more powerful and it's much more important than the perfection, perfection of the message. Sarah: Yeah, that's so true. I want to come back to the three ingredients you shared, but what you just said also makes me think of AI and how You know, we could totally just now use ChatGPT or any other tool to have all our posts written [00:14:00] and we know we're good to go. But what you just mentioned is, is like, well, how is ChatGPT going to really, truly bring in your authentic self? It can, like, I'll have to admit it does a pretty, pretty good job, but you still have to come up with the. The topics you guys still have to come up with, you know, the experiences, Chachapiti doesn't know your life, you know, these little moments of storytelling that you share to connect. Uh, it doesn't know that. So, um, you can use probably AI as a tool to help you kind of fine tune some of your posts, but I would, yeah, I would probably say, don't just Give it all over to ChachiBT and say, Oh, just write my post because that's kind of probably the risk that we're going to run into that everything just feels like perfect. And, and then there's, yeah, there's less of that authenticity in there [00:15:00] again, I'm very much pro ChachiBT, but yeah, I wouldn't just hand it over, uh, to, to write my posts for me at all. Pauliina: No, I wouldn't either. And I think it can be a great sparring partner. It can be a great, uh, well, not a person, but a great tool to ask, like, how would you approach this topic? I'm writing about this. Am I missing something? What kind of an analogy would you use to describe this? Or kind of like spar with that? Especially if you work alone, it can be super helpful, but it only does a very mediocre job in writing for you. And like you said, like, it doesn't know the words you You use, it doesn't come up with creative expressions very often, unless you ask specifically. Um, so you need to, you, well, you need to leave some space for your personality. Definitely. Sarah: Yeah. All right. So getting back to the three ingredients you mentioned is confidence, strategy, And then the actual frameworks and just how to, to follow. So we're going to cover the how to and the frameworks [00:16:00] in, in our uh, workshop on September 7th. Uh, so if you're listening to this or watching us, we'd love to have you join us, humane. marketing forward slash workshop. Um, But we want to cover maybe, uh, uh, I think we talked a fair amount, uh, about confidence. Um, let's talk a little bit about strategy. So I think one of the things people struggle with is that they just, you know, open whatever social media platform it is and then go, what should I write? So how can we better approach this? How do you, Yeah. Help your clients with strategy. Pauliina: Well, the first question I'm helping my clients answer is what is your message? What is it that you bring to a table? What is it that you can help people with? What are your unique capabilities, your talents? What is special about you? So everything starts with what did you have? To get, then there's of course, a [00:17:00] question of who you are speaking to writing too. So you can tailor that message to be relevant for them. And then we come to a question of channels, like where to be present, where to reach those people, but it all starts with, what do you have to share? And, uh, focusing on that and nailing and nailing that is so crucial because if you don't know what you are going to say, what do you, what, what is the message you want to get across? Well, everything else becomes just very random. Sarah: Yeah, it's kind of this chicken and the egg thing that we often have. And, and it's funny because people like when I look at beginning, uh, coaches or, or, or business owners in general, they immediately want to go to social media, right, without doing the foundational work, the getting that clarity. We can be, yeah, we can be present on social media for years and years and nothing ever comes [00:18:00] out of it if we don't know what, what we're offering. We don't know who our clients are. We don't know where they are in their journey. So yeah, there's, there's a lot of information that needs to be in place before we ever go on social media. And we can actually kind of hurt. our reputation if we go out there too early and then looking from the outside in and look, it kind of gets completely confusing for people who are like, one day she's talking about this, the other day about that. It's like, what is she doing? Like, I Pauliina: don't get it. So exactly. And we can hurt ourselves in the process by burning ourselves out and spending a lot of energy on something that's not moving us forward. As forward at all. Like it is a little bit of this throwing spaghetti to a wall and seeing what sticks which can be if you just start shopping on social media channels before setting up a foundation. And then when you set up the strategy, it's really [00:19:00] deciding on what kind of spaghetti you're going to use and how long you're going to cook it for before you start start throwing it on a wall wall and that can really change everything. Of course, there's always that aspect of going out there and just trialing and seeing what works, but it's a whole another world when you do that strategically, and don't just just start somewhere and do exactly what you just described there. Yeah, Sarah: yeah, so true. So, I want us to give just a little sneak peek about the frameworks, because I think that's what people are, you know, it's nice to have the security of some kind of structure. And yes, we're still saying, well, Use the structure, but infuse your own voice, right? Don't just follow it to the dot, but I think it gives people that security, uh, to, to know, oh, okay, there's some kind of structure that I'm following. So without giving everything away, [00:20:00] because we would love people to join us for the workshop, but tell us a little bit about, um, these frameworks that you're using. Pauliina: Confidently and frameworks. Indeed, they can bring this additional layer of security. It's almost like a safety net. Always have something to fall back on and when you have your strategy sorted out, you can start using these templates in a way and creating maybe even your own templates and frameworks in a way that still allows your internal light light to shine. But one of the favorite favorite frameworks I like to use is it's called stair s t e a. And that's, um, that is something I like to use, especially when tapping into the emotional, emotional aspect of writing and emotional aspect of our reader's lives, because it allows us to look at the situation they're in, uh, the thoughts, the emotions, uh, they have about the situation, the actions they take, and then how you can help turn that, uh, [00:21:00] around so they get different results. So it's, uh, it's, it's a network I like, like using, especially when trying to reach, uh, reach, uh, the emotional aspect aspect in my readers, readers lives. And, uh, it's, uh, very practical in the sense that even though it sounds like a lot of, a lot of acronyms to begin with, when you really are really, um, use it a few times, you, uh, you can create a good library of templates for yourself. So Sarah: what do the letters stand for? S-T-E-A-R-S Pauliina: stands for situation, whether what, what's the situation, whether reader might be in t is, uh, about the thoughts they have about their situation, and e is about the emotion. So that allows you to put yourself self in their shoes and approach this, uh, the situation from their point of view. A refers to actions. What are the actions they typically take because of the thoughts and emotions? And what are the actions you could help them take as the professional [00:22:00] if they followed your guidance? And R is about the results. What are the results they get? And what are the results they could get if they use your method? So that's why it's, uh, it's, it can be very practical for, especially for service, service business owners and people selling different services. Sarah: Mm, yeah, that, that helps a lot to, to first kind of project yourself into the client's shoes and then, you know, using empathy and compassion, understanding their situation, the thoughts, what they're not saying as well, and then bringing it back to you and say, okay, um, here's the action I want you to take. And also. Here's a possible solution I have. Um, I love that. Yeah. And, and again, we're, we're going to apply that during our workshop and actually have a breakout room where you ask people to, you know, apply this framework and give them guidance on how to write a post and, and then [00:23:00] we can share them in the chat and you'll get feedback. I think, I think one thing we're doing well in our community is that we, you Create the time and space to apply, uh, what we're learning and not just, you know, content overloading our minds and go, Oh, there's like 10 frameworks and this is how it works. And, and now, you know, go off on your own and try to figure it out. I think, uh, we need more spaciousness and time to be able to actually integrate, uh, these, all this mind stuff that comes our way. So, um, Yeah, I really look forward to having this kind of hands on experimenting with your framework. So that sounds great. Any last tips on consistency? Because that's another thing that I think people struggle with is like, oh yeah, they can do like, you know, a month and then they get [00:24:00] frustrated and tired because there's not enough likes or not enough comments. Um, and then they. You know, feel like, oh, I tried it and it didn't work. So what would you say in terms of consistency is a good, good advice. Pauliina: When it comes to consistency, of course, the basics are the first building block. Again, the strategy, the confidence, having the, having the tools in place. So having that strategic block in place is, uh, is crucial because it's hard to be consistent if you don't really know where you're going and how you plan to get there. The other, uh, thing that's very important are routines. So how do you build your weeks and months so that you have time to create a content that Is consistent to you often when I start working with my clients, they come to me saying like, Oh, I could easily publish every day on LinkedIn or every other day. And then I asked, like, how long does it take you to create that content and they realize it might take them four hours, which is a big time [00:25:00] commitment for someone else who has other things on their plate as well. So being looking into your weeks and months and seeing whatever routines you can build in there so that you can really get. Your content done. And finally, being realistic with what consistent means to you. Consistent is not necessarily daily. Often on many channels, it means weekly, because if you don't do things often enough, you lose momentum. But it's good to remember that your consistency doesn't need to be someone else's consistency. It's always better to start slow and easy. Maybe even if If it means that you publish weekly on LinkedIn or even less often and then build it up from there so that rather than the going the other way around so trying to do it to do it daily and then falling off the wagon and getting all depressed and having to start all over again next month. Sarah: Yeah, I couldn't agree more. I think it's, it's, it's something that you could do more if you [00:26:00] enjoy it. And if it comes, becomes easier and easier, but if it's a drag, then why would you want to do it, you know, more often, uh, I mean, our, our businesses are supposed to be joyful and if social media posting is not your favorite thing in your business, well then reduce it to once per week and instead of Just going through the motions really take the time to create a more meaningful post rather than just a, you know, marketing slash sales post. I think exactly, Pauliina: exactly. And I think it's so important to work on things that are meaningful and rewarding for you as well, especially if you're a one person business, it changes when you start having a team around you, because then you can start outsourcing things that don't come. Naturally, but especially when you're on your own, you're writing about yourself. You are the face and the voice of your business. It's so important to do content and create content that's meaningful and natural to you as [00:27:00] well. Sarah: Yeah, Pauliina: yeah. Sarah: So good. Well, I really look forward to this. session in our community. Um, again, if you're listening, this was just kind of a teaser. I hope we gave you enough content still to, to make you understand how, yeah, how Paulina is approaching this topic. I only choose my workshop collaborators, uh, because we have aligned values. So definitely feel very good about that. So hope to have you join us on September 7th, uh, 2024 humane. marketing forward slash workshop. Paulina, any last words of wisdom regarding social media? Maybe, maybe I think I have listeners who are like, I'm just done with social media. So what would you tell them? Pauliina: Well, do whatever works for your business. If social media doesn't feel good for [00:28:00] you for any number of reasons and not good goes beyond like basic, basic wobbly feet, find other ways to connect with, with your audience and with your friends. Social media is not mandatory. It's a fantastic place to test different ideas, uh, to share your voice, share your message. But there are plenty of others if that doesn't feel like an authentic way for you to connect with the people you're trying to reach. Sarah: Hmm. Yeah. Wonderful. Well, thank you so much for doing this and I can't wait to our workshop together. Pauliina: Thank you for having me, Sarah. And I look forward to diving in into all this with a human marketing circle in September. Thank you. Have a wonderful day. You too. Bye. Ep 195 outro: I hope you got some great value from listening to this episode. You can find out more about Paulina and her work at paulinarazzi. com. That's Paulina with two [00:29:00] I's. Uh, so P A U L I N A R A S I. com. She also has a free guide with content ideas and you find that at paulinarazzi. com forward slash free. And if you'd like to roll back your sleeves and get to know Helena's frameworks so you can apply them week after week to your social media posts, then join us for the next CoLab workshop on September 4th. I think I said September 7th once during the episode. So no, it's September 4th, a Wednesday, and you can sign up for a donation at humane. marketing forward slash workshop. These workshops are hosted in our community, the Humane Marketing Circle. And if you'd like to join that and then get access to all the collab workshops, you can find out more at humane. marketing forward slash [00:30:00] circle. You find the show notes of this episode at humane. marketing forward slash H M 1 9 5. And on this beautiful page, you'll also find a series of free offers, the Humane Business Manifesto, as well as my two books, Marketing Like We're Human and Selling Like We're Human. Thank you so much, as always, for listening and being part of a generation of marketers who cares for yourself, your clients, and your business. 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.

When hiring a new team member in your property management business, one common mistake can cause you to lose out on potentially the best candidates. In this episode of the #DoorGrowShow, property management growth experts Jason and Sarah Hull discuss why having experience in property management is not a necessary qualification for the people you hire. You'll Learn [01:11] The Myth of Needing Experience [04:19] More Important Than Experience: Culture Fit [13:59] You Need a Better Hiring System [19:17] What to do if You Struggle with Hiring Tweetables “If you don't even know what your culture is, how are you going to figure out if they match that?” “If they're not the right culture fit for sure you're overpaying or they're underperforming, either way, you're overpaying.” “Even if you hire based off of experience, you still have to train that person. That does not forego the training.” “If people are only loyal to a dollar, then yeah, you're at risk of losing those people pretty easily.” Resources DoorGrow and Scale Mastermind DoorGrow Academy DoorGrow on YouTube DoorGrowClub DoorGrowLive TalkRoute Referral Link Transcript [00:00:00] Jason: If they're not the right culture fit for sure you're overpaying or they're underperforming or either way you're overpaying.  [00:00:06] 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. [00:00:45] 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, the founder and CEO of DoorGrow, and Sarah Hull, co owner and COO of DoorGrow. [00:01:06] Now let's get Into the show.  [00:01:08] All right. What are we talking about today, Sarah?  [00:01:11] Sarah: I wanted to talk about this thing that keeps coming up and I've seen it two times in the last week is hiring on experience.  [00:01:21] Jason: Oh. [00:01:22] Sarah: Everyone goes, "Oh yeah, I would love somebody who's experienced and they already know the industry and they already know my systems and they know how to do things. And that would be fantastic." [00:01:32] Jason: People listening are going to go, "well, yeah, of course you want people with experience. It would be dumb to have people with zero experience, right?"  [00:01:38] Sarah: Wrong!  [00:01:39] Jason: Okay. Okay. So let's explain this. What are you talking about? [00:01:43] Sarah: All right, so the first thing that I'm going to say, as soon as I say it, it'll click right? If we are lucky to hire someone who's already familiar with the industry, who's working in the industry. Maybe they understand some of your tools, your software, perhaps some of your processes. You're narrowing your candidate pool to such a tiny little minutiae of a candidate pool. How many people do you think there are that have experience in property management that are now in the job market?. Right? Like, "Oh, I'm only going to hire somebody if they have experience in property management, or I'm only going to hire somebody if they understand how to use Appfolio." All right. So we went from here to here, tiny little segment of the market. [00:02:33] The other thing I'll say about this is if you find someone who has experience in the property management industry, and perhaps even in your software and your processes. Why is it that they're looking for a job? If they were so great, would someone not have snatched them up already?  [00:02:49] Jason: What if they get them to come from another company? [00:02:52] Like they convinced them? [00:02:53] Sarah: Let's talk about that. I'm glad you brought that up. I'm so glad. It was like this morning, we were having a conversation and I had mentioned this to one of our clients who's currently trying to hire people based off of experience. So here's the other problem, and we've seen this a couple of times, businesses stealing other businesses' team members and employees. There's one case that I'm thinking of in particular that kind of getting a little nasty. The two competitors are trying to take what they can, clients, team members, whatever they can, market share. They're just trying to take anything that they can from the other one. And one of them snatched the operator, which is really. [00:03:33] Not a good person to lose in your business.  [00:03:36] Jason: Yeah. No.  [00:03:36] Sarah: Why was that able to happen though? She had experience, right? So the new company is like, "Oh, this is perfect. She understands property management. She's got experience. She knows how to do this." [00:03:46] Jason: I mean, most entrepreneurs would think it's just about money because entrepreneurs always look through the lens of money. So they'll think, "well, she probably just got a better offer."  [00:03:54] Sarah: And in this case, I bet she did.  [00:03:56] Jason: Okay.  [00:03:56] Sarah: And the problem that we're overlooking here is we're skipping the most important part, which is looking to see if they're a culture fit. [00:04:06] And then the second most important part is looking to see, are they the right personality fit for the role. And then and only then do we want to look at their skill set and experience and do they have the intelligence level to be able to learn that particular task.  [00:04:18] Jason: Right? This is one of our frameworks, the three fits, culture fit, skill fit, personality fit, and culture fit, most important. [00:04:26] So, yeah, I agree. If people are not the right culture fit, then by default, you're overpaying for your team members, period. Because either they're underperforming because they don't really believe in your business or buy in. So their secret goal really is just to get paid as much as possible and probably do as little work as possible would be their ideal, right? [00:04:48] And so that's if they're not a culture fit. If they're a culture fit, they buy into the vision, they believe in you, they're excited to work for you. They want to have an impact. They have a motive besides just getting paid. And so, yeah, they're not a culture fit, it's guaranteed you're overpaying for that team member. [00:05:03] Because either they're crappy or you're having to like compensate them a bunch of money in order to keep them on board at your business because they really don't enjoy being there. So then you end up overpaying in order to keep them. And if people are only loyal to a dollar, then yeah, you're at risk of losing those people pretty easily. [00:05:22] Sarah: Absolutely. And that is why this particular operator was able to be swayed. So if you've got people who are a culture fit, if you've got people who really believe in the company, in you as the business owner, in the vision and the mission, where you are wanting to go and what you are wanting to build, if people are truly bought in and on board with that, that makes all the difference in everything that they do. [00:05:52] So can you hire somebody with experience who understands how to use Buildium or Propertyware or your phone system, whatever it is, and your ticket system? Yeah. And they can come in and they can do the job and it would be a night and day difference If you had somebody who truly believed in your company and you had to just train them to do those things and then they were able to do that, they're going to outperform the person who only has the experience every day of the week. [00:06:22] Jason: Okay. So can you share an example? Because you, you mentioned some clients were having issues with this. So like, let's tie this in with maybe a story.  [00:06:31] Sarah: Yeah. So it was just last week I was talking with Andrew and he had recently hired a couple of team members. I think he hired a BDM and an admin and there was maybe someone for maintenance. [00:06:43] I don't remember who the third one was. So he had recently hired these people. Already he's looking to replace them because either they're not working out or they're moving on. So his BDM, she is a real estate agent as well. And she's like, "Oh, well, I'm just actually going to go focus on real estate. I don't think I'm going to do all of this." [00:07:02] And it's been under maybe two months, maybe three months. So not a very long time. And he had mentioned to me, "yeah, so I've got this one person in mind and their experience." And as soon as he said experience, I went, "uh oh, okay. He's hiring the wrong way. He's hiring completely the wrong way." [00:07:20] So I had asked him, I said, "all right, so just out of curiosity, when you're talking with people, when you're looking at resumes and your screening candidates, what are the things that you're looking at? Like, what do you look at first?" And he's like, "well, I look to see, do they have experience in the industry? [00:07:35] And specifically, do they already know how to use my tools?"  [00:07:37] Jason: Yeah. So that's first. Yeah. That's a big red flag. And a lot of people listening might not get that, but that's a red flag.  [00:07:43] Sarah: Huge.  [00:07:44] Jason: Okay.  [00:07:44] Sarah: So aside from the fact that, like I said, your Canada pool is so tiny. I mean, if there is a person I would love to meet you, who, when you were in, you know, kindergarten and elementary who said, "Oh! When I grew up, I want to be a property manager. When I grew up, I want to be a leasing agent for a property management company. I would love to do that. That's my dream job."  [00:08:06] Jason: Right?  [00:08:07] Sarah: Who? That doesn't happen. Right? So people kind of work their way into property management, but it's not the dream that you typically have when you're a child trying to choose your career path. [00:08:20] Jason: Yeah. And that's because the industry as a whole has an awareness problem. There's not a lot of people aware of property management and there's plenty of roles in property management that different personality types would enjoy doing or would thrive in. But people are not thinking of the industry. [00:08:36] And so, yeah, looking for people with experience, I think would be really limiting,  [00:08:40] Sarah: yes, very challenging. So you need to find somebody who has experience in the industry that already will be hard. And then, even if they have experience in the industry, then you're going to say, "Oh, and they need to have experience with my specific tools and software that I use." [00:08:57] That becomes harder.  [00:08:58] Jason: Right. [00:08:59] Sarah: So I had said to him, I said, "well, all right, I have experience as a leasing agent. Would you hire me?" Because I might know how to do leasing. I do. I do know how to do leasing, right? But I know how to do leasing my way because when I was running my company, I knew how I did leasing. [00:09:17] But that doesn't mean I know how to do leasing your way. So even if you hire based off of experience, you still have to train that person. That does not forego the training. And a lot of times I think this is what happens is people go, "Oh, I would love to make my life easier and hire somebody, and then maybe I don't have to spend a whole lot of time training them on a tool or a system or how we do things because they already know how to do it." Even if they know the tool, they still don't know your processes. They don't know your way of doing things. So you will still have to train them. Now, it is possible that the training is easier if you don't have to explain how to use the tool, if they already know how to do it. [00:10:04] use it and they're familiar with it. Yes, that part of training becomes easier. It does not mean though that training will not still be a one to three month process, experience or not.  [00:10:17] Jason: Right. So, yeah, so you're saying a lot of people will try and hire somebody based on experience because they're trying to avoid having to take the time to train somebody. [00:10:27] Sarah: You can hire me. I can come into your business. And I can screw it up just as well as somebody who doesn't know what they're doing can. Why? Because even if I know how to use that tool, I know how to do it the way that I did it. I don't know how to do it the way that you do it yet. [00:10:45] I don't know your processes. I only know how I did leasing, and how I did leasing might be very different than how you do leasing. I know how I did sales, but that might be very different from how you do sales. I know how I onboarded clients, but that might be very different. I might do your leasing and you would go, "Sarah, what the hell? Why did this happen?" [00:11:09] "Well, I don't know. That's just how I used to do it." So if you hire someone who has the experience and has the knowledge, you still have to train them.  [00:11:18] Jason: Yeah.  [00:11:18] Sarah: And training is the most important thing that you can do when hiring. If you hire anybody and you completely forget or just choose not to train them. [00:11:30] It is going to be a train wreck.  [00:11:32] Jason: I think a lot of times as entrepreneurs we're in the mode of like doing things quickly and we're impatient. And so we get lazy sometimes when it comes to onboarding team members. We're like, "yeah, just, here you go. We throw them to the wolves." [00:11:45] Sarah: Baptism by fire. Yeah, figure it out. [00:11:47] Jason: Yeah. And lazy onboarding is not, a great strategy, right? It's going to take work regardless of the person that you bring on. And there's advantages when they don't have the skill or the experience in that you can make sure that they're doing it the way that you value and the way that you like. [00:12:05] So there can be a benefit.  [00:12:07] I think for sure if they're not the right culture fit for sure you're overpaying or they're underperforming or either way you're overpaying. If they're not the right personality fit for that particular role you'll just constantly be frustrated and training them and trying to onboard them will just be a demoralizing experience for you because it's impossible. [00:12:26] Like you'll be trying so hard to get them up to speed. And I think this is where people have experienced this and they're like, "well, I just need to go find someone with experience." But the real problem is they're not the right personality to do the job well. If somebody is the right personality, they would naturally be good at it. [00:12:41] They would be inclined towards doing it. You wouldn't have to motivate them or inspire them to do it. They would want to because they love doing it. It's aligned with who they are. And otherwise there's always going to be some serious friction. Culture and personality are off, there's going to be lots of friction. [00:12:57] And then even related to skill fit, if they're not intelligent enough to do the job, because some jobs require a little bit more Intelligence, right? You know, like the best team members are usually the best at problem solving. That's an intelligence challenge. You can give them all the skill, like here's the processes, et cetera. [00:13:15] But if they can't problem solve because they're an idiot, like then it becomes a real problem because you have to then do all the thinking. You need intelligent people. And so that's part of the skill fit. So you need all three. What's interesting about this. And we've talked about the three fits before on the podcast is you can't create culture, personality, or skill and intelligence. [00:13:37] Like you can't really create those. You have to go find it. You have to find somebody that has all three and just finding somebody that has one of the three is not going to be a fit. They have to be all three, or they can't be in your business. Or they're just going to be screwing things up and there's going to be so much friction so much waste. You're going to be spending way too much money. You're going to be spending way too much time trying to onboard them and it's going to be a mess. [00:13:59] Sarah: I agree.  [00:13:59] Jason: Cool So, in seeing these clients and people dealing with hiring, how do we solve that? How do we solve  [00:14:05] Sarah: this?  [00:14:05] You have to take the hiring process and flip it backwards. So the first thing you have to do is you have to determine if they're a culture fit for your business. But in order for that to happen, you have to know what your culture is and it has to be defined, which is why, and this is where people fight me, is when they want to implement DoorGrow hiring, they're like, "I desperately need to hire somebody. I need somebody like, please help me with hiring." Right.  [00:14:29] "Send me your cultural documents." [00:14:32] " Oh, I don't have those." [00:14:33] Sarah: "Then I can't help you find a good hire. I can't do it because it's Russian roulette." So if you don't have your culture defined, meaning I need your company core values. I need a decision making guide. [00:14:47] I need a client centric mission statement. I need your personal why, and I need your business why. Without those things, I cannot help you find someone who's going to be great because I will never know, nor will you, are they a good culture fit? If you don't even know what your culture is, how are you going to figure out if they match that? [00:15:06] Jason: So what you're saying is people need a better system. They need a hiring system. And most don't really have a good system. I guess everybody has a hiring system, it's just usually a pretty crappy one. Building intentionally a really intelligently designed hiring system, which is what we do with DoorGrow hiring is a game changer for a business because hiring is one of the biggest challenges I've seen even in multimillion dollar companies with friends. And this is something we've gotten really well dialed in a DoorGrow, but this is a constant challenge for most businesses. And until they figure it out... I was talking with one of our clients yesterday ,and he added like 114 doors in like the last month or so. And so he's just like, his business is growing crazily. [00:15:49] And he's this amazing client because he does everything we tell him to do. He's got an operator. Now they're using DoorGrow OS, like they're crushing it. And I was talking with him and his big challenge right now is maintenance technicians. He had four, he lost two. So he's now trying to hire and In having a conversation with him, I had to shift his mindset that he's no longer right now, a property management company. [00:16:14] That's the business he thinks he's in. And because he thinks he's a property management company, he doesn't want to focus as much on the hiring piece. That's not the business that he's in, but I had to help him see right now, the business that he's in, is in order to scale, this is his biggest constraint is he's going to consistently need to be bringing in more maintenance techs into his business. [00:16:36] And so I said to him, I said, "your business for right now, until you get this solved, your business is not a property management company. Your business is a maintenance technician talent acquisition company. That's the business you're in." And until he accepts that he can't solve this problem. And so most businesses, this is a big constraint. [00:16:55] And for him right now, it's the constraint. And once he gets this solved, once he gets this dialed in. So that he becomes good at hiring and onboarding and getting up to speed with maintenance technicians. And he was planning on just trying to replace the two. In coaching, and we were talking about, you need to bring on probably four. [00:17:13] You need at least four in order to find one, maybe two that are going to be good and give them a working interview where you have them do some work to see if they can perform. And this means he needs an engine where he's consistently every month bringing in a good amount of maintenance technicians and has a system for doing this. [00:17:31] And so. Businesses need if you're wanting to scale and grow quickly, you have to have systems in place. And one of the key ones is a really solid hiring system that allows you to get culture, personality, and skill. And that's what we've developed with DoorGrow hiring and DoorGrow ATS, our applicant tracking system. [00:17:49] And we talked about optimizing the ATS just for those particular candidates because they don't want to go through a more lengthy application process like we do with some candidates, you know, these maintenance techs and then vetting them through our AI assessments and stuff like this afterwards to assess them for problem solving because that's his biggest challenge. [00:18:06] He says, "my best maintenance techs are the problem solvers." I'm like, "that's an intelligence problem." So we have to figure out a way without doing illegal things, you know, or that you're not supposed to do you have to figure out a way to assess or figure out that they're intelligent. [00:18:21] And one way would be a working interview. Another way would be, you know, the AI assessment tool that can assess cognitive ability, you know, stuff like this. And that would come after he does a culture interview with them first. He was looking for skill and that's the challenge. [00:18:35] So it was good. Super common. Everybody always goes, Oh, I need skill. I need experience.  [00:18:41] Yes, and you do want people that have some experience would be great, but having people that have the intelligence level to absorb information quickly and to learn and the problem solve is way better than having somebody that has a ton of experience, but is terrible at adapting and is dumb. [00:18:59] Any day of the week. And so they will get up to speed and supersede somebody with a decade of experience if they're slow and not able to learn anytime. So, all right. This is a good topic. Anything else we should say about this?  [00:19:14] Sarah: That's what I got.  [00:19:14] Jason: All right, cool. Hopefully this was helpful for those of you listening. [00:19:17] If you're struggling with hiring. A lot of you have made these mistakes, right? You've hired, you've had people churn out. You're like, "it's hard to find good people." These are the excuses we hear from people that have a crappy hiring system. "There's no good people out there. It's tough in my market. We can't find good people. Millennials don't want to work," you know, but whatever, right? "I just pay people, why won't they just do what I f*cking tell them to do?" You know, whatever it might be. So, that's just a sign that you have a bad hiring system or that you just have terrible culture or you have bad onboarding. [00:19:50] Sarah: Or no culture.  [00:19:51] Jason: No culture to find. No culture. Yeah. And so, we need to get these things cleaned up in your business or your business is constantly going to be a prison for you. It's going to be really hard until you get a really good team and you have really good culture in your business defined, business is hard. [00:20:07] And this is where I see a lot of people get stuck between two to 400 units where they have an entire team and they're the most frustrated and usually the least profitable per unit they've ever been because it's the team and they can't see it. They're like, "I have a good team." You have a team that are willing to take your money, but are they a great team? [00:20:25] Super easy way to know... if you have an entire team and you've got two to 400 units or more, and you have been unable to scale it past 600 doors for the last three to five years, you've been kind of stuck there and you are still wearing hats that you do not want to be wearing. [00:20:43] And you're sometimes asking, "why won't my team think for themselves?" You're the problem. This is the problem. You are showing up as the wrong person in the business and you have bad culture and a bad hiring system. And if you want to get that solved, reach out to us at DoorGrow. This is very simple to solve. [00:21:00] It's not too difficult. And we can probably get most of that mess cleaned up in like a single quarter, like 90 days. So reach out to us. We'd love to help you out. You can check us out at DoorGrow.com. And if you're wanting more, if you stumble across this, maybe on YouTube or somewhere else, make sure to like, and subscribe and join our free Facebook community DoorGrowclub.Com. You can get to it by going to DoorGrowclub.Com. And until next time to our mutual growth by everyone. [00:21:26] 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!  [00:21:52] 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.

In this episode, we delve into the impact of the new groundbreaking research uncovering the RNU4-2 genetic variant linked to neurodevelopmental conditions. The discovery, made possible through whole genome sequencing, highlights a genetic change in the RNU4-2 gene that affects about 1 in 200 undiagnosed children with neurodevelopmental conditions, making it more prevalent than previously thought. This discovery represents one of the most common single-gene genetic causes of such conditions. Our host, Naimah Callachand, Head of Product Engagement and Growth at Genomics England, is joined by Lindsay Pearse who shares her journey through the diagnosis of her son Lars. They are also joined by Sarah Wynn, CEO of Unique, and Emma Baple, Clinical Genetics Doctor and Professor of Genomic Medicine in the University of Exeter and the Medical Director of the Southwest NHS Genomic Laboratory Hub. We also hear from the 2 research groups who independently discovered the findings: Dr Andrew Mumford, Professor of Haematology at the University of Bristol Link to the research paper: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-024-03085-5  Assistant Professor Nicky Whiffin, Big Data Institute and Centre for Human Genetics at the University of Oxford Link to the research paper: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07773-7 To access resources mentioned in this podcast:  Unique provides support, information and networking to families affected by rare chromosome and gene disorders - for more information and support please visit the website. Connect with other parents of children carrying a variation in RNU4-2 on the Facebook group.   "I think one of the things we really hope will come out of diagnoses like this is that we will then be able to build up more of that picture about how families are affected. So, that we can give families more information about not only how their child is affected but how they might be affected in the future."   You can read the transcript below or download it here: https://www.genomicsengland.co.uk/assets/documents/Podcast-transcripts/How-has-a-groundbreaking-genomic-discovery-impacted-thousands-worldwide.docx  Naimah: Welcome to Behind the Genes. Lindsay: So, this feeling that like we've been on this deserted island for eight years and now all of a sudden, you're sort of looking around through the branches of the trees. It's like, wait a minute, there are other people on this island and in this case actually there's a lot more people on this island. Yeah, it's very exciting, it's validating. It gives us a lot of hope and, you know, it has been quite emotional too and also a bit of an identity shift. Being undiagnosed had become quite a big part of our identity, and so now that's kind of shifting a little bit that we have this new diagnosis and are part of a new community. Naimah: My name is Naimah Callachand and I'm Head of Product Engagement and Growth at Genomics England. On today's episode, I'm joined by Lindsay Pearse whose son Lars recently received a genetic diagnosis, made possible by research using data from the National Genomic Research Library, Sarah Wynn CEO of Unique, and Emma Baple, a clinical genetics doctor. Today we'll be discussing the impact of recent research findings which have found a genetic change in the non-coding RNU4-2 gene, to be linked to neurodevelopmental conditions. If you enjoy today's episode, we'd love your support. Please like, share and rate us on wherever you listen to your podcasts. Naimah: And first of all, I would like everyone to introduce themselves. So, Lindsay, maybe if we could come to you first. Lindsay: Great, thank you. So, thank you for having me. I'm Lindsay Pearse, I live outside of Washington DC and I'm a mum to 3 boys. My oldest son Lars who is 8, he was recently diagnosed with the de novo variant in the RNU4-2 gene. Naimah: Thank you. And Emma? Emma: My name is Emma Baple. I'm a Clinical Genetics Doctor which means I look after children and adults with genetic conditions. I'm also a Professor of Genomic Medicine in the University of Exeter and the Medical Director of the Southwest NHS Genomic Laboratory Hub. Naimah: And Sarah? Sarah: Hi, thank you for having me. I'm Sarah Wynn, I'm the CEO of a patient organisation called Unique, and we provide support and information to all those affected by rare genetic conditions. Naimah: Great, thank you. It's so great to have you all here today. So, first of all Lindsay, I wonder if we could come to you. So, you mentioned in your introduction your son Lars has recently been diagnosed with the de novo variant. I wondered if you could tell us a bit about your story, and what it's been like up until the diagnosis. Lindsay: Sure, yeah. So, Lars is, he's a wonderful 8 year-old boy. With his condition, his main symptoms he experiences global developmental delays, he's non-verbal. He's had hypertonia pretty much since birth and wears AFO's to support his walking. He has a feeding disorder and is fed by a G-Tube. Cortical vision impairments, a history of seizures and slow growth, amongst other things. So, that's just a bit of a picture of what he deals with day to day. But he's my oldest child, so first baby. When I was pregnant, we were given an IUGR diagnosis. He was breech, he had a hernia soon after birth, wouldn't breastfeed. But all of these things aren't terribly uncommon, you know. But once he was about 3 or 4 months old, we noticed that he wasn't really able to push up like he should, and we were put in touch with early intervention services for an assessment. So, we went ahead and did that when he was about 4 or 5 months old. And as parents, we could just kind of tell that something was off from the assessors. And, you know, they were very gentle with us, but we could just get that sense that okay, something is off, and they're worried here. So, that kind of kickstarted me into making appointments left, right and centre with specialists. The first specialist that we saw was a neurologist. And yeah, again, that's another appointment that I'll never forget. She referred us to genetics and to get an MRI and some lab work but at the end of the appointment, she said to us, ‘Just remember to love your child.' And, you know, that was quite shocking to us at the time because it wasn't something that had ever crossed our mind that we wouldn't do or felt like we needed to be told to do this. But on the other hand, it certainly set off a lot of worry and anxiety of okay, well, what exactly are we dealing with here? So, fast forward, we saw genetics and that was about when Lars was about 8 months old. We went through a variety of genetic testing, a chromosomal micro-array, a single gene testing, then the whole exome testing. Everything came back negative, but it was explained to us that what was going on was likely an overarching genetic diagnosis that would explain his like, multi-system symptoms. And so meanwhile as he was getting older his global delays were becoming more pronounced and we were also in and out of the hospital a lot at this time. At first, he was in day care and, you know, any sort of cold virus would always turn into like a pneumonia for him. So, we were just in and out of hospital seeing a myriad of specialists, trying to put together this puzzle of what's going on and it was really hard to accept that nobody could figure it out. That was just, you know, sort of mind-blowing to us I guess. So, we applied for and were accepted into the Undiagnosed Diseases Programme at the National Institute of Health over here. The NIH as it's commonly referred to. So, we first went there when Lars was 2. He was one of their youngest patients at the time. But that was a really great experience for us because we felt like they were looking at him holistically and across a bunch of all of his systems, and not just seeing a specialist for sort of each system. So, we really appreciated that. We also did the whole genome sequencing through this research study. Although that also came back negative and so at that point, we were told to kind of keep following up symptomatically. Keep seeing the specialists and eventually maybe one day we'll find an overarching diagnosis, but that science just hadn't quite caught up to Lars. It was hard for me again to believe that and to sort of wrap my head around that. But certainly, it was an education from all of the doctors and geneticists and everyone we saw at NIH, to realise like how far there still was to go in terms of genetic research. How it wasn't also that uncommon to be undiagnosed in the rare disease community. I would say that being undiagnosed sort of became part of our identity. And it's, you know, it was something that, you know, you had to explain to like insurance companies and to his school, and it became part of our advocacy around him. Because without being able to say oh, it's this specific thing and if it was someone who hadn't met Lars before, trying to explain to them that, you know, yeah, within the range of this community you can be undiagnosed, and they just haven't found it yet, but I promise you there is something going on here. And I'd say the other thing too without a diagnosis you have no prognosis, right? And so, trying to figure out what the future would look like. Also, family planning. We waited 5 and a half years before we had another child and, you know, it was certainly an anxiety ridden decision. Ultimately after seeing as many specialists as we possibly could, we still were left with the same answer of well, we just don't really know if it will happen again. So, that was a big decision to make. But again, it just kind of became part of our identity and something that you did eventually accept. But I would say in my experience I feel like the acceptance part also of Lars' disabilities perhaps took me a little bit longer. Because again, I didn't have a prognosis, so I didn't exactly know what we were dealing with. Only as he has become older and, you know, you're sort of getting a better sense of what his abilities might be than being able to understand, okay, this is what I'm dealing with. I need to accept that and do what I can to care for him and our family in the best way that we can. Naimah: Thanks so much for sharing that, Lindsay. I feel like you've touched on a lot of really, you know, a lot of complications and difficulties for your family. Especially, you know, with regards to keeping hopeful and things about the prognosis as well, I'm sure it was really difficult. You've mentioned that Lars was able to be diagnosed recently due to recent research efforts. So, Sarah, I wonder if you can tell us a bit more about these and what the findings have meant for patients with neurodevelopmental conditions. Sarah: Yes. So, I think we know that there are lots of families that are in Lindsay and Lars' position where they know that there is almost certainly an underlying genetic condition, and it just hasn't been found yet. And so, I think we know that lots of researchers are working really hard to try and find those causes. I think over time we know that as time goes on and research goes on, we'll find more of these new genetic causes for neurodevelopmental conditions. I think particularly as we start to look at regions of the genome that we haven't looked at so much so far. But I think one of the things that's really extraordinary about this one is that actually it turns out to be much more common than we might have expected, for one of these new conditions that we haven't found before. But I think it's about one in 200 of those undiagnosed children with neurodevelopmental conditions, have this diagnosis so that's not a small number. That's not a rare finding at all actually, that's much more common than we could ever have anticipated. But I think one of the things that we do know is that as we look further and deeper into that genomic sequence, so, we've started off looking at the bits of the sequence that are genes that code for proteins. This changes in a gene that actually doesn't code for protein, so it's less obvious that it would be important but clearly it is important in development because we know when it has a spelling mistake in it, it causes this neurodevelopmental condition. But there will be as researchers look more and more at these kinds of genes, and also the other part of the genome that is not genes at all, we'll find out more and more the underlying genetic causes of these neurodevelopmental conditions. I think it's also really important to stress why this is so important to find these genetic changes and it's because families really need a diagnosis. Lindsay talked quite eloquently and a lot about that knowing something was off and really wanting to know the reason why. Getting these diagnoses might change care management or treatment, but actually really importantly it just gives an answer to families who have often been looking for an answer for a really long time. Naimah: I just wanted to go back to the point that Sarah made that actually this genetic change is relatively common. Emma, I wondered if you could tell us a bit more about maybe why it took us so long to discover it? Emma: That's an interesting question actually. I suppose the sort of slightly simplified answer to that question is we haven't been able to sequence the whole of a person's genetic information for that long. And so, children like Lars would have had, as Lindsay described lots and lots of genetic tests up until they had a whole genome sequencing which is what Sarah was talking about. The types of tests that we had up until the whole genome sequencing wouldn't have allowed us to look at that bit of the genetic code where this RNU4-2 gene can be found. So, we can only really find that using whole genome sequencing. So, before that existed, we wouldn't have been able to find this cause of developmental condition. Naimah: Okay, thanks Emma. Naimah: Now we're going to hear from one of the two research groups who are responsible for these research findings. First of all, let's hear from Nicky Whiffin. (Clip - Nicky Whiffin) Naimah: How were the findings possible using the Genomics England dataset? Nicky: So, most previous studies have only looked at genetic variants that, in genes that make proteins, but only a subset of our genes actually do makes proteins. The Genomics England dataset we have sequencing information on the entire genome, not just on these protein coding genes and that means we can also look at variants in other genes. So, those that make molecules other than proteins. And RNU4-2 for example, makes an RNA molecule. Naimah: These findings translated to direct patient benefit for patients like Lars who were able to receive support from Unique. How does this demonstrate the value of the dataset? Nicky: Yes. So, it was incredible that we could find so many patients with RNU4-2 variants so quickly. This was enabled by access to Genomics England data but also to other large sequencing datasets around the world. So, we worked with people in the US, in Australia and also in mainland Europe. These large datasets enabled us to spot consistent patterns in the data and by looking across multiple datasets we can also make sure that our findings are robust. When we realised how significant this was and how many families would be impacted, we very quickly contacted Sarah at Unique to see if we could direct patients to them for support. (End of clip) Emma: There's one thing I wanted to raise. It's important to recognise the way that was discovered was through the National Genomic Research Library that Genomics England hosts. To highlight the value of that, and the value of having this centralised resource where families have been kind enough really to allow their data to be shared with some limited clinical information that allowed these researchers to be able to pull this out. And I think it highlights the power of the National Health Service in that we were able to create such a resource. It's really quite astounding that we've found such a common cause of a rare genetic condition, and it wouldn't have happened in the same timescale or in this way without that resource. And then to just say that as Sarah talked about the fact that we've been able to get that information out there, also the researchers were able to get out there and contact the NIH and all of these other programmes worldwide. In Australia, America, everywhere in the world and quickly identify new patients who had this condition and get those diagnoses out really rapidly to people. But all that came from that power of sharing data and being able to have that all in one place and making it accessible to very clever people who could do this work and find these answers. It's so important for families like Lindsay's, and all the families in England and around the world that have got these answers. So, I guess it's a big plug for the value of data sharing and having a secure place where people feel that it's trusted and safe, that enables these diagnoses to be made. Lindsay: If I could just echo that, we're so grateful that that exists in the UK. Just acknowledging like the privilege here that we have had to be able to, I mean for our family in the US, that we've been able to, you know, get ourselves into the NIH study and into the study at Children's National. That takes a lot of work. I feel like not everybody has that opportunity to be able to spend the time to do these applications and to go to all the appointments and get the testing done and have the insurance to cover it. So, very grateful that the system exists in a way in the UK that made this sort of research possible. I just hope that that can be replicated in other places, and also to what Emma was saying earlier, come up with a lower cost test as well for this to further the growth of the community and of course then the corresponding research. Sarah: I think firstly we have to sort of thank all of those families that took part and do share their data, because I think it's not always clear why you might want to do that as a family. I think this is really a powerful example of the benefit of that. I also think the data sharing goes one stage further. So, it's partly about getting the diagnosis, but the data sharing going forward about how this condition impacts families, both clinically and sort of day to day lived experience, is how we'll be able to learn more about these conditions. And so, when families get this diagnosis next week or next year, not only will they get a diagnosis, but they'll get a really good idea about what the condition is and how it might impact their child. Naimah: And Lindsay, coming back to you. So, we've talked about, you know, what it meant for your family before the diagnosis, but what has it meant to have a diagnosis and how did you feel? And what happened whenever you received the diagnosis? Lindsay: Sure. Lars was again part of the NIH Undiagnosed Diseases Research study. So, once you attend this programme and if you are not diagnosed like at the end of your stay, they keep your details on file and you're part of this database at the NIH Undiagnosed Diseases Programme. So, if you're undiagnosed after your sort of week-long work up, your samples stay within the research programme. We were also part of a research programme at Children's National Medical Centre, the Rare Disease Institute. So, our samples were sort of on file there in their database as well. And so, at the end of March I was really quite shocked to receive a call from our long time and trusted geneticist at Children's National that they had found a diagnosis. It was quite emotional. I really kind of didn't believe it. I just kept asking, you know, ‘Are you sure? Is this it?' you know, ‘How confident are we?' Because I think in my head, I sort of always thought that we would eventually find a diagnosis, but I thought that Lars would be, you know, a 30- or 40-year-old adult. I thought it would be decades from now. Like I felt like for whatever reason we had to wait decades for the science to sort of catch up to him. So, we were very, very grateful. It felt very validating, I guess. I had always kind of had this intuition feeling that we were sort of missing something and it's more that the science just hadn't quite caught up yet. But, you know, it was validating to know that okay, Lars is not the only person in the entire world with this, it is something that is relatively common in fact within the rare disease community. That is also very exciting to me personally because I'm hopeful that that will lead more researchers to be interesting in this, given how, quote on quote, common it is. I've sort of been describing it as like a mass diagnosis event but also more so this feeling that like we've been on this deserted island for eight years and now all of a sudden, you're sort of like looking around through the branches of the trees. It's like, wait a minute, there are other people on this island ad in this case, there's actually a lot more people on this island. Yeah, it's very exciting, it's validating. It gives us a lot of hope. And, you know, it has been quite emotional too and also a bit of an identity shift. Because I spoke earlier about how like being undiagnosed had become quite a big part of our identity. So, now that's kind of shifting a little bit that we have this new diagnosis and are part of a new community. But yeah, we're just very grateful that the research had continued. And, you know, I think sometimes you sort of have this feeling of okay, our files are up on a shelf somewhere, you know, collecting dust and are people really looking at them? And actually, it turns out that the research was ongoing and yeah, we're just very grateful for that. Naimah: Thanks so much for sharing, Lindsay. It sounds like it's been a real rollercoaster of emotions for your family and I'm glad to hear that, you know, you've got some hope now that you've got a diagnosis as well. So, moving onto the next question. Emma, I wanted to ask you then, how will these findings improve clinical diagnostic services for those for neurodevelopmental conditions? Emma: So, you asked me earlier about why it had taken so long to find this particular cause of neurodevelopmental condition, and I gave you a relatively simple answer. The reality is one of the other reasons is that almost eight out of ten children and adults who have RNU4-2 related neurodevelopmental condition have exactly the same single letter spelling change in that gene. So, actually that in itself means that when researchers are looking at that information, they might think that it's actually a mistake. Because we know that when we sequence genetic information, we can see mistakes in that sequencing information that are just because the machine has, and the way that we process that data, it's not perfect. So, sometimes we find these little mistakes and they're not actually the cause of a person's problems, they're just what we call an artefact or an issue with the way that that happens. So, that is part of the reason for why it was tricky for us to know whether this was, or rather the researchers to know whether this was or was not the cause of this particular condition. But that in itself is quite helpful when we think about how we might identify more people who have this going forwards. Because unlike in Lars' case where we didn't know what the cause was and so we were still searching, and we didn't know where to look in the billions of letters that make up the genetic code to find that answer, we now know that this is really very common. It's unbelievably common. I think we didn't think we would be finding a cause of a rare genetic condition that was this commonly occurring at this stage. But the fact that it's just a single, it's commonly this one single change in the gene means that we can set up pretty cheap diagnostic testing. Which means that if you were somewhere where you wouldn't necessarily have access to whole genome sequencing, or a more comprehensive testing in that way, we could still be able to pick up this condition. And it's common enough that even if you didn't necessarily recognise that a person had it, you could still have this as part of your diagnostic tool kit for patients who have a neurodevelopmental condition. It's common enough that just doing a very simple test that could be done in any diagnostic lab anywhere in the world, you would be able to identify the majority of people who have this. Naimah: Now let's hear from the other research group who are responsible for these findings. Here is Dr Andrew Mumford. (Clip - Dr Andrew Mumford) Naimah: Why are these research findings significant? Andrew: It offers genetic diagnosis not just for a handful of families but potentially for many hundreds of families, who we all know have been searching often for many, many years for a genetic diagnosis. But actually, there are other gains from understanding how this gene causes neurodevelopmental disorder. We know that there's GRNU4-2 in codes, not a protein actually, but a small nuclear RNA which is unusual for rare, inherited disorders. It's a component of a very complicated molecule called the spliceosome which in turn regulates how thousands of other genes are regulated, how they're made into proteins. So, fundamentally this discovery tells us a lot about the biology of how the spliceosome works. We already know that some other components of the spliceosome can go wrong, and result in diseases like neurodevelopmental disorders. This gives us an extra insight and actually opens the door to, I hope, a whole load of more discoveries of genetic diagnosis possible from other components of this complicated molecule. Naimah: Your research group used a mathematical modelling approach. Can you tell me a bit about this, and what this means for other rare conditions, Andrew? Andrew: So, identifying relationships between changes in individual genes and different kinds of rare, inherited disease is notoriously difficult because of the volume of data that's involved and the need to be absolutely certain that observed genetic changes are actually the cause of different rare, inherited disease. So, applying statistics to that kind of problem isn't new. But what my collaboration group have achieved here, is to develop, actually developed some years ago a completely new approach to applying statistics to genetic data. We call that BeviMed and we've been working for many years on the genes in code that make individual proteins. Most rare disorders are caused by genetic changes in genes that make proteins. What this discovery comes from is actually we've applied the BeviMed statistical technique to genes that don't make proteins, they're non-coding genes. For example, genes that make small nuclear RNA, it's just like RNU4-2. What's unusual about the BeviMed approach is that it's very sensitive to detecting links between genetic changes and rare diseases, and it can detect statistical associations really driven by very, very small numbers of families. So, we apply it to datasets like the 100,00 Genomes dataset and identify associations using statistics that have got a very high probability of association. Other members of the team then seek to corroborate that finding by looking at if we can see the association in other datasets, and we certainly achieve that with RNU4-2. But also, assessing biological plausibility by investigating what we understand already about in this case, a small nuclear RNA, and how it can possibly result in a disease. And we normally try and employ other independent evidence such as experimental investigation. Or going back to our families and asking for additional data to help really test this sort of theory that changes in this particular gene have resulted in a problem with neurodevelopment. (End of clip) Naimah: Emma, are there any other ways that we can identify these conditions based on their clinical presentation? Emma: So, Lindsay and I were talking with you just yesterday, wasn't it? And I asked Lindsay about what sorts of things Lars had in common with other children and adults who have been diagnosed with this condition? I actually think Lindsay probably gives a better summary than I would, so I might ask you to maybe repeat what you said to me yesterday. But the bit of it that really stood out to me was when you said to us that a lot of parents have said, ‘I'm not sure how we weren't all put together in the first place because you notice so many things that were in common.' So, maybe if you can give that summary and then I can translate that back into medical terms, if that's okay Lindsay. Lindsay: Sure, of course. Yeah, it been again, kind of mind blowing, some of the similarities. Especially as we've exchanged pictures and such, and baby pictures especially where some of the children like look like siblings. So, definitely some similarities in facial features, you know, everyone seems to experience some of the slow growth, so a short stature or quite skinny. There's feeding issues also that seem to be quite common. Also, you know, things like the global developmental delays, that's certainly across the board and histories of seizures, that's also quite common. Some people have experienced also some, like, bone density issues, that's not something that we've experienced so far, but that also seems to be quite common. But then also, behaviourally, there's a lot of similarities which has been, I think, quite exciting to a lot of us because you've always thought okay, so this is just my child. And of course, some of that is true but it's also interesting to find out some of these other things that are, you know, are quite similar. So, a lot of people have mentioned their child having, like, an interesting sense of humour. Kind of like a very slapstick sense of humour which is quite interesting. Or everyone seems to love water, everybody loves swimming pools and bathtime, and all of that. Lars loves a windy day. Something about the wind, he just loves it and plane noises and things like that have also come up with other people. So, yeah, it's been really interesting and cool to see. Emma: So, I guess Lindsay's sort of very beautifully summed up what is written in the research publication. So, there's only two research publications so far on this condition, it's all really new. And I am definitely not claim to be a clinical expert on this condition, and I don't think there are any yet. It will take people time to see lots of children and adults who have this particular condition. But ultimately what Lindsay summarised was the common clinical features that have been described by parents. In my job as a clinical genetics doctor, part of what we look at is a person's appearance. So, Lindsay described the photographs of children particularly when they were little, looked very similar. In the photographs that I've seen, I would agree with that. And so obviously those children look like their mum and dad, but they have other features that are in common. They have a characteristic appearance and that helps doctors like me to have an idea as to whether a child or an adult might have a particular condition. Then put together with the sorts of information that Lindsay gave us around the low tone, so being a little bit floppier particularly when they're little. The slow growth and growth problems, problems with eating, also with seizures. Those are all common things that were pulled out of both of the two research publications on this condition and putting that all together into one picture helps doctors to have an idea whether somebody may have a particular condition. That would help us in this case to potentially request that simple test I was talking about, if maybe we were practicing in a part of the world where we wouldn't have the resources that we thankfully do have in the United Kingdom, and in the USA. Naimah: So, Sarah, just coming to you next. How does this research spread awareness and help other patients with these conditions? Sarah: So, I think one of the things that's been really great about research now is that we are able to, you know, social media and things like that mean that we can spread this information really quickly across the world basically. I think what that does is that as well as helping bring people together that they've got this diagnosis, what it does is I think it provides hope for all of those people that Lindsay was talking about at the beginning who don't have a diagnosis. So, that piece around people are still looking, the researchers are working hard and that even if you don't have a diagnosis today you might get one in the future. Lindsay talked about your sample being dusty and not being looked at. I think it gives lots of families, not just those that get this diagnosis but all of those that haven't got a diagnosis, hope, that hopefully in the future they will get a diagnosis. I think one of the things we really hope will come out of diagnoses like this is that we will then be able to build up more of that picture about how families are affected. So, that we can give families more information about not only how their child is affected but how they might be affected in the future. That prognosis information that Linsday said is really missing when you don't have a diagnosis. And I think the other thing that hopefully is the next stage in this journey with this discovery is that those two science publications that Emma talked about, what we will want to do here at Unique working with the researchers and those families that have got a diagnosis, is to produce a patient family friendly information leaflet about this condition. One of the things we know is really important about those patient leaflets is including the photos. Because as both Emma and Lindsay have said that idea that they have facial features in common. And so, if you look at a leaflet and you can recognise your child in it, and you can see others that look like it, that can be a really sort of quite heartwarming experience in what often is a lonely experience with a rare condition. Naimah: And I think kind of on that point about it being a lonely experience, I wondered Lindsay if you could talk a bit more if this research has allowed you to connect with other parents and families who have received a diagnosis, and what impact that's had on your family? Lindsay: Yeah. I mean, and I think everything that Sarah has said was spot on. It's wonderful to have resources like Unique to connect families and have those diagnoses on the platform, so other clinicians can look for it and sort of grow this group. I think that has definitely been the highlight of getting this diagnosis at this stage, right. Because there's not much more you can do with it, with someone so brand new so being able to connect with the other families has been wonderful. One amazing mum who with this diagnosis set up a Facebook group, RNU4-2 Family Connect. And, you know, it's just been amazing to see people from all over the world joining this as they receive this diagnosis, you know, sharing their stories. We've spent countless hours on the weekends over the past couple of months on Zoom calls with total strangers, but just you find that you can just talk for hours and hours because you have so much in common. It's great to see what has worked well for other families and, you know, what has not worked. Sharing resources, just kind of all learning together. Also seeing the spectrum of this diagnosis, I think most genetic disorders have a spectrum and this seems to be the same here. So, that's been very interesting. And of course, our son is 8, Lars is 8. There's now a 33-year-old and a 29-year-old in the Facebook group. Speaking for me personally it's just amazing to see them and like it's very cool to see where they're at. That sort of helps you answer some of those questions about that before were quite unknown when you were thinking about the future. Obviously, everybody's development whether you have a genetic disorder or not, it is going to be what it's going to be, and everybody is going to do their own thing. But being able to see what a path might look like is just so helpful. And, you know, we all want community and connection, and so this has been really, really great to have that now. Sarah: I don't think there's much more that I can add because Lindsay articulated so well. But it's really heartwarming for us to hear the benefits of those connections because that's really why Unique and other support groups exist. Is to provide, partly to provide information, but I think predominantly to put families in touch with other families so that they can find a new home and connect and share experiences. And, you know, stop feeling as alone as they might have done before. Naimah: Okay, we'll wrap up there. Thank you to our guests, Lindsay Pearce, Sarah Wynn and Emma Baple for joining me today as we discussed the research findings which found a genetic change in the RNU4-2 gene which has been linked to neurodevelopmental conditions. If you'd like to hear more like this, please subscribe to Behind the Genes on your favourite podcast app. Thank you for listening. I've been your host and producer, Naimah Callachand, and this podcast was edited by Bill Griffin of Ventoux Digital.

This week we are joined by the Polly Hearsey to explore the transformation of business towards greater consciousness. Polly shares with us how business can act as a form of consciousness, as well as practical steps for businesses to evolve alongside our growing awareness. We discuss ways to collaborate with nature, the benefits of aligning with natural rhythms, and offer valuable advice for solopreneurs and small business owners aiming to make their business more conscious and aligned with their values. Tune in to discover Polly's hopes for the future of conscious business and the crucial role of community and collaboration in this inspiring journey. This conversation aims to inspire and guide heart-centered entrepreneurs towards inner peace to create outer change. Polly and I talked about: How Polly defines Conscious Business How business acts as a form of consciousness Steps businesses can take to evolve alongside our growing consciousness Ways businesses can collaborate with nature Benefits of aligning with natural rhythms for both business and Mother Earth Advice for solopreneurs and small business owners to make their business more conscious and aligned with their personal values Hopes for the future in the realm of conscious business and how we can get there The role of community and collaboration in this journey And so much more --- Sarah: [00:00:00] Holly, thank you so much for being here on the Humane Marketing Podcast. It's good to have you with us. Polly: I'm, I'm, I'm so honored to be here. You know, I'm really looking forward to the conversation we're going to have. Thank you so much. Sarah: Me too. Yeah. It's been, it's been a, we've been in touch on, on LinkedIn and kind of seen each other's worlds. Right. Yeah. And then I came across this Not a meditation, but it was on insight timer, a short talk that you posted there about conscious business and, and just how you approach business. And I'm like, ah, now it's time, you know, I have to have her on the, on the podcast, so delighted to have you here. So we're going to be talking about. Conscious business, nature aligned business, kind of like all the things that you love to talk about. And I think that really clearly comes across. It's like, wow, she's passionate about this, right? So, [00:01:00] yeah. So maybe start with explaining what conscious business means to you. What, what all the things that you pack under this umbrella of conscious business. Polly: I, it's an interesting one because I think sometimes when we have terms that are upcoming in, in our world, then they mean so many different things to different people until they, they take on an accepted meaning. So for me, conscious business is really about understanding how we are consciously creating our businesses, how we're consciously contributing through our businesses. And so that takes it in, you know, how do we treat people? How do we treat the, the environment? How do we treat our, Own sense of wellbeing in terms of being an entrepreneur as well, because it's tough to be an entrepreneur and to be a leader of a business. It's, it's hard work and it can be very damaging to your self esteem in some ways, [00:02:00] particularly when you're being asked to do things that you're not comfortable with. I think, well, that's how I have to do it in order to be successful, but I don't like it, but I don't know that there's an alternative way. So I think that, that piece of being. Kind and conscious to yourself is as important to do as it is to be conscious of how you treat other people. And you know, for me that is if you are in a, you know, you are in a product-based business, then it's about your entire supply chain. How, how conscious are you of your entire supply chain? But if you're in a service-based, it's like how conscious are you of the way in which you're structuring your business and you are setting your business up. So there's a lot of sustainability in it, but it's also about why am I doing this? What, why am I, why have I started my business? So that's, that's what I really focus on is helping people understand why they've started their business. What was the driver? Because for the most part, we kind of skirt, skate on the surface a little bit, and we don't think about, you know, what, [00:03:00] what was that sort of like that soul calling that was really going on underneath my decision. And unearthing that so that you can understand that what you really want to do through your business is create a positive impact. And I've found that every time somebody really taps into that well of, of knowledge and knowing, then they come forward with a business that is really positive. So I think that that piece of understanding yourself and what drives you to want to do this. Helps you to discover the make conscious, the subconscious, unconscious reason that you actually started your business. So it means so many different things to me. I Sarah: love it because it's kind of like. Yeah, it's one of these buzzwords, almost nowadays, right? It's like authentic business, conscious business. What does that mean? It's kind of like, is it some people almost like put the spiritual business in there as well. So, so you're [00:04:00] right. It, it does. Depends on, on who you talk to. And it means different things. It sounds like for the two of us, it's, it's very aligned. I wrote down you know, consciousness of yourself, of others and mother nature. So that's what it means to me as well. It's like, first you start with yourself. That's what we do in, in humane marketing. Then you need to look at your relationship to others. Which includes mother nature and you touched upon sustainability and, and, you know, that's obviously a big part of of conscious business. But I actually find that the sustainability only people are often not conscious of who they are and, and themselves and relationship to others. And so it's a lot of, there's actually. It's not a healthy environment. At least it wasn't for me. I was kind of in that sustainably field for a while and I'm like, wow, it's [00:05:00] toxic in here and it doesn't feel good. So I believe it's because they're, they're haven't done so much on their own inner work. What do you think about it? Polly: Yeah, I think so. But also I think that there is a human, very human tendency to think we have a problem here, so I need to get into solution mode. So you get very into your head and you couldn't come up with a solution, but The thing that really strikes me about where business needs to go is that we need to tap into that well of knowing rather than knowledge that comes from our intuitive side. both: Because Polly: when you look at nature, for example, the complexity of the relationships in nature are so mind blowing that we can't approach that logically. It's just, you know, if you, if you think about how interconnected the Siberian tundra is to the Amazonian rainforest. Now, you, what, In a scientific way, we look at those as [00:06:00] isolated, but they're not. We've got these little micro ecosystems and then we've got these global ecosystems. And so I think that in order for us to function effectively as communities, as societies, and to function effectively as life forms on a planet that needs us to act a little bit more responsibly, then we have to tap into that intuitive side. And of course, people who are in a very scientific, logical space both: that Polly: they haven't, it's not, probably not even occurred to them that they need to do that, but they're still doing something positive, but they're not creating a conscious environment. around it. And I think that's where you and I sort of like really see things in the same way, is, is that we need to create a different environment. And that means changing how you think. It means not just changing how you act, you have to change how you feel as well. So you want to come into it with a feeling of self belief, actually, self belief that you can [00:07:00] make a difference. I think that is, that's the key. The number one stumbling block that people have, they have all this energy welling up inside them and there's things that they want to do. But the first big stumbling block is, Oh, can I really make a difference? Sarah: Yeah. And, and those are exactly the people that we need right now to have this courage and boldness to step up and bring and use business as this lever to make a difference, right? Yeah, so true. You. In this talk, you mentioned this shift that, you know, we kind of all, I think a lot of people that I talk to notice that there's some kind of shift going on. They can't really finger point it or they don't exactly know what's going on, but they're like, something is happening. So yeah. Talk to us a little bit about this consciousness shift. And what that means for our businesses and why maybe [00:08:00] so many people are unhappy with their business right now. So I Polly: think, I mean, I have to unwrap it. I mean, it's so, it's so complex, but I do think as we've got more technological and we've become more interconnected, but without the human connection that We've obviously got shorter attention spans. I mean, that's certainly, you know, you'll, you'll hear people talking about that in marketing settings, attention spans are getting shorter. So you need to box everything in and to, you know, get people's attention in shorter periods of time. And I think what is happening is the reaction to that. So it's not being articulated. It's not fully conscious yet. But the reaction to that is we need more meaning. We need more depth. We need more connection. We need more contact. We need to be seen as individuals. We need to be responded to as individuals. And if I look at the business, it's particularly the online business space, it has been absolutely spectacular. paint splattered with [00:09:00] blueprints and do these things and just, you know, this, this is how you do it. And, you know, you guaranteed success if you follow this, this process. I just think everyone's just had enough of that and they're fed up with this not being seen. As who they are. And if they're not being seen, then what they want to create isn't being seen. So I think that to me underpins the shifts, but there are some, you know, there are some very noticeable shifts in by a behavior engagement and interaction. All of that's changed. And I think we are now definitely moving into a space where depth is required. So I've been saying this a lot in my community is saying, The, the push is to go harder, shorter, faster, put out more and more and more and saying reverse that, go deeper, go slower, and you know, you're gonna have a better relationship. So you may not have thousands of likes, you may not have thousands of engagements, but the ones that you have are going to be [00:10:00] completely different quality. both: And I Polly: think that's what happens when you, when you start to believe that you can operate in a different way, you shift the baseline, the baseline of expectation, and that begins to shift the culture. So I think it's like this, we start the whole process from the very bottom, because we are never going to get big corporations to change their minds. We're not going to get governments to change their minds. The only way those are going to change their minds is when they see that everything underneath them has already changed. Sarah: Yeah. So. Yeah, the bottom up movement this time around. Yeah, definitely. I totally agree. I totally agree with the depth as well. And the, the meaning so, yeah, how, how can we then change our businesses? If we do kind of feel this emptiness, how do we change our businesses towards more meaning, towards, you know, more of these human interactions? Yeah, [00:11:00] take us there. Polly: Well, I think in terms of changing the business, the first thing you had, and this is an uncomfortable thing to do. The first thing you have to do, if you just got to the point where I've got so far and now I just feel empty, I'm not really in the game. I don't buy into the label that I've got. It's all feels. Kind of meaningless and I've just been chasing a metric in order to make myself feel successful. The first thing we have to do is actually sort of like unpack the business. The way I look at what I do is it's like, it's almost like take the pieces, take all the pieces apart and have them all there. Because what I've found is that there's Pieces of you that are missing from your business. You know, we all have these experiences. We have these perspectives. We develop these skillsets and we have these interests as well. And we're told to sort of focus and get really specific. But if we take all of the mechanics of our businesses to pieces, almost sort of. Metaphorically, you say, [00:12:00] well, actually there's space for that. That bit of you makes sense. And so taking people back to why that's important to them, what they've learned from it and what they're, what it's, what it's meant to them. how it's shaped them really, helps them to say, Oh, that's why I approached this other bit that I've always been working on in this particular way. So I've worked with a lot of people who've just, they've, they've reached a very high level in their industry and then just gone, no, I can't do it anymore. And they, they want to, they want to burn their businesses down at that point. And it's like, you don't need to burn it down because everything that you've learned is valid moving forward. You might not use it in the same way, but it shaped you in some way. And I think that's, that's one of the ways that we start. And the other thing is, I think it is really important to reflect on. How your business is functioning within your community, functioning within the business community is a wider thing. So it's interesting. I've listened to a few talks and sort of like round [00:13:00] tables on the shifts that are happening recently. And what I found really interesting from some of the big names, they'd be, you know, that we're talking sort of like. You know, quite established, large revenue businesses, but they're talking about unraveling it a lot. They've got these big teams, everything's automated and they're going, I need to unravel it. I need to actually start talking to people and making space to have those conversations. And they actually don't know how to do that. The beauty of it is if you're a bit smaller, is that you can, and you haven't got a large team and you haven't got a load of mechanics, That you need to sort of like account for and pay for, then you can actually start to do that through your philosophy, through your ethos. So that's one of the things I really work a lot with people on is their value system. both: Because if Polly: you've got your value system, it changes how you approach the whole creative process in business. And then you start to say, well, actually I can create anything I want to, I don't have to follow the model. [00:14:00] And that, I think, you know, coming back to self belief being one of the, the first stumbling blocks, the second one is, can I really do things completely differently? Yeah, you can, you can. Sarah: Yeah. And you mentioned big names, right? I think the last 15 years, that's all we've ever done, or most people have done. It's like, oh, there's these, you know, we can probably count them on two hands. These are the ones who made it. So now we need to all. Create the businesses just like them, and this is how it's done. And they'll sell you the 2, 000 course in, in how it's done. And yet those are the ones who are now, you know, they're not sharing it openly, but yeah, they're kind of hinting at the unraveling things and they're like, huh, people are not buying my online course anymore. I wonder why, you know, people Polly: don't want any more information. They've had too much Sarah: human connection in these courses. Right. So. Yeah. It's, it's so [00:15:00] interesting. There is Polly: definitely a slide happening, some of the big names are struggling to, you know, some of the, some of them are still doing really well. I mean, and for, for many of us, they would be like, still be very happy to be doing as well as they are at the moment, but they, of Sarah: course, but they also have much higher overhead. Oh yes. I mean, you know, they have insane neighborhoods, a lot of spendings and, and so they're now struggling with, you know. Yeah, Polly: yeah, yeah. And I, I think a very light agile business is important now. Ah, yeah. 'cause you're more responsive, much freer. If you can bootstrap a s a solution to something, then bootstrap it. Why get yourself anchored into spending hundreds, maybe thousands of pounds or euros or dollars a year. To have systems there that you don't actually need to have. Right. Yeah, exactly. So, you know, I mean, it, it really depends on what you want for your business. And I do think, I was thinking about this this morning again, is [00:16:00] like this constant stuff, like you must hit six figures, you must hit seven figures, you may go multi seven figures or whatever. both: Right. Polly: And you just go, it, it's a nonsense statement. Right. Because if you take, Somebody hitting six figures in Australian dollars, they're earning significantly different to somebody hitting six figures in US dollars. And for us in the UK, it means doing twice what somebody in Australia is doing to, to, to get that. So it's a complete nonsense, but also takes no account of the cost of living in different countries. And so the benchmarks that we have, it's like, why do we have them? Yeah. They mean nothing. Right. It's so important to say, this is my business, this is what's important to me. And you'll never be able to do that unless you actually stop and say, who am I? What am I here to do? And who do I want to help? Sarah: Mm. Exactly. Polly: Three very simple questions. How do Sarah: I define success if it's not [00:17:00] the money part anymore, right? What is success for me? What does my life what I want my life to look like? How do I want to spend my days? My weeks? You know, yeah. What kind of metrics can I find there that are not money related? Polly: It's Sarah: interesting, Polly: isn't it? Because so many people talk about, Oh, let me show you how to get to your first job. five figure week or whatever, and that's all they talk about. And yet, if you ask a question to people about what does success mean to you, they won't say it's about money. Like one in a hundred will say it's money. Most will say it's about me feeling that I can express myself. It's feeling fulfilled, feeling like I'm making an impact, feeling like I'm helping people. So if that's what really matters to people, why are we still selling them ways to make money? Why aren't we selling them ways to find themselves? and express themselves and feel happy. Sarah: Yeah. And traditionally also people who have more money have [00:18:00] less time, which also feels like a really silly thing to strive for. It's like, well, you know, what if I don't even have time to spend that money anymore? It's like, what's the point? That story of, Polly: The fishermen on the beach with the executive. It's just like classic, it's like go all the way around in a circle. It's like, well, yeah, and I'm here exactly where I need to be without a fleet of fishing boats. Sarah: Exactly. Yeah. I, I tell the same story with an olive tree growth keeper in, in Sicily in the marketing like for human books. So same idea just with all of trees. Right. Yeah. So yeah. Yeah, I totally agree with all of that. Let's, let's go and. You know, I just imagined what I want my life to look like. And immediately what come to me, came to mind is, well, nature outside. I want to be more outside. So let's head a little bit in that direction, [00:19:00] because that's also something you talk about is how to align your business with nature. So what do you work on with clients there? Polly: Well, it's an interesting one because I'm still, I don't think I'll ever feel that I've. Got a full understanding of what I'm doing that and I've got okay with that, but because I'm always going to learn a little bit more, but it's really about sort of like learning who we are in nature, learning how nature works, not to mimic it, but to remember that we are nature and therefore that we operate according to natural principles. There are no business. Principles that, you know, in the mainstream that are natural, they are all completely imposed and nature never thrives when you impose something on it, it always needs to come from within. So I think that's another thing. It's like bringing that process of coming from within. So I love sending, sending my clients out [00:20:00] into nature with their business questions, because if you just want to sit in a, in a quiet space with the thing that is bothering you the most, And then just look around a bit and see what solutions nature comes up with. You just go, okay, yeah, there's different ways of doing it. So it can be as simple as that, but also thinking about, you know, how do like in my membership, we were coming into a new season. We're going to be working on the voice and working with nature. So be working with the bullfinch, which is one of the finches and that, you know, they're renowned for their songs. And if you think about bird song, birds have functional calls and they have Aesthetic calls, you both: know, Polly: say, and we, we think of the voice as being something functional, or we think of the voice as being something aesthetic, but you know, there, there are two sides to that. So it's like learning lessons as simple as that, but what's the aesthetic of your voice? What's the function of your voice? How do you [00:21:00] balance function and aesthetic? Because there's no two, you can't mistake two different birds. Well, you probably can, but you know, the bird calls something, something as simple as that is profoundly influential in terms of how you think about it. And that's, that's where I'm playing at the moment. But I do have this belief that businesses can become part of the ecosystem. So at the moment we have this sustainability sort of like, I need to mitigate the impact of my business. on the environment. I believe that it's possible, and I don't know how yet, but I believe it's possible for businesses to become part of the ecosystem. But I do know that it comes back to who you are. and remembering your nature and remembering how to work with nature at an individual level in order that makes that possible. Does that make sense? Yeah. And that's part of the, [00:22:00] the knowing piece, knowing that that's possible, but also appreciating that I have absolutely no idea what that looks like yet. You sort of get little glimpses, glimpses of it. But You know, I have a client who, who makes bark flower essences and their space around the, where they make them, and it's not a factory, it's, you know, it's a very small, small unit, but the space around them is managed in a very particular way where it feels like the entire manufacturing and office space is part of that. So there's sort of like hints at, at that, but you know, I have an online business. What does that mean for me? both: And Polly: it means, how do I bring nature into my business? How do I contribute to nature through my business? And that's not, I do think that sort of like philanthropy and things like that. I'm not dissing it in any way. But I think that's a fix for [00:23:00] compensation, whereas we can be contributing in a very conscious way. Sarah: I love, I love your questioning because clearly if you would just say, well, here are the seven steps, you know, I would probably go, yeah, I don't know about that. So it's, again, I think everyone has to find out in a way for themselves, but they have to be open. To receiving the message and for example, what you just shared about the bird song. I, yeah, I don't know that I knew about the bird having two kinds of songs. So that, yeah, that's just kind of like, oh, that's really interesting. And then what I thought of is like, What I share about in the, in my marketing, like we're human program, we look at the marketing techniques that are unique for each individual. Right. And so people, some people will, will, [00:24:00] and we also look at the human design a little bit. And so some people will want to use their voice. Because maybe other people have told them, you have a nice voice or, you know, it's like you have this soothing voice or whatever. Like they just know that they want to use their voice. And, and so we, we, you know, we say, Oh, maybe you have a podcast or maybe you do videos or like, it's like, yeah, that is somehow, I guess. Related to nature, because it's how you are built, how, you know, your design is built. You were given a nice voice, and so why not use it in your, in your marketing, both: for Sarah: example. Yeah, absolutely. Polly: The thing that I come back to all the time is that nature, life is diversity. both: Right. Polly: There isn't one solution to everything. So I look at things like electric cars and just go, well, this clearly, we're not [00:25:00] listening to nature because nature does not have one solution across the entire globe. It has different solutions in different places. And that to me is a massive lesson for business that says that we need diversity in the business place. If we're going to see people as individuals and respond to people as individuals, then we need diversity in our businesses, diverse business models, diverse focuses, diverse niches, whatever. So we need to remember, and I think that's what we go to is nature, to learn that, is to learn how to be creative. Right. Yeah. I mean, we, we are on a rock floating in space that producing the most extraordinary diversity of life. And we forget that we're part of that diversity of life and that we're all individuals and all unique. And, you know, you look at any, any plant on the planet. You know, and there might be [00:26:00] thousands and thousands of the same plant, but they're not the same plants. They're individuals within that. And that's kind of, to me, is remembering that every, everything on, in, on this earth is an individual. And it has a, however you want to phrase it, it has a consciousness, it has an energy, it has a presence. in the whole, and we need to learn to value that. And I think anything that I can do to help people see what they'd never seen before is, is really helping because we, do we look that closely? You know, we got plant blindness. We look Sarah: outside, we look outside for solutions. That's the immediate reaction, usually. Polly: So anything that we can do to like, slow down and look more closely, I think is going to have a profound effect on the trajectory of consciousness and the trajectory of life on, on earth as well. both: So Polly: little things like that. So you can get very [00:27:00] frustrated about governments are so slow to change policy. But policy is about an imposition and people rebel against imposition. If it comes from within, if it's coming from a genuine place of this is me and this is what I want to do, then it becomes something that people want to do and it changes culture. It change, change, changes society from the inside out and then everything else has to follow suit. Otherwise it's completely out of step and Sarah: Yeah, we have huge power. We have so much power really do. And, and, and I just want to, I know you, you are of the same opinion because you have your community as well. So it's not that we're saying you need to be individual and not be in community, right? Because you're just. Your own lone wolf. That's not what we're saying. And I always look to astrology also. And we, we [00:28:00] have Pluto in Aquarius now, which represents this idea of the individual in community. So we can be completely, uniquely different. And yet, if we have the same values, we are together in community and are strong in community. Because it doesn't mean that we're uniquely different, that we can't find things in common, and that we can't create things, co create things in common. And that's the beauty of these communities, is that, because the old way was kind of like, top down, everybody needs to be the same to be in this six figure club, you know. And now it's like, no, everybody can be completely their own unique design. And yet we have a common worldview and yeah, that's, that's really the beauty of the times. Polly: And if you, if you do spend any time looking in nature, you'll see that it's collaborative, but that that's, it's structured on collaboration. We, [00:29:00] you have to look to see that. And I think people are beginning to look more. Vichy, if you look at I need to find a way to produce this as a video. So there's, it's, it's visual, but if you. If you take a stone, perfectly, or a sphere, or whatever, it's perfectly rounded, if you place 12 people around that, Each one of those has got a completely different perspective on the same thing. And that's what we need to value. So collaboration is really important. And actually the ability to deliver on a purpose, which might be, you and I have a very similar purpose. You know, we've got the same slight vision of where we're going. We can't do it on our own. It's actually strengthened by working together. So community to me is absolutely integral to recreating the vision of business. Really important. So you need to be a unique individual in a community and valued for that. There's a wonderful, it's just popped into my head. There's a [00:30:00] wonderful story that some African tribe where they, have a song that they sing to that individual. So that's, they don't have a name, they have a song. And at various points through their life, they sing them their song. So it's a unique song to that person. And that really speaks to me about how you, you value the individual. And the uniqueness of the individual, but that individual is part of a whole, it's part of a community and is necessary. And we've devalued our individual contributions to the level that people have this problem with self belief. both: But actually, Polly: we have huge amounts of power by connecting to ourselves and knowing who we are and then doing something about it. Sarah: Yeah, so if we bring this conversation full circle, it really feels to me like this consciousness really starts with knowing yourself, right? All this inner [00:31:00] work that you and I have been talking about for so many years, but it, it felt like people were like, not interested. And she's like, well, no, but I want the six figures. And I just want the clients. And it's like, no, but that you'll get there and you will get much better clients. You will feel much more aligned if you start from within. Polly: Yeah, absolutely. It changes the game completely because I say this to people all the time. And I think they're a little skeptical initially is that if you are really tapped into who you are and you're doing your thing. Then those clients will come to you with zero resistance. So all that training that we've had about how to overcome objections and making sure, you know, will people pay and all those things that have been drilled into people that made them really nervous and alarmed. both: Right. Polly: But doesn't happen when somebody says. I've sought you out and I want to work with you because I have seen what you've [00:32:00] produced. So, you know, producing content and stuff like that is important in terms of being able to get our message out to the world, but actually it's really just a, it's a portal through which people can move towards us. And makes it possible, like you said, you need to use your voice if your voice is there, you need to use your words if it's your words or, you know, you need to just use your face if that's what it is. There are lots of different ways, but we have to find our way that matches the energy of what we're trying to bring forward. Sarah: And I feel like what we're doing and people who do similar work is, it's just giving people the courage to use their voice because it's those hidden talents is those people who, who do good work that until now didn't get any of the visibility because they wanted nothing to do with the marketing stuff that they saw out there. And so what we're doing is just telling them, well, there's a different way to do it. You can do it. Align with nature. You can [00:33:00] align and do it align with who you are, right? Yeah. And I think Polly: one of the, our jobs because we've, we've been out front for a while that's not to say we're any better, but we've been out front for a while is that our job is to create a sense of safety in doing that. And I don't know about you, but I know that I've had some very sort of like uncomfortable, you know, spaces to move through personally in order to get myself comfortable with talking about, I mean, if you told me 10 years ago, I was going to be talking about Nate, you know, nature as a business mentor, I don't know. People laughed at us. Yeah, exactly. But so it's been not necessarily a comfortable process, but one of our jobs as mentors and supporting our communities is to create safety, to say it's okay. Sarah: Yeah, exactly. Create a community of people who are there to, you know, support each other because yeah, sometimes it's not enough if just one person tells you it's safe, but a community. Polly: We need [00:34:00] spaces where we feel safe. Sarah: Yeah. Polly: And we need spaces where we can talk about things that we may not feel safe to talk about or comfortable to talk about, or just worry that we won't be received because people would have a clue what we're talking about. And sometimes you just need to just go, you know, as we, you and I did when we, we had a conversation, we were just like, splurges all out. And it was okay because we both knew what we were going through. And so it's okay. So I think that is a really important piece to say, and that, you know, every person who steps forward and starts to use their voice then becomes a leader that other people find safety with. So it's the exponential effects of every single person who does this. We speed up the whole process of changing things for the better. Sarah: So good. Yeah, I can see the future clearly in front of me. It's beautiful. Please do share With people who are listening, where they can find out more about your work, your [00:35:00] community, your Insight Timer talks and meditations, all of that. Polly: Everything is accessible, I can't say the word, accessible through my website, which is polyhearsey. co. uk. So if you just go there, you've got the link straight to Insight Timer, you get linked through to my events. And if you want to join my mailing list and keep up to date, then I send out just one a week email a week. So just With my latest thoughts. So everything's fine. Sarah: This has been so much fun. We have to do it again. Thanks so much, Polly, for being on the show. Thank you so much for having me.

In May, we had our annual DoorGrow Live event! What makes DoorGrow Live different from other property management conferences? In today's episode, property management growth experts Jason and Sarah Hull talk about our most recent DoorGrow Live conference and some of the topics discussed. You'll Learn [01:12] What was different about this year's DoorGrow Live? [04:48] Tactics vs. Mindset [06:41] Changing the order of your priorities [10:17] Hard choices, easy life Tweetables “Tactics and the how can always be figured out.” “It's not really the tactics that are the problem. It's almost always the mindset.” “The hard choice is to not go for what you immediately want, but to reorder and prioritize some things that are more relevant to the long term.” “If you don't like the results, then it's probably because your priorities are not in the right order.” Resources DoorGrow and Scale Mastermind DoorGrow Academy DoorGrow on YouTube DoorGrowClub DoorGrowLive TalkRoute Referral Link Transcript [00:00:00] Jason: If you don't like the results, then it's probably because your priorities are not in the right order.  [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. 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 Hall, the owners of DoorGrow. Now let's get into the show. Okay.  [00:01:12] And so what we're going to be talking about today is we just had DoorGrow Live and DoorGrow Live was a success. It was a lot of fun and it was a little bit different this year. So how would you say it was different this year, Sarah?  [00:01:27] Sarah: So I think a lot of people were saying, "Hey, it feels like there was really just a lot of heart that went into this event." [00:01:35] So usually when I think you and I run events, we're very tactical. How do you do this? How do you do that? And let's share this strategy and let's talk about this thing. And this year we changed things up a little bit and you were maybe a little hesitant to follow the formula that I put together, might I add. [00:01:53] And so maybe on the podcast you can tell people that It worked?  [00:01:57] Jason: It worked.  [00:01:58] Sarah: And? Do you have anything else to say about that?  [00:02:00] Jason: Anyone that knows Sarah knows what she wants to hear right now. You were right. There it is! There it is. There it is. That's what she wanted. There it is.  [00:02:10] Sarah: So this year when I was putting together the schedule and the agenda, there was this whole plan that I had. [00:02:17] And I was like, "Oh no, we need to order things like this and do things like this. And this is what I wanted." And he's like, " I don't know if that's going to work. And why are we doing this whole thing? And we're like putting this whole thing together. And like, you don't even know if it's going to work the way you want." [00:02:30] Jason: Is this how I sound?  [00:02:31] Sarah: Yes.  [00:02:32] Jason: "I don't know if it's gonna work."  [00:02:34] Sarah: "I don't know if it's gonna work."  [00:02:36] Jason: That's totally what I sound like.  [00:02:38] Sarah: It was perfect.  [00:02:39] Jason: I'm shaking my head no, by the way, for the listeners.  [00:02:41] Sarah: See you probably, they probably didn't even know that was me talking. They just thought it was you.  [00:02:45] Jason: Oh, yeah. [00:02:46] You do such a good impersonation of me. I know. It's really quite impressive. I'll go back to my normal voice so that you realize it's Sarah talking. Yeah, for the listeners, we need to make sure there's two distinct voices or they're going to be really confused why I'm talking to myself because you sound so much like me. [00:03:03] Sarah: I know. I'm so sorry if I confused anyone.  [00:03:06] Jason: Nobody was confused. Okay. So...  [00:03:08] Sarah: so he was giving me a little bit of a hard time about it because I, like, made him sit down and map this out and I was like, "no, there's a formula that we're supposed to follow and this is what I want it to look like." And I think it worked out really well. [00:03:21] Jason: Yeah, the event went really well.  [00:03:23] Sarah: Yeah.  [00:03:24] Jason: Things ran pretty much like clockwork. That's hard. It's hard to do that in events. Like speakers go over, people don't stop. Like, we had this big, huge red LED clock right in front of the speaker. So it was like super obvious, like, and we, I think we had conversations with all the speakers, like everything worked pretty smoothly. [00:03:43] The general feedback I got from a lot of clients one of our clients, Ed Golding, came up to me and he was just smiling. He'd been to some previous ones and he said, "this was different, you know, what was different about this?" I said, "what, Ed? " He said, "heart, this one had heart." [00:03:56] And it was an emotional event. There was lot more emotion at this event. Did we talk about tactics? Yes. I explained how I've been able to leverage social media and different tools and, I've made millions of dollars off social media. And I shared some really cool tools and very tactical stuff. [00:04:12] That's how I opened up the event. But we got into a lot of mindset and what we've realized over time, that we talked about at the event that most of our clients are not winning or losing because they don't, or do have tactics. Tactics and the how can always be figured out. And I liked Jeff Garner's tattoo he talked about but....  [00:04:33] Sarah: he's funny.  [00:04:33] Jason: He's like, " can I say it? There's children present." I had my kids at the event.  [00:04:36] Sarah: They're my kids. Like they hear it all the time.  [00:04:40] Jason: Yeah, so he's got a tattoo that's FTH Which stands for "fuck the how" so and so a lot of times people are so worried about "how do I do this? How do I do this?" And we do share tactics. We do a lot of that at DoorGrow. However, It's not really the tactics that are the problem. It's almost always the mindset. And so whenever I teach tactics. I always am going into the why behind it and the mindset stuff. And when they start to understand this stuff, then they will actually do it usually. [00:05:13] So there was a lot of mindset at the event. And then also, there's vulnerability. Like I openly shared how I've been reevaluating my priorities and what those look like and how how that looks. You were sharing about your upbringing and how like the difficult things in life are also the things that make us who we are and help us to enable us to help others and how to view it through a different lens, which I thought was really awesome. [00:05:39] And everybody's crying. Sarah's making everybody cry. Like I was crying, like...  [00:05:44] Sarah: I made people cry in a very different way this time though. I'm usually making people cry because I'm yelling at them.  [00:05:50] Jason: That's not true.  [00:05:51] Sarah: It's a little true. It's a little true.  [00:05:54] Jason: Not our clients, just me.  [00:05:56] Sarah: No, I don't do, but I do give our clients tough love when they need it. [00:05:59] And Kelly came to the event and she's like, "this is exactly what I needed." I'm like, "I know that's why I was on you for like three months." [00:06:07] Jason: Yeah. I think some people had some breakthroughs, which that's the goal. Like we want to change lives. And so there's something just really beautiful about this DoorGrow Live. [00:06:16] There was a lot of more depth to it and I just feel grateful to be able to be part of it and to see, our clients that believe in us and that, that came in just seeing their progress and, there are people there that have been in our program for years, which is just. [00:06:29] It's really awesome to see. So, so I thought I would share just a little bit today about what I had shared and this will be a quick episode cause Sarah doesn't want me to go long. So this'll be a quick one.  [00:06:41] Sarah: Back to back today.  [00:06:42] Jason: You got a busy day. So what I shared is I talked a little bit about prioritization and I've talked about this previously, but what what was interesting, one of my breakthroughs recently was recognizing I was basically merging in my mind, the five basic needs. [00:06:57] Which I don't know who put that out. We learned it from our friend Roya.  [00:07:01] Sarah: But maybe it was... [00:07:02] Jason: maybe it's Tony Robbins. I don't know. So there's five basic needs and the five basic needs are love and belonging, power and achievement fun and adventure, fun and pleasure, safety and security. [00:07:15] Sarah: And I'll see when you put them in a weird order, then I don't remember them. Freedom and flexibility.  [00:07:20] Jason: Freedom and flexibility. Freedom. There we go. Yeah. Okay. These are five basic needs and we all have one that's primary. For Sarah, it's power and achievement. Nobody's surprised, right? For me, it's actually love and belonging. [00:07:33] And a lot of my achievement and a lot of the things that I do. Are to, that's what motivates that we're helping clients working with clients love and belonging and having that connection. That's why I like working with entrepreneurs because I don't feel like such a weirdo when I'm around other people that are that weird, that are also entrepreneurial. [00:07:51] But what I've come to realize that if I make that my highest priority, I tend to get less of it. And I think this is true for anyone with their basic need. If you really think about it, if Sarah just went after power and achievement. And didn't prioritize like relationships and other things, it could be pretty destructive and it would likely have the opposite desired effect in trying to achieve power and whatnot, right? [00:08:13] Because we need others. And then for me, if I'm just going after love and belonging, I would be less likely to get it. If I didn't have my own oxygen mass first, if I didn't have financial wealth and health, if I didn't have physical health then it wouldn't be nearly as effective. I wouldn't be nearly as present. [00:08:31] I wouldn't be able to enjoy much love and connection or belonging, in relationships. I wouldn't be able to feed into relationships as much if I weren't taking care of myself. And so based on that I, I had everybody map out or stack or list their priorities in their life, and then I showed how my priorities were listed and then Like what my natural inclination is placing like love and belonging at the top. [00:08:59] And then I showcased how I've intentionally consciously listed them and rearranged the priority and how that affects my decision making in my day to day so that I spend more of my time in my day to day moving towards the top priorities, which are not on my new adjusted priority list are not the love and connection related things related to family, sex, relationship, stuff like that. So above that, I've placed God at the top which is, for some of you that might be your highest ideal, whatever that is. And so I want to always be pointed towards my highest ideal. Second, I put power, achievement, impact, and that's related money status, all that. [00:09:41] And that allows me to have impact. Which leads to me getting what I want. It's a leading sort of thing. And then the next is health. I need to be prioritizing health. And then it gets into more of the relationship stuff in the priorities. Whereas before I was putting family, friends, fun was probably higher on the list, but I felt like I wasn't ever able to do as much of that as I wanted. [00:10:04] Because I was so focused on the other stuff. And so by reordering the priorities, it takes work. Like it takes effort to go towards what's easy and what's natural usually leads to a harder life. And so there's this stoic phrase that I like that is "hard choices, easy life. Easy choices, hard life." [00:10:26] And the hard choice is to not go for what you immediately want, but to reorder and prioritize some things that are more relevant to the long term, playing the long game, doing what maybe I feel deep down inside I should do connected when I'm connected to God or focusing on my health, doing the playing the long game instead of doing the short term, right? [00:10:49] The short term is like eat, Häagen Dazs vanilla ice cream, vanilla bean ice cream. It's like my favorite right now. I love that. Or whatever, right? When we're just trying to please our tongue and our genitals, we tend to have a much harder life, right? And this is the short term. We're just going for the short term gain. [00:11:05] And so we want to make sure we prioritize the long game, the long term. and give up where that means sacrifice in the short term. That means work. That means effort. And a lot of people just aren't putting in enough work or enough effort in the lazy people in society are the people that are always trying to please their tongue and their genitals. [00:11:24] Maybe it's crass, my crass way of saying it. Okay. It's a little gross. Okay. So that's what I shared at DoorGrow Live. And so I encourage all of you listening, like make a list. What are your priorities? And what I shared is your results reveal your priorities. So if you don't like the results in your life, write them down. [00:11:43] Like, what are your relationships like? What's your business like? What are you doing in the business? What aren't you doing in the business? Or what are you enjoying? What are you not enjoying? And if you don't like the results, then it's probably because your priorities are not in the right order. It doesn't mean you give up or change your priorities, right? All of the things that were my priorities before are still priorities for me. I've just rearranged the order and by just rearranging the order, it changes everything. It changes the results that you get and you'll get more of the results that you really desire if you rearrange those priorities in a way that probably will take you more effort and more work, but will allow you to get everything that you want in the long run. [00:12:28] So that was my message. That's the simple message. Rearrange your priorities figure out your basic need, put that lower on the list, and figure out what needs to come before in order for you to have as much of that as possible because I want you to enjoy your life, but you need to do make hard choices. [00:12:41] And you need to do hard things.  [00:12:43] But it was an awesome event and make sure you are keeping an eye on doorgrowlive.com for the future and make sure to attend in the future. [00:12:52] Everybody says our conferences are different than any other property management conference out there. And That's a good thing. Like we do it in a good way. So, I recommend you attend. So you can check out more details about future events at doorgrowlive.Com. And if you are wanting to grow your property management business and have success like our clients were showcasing at DoorGrow Live and grow your business, scale your operations, have a better lifestyle, enjoy your team more, enjoy your business, be less frustrated, have more peace, reach out to us at DoorGrow. You can check us out at DoorGrow.com. We would love to see if we can help you scale your business. And until next time to our mutual growth. Bye everyone. [00:13:36] 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!  [00:14:02] 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.

Hosts Will Larry and Victoria Guido interview Sarah Touzani, the founder of Waggle AI, an AI leadership skills coach. Sarah shares insights from her entrepreneurial journey, discussing how her past pottery hobby has influenced her focus and patience, which are crucial skills in her role as a founder. She explains how her transition from a traditional business school path to a senior role in a fast-growing startup, and eventually to founding Waggle AI, was driven by a desire to foster better managerial skills and workplace culture. Sarah talks about the early challenges and pivots in developing Waggle AI, such as incorporating AI for automatic note-taking to reduce user friction. She describes how Waggle AI assists in meeting preparations, records notes, and provides feedback on leadership skills, helping managers improve their delegation and empathy skills. She also highlights the importance of blending productivity tools with leadership development to enhance team performance and individual well-being. The discussion also touches on the ethical considerations and core values driving Waggle AI, to emphasize user privacy and minimizing additional workload for managers. Sarah concludes by outlining her vision for the product, focusing on deepening the AI's understanding of managers and adapting recommendations to individual team members' needs. Waggle AI (https://www.usewaggle.ai/) Follow Waggle AI on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/company/wearewaggle/), Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/waggle__ai/), TikTok (https://www.tiktok.com/@waggleai), or X (https://twitter.com/waggle_ai). Follow Sarah Touzani on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarah-touzani/). Follow thoughtbot on X (https://twitter.com/thoughtbot) or LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/company/150727/). Transcript: WILL: This is the Giant Robots Smashing Into Other Giant Robots podcast, where we explore the design, development, and business of great products. I'm your host, Will Larry. VICTORIA: And I'm your other host, Victoria Guido. And with us today is Sarah Touzani, Founder of Waggle AI, your AI leadership skills coach. Sarah, thank you for joining us. SARAH: Of course. Thanks for having me. VICTORIA: To open us up here, what is a past or current hobby that you enjoy? SARAH: I need to be honest. I haven't done much outside of working since I started the company. But prior to that, I used to spend a lot of time in a pottery studio making pots, and bowls, and mugs, and gifting them to anyone I meet. WILL: That's really impressive because I tried it for, like, I think a college class. And if you make one mistake, the whole thing gets ruined. I think I made, like, a little, very small bowl, and that was all I could get [laughs]. SARAH: Yeah. I'm not surprised. It takes a lot of practice and a lot of extreme focus in a way because, like you said, like, the single moment your hand moves slightly off, the whole thing is over. WILL: What's the item that was the most complicated or you're the most proud of? SARAH: I would say a big bowl that I made, which has a bit of an odd shape because, actually, it was going bad. And I kind of caught it back and made that mistake into something done on purpose in the design, and it worked quite well. But it's also not your average pot or average bowl you see everywhere. VICTORIA: That's really cool. And I echo Will's sentiments of being impressed by people who can do pottery because I did take a class right before the pandemic. And then, the pandemic hit, and we weren't able to fire any of our pieces [laughs]. But I found that it took just a lot of patience, even to be able to figure out the first step. Like, putting the clay onto the spinning wheel and doing that correctly just takes a lot of practice. And so, I'm curious if you find any of those skills or values from doing pottery translate into being a founder. SARAH: Yeah, actually, this is funny because I wrote a blog article about this a few years ago when I first started. I think there are a lot of learnings to take away from that and bring into work, weirdly. It's that sense of focus. When you're starting a company very early, there's a million things that you want to be doing and, actually, you can't. You need to do one thing and do it well. And the ability to zoom in and focus on one single thing is a massive game changer. Also, my last job was as busy and insane as the current one, which is being a founder, because it was, like, a senior role in a super-fast-growing startup. And I was always on my phone, or always thinking about work, or always having something coming at me and trying to answer questions and do stuff on Slack. And with your hands dirty, you're actually forced not to do any work and go back to that focus and that mental clarity. And that was also, like, extremely valuable back then. So, saying this out loud makes me think that I probably should go back and do it. VICTORIA: I recommend it. I did a hand pottery class with my little sister. I have a big sister, little sister mentorship relationship. And we made little ceramics, and it was super fun. Just, like, an hour a week. SARAH: Super nice. WILL: So, Sarah, you mentioned a little bit about your background. Tell us more about that. Where did you get started? How did you become a founder of your company? How did the idea come up? Just anything in those areas. SARAH: Yeah. Sounds good. So, I have a bit of, like, a traditional business school type of profile. I was a good student. I didn't really know what I wanted to do. So, I went into a business school, graduated, went into banking and consulting, which are, I guess, those, like, sexy jobs that you want to get when you are still at school. And I had done them and felt a bit out of place because I wanted to get things to move way faster than they were moving in these, like, very corporate set-in-their-ways type of companies. So, left that industry and moved to a very early-stage startup. I used to live in Paris back then, and I moved to London. At the same time, joined a very early-stage startup in FinTech. We were four when I joined. And we didn't have a product, didn't have any revenue. And I had to grow that company to about 200,000 customers, 50 million series A, and 80 people in the team, of which I managed about 50. All of this happened in 4 years. And I was hired into that role because of my background and because of my experience in risk management, compliance, like, all of the very technical aspects of my career. But at the end of the day, I spent most of my time trying to build a culture that motivated people to do their best work that enabled people to perform. And that's not something you really get to learn either at school or, in most cases, at work either. You just need to figure it out. So, I was trying to find a way where we could enable managers to learn these skills once they're in the job. Because when they mess up and when I messed up as a manager, it had a cost not only on the company but also on the wellbeing and mental health of the people that I was managing. And I couldn't really find a solution existing. So, I started working on one and spoke to one of my best friends about it, who is a multiple-time founder, and we just got to work. And fast forward a year and a half, here we are. VICTORIA: I'm wondering if there was anything in the early phases that surprised you in the customer discovery process, maybe caused you to shift direction. SARAH: Yeah, definitely. So, early days, we started with this problem, which is that most interactions between a team member and their manager happen in meetings. And that, overall, everyone is kind of frustrated with meetings, especially post-COVID, where we started doing a bunch of them online. It seemed to not work. And it seems that meeting management skills were a bit absent, and they should be part of the toolbox for a manager. So, started by trying to help managers run better meetings. And we relied on them taking notes from those meetings, like, in writing preparing for those meetings and taking notes for them in writing. And quickly realized that a very small portion of people were actually doing that note-taking. It seems obvious saying it out loud now, but back then, we didn't really know that. And so, we kind of had to switch gears and use way more AI than we intended, at least at that stage, to enable that automatic note-taking and gathering of data for us to be able to support the managers. Because if we don't know what they're working on and what's happening in their world, it's super hard for us to give them any feedback. But if they don't take notes and share them with us, then we can't really do anything. So, I had to shift gears and build an embedded note taker within the product to remove, like, a big portion of that friction that we saw with early users. WILL: I love that and just your whole product. I'm a productivity nerd, so I just love it. And I was a manager for a couple of years, and it's not the easiest. So, I love what your product is doing. Can you give us an overview of exactly what your product does so the audience can know what we're talking about? SARAH: Yeah, of course. So, the product is an AI coach or an AI co-pilot for managers. And the way it works is it connects to your calendar. It creates a space to collaborate with your team on each of the meetings you have. Prior to the meeting happening, we also give you access to one-click templates and ways to run those meetings. And then, when the meeting is happening, the Waggle Bot joins the call, takes notes for you, picks up on both action items that you mentioned during the conversation, who they were assigned to, who mentioned them, but also decisions that were made or about to be made that you need to either come back to and confirm or make sure that everyone is aware of. And finally, and the most exciting part, to me, is that it gives you feedback on your leadership skills, a bit like if your coach was listening to your conversations with your team members. And it will say things like, "You mentioned a few tasks during this call, and you didn't delegate any of them to the team while you had the opportunity to. So, next time you have a call, think about what tasks you could actually delegate," or it will say, "Well done showing empathy when Will, in your team, mentioned that their daughter was sick and that they had to leave work early today." So, it really works as a feedback loop to reinforce good behavior, but also give you tips and show you those unknowns that you didn't really think about and what impact they can have on your team and on your team's productivity. And finally, from that, we build a full picture of where you're good at, and where we can support you, and how those skills evolve over time through the feedback we give you. VICTORIA: Yeah, as a manager myself, I'm thinking about all the things I do to try to make my meetings as efficient as possible by, you know, having automatic Slack updates that say, "As a reminder, go look at your tickets, update them before the call," like, rotating who's taking notes and facilitating the meeting, and thinking about how that could reduce the burden from the team and just help everyone save time and share that information more widely. Because sometimes I do have maybe a dozen meetings in a day, like, 12, 30-minute meetings [laughs]. And that's a lot of notes to take. So, I usually estimate every meeting takes another 30 minutes to an hour to wrap up and follow up afterwards. SARAH: Yeah, I think that's a good assessment. And if you actually stick to spending those 30 minutes extra for each one of the meetings, I can tell you you're one of the best performers. Because what we've been seeing is that a lot of people, especially in startups or, like, fast-moving environments cannot afford to spend that time. So, we're trying to see how we can remove that friction and make those 30 minutes that you need to spend more like five minutes pre-meeting and potentially another five minutes after the meeting. And that's it. You're done. VICTORIA: How many people did you talk to in the first 30 and 90 days of your startup? SARAH: So, that's all we did in the first few months because we wanted to validate that this was not, like, an us problem. So, I spoke to about 75 managers over the first 2 to 3 months. So, that's in itself a lot of meetings, and a lot of calls, and a lot of recorded calls. And we still speak to an average of 5 to 10 managers per week to make sure that we keep a pulse on what our users are really experiencing and the pain points they are going through. WILL: Yeah, I could tell that you did talk to a lot of managers because I wish I would have had this whenever I had direct reports. Because I remember, early on, someone told me "No one cares what you know until they know that you care." But on the flip side of that, a lot of times, like you were saying, you're just so busy. Most companies they give you multiple direct reports, more than three or four. And it's almost impossible to really show how much you care in a small amount of time. But this seems like it makes it way more helpful to say, "Hey, I not only care about you as a worker but as a person, too." So, like you said, show empathy because they mentioned X, Y, Z, or take notes around, you know, whatever happened in this so that you know next time that, hey, ask him about that. So, I really like this idea that you created. The question I have around it is leadership is not easy. So, how did you come up with the direction to go with the leadership? If that makes sense. Because I've seen different leaderships, I've seen some leaderships it's like, yeah, show empathy. Show that you care about the person. And some it's like, no, it's all about work. All about work. And it seems like you lean more towards, I want to show that we care about the worker. So, where did you decide to take which route and things like that? SARAH: I love this because you're right. There's an art and a science to leadership. And I think, actually, there's way more science than we think. It's this common belief that leadership is something you are born with, and you don't need to learn that it's, I think, hurting both managers and the people they manage a lot. Because then people think, "Oh, but it must come naturally," or "This is a natural born leader." And as a result, the person who isn't or that people think isn't we think they're never going to change, and I don't think that's true. There's a set of behaviors that have been researched by organizational psychologists, behavioral scientists that have been shown to have impacts on people's motivation, productivity, outputs. So, we make sure to follow those best practices and those scientific data points. One of our advisors is a behavioral scientist. A couple of our advisors are leadership coaches. And one of them has even published a book around how to scale high-performing teams and high-performing companies. So, we try as much as we can to really embed what we're doing in science and in things that are known, albeit not super widely. And as you said, you need both. You need to care about the person doing the tasks, and you need to care about the tasks being done. But they can't really be separate. And you need to balance the act between the two things. So, that's why we have blended the productivity app with a part that is more centered around skills and skills development because those two things need to communicate. You can't just throw a tool at people and expect them to know how to use it. And at the same time, if you don't make sure that the upskilling and, like, feedback you give is rooted in that person's context and what they're going through, it's not going to be leveraged or used. So, our approach was really to blend these two things and make sure that, yes, this is going to make the manager's team happier, but it's also going to make them more productive. So, it's not just about happiness. It's about linking both productivity and well-being at work. VICTORIA: That's really interesting. I'm curious, how do you measure the impact you're having on wellbeing at work? What are the success indicators, and how do you know you're successful in a year or five years from now? SARAH: We only have been onboarding customers six months ago. So, I think we're starting to see some of the results we want to see, but it's still a bit early days because, as you said, behavioral change and habits take a long time to form and become sticky and start showing an impact on wellbeing. But overall, the feedback, the qualitative feedback we got was that managers feel way less imposter syndrome using the app. They feel that they are on top of what they need to achieve. They know what they're doing. They know what's expected of them. And their team also appreciates the fact that they are spending time and effort trying to get better because they know that they are using this tool to improve. So, they also get a signal that, okay, they are really trying. But at the same time, we do measure these. So, that feedback we give is actually based on measurement or assessment of each one of the skills that we measure for our users. And we have seen those scores evolve and go up over time just over the last few months. Personally, I'm quite bad at delegation. Potentially, that's why I brought it up earlier. And I have seen my score improve over the last few months using Waggle because it's more front of mind. I'm aware that I'm being assessed that almost someone is looking at what I'm doing, even if it's an AI. So, it feels a bit more safe than if it was a real person looking at what I was doing. But I know that I need to be on my A-game every day, and so I put in intentional efforts to try and delegate when I'm in a team meeting. And, potentially, I wouldn't have had that same level of awareness if I didn't get that feedback. I would just not delegate but not to be aware that I wasn't. WILL: I like what you said is AI is not like your manager sitting in the meeting with you and saying, "Hey, you have to get these scores up," but it feels safer that AI is telling you, "Hey, you have to improve your empathy and get better at that." So, I really like that idea. SARAH: Nice. Let's get you on the app then. MID-ROLL AD: Are you an entrepreneur or start-up founder looking to gain confidence in the way forward for your idea? At thoughtbot, we know you're tight on time and investment, which is why we've created targeted 1-hour remote workshops to help you develop a concrete plan for your product's next steps. Over four interactive sessions, we work with you on research, product design sprint, critical path, and presentation prep so that you and your team are better equipped with the skills and knowledge for success. Find out how we can help you move the needle at tbot.io/entrepreneurs. WILL: So, I'm looking at your website now and, you know, I'm looking at the side, and it's like, "Hey, you know, Emily presented well, you know, send them a note of encouragement, or share a summary of the email." I made so many mistakes when I was a leader, so many. I wish I would have known the benefit of...because I almost...when I first went into it, I was like, they're adults. They can take their own notes. And now that I look at it, it's like, I could have easily helped out just saying, "Hey, here's a summary of the meeting that we had, and this is how we get better," and just helping each other out. So, I really like what you're doing here and what you have already in the app. What's on the horizon for the app? What does success look like in the next six months or five years for you? SARAH: So, the way we see it is we want to know more about the managers we're helping, know more about their context, what's going on in their daily life. Because the more we know, the more we can help them and support them. So, the way we see it is now we basically get data through the calendar connection, and through the meeting notes, and transcripts that we get. But we would also like to know how they communicate with their team on Slack. How do they get their tasks done, and how does their team get their tasks done? How do they follow up on those tasks? But also, how fast do they reply to emails? What's the context of their emails? All of these things are data points that we can use to know their context and know them better and really tweak the AI so that it knows them better and it adapts to their setup. So that, as we go, what the AI tells you is completely different from what it tells me, for example, because it's got to know you, and it's got to know what interventions work well for you and which ones don't and get smarter at that. And also, it gets to know how your team reacts to those behaviors that you show and attitudes. Which types of management work for Amy in your team versus Jim, right? Because they are different people as well. And so, whatever works with one person doesn't necessarily work with another and help you adapt and flex your management style with them. VICTORIA: Do you have any other core values that drive your everyday decisions? SARAH: We want to make sure that this never turns into a spying tool, and this is super key in the way we thought about the product, and we built it from very early days. We're conscious that we're having access, and our users trust us with a lot of data. And we're never going to share that data, even with your own manager. Because this is a tool for you as a manager to work on your skills and have that growth mindset, not for someone to spy on you or know how you're behaving. So, that's a commitment that we'll never share any specific data from users to their leadership team, to their HR team, no one else in the team, really. What we also have as a guiding principle is we want to minimize the amount of work that is required from you to leverage these skills. So, we are trying to save managers' time whenever we can and wherever we can and never just, like, load a lot of content and feedback on them that they're not going to have time to process an action. So to strike a balance between, okay, well, you probably need to spend a bit more time on this specific skill or following up on this specific meeting. But we also saved you two hours today throughout the day so that you can focus on that extra half an hour work that is going to help your skills improve. WILL: What are some of your biggest hurdles? SARAH: Well, basically, this didn't exist until now. And so, just finding how we talk about it and, like, I mean, no one is looking for the solution because they don't know it's there, right? So, the first part is, how do we find people that we can support and help who aren't necessarily looking for this but are looking for alternative solutions that exist right now? And how do we talk about it in a way that makes them click and makes them envision this new way of doing things as a potential better way? A lot of startups go through this journey. But basically, no one was looking for Ubers before Uber existed. People would hail a cab. And so, at the beginning, Uber pretended to be a cab service before they said, "Okay, we're actually not a cab. We're something else." And so, that something else is what we're trying to define right now. VICTORIA: I used to live in a neighborhood in DC where the cab drivers would not go to [laughs]. So, I really loved Uber when it first started because I could actually get a ride. So, that's where some of the innovation comes in sometimes. It's like, solving a problem and seeing the demand and then building a product around it. I'm curious about how you're building an AI product and how are you thinking about controlling the cost and the kind of infrastructure demands of an app like Waggle? SARAH: To be completely honest, we're not focused on that so much right now. I think it's a very fair question, and it's something that we're going to start to have to look into as we start to scale. But, for now, we're really focused on figuring out are we delivering the value we want to deliver to our users? Can we fix the problems they are hiring us to fix? But yeah, for sure, at scale, this is super costly, and we'll need to figure out the unit economics of the product and how to make it work, but we're not there yet. VICTORIA: And how are you finding the resources to be able to experiment and have the time to build this product? What networks, or communities, or venues have you found to create space to build your app? SARAH: So, we've been through Techstars last year. And I think the network around Techstars was super useful in gathering a lot of feedback in a very short amount of time over the three months that the program lasted. And we try to put a lot of content out there to try help people who are looking for solutions to communicate with an employee who's not performing at the level they expected them to or for a manager that doesn't know how to do a one-on-one. This type of content we're putting it out for free because it's solving our end user's problem, partially at least, and puts us on their radar. So, they might think, "Okay, I started looking into this first problem because that's what's front of mind right now. But as I see this product, it potentially could help me through a lot more issues that I'm currently having," and get visibility across those users that are exactly our perfect type of user. But yeah, overall, trying to put content out there creates a community around us. Lots of connections that happen through LinkedIn, through existing networks, through our users talking to other users about us, and even a number of coaches and L&D experts who really, really love what we're doing and talk about us to their users, to their customers and spread the word that way. WILL: You're talking about, like, explaining the product to your customers and everyone. I think, for me, it resonates fairly easy because I made so many mistakes as a leader. And I'm like, oh, this could have helped me so many times to be a better leader. And so, I'll make an assumption. It seems like your product was made out of you making mistakes and learning from them, and you built a product because you want to be a better leader. So, my question for you is: What advice would you go back and give yourself when you first started? What's some advice that you can go back in time and give yourself? SARAH: One of the first ones, and one of the biggest mistakes, and I've also heard this from so many other managers, is that as human beings, we tend to treat people the way we would like to be treated. And very quickly, we understand that that's not how things work. So, I used to like having space not to be managed very closely. So, I would just naturally give a lot of space to the people I started managing when I first started. It might work for some of them, but not for all of them. And that's what created the most issues and lack of performance, I would say, coming from them. And it's easy to think, oh, it's their fault. They're not performing. But no, it's my fault as a manager because I didn't adapt to their needs, and I didn't give them what they needed to perform. And that's, again, very different from one person to another. VICTORIA: Yeah. And I'm curious to go back to something you mentioned earlier about empathy. And just maybe how do you build an AI with a sense of empathy that helps managers be more empathetic? SARAH: So, again, interestingly, AI can pick up on human behaviors way more than we think. Like, the feedback we get from the app sometimes is super interesting and, like, sometimes even a bit scary because these are patterns, right? AI is good at recognizing patterns. If you tell it what to look for, it will find it. So, it works. It just works. VICTORIA: Well, I'm very curious to try it out. And I have some people I'm thinking about who work in building empathy with developers and engineers, and they probably would also really love to try it out. SARAH: Nice. Send them our way. VICTORIA: Of course. Do you have any questions for me or Will? SARAH: Yeah. What's the hardest thing you're currently doing at work that you would love support on? WILL: I think as a developer, there's a lot of things that I don't know that I wish I know what direction to take. Because I feel like as a developer, you come in and you're like, I want to learn X, Y, Z, but there's so much to uncover. For example, mobile, there's so many directions to learn with mobile. In the technical part, probably sometimes what direction to go in my learning and things like that. Because, like, I'm a senior developer, and I've reached a certain part. But I feel like now it's like you learn on the go. Like, oh, I have this problem. Let me solve it. So, sometimes I wish I can get ahead of that and be like, hey, go learn how to do this because you're going to use it later. So, that's probably my biggest thing with technical. And probably relational, you touched on it a little bit, but naturally, we're bent towards treating other people the way we want to be treated. And so, what that says is everyone around me has my exact background, my exact trauma, my exact upbringing. So, if you treat them that way, this should make sense, and that's just not the way it is. And so, I think, for me, it's making sure that I remind myself of that and to listen, to understand that background, trauma, whatever, of the people that I'm working with so that I can get to know them better and understand them better, and then I can know how to treat them. So, I would say that's probably my two biggest things that I have to continually work on and fight to make sure that I'm doing it the right way. SARAH: I love that. VICTORIA: Yeah. I really appreciate that perspective, Will. And from a slightly different angle, I think I'm someone who really enjoys complex tasks. So, I think those are actually more fun and easier to do [laughs] but that more mundane tasks are kind of difficult. And making sure I'm on top of those, like, tiny, little to-dos that make you effective just consistently with certain managing tasks. But I think in terms of complexity and one of the hardest things to do, kind of along the lines of what Will was saying, you have to establish a common language between your team. And you have to have a system for managing your work so that everyone feels heard and everyone understands each other, and so you can move quickly and make decisions. So, I think that's a really complicated task. And the more people you have, the more complicated it is. There's just so many different ways of solving that problem, and everyone comes back from different cultures, different corporate cultures, different tools that they've used, and their preferences. And people's preferences on tools can almost be religious, and that's interesting to me how strongly people can hold on to how they've been doing things. And making that shift in direction step by step and having the patience for it, I think, is difficult. SARAH: It's so funny that most problems, at the end of the day, are people problems, even if they don't start by being that. WILL: I totally agree with that because I chose what company to work for based off of the people and the culture more than the other problems. Because I've worked in some companies that had a great culture, but the people were treated right. And I enjoyed working with the people that I was working with. And then, I had some that I'm like, uh, I got to go in today and deal with such and such, and ugh. I think you're spot on. That caused me more stress than trying to solve the actual tasks that I was working on. So, yeah, I actually choose companies that I like working with the people. So, with thoughtbot, I love my co-workers. I love getting to know them the diversity in it. So, that's one of the reasons why I love thoughtbot so much. SARAH: What a great way to end this. VICTORIA: Yes. Thank you so much for being here with us today, Sarah. I really enjoyed listening to your story. You can subscribe to the show and find notes along with a complete transcript for this episode at giantrobots.fm. If you have questions or comments, you can email us at hosts@giantrobots.fm. And you can find me on thoughtbot.social@vguido. WILL: And you can find me on Twitter @will23larry. This podcast is brought to you by thoughtbot and produced and edited by Mandy Moore. Thanks for listening. See you next time. AD: Did you know thoughtbot has a referral program? If you introduce us to someone looking for a design or development partner, we will compensate you if they decide to work with us. More info on our website at: tbot.io/referral. Or you can email us at: referrals@thoughtbot.com with any questions.

Bareeq Barqawi, DEI talent development analyst at Reed Smith, is joined by Sarah Hassaine, head of global diversity and inclusion at ResMed, to explore Sarah's remarkable journey and groundbreaking work in the field of diversity and inclusion advocacy. As April marks National Arab American Heritage Month, Sarah shares personal insights on how her cultural background has shaped her approach to fostering inclusion both personally and professionally. From championing health equity to addressing gender disparities and advocating for marginalized communities, Sarah offers practical strategies and invaluable advice for individuals and organizations seeking to drive positive change in their spheres of influence. Listen to this episode to gain valuable insights into the transformative power of inclusive leadership. ----more---- Transcript: Intro: Welcome to the Reed Smith podcast, Inclusivity Included: Powerful Personal Stories. In each episode of this podcast, our guests will share their personal stories, passions and challenges, past and present, all with the goal of bringing people together and learning more about others. You might be surprised by what we all have in common, inclusivity included.  Bareeq: Welcome to Inclusivity Included, the Reed Smith DEI podcast. I'm your host Bareeq Barqawi today. In honor of April being Arab American Heritage Month, we have the privilege of speaking with Sarah Hassaine, the head of global diversity and inclusion at ResMed and a trailblazer in the realm of diversity and inclusion advocacy. Before we delve into our discussion, I'd like to introduce our esteemed guests to our listeners. Sarah has is a dynamic leader with a decade long track record in driving global diversity and inclusion initiatives. Currently leading a global team at ResMed, she consults, advises, and upskills leaders worldwide, designs and delivers in-house D&I trainings and evaluates policies to drive inclusion. Notable achievements include expanding Resmed's ERGs or employee resource groups from 4 to 17, increasing self ID percentages by 4% and spearheading initiatives to improve representation and advocate for accessibility. Sarah brings over 20 years of management experience with a focus on HR initiatives recognized as San Diego businesswoman of the year in 2022. She holds an MBA from Wharton Business School and outside of work, she enjoys traveling, speaking three languages and finds relaxation in sunny beach days with a good book. Today, she joins us to share her insights and experiences. Sarah, welcome to the podcast.  Sarah: Thank you. It's so good to be here. Thanks for having me.  Bareeq: Of course. I'm going to dive right in for the sake of time. Sarah as an Arab American, how has your cultural background influenced your approach to diversity and inclusion advocacy, both personally and professionally?  Sarah: Yeah, And I'm really excited and happy that we're talking about the Arab American identity. Growing up, you're, you were othered as Arab Americans. So it has helped me across my career because the beautiful thing about being an inclusion and diversity leader is that you're navigating a lot of conversations around people feeling othered, and it's any category, right? Whether it's a parent, a caregiver, a veteran, a reservist, a lot of us experience that and as an Arab American, our identity is not accounted for, right? We're, you know, we're in the Census in the US, we're accounted for as white, but we're not treated as white. Oftentimes, our names are misspelled. Uh We get a lot of questions, small microaggressions, A lot of stereotypes get cast. And as someone who grew up, you know, an American grew up in this country, uh it is very hard to constantly feel like, oh, well, you know, you guys do this or you're, you're being othered all the time. So that has definitely helped with empathy and helping me understand the communities I work with and being able to relate and show that kind of validation to, to everyone else.  Bareeq: Wonderful. As an Arab American myself, I can, I can only relate to it because I, I always say when people ask why we got into this line of work, I say, well, being excluded, majority of my life has, has uh made me want to have others avoid this feeling um and be as inclusive as we possibly can be. So, thank you for that. So can you share actually a specific moment or experience that was pivotal in your transition into the realm of inclusion and diversity advocacy?  Sarah: Yeah. So I was supporting a recruiting team uh in a past life at a, a large company. And what we started seeing organically, right was that we got less female applicants, we got less women engaging with us at conference booths and we really didn't have any women on the team. And it started kind of, you know, being this issue that the hiring managers, like we, you know, we're seeing other women going to other companies, but they're not coming here. And why is that? And we had to look inward and understand that our marketing material, the language, we, we were interviewing, we would, you know, candidates, but they would be meeting with six males and then they meet the team. And so then it wasn't actually feeling like an attractive, safe space or there was no representation. And that's when it hit me that you can be supporting business culture, you can be supporting a business, you know, in many different facets. But if the business doesn't have a culture where employees feel like they can belong, that to me was the crux of what I wanted to do. It just hit me. I'm like, this is what I wanna do. It started with women, but then it became about everybody else and everything else. Um So that was kind of my, my point and that was about 10+ years ago. Uh when I got to start working on commercials and advertisements and conference booths and really thinking about what is inclusive engagement look like. How do you attract talent so that they know that when they come in there's, they're going to have a sense of belonging?  Bareeq: I love that. That's so insightful. I think that's such a great, I guess segue into my next question because, you know, we talk about gender disparity and addressing gender disparities is a crucial aspect of advocacy work. And you often talk about encountering challenges in attracting entertaining women in the workplace. What strategies do you find most effective in addressing such challenges?  Sarah: Yeah, there's a lot of data around how women that are mentored, usually they actually stay, they're more loyal to their companies and they actually have more growth trajectory. I will say mentorship and intentional leadership development programs are really important. The second thing I would also talk about is succession planning. Companies need to really think about, okay, here's our workforce in this department. What are we doing to make sure there's an equitable opportunity for promotion for assessment uh of performance of assigning stretch assignments. And so it needs to be a level playing field for everyone. So in order to really develop, make sure that your female population is having the same access as all other genders, you wanna make sure that you have strong succession planning retention methods like learning and development and mentorship.  Bareeq: Wonderful. Thank you so much for those examples. Actually, in dedication to promoting health equity within ResMed's diversity and inclusion initiatives, can you elaborate on your efforts in this area and how you ensure that health care solutions and services provided by ResMed are accessible and inclusive for diverse communities, including those that are often actually um marginalized and underserved?  Sarah: Yeah, there are a couple of answers I want to dive into for this one. So the first one is really thinking about the diversity in our mask and sleep trials in order for us to really think about a product that, you know, we sell worldwide in over 150 countries. So we wanna make sure that we're designing a mask um that has a rep representation already. So there's been a lot of intentionality around marketing to different communities that they participate in your sleep trials and your mask trials. So it has to start at the base of your product and with your research. We also have an entire department dedicated to medical research. And they have done a great job in terms of looking at the disparities between different populations, whether it's um African American women or Hispanic, like we start looking at a location. Uh So we, we, we address health equity in different ways. So there's the research component, there's the product component and then there's, you know, the fact that our business model is different in every country to your point about underrepresented or underserved communities, really making sure that, you know, our, that providers are telling patients, hey, get sleep tested or have you thought about looking into, you know, maybe going to a storefront? Right. So it depends where we're selling. Uh, it varies. In the United States, we go through HMEs. And so we want to make sure that that our doctors are getting our patients either at home sleep tests or getting them come to come into sleep clinics.  Bareeq: That's great, especially that partnership between the doctors and your organization, um and bringing them into that conversation. Um So I know your work extends beyond the corporate realm into advocacy for marginalized communities. Um Can you share about your involvement with refugee communities, orphans and economic inclusion in the San Diego community specifically?  Sarah: Yeah, you know, the refugee space is something very dear to my heart. When I graduated college, I worked in refugee camps in Lebanon um for different communities, African, Iraqi, Palestinian, Lebanese at the time. And then I went back when the war in Syria was happening in 2016. And I worked for a couple of weeks teaching English. So the first time I did socio-economic assessments to understand what the needs were. The gaps I should say, then I went back and taught English. So the way I look at refugee assistance or assimilation is around empowerment. San Diego has one of the largest refugee communities in the United States. Um We have every community here possible; Burmese, Somali, Kurdish, Syrian, Iraqi, uh Bosnian. And growing up here, I saw the waves of communities come in. And so it was a lot around upskilling, trying to get jobs, trying to get the school, the kids to get, you know, um learn English, get mentors. So I partnered with Teach and Learn Literacy, which was actually an organization through the Arab American Anti Discrimination Committee and uh volunteered twice a week teaching a Syrian family of eight English and helping them get jobs. So I did that for a few years uh now from an economic inclusion lens as I grow in my career, I partner with different nonprofits. Um So there's like the United Women of South of East Africa, they have a community center, there's the Refugee Assistance Council. So there's, there are all these organizations that do that look for mentorships, they want internships for students. So there's a lot of opportunity for corporations like ResMed or others across San Diego. So we try to build bridges around access to information, access to jobs, to mentors. And that to me is really important to make sure that our talent in San Diego stays here, grows here, feels like the sense of belonging here. So that's uh that's kind of what I do outside of work.  Bareeq: No, I love that because it's, it's also a representative of the community within which you're you are working in and, and finding ways to actually include the community in, in the work that you're doing. And I think that's actually incredibly commendable. So thank you for sharing that. So I'm actually gonna just gonna dive into the next question, which actually has to do with this as well. And it combines a couple of things we already discussed, which is in promoting economic inclusion and pay equity, what are some practical steps organizations can take to achieve gender parity in the workplace? I know this is always, I guess like a hot topic when it comes to any really across all sectors. But I would love to hear your uh your insight on it.  Sarah: Yeah, you have to start with data, you have to start with an analysis. So my recommendation to those listening is to understand if your organization has done a pay equity analysis, um understand your your data breakdown, right within organizations, looking at the different gender breakdowns. Then you can start understanding whether you have a story or not, right? Oh, some companies will do that pay equity analysis and then they'll come back and realize, well, we've had, you know, we have this percentage of cases. It could be bad, it could be not bad, not as bad as you thought, right? But it's very, very important to start with data. So my recommendation is to understand your gender breakdowns within each business unit. And I don't necessarily, I'm not the biggest fan of setting exact goals like percentages like X percent. I think it's important to go to leaders and say, well, here's where you are right now and here's what the benchmark is in this organization. So if you're looking at a finance or you're looking at electrical engineering, the gender availability in the pool of talent is different to begin with. So you can't claim 50/50 when you don't even have 50% a female representation in electrical engineering, for example. So understanding what the benchmarks are, is really going to help you. And then you can kind of say Well, you know what, let's really try to build more of a robust pipeline. Let's be more intentional or let's sponsor this conference. So that's where you really need to start solution out. It's not a one size fits all for an entire company. You have to break down a company within the departments. And then you also need to think about the overall pay equity analysis and understanding what, where potential remunerations are and if you have to do any adjustments.  Bareeq: I really love that because you're also talking about kind of funneling it down to, to it's almost like a case by case basis, like looking at different departments or different for, let's say, let's say, for example, the legal industry, we look at different practice groups and what is the representation there to begin with before we kind of dive into what the data says. I think that's a really great point. So actually I had a question and this is going to be a little bit of a pivot. So we talk about the importance of stripping away assumptions and biases in this line of work. How can individuals and organizations actively to work toward this goal? I think it's something that I would say the word actively because it's a really a never ending process. Um But what are some, I guess tips and advice you have for people.  Sarah: You know, I see a lot of D&I leaders focusing on unconscious bias trainings and that's it's great, but they're not really proven to help or work. It is important to offer it and it's important to uh have frameworks in place. What I find more valuable is showing leaders framework so that they understand psychologically why we have built in biases. Biases are there. It's it's not good to shame anyone for having biases. So what I always do, my recommendation is to know how to navigate biases. So you need to look at each team and kind of think about, ok, talent acquisition, what are potential biases here? With resumes, here's what we could do to navigate this or with interviewing, here's what we can do to navigate biases. So kind of going back to the the gender equity, it's your solutions need to go, they are tailored to the part of the department or company that has built in biases, right? If we're talking in promotion season, uh what I've done at companies before where I am now and now is let's make sure you have that point, that person who's in the meetings to make sure that there are no biases in assessing talent. Let's make sure that you don't have any biases when you're discussing promotions. So that's, that's where it's really important is when you're having promotion conversations, a hiring conversations, development conversations. I will say, I think it's very important to repeat conversations around unconscious bias. I do this training at least twice a year globally and people show up and actually leaders ask for it. They're just like, can you come in and talk about it because biases show up even in the way we communicate. I mean, Bareeq, we started off this conversation talking about being Arab American. I can't tell you how many times people tell me, I don't look Arab like I don't even understand what that means. Right. So the biases are there. And I think the biggest thing we can also teach our employees is knowing how to navigate those conversations, in a safe way, right, as a coachable moment. You know, so that's where we don't want more microaggressions. We want safe conversations where people are learning from one another.  Bareeq: I couldn't agree with you more, especially about the repetition because I just learned in a change management workshop that something only sticks after it's been repeated to you seven times which, you know, and talking about bias, I agree. I've, I've always been of the mindset that I can't shame anyone for bias because I think bias is inherently human. Um And you can't, you know, human beings will have bias. It's really about providing, providing tool kits in order to create bias disruption. Um And that's something that I think is a, is a powerful tool to provide people and, and reminding them, you know, over the course of time like, hey, this is available and let's talk about it and kind of bring it to the forefront, especially in very pivotal moments in the company. So like when you talk about performance assessment or they're going into recruiting season or things like that, I think it's um it's always like an essential thing to keep it in mind. So I completely agree. Um So I had something about challenges that we, that we end up facing and overcoming. It's an inevitable part of this advocacy work. Can you share a challenging moment in your journey and how you overcame it?  Sarah: Only one?  Bareeq: I was about to say there's probably many but one that comes, yeah, whatever comes to mind.  Sarah: I mean, the biggest thing that comes to mind is, is budget, right? Resources. The biggest challenge I had was um being on D&I teams and not being funded, not given adequate support and being de prioritized. And I know um if there are any D&I leaders listening to this, I'm sure there are some heads nodding or uh it is the hardest thing because I don't believe that we are set up for successfully. Uh And so the, the, you know, the days I have very long days and the days where I end even more exhausted is because I felt like someone didn't show up to meeting or move me out again or delayed a solution. Uh that is hard. And the other hard part is when you know, you need support or you need head count or you need that, that money or you want to sponsor, it gets really hard when you want to sponsor something and you don't have money to do it. And so com companies need to be very committed if your company is saying that they're committed to D&I, well, you have to, you have to show up. Right. And so that's where I'll say the biggest challenges.  Bareeq: Yeah, I found that even, not just where I am currently but in other organizations I've worked for, it's, it's definitely a constant problem if either it's monetarily or like you said, having that support. And I found that kind of pivoting the conversation almost lately, especially like making it a business case brings some people to the table in a different way because they're like, oh, you know, I never thought of it this way. So it's almost like changing perspectives on people's approach to D&I. You, you sometimes hope it was, you know, people come into it like already being there, but to get people there, you kind of have to find different approaches I feel. And finally, as we wrap up, um so what advice would you give beyond what we've given, because this has been a wonderful key conversation, what would you give advice to individuals or organizations looking to become more active in promoting inclusion diversity within their spheres of influence?  Sarah: Just to make sure it's uh for companies, right?  Bareeq: Advice for, for companies, for individuals, you know, people that are working to become more influential in the organization.  Sarah: So for internal advocates or internal stakeholders and D&I leaders, there is the opportunity you there's to really understand the power of influence and persistence and no one can really succeed in D&I without that strategic business lens. Like you need to understand your business and by understanding the business, then you can adapt a conversation around. What does inclusion mean at this business? What does it mean? Whether for my products, for my people, for our policies? Uh So that's my biggest one for internal and then for companies, I will say it's very important that if your values call out inclusion, diversity, belonging, acceptance, accessibility, then you have to embed that across all your work streams. You have to really think about. It's not just a people practice, it's an every leader, every person practice.  Bareeq: Thank you so much. I love that because it's almost like building in the expectation in anything that you kind of approach within the company. I love that. Thank you so much, Sarah for sharing your valuable insights and experience with us today. It's been an honor having you on the podcast and we really, I think have taken away some wonderful, wonderful key tips and advice that we will definitely be using hopefully.  Sarah: This is a joy. Thank you so much, Bareeq for the opportunity.  Bareeq: Thank you. And that's all for today's episode of Inclusivity Included. Join us next time as we continue our exploration of diversity, equity and inclusion. Thank you for listening.  Outro: Inclusivity Included is a Reed Smith production. Our producers are Ali McCardell and Shannon Ryan. You can find our podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, reedsmith.com, and our social media accounts.  Disclaimer: This podcast is provided for educational purposes. It does not constitute legal advice and is not intended to establish an attorney-client relationship, nor is it intended to suggest or establish standards of care applicable to particular lawyers in any given situation. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Any views, opinions, or comments made by any external guest speaker are not to be attributed to Reed Smith LLP or its individual lawyers.  All rights reserved. Transcript is auto-generated.

As a property management entrepreneur, you know how stressful day-to-day work and life can get. Over the years, we've noticed that property managers often neglect their own health until they burn out… In today's episode, property management growth experts Jason and Sarah Hull chat about the importance of taking breaks and relaxing periodically as a property management business owner. You'll Learn [01:36] You're stressed out! Now what? [07:44] If you're burnt out, you aren't effective [15:32] Why you need to take a vacation ASAP [17:37] Take a break… or else Tweetables “Just because you're working more or working harder does not mean you're productive or you're effective.” “The thing that will give you more productivity is to stop and take a break.” “Cars have both the gas and the brake. You need to realize that in your business, there's a time for gas and there's a time for the brake.” “If a vacation seems crazy to you, schedule one.” Resources DoorGrow and Scale Mastermind DoorGrow Academy DoorGrow on YouTube DoorGrowClub DoorGrowLive TalkRoute Referral Link Transcript [00:00:00] Sarah: If a vacation seems crazy to you, schedule one. That's exactly when you need one. When you go, "I just don't think there's any chance that I could be taken away from the business. Like everything is on me and there's no possible way that I can do it." [00:00:15] That is exactly when you need to do it. [00:00:18] Do it. Book it. You have to. Otherwise this is your life forever.  [00:00:23] 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 are 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. [00:01:04] 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, and 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. [00:01:25] And now let's get into the show. All right. So today's topic Is what?  [00:01:30] Sarah: Relaxation.  [00:01:31] Jason: Relaxation. [00:01:33] Sarah: Yay. You know that thing that you guys never do?  [00:01:36] Jason: So, property management can be a little bit stressful. I've talked to thousands of property managers and this is a common theme. It can be a bit stressful. [00:01:44] And I can't tell you how many I've talked to that said they haven't taken a vacation in like years. They're not taking breaks. They're not taking time for themselves, like things like this. And so I think it's important to recognize that just because you're working more or working harder does not mean you're productive or you're effective. [00:02:05] And so it's important to make sure that you are taking breaks. So I think I shared on an episode recently at a client that I was coaching. And we had him do a time study, which is one of our tools we use to help clients figure out stuff. And he realized it was taking him like an hour to do things after three o'clock that took him 10 minutes to do in the morning. [00:02:26] And so that's a clue to take. a break that we need to take breaks. Yesterday I was working on some tasks and I was getting a lot of stuff done, but then I eventually hit a wall where I was trying to work on something and it just like, was really hard. Like it was just felt really difficult for my brain to work on it at that moment. [00:02:43] And I realized, "Oh, it's like in the afternoon I haven't eaten lunch yet and I probably should take a break." And so rather than forcing it and pushing forward, which I used to do in the past and do less productive work. I went and took a break. So, all right, what else should we say about taking breaks?  [00:03:01] Sarah: All right. So I know that it seems like the opposite thing that you should do when you're very busy And you've got a lot on your plate and you've got 10, 000 tasks to handle and you just have to push through and keep going and get it all done. And that if you stop, it will get harder because then you'll fall behind and then you'll have more to do and then it'll take longer and then you'll be going until midnight or later. [00:03:26] And. It's really crazy, but it is backwards because if you are just pushing through and you're trying to just get it done and dig your heels in and keep going, even when you're tired, even when your body is telling you like, "Hey, I'm tired and I need a break." Then you're still able to keep going, but you're just not efficient and you're being less productive. [00:03:50] So the thing that would give you more productivity is not to just push through and say, "I'm just going to keep going until I get it all done." The thing that will give you more productivity is to stop and take a break. I know it sounds wild, but it's true. So you need to figure out what can you do in that moment to then get some space, remove yourself from the situation and actually get into a state where your brain and your body can start to relax. [00:04:19] Jason: Sometimes breaks are not enough. A quick break's just not enough. You're right. So especially if you've been in burnout for a while.  [00:04:25] Yeah.  [00:04:26] Sarah: We've been working really hard. I talked about this on the scale call last week. There are seasons in your business where you will be because maybe you are bringing on a whole bunch of new units. Maybe you're hiring a new person. Maybe you're implementing a new system or changing softwares or working with a new coach. And there are definitely times for that. But you also have to realize that there are times for breaks and rest and relaxation. [00:04:52] Cars have both the gas and the brake. You need to realize that in your business, there's a time for gas and there's a time for the brake. So you must have both.  [00:05:04] Jason: Yeah. So we've been working really hard lately and I think we're both getting to a place of burnout. We were outfitting an an Airbnb that we're going to use for some client events and stuff as well. [00:05:14] And we've just been working on the business. We're onboarding new sales people in the company too. And it's just, it's a lot, right. And so we just a week's vacation basically. We did a cool training. If you missed it last week, it was really cool. So we did do some work but we took a break and I think it was well needed, especially after that marathon move that we did moving all that furniture into that rental. [00:05:38] Sarah: So I was pretty burned out physically, and I was nearing burnout. I was just, my stress level was through the roof. I was telling Jason, "I am on the verge of a breakdown, could happen like any little thing" and little things, little stupid things that I would normally not care about as much were setting me off like big explosions over a little stupid things. [00:06:03] Jason: Every married guy can resonate. We know when you women get like that.  [00:06:07] Sarah: Well men get like that too, though, in a different way, I think sometimes when the little things that they're an annoyance, they're a slight frustration, but it's not the end of the world. But when your body reacts to that little stupid frustration as if it is the end of the world, that's a really good cue like you need a break. So we took one. And we pushed ourselves probably to the limit and just about every capacity as business owners often do, we're like "go, hurry up, get it all done, make it happen. So we set up we set up an Airbnb in 26 hours. Everything. We cleaned it and we had no furniture. [00:06:48] We moved everything in, we assembled it, we decorated it. We got decor, silverware, dishes. There's five beds in there.  [00:06:55] Jason: Five beds.  [00:06:56] Sarah: And everything. And not just like beds...  [00:06:58] Jason: purple mattresses and stuff ready.  [00:07:00] Sarah: Yeah. It's ready to be rented out right now. And we did all of that.  [00:07:04] Jason: And it's two story.  [00:07:05] Sarah: In 26 hours. [00:07:06] Jason: All the rooms, all the bedrooms are upstairs except one. It was a good time. Hudson, my son, and I were the heavy lifters.  [00:07:12] Sarah: Yes. I wasn't going to break a nail. These are like, it's 75 to get a new set! I'm not... you do that. So we did all of this. And then we actually had this trip booked for a while. [00:07:24] It was booked last year. But the timing just worked out really well. Yeah. So we got done Sunday evening. late Sunday evening. And then Monday morning we flew out to a property, very rural in Arkansas, in Bentonville, Arkansas. It's actually Decatur, but there's like three properties in the city of Decatur, I think. [00:07:44] And then that week, it wasn't that we didn't work at all because we did, but I only worked for maybe a few hours a day and it was selective work and it was focused work. So instead of doing everything that I would normally have done, I had to then prioritize. And say, okay, "if I have two hours to do everything because I'm only going to work for two hours today or three hours today, then what are the things that I must get done today in that time?" [00:08:15] And those were the things that I focused on and anything that wasn't that I either didn't do it or I delegated it to the team. Because the thing that we also don't realize is sometimes things can wait and that's okay. We're in this era now of everything is instant. It's, "I want it right now. I want this now. I want an answer now. I want to talk to somebody now. I want Amazon right now. Like, I want everything instantly." And that has trained us to instantly respond to everything and then to be in this mindset where, "Oh, somebody needs me and then I must drop everything. I must handle it right now." It is okay to wait. [00:08:55] Jason: It's okay to say no. It's okay to say, "Hey, no, I'm not doing that today, or that's going to be done next week." Depending on the situation, you don't always have to be reactive. you should be in control in your business, right? Where you're not reacting to everything. So.  [00:09:10] Sarah: So I'll share what I shared on that Scale call is I challenged everybody to give themselves Megan Cuthin talks about this. [00:09:18] And so if Megan ever sees this. Megan, we love you. So Megan is our friend. She's out in Nashville, Tennessee. She's great. And she coaches on operations. And one of the things that she had talked about is she was noticing that every so often she would just get exhausted and then she was no longer effective. [00:09:35] And she was just like, she had no more gusto to her. She didn't want to do things. And that's because she was hitting a burnout cycle. So she was realizing her burnout cycle was happening pretty often, like every other week. And then what she needed to do when she was like that is just take a break. [00:09:53] So what she started doing is just building these little like mini breaks in. So what she does is she just chooses a day. And she blocks that day out so that she doesn't do anything that day. She has no calls. She has no appointments. She doesn't wake up at a certain time. She just treats it like a vacation day when she's at home. So she'll wake up whenever her body feels like waking up. If she wants to just read a book or watch TV or go take a nap or meditate or take a walk or go bowling or do whatever that day she does that. And then when she feels pretty well rested. relaxed and pretty well rested. [00:10:35] Usually what happens then when we start to feel that way is then our brain starts going "Oh, I should take care of that. And Oh, what if I did that? And Oh..." and we start to get pulled back in to the idea of work and then work seems now exciting again versus, "Oh, I have to do that, but I really just don't want to do it." [00:10:55] There's a big difference between going, "Oh, you know what? I could probably just do that. Oh, you know what? I had this great idea. We should do that." Then you feel excited and energized about it. That's your cue now to go back to work. And it might happen. It might take a day. It might take a few days if you're, especially if you haven't done this in a while, it might take a few days. [00:11:12] It only might take a few hours. So you might be on like this burnout day for like three hours and that's it. So that's it. My challenge to everybody on the scale call last week was to schedule yourself a day like this, where you don't do all of the things that you would normally do and allow yourself that time to relax. [00:11:31] And then my other challenge was to do this regularly. Also, don't just do it once and be like, "Oh, I'm good now." You're not, you have to continuously do this thing. And we had a client actually Josh, he closes his office every single week now on Friday early. And he's His whole team goes home early. [00:11:48] Can you imagine that? So they have about like a four and a half day work week now instead of a five day. And the whole team gets everything done. They appreciate having that extra time in that extra afternoon. And instead of going "Oh, well I like, I can't not work on Friday afternoon because then all of this stuff won't get done." [00:12:08] They get it done. So they're getting the same amount of work done, but in a shorter amount of time because they're properly motivated and they get extra time now to relax. So essentially they're getting a longer weekend. So I would challenge you to do the same thing, pick a day. And if you're like, "there is no chance I could do that right now!" That's fine. [00:12:27] Do three weeks from now. Pick a day and close your office early. The nice thing is you don't actually have to do it. You just have to tell your brain that you're going to do it. So say, "I'm going to close at one o'clock today." And then what you'll subconsciously do is start filtering all of the work and all of the things that must get done. [00:12:43] In that time frame, because you're going to close at 1 o'clock, and you'll get them done, and then, even if you don't close at 1 o'clock, you don't have to, but you just tell yourself that you will, if you then don't close at 1 o'clock, and you say, well, now I have an extra 4 hours in my day, what can you do with those extra 4 hours that your brain wasn't actually planning on having? [00:13:03] Jason: Yeah.  [00:13:03] Sarah: So you can trick your brain, but you really, you have to do a little bit extra to like trick your brain. Because if you go, "Oh yeah, but I'm not actually closing at one o'clock. I'm going to be here until five anyway." Then your brain will give you until five o'clock to get all of your crap done. [00:13:16] But if you're like, "I am closing at one o'clock, I am stopping at one o'clock and that's it." No exceptions. Then all of a sudden you work in the capacity that you have, you get all of your stuff done, and now you have some extra time in your day. And you might then decide to reinvest that time back into the business and go, "Oh, you know what? I think I'll go take a quick lunch. Maybe I'll go take a quick break. Maybe I'll take an hour break. Maybe I'll take a two hour lunch." I don't know. And then if you want to come back, you can always come back. It's your business. You can do whatever you want, but you have to actually trick your brain into, hey, "I need to get everything done by one o'clock or 12 o'clock or two o'clock or whatever time, pick a time, close early and get everything done by then." [00:13:55] And then all of a sudden, you will be a lot more efficient that way. And you'll prioritize the things that need to be done because a lot of the things that you're doing, They don't actually need to be done.  [00:14:06] Jason: So this concept is Parkinson's law, right? Is the idea that the more time you get for something, the more time it's going to take. [00:14:14] And so things will just always fill up whatever container you make available. Related to that, because work expands to fill the time that's available for its completion, things become harder. The more time you allow. And so sometimes by collapsing the amount of time available and having deadlines or having requirements. [00:14:36] And this is one of, I think the brilliant pieces of our planning system, DoorGrow OS, by collapsing the time allotted in order to achieve something, people actually like work more efficiently and it's less hard to accomplish and they get more innovative And they start like looking for all these other alternatives and options and whatever and they do what's most effective. [00:14:58] And so we've seen this with team members like they might spend way too much time on something if we just say this is when we need it's like we need this by next week and They we could give them a month And they would take an entire month and spend a ton of time and more time doing it. And that doesn't mean it's more effective or that we're getting a better result necessarily. [00:15:17] So, same thing for you. Like set a cutoff. I'm done with work at this time. I'm going to take a break at this time. I'm going to take a vacation at this time. And then you will find that things become more and more effective. So Parkinson's law. Cool.  [00:15:32] Sarah: If a vacation seems crazy to you, schedule one. [00:15:36] Yeah. That's exactly when you need one. When you go, "I just don't think there's any chance that I could be taken away from the business. Like I can't take away from my team or I am the team. I don't even have a team yet. Like everything is on me and there's no possible way that I can do it." [00:15:52] That is exactly when you need to do it. So just do it.  [00:15:55] Jason: Yeah.  [00:15:56] Sarah: Do it. Book it. You have to. Otherwise this is your life forever. This is what you want. Do you want to be stuck? Doing all of this stuff every day, all day, burned out, exhausted, tired, miserable? No, so you have to get out of that. And sometimes to get out of that, we have to physically remove ourself from the situation because I know you guys out there, you'll go, "Oh yeah, I'll take a break." [00:16:20] And then you'll bring your cell phone with you and you'll be doing stuff anyway. Actually take a break and remove yourself.  [00:16:28] Jason: So at one of our DoorGrow Live events, we have brought in an expert trainer that trains pro athletes for the San Antonio Spurs and some other pro teams that are around Texas. [00:16:41] And she talked about how is part of their training mechanism and what she coaches on and supports them in recovery is a big part of that piece. It's a big piece of all of that. And if you don't have recovery, then you're going to have more injury. You're not going to perform as well. And so she talked about how the recovery piece is usually this most neglected piece because they're super driven. [00:17:05] And a lot of entrepreneurs, you're high D in a DISC assessment. Like you're very driven. You want to like get things done. You're motivated, but you may not be giving yourself the recovery you need to be effective. [00:17:16] During the recovery stage, it's built during those early morning hours where you're sleeping. That's where muscle's built. You do the work and break the muscle and tear the muscle and whatever doing the workouts, but it's built during recovery. And so if you're not giving yourself what you need and setting aside the recovery time, you will inevitably burn out. [00:17:35] So you have to find that balance. So.  [00:17:36] Sarah: And You need to take a break before your body does it for you.  [00:17:40] Jason: Right.  [00:17:41] Sarah: Because that's the other thing, if you've ever noticed that when you're just tired and you're exhausted and you're stressed and you're like, that's usually when all of a sudden you straighten your back or you twist your ankle or you get this weird cold or bronchitis or whatever. [00:17:57] It's because you're not listening to your body. Your body is giving you clues and telling you what it needs. "Hey, I need to eat Hey, I need to sleep. Hey, like I'm not relaxed. There's way too much cortisol in here. What are we doing?" And if we just keep pushing through it will break down And something will happen either a sickness or an illness or an injury And then you have to take a break because it will force you to take a break. [00:18:24] But then the problem with that guys is then we're not taking a break that's fun. We're taking a break because we're sick and injured.  [00:18:31] Jason: Yeah. So we don't get to really enjoy it. Yeah.  [00:18:34] Sarah: So you're not enjoying it now. You're going, "Oh, I feel like crap." Of course you do. So you should choose to take a break before your body chooses it for you.  [00:18:43] Jason: So I think, one of the things I'm noticing is it's really important for entrepreneurs to become attuned to their nervous system. They need to be familiar with how they're feeling and just check in with themselves. And for entrepreneurs, we usually operate at a high stress level and not all stress is bad necessarily, right? [00:18:59] The stress of working out actually gives you more runway and gives you more time, productive time. But we need to make sure that we're paying attention to our nervous system because we'll get preloaded and then we'll get like really like heightened and really anxious. And then to the point where we're exploding at that team members and like freaking out and like we're really heightened and we might then some entrepreneurs will get to the point where they're having panic attacks and they're not sleeping at night and they're having. [00:19:25] Heart palpitations, right? And so we need to make sure we are honoring the body and our body will give us clues, nervous system. So go take a walk, take a breather, take a vacation, take a break, but start listening to your nervous system. What's it telling you right now that you need right now? Maybe you need to take care of your body. [00:19:41] So, all right. Anything else?  [00:19:43] Sarah: I think if you need to take a break, then take a break and you can take a mini break. You can do that. So just get up and walk around the office. Even if you pace around the office. We have a couple of clients who do that. Like Yair every, I think it's four o'clock every day, he plays the Rocky theme in his office. And then he does like pushups and like burpees and like jumping jacks and lunges and stuff. Now you don't necessarily have to do all of that, but Schedule it throughout the day, put it right on your calendar, and then every so often get up and go walk around, even if it's just walking around your office. [00:20:23] Rest your eyes, close your eyes for a few minutes, look away from your screen. Don't take a break from your screen by looking at your cell phone. That's another screen. That's not a break. Then your eyes are strained all day long. So actually look at something that's not a screen, rest your eyes or close your eyes or do some eye squeezes. [00:20:40] You can meditate, you can listen to some music, you can start to read a book. And even if it's only for a few minutes throughout the day, that few minutes is going to help rejuvenate your body. So then you're not just feeling like you're constantly drained. And when you need a longer break, take a longer break, even though it might seem impossible. [00:21:02] That's exactly when you need to do it.  [00:21:04] Jason: Okay, cool. So there's a cool app that I used for a while called Rise Sleep and it shows your circadian rhythm and there's usually a big spike in the morning where you ramp up and then it dips down in the afternoon and then you get a littler spike in the in the evening and where you get a another boost. [00:21:24] But that lull in the afternoon, that dip can be pretty severe if we're not taking care of our health. And you can be really fatigued. And so that's a great time to maybe go for a walk or take a break or do something to wake yourself up or go do a workout or something like that. So, all right, well, hopefully this was a helpful and effective for you to honor your nervous system. [00:21:44] Get some breaks in. towards burnout. We know that if you're not burning yourself out, you're going to be a lot more productive, a lot more effective, and we can help you grow your business a lot faster. And if you'd like to learn how to get your business growing faster, how to lower your stress levels and make the business a calm workplace, and get more effective and efficient team members, get better systems in place, this is what we do at DoorGrow. We're able to help grow companies dramatically, and we would love to help and support you. So reach out to us and talk to our team and let's get you going. So until next time to our mutual growth, bye everyone. [00:22:17] 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!  [00:22:44] 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.

Welcome to another episode of the Humane Marketing podcast. In this episode, we delve into the realm of humane video with Lou Bortone, exploring how video content can be a powerful tool for authentic connection and trust-building in today's business world.  Join us as we uncover the core principles of creating videos that resonate on a deeply human level, discover the importance of authenticity in fostering a loyal audience, explore cutting-edge AI tools for video creation, and gain valuable insights into future trends and actionable tips tailored specifically for solopreneurs.  Get ready to be inspired and equipped to use video as a means to stand out authentically and thrive in your business endeavors. In this conversation with Lou, we addressed the following talking points: How Lou got started with video and has seen it evolve into a tool for humane and authentic connection The core principles of creating video content that resonates on a human level How authenticity builds trust and a loyal audience Tools for video creation, including AI Future trends and actionable tips for solopreneurs and much more... --- Transcript 186 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 Zanacroce, 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. You can find out more at humane. marketing forward 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 at humane. marketing. Hello friends, welcome back to another episode at the Humane Marketing Podcast. Today's conversation fits under the P of promotion of the Humane Marketing Mandala. And I'm talking to a long time online friend, Lou Bortone. If you're a regular here, you already know that I'm organizing the conversations around the seven P's of the Humane Marketing Mandala. And if you're new here and don't know what I'm talking about, you can download your one page marketing plan with the Humane Marketing version [00:03:00] of the seven P's of marketing at humane. marketing. com. One page, the number one and the word page. And also just a reminder for my non native English speakers, humane is with an E at the end. So it's not human, it's humane. So humane with an E dot marketing forward slash one page, 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. All right, let me tell you a little bit about Lou and from his bio, you will kind of immediately kind of grasp his sense of humor. If Don Vito Corleone, Marty Scorsese and Jerry Seinfeld got together to make an AI baby, you might end up with Lou Bortone. Lu is known as the Video Godfather and is conciliare to some of the brightest names in digital marketing. [00:04:00] He's a video marketing expert, an author, speaker, and host of the Godfather podcast. Prior to becoming a video printer, Lu spent more than 20 years in the television business before being run out of. Hollywood. Lou is also a father to twins, a rescuer of pugs, and an expert at Italian curses. I'll always remember meeting Lou in real life back in, I think it was 2017, when he picked me up in a Red Beetle or something. Like that at this tiny train station in Camucho Cortona and, and that's in Tuscany and then drove us up the hill. And I could tell he had no experience with stick driving to our retreat house for the week. And these in person meetings are really just so special in this online world, aren't they? So that's why I went back to Lou for this episode [00:05:00] around video. So in this conversation with Lou, we addressed the following talking points, how Lou got started with video and has seen it evolve into a tool for humane and authentic connection, the core principles of creating video content that resonates on a human level, how authenticity builds trust. And a loyal audience, tools for video creation, including AI tools, future trends and actionable tips for solopreneurs to get started or to get better with video and so much more. So let's dive into this conversation with Lou Bortone. Hey Lou, so glad to see you again and get a chance to talk shop with you about video. And of course, in the off recording, we talked about Sicily because we have a common love for everything Italy, right? Lou Bortone: Exactly. Yeah. And you're one of the [00:06:00] online folks that I've actually met in real life. So that's right. Sarah: Yeah. Which is always, you know, it's such an exception. And so it's yeah. Something special. I, I was part of your, what do you call it? Mastermind Lou Bortone: or Tuscany and yeah, and we had the few years of the little interruption of the pandemic and all that, but hopefully that's all behind us. Yeah. Sarah: Yeah. That was amazing. Loved it. Cool. So I have you today to talk about video and we were just, Discussing, well, maybe we're going to call it video like we're human or YouTube, like we're human or something like that. And then you share it that you just kind of focus a lot on the trust and authenticity. And so we'll definitely get into that. So really looking forward to it. Why don't you start by sharing how you got. Into video how you you know, you're calling yourself the godfather of video, tell Lou Bortone: us Yeah. [00:07:00] The long and circuitous route too. And you know, it's funny 'cause I think people call me that because they know of my love of Italy and Sicily and the Godfather, but all really, because I've been doing it for a really long time. So I was in the television business for many years in Los Angeles and I think it was probably around. 2000 on 1998 that I really got online and started to do things online. And when our twins were born, we decided, well, let's leave, you know, Hollywood and La La Land and go some, go back to family and in Boston. And that's kind of when I started doing the online video stuff which was fun because the way I discovered YouTube is that I was helping some people. Do a sketch comedy show for like a local cable access. And we started to put the videos on YouTube and really get a lot of attention there. We realized, Oh, this, you know, we were kind of onto something. So I was on from a very early, you know, back in 2005 when YouTube started and I've been doing online video ever since. And I love it because [00:08:00] I'm an introvert and I don't have to be in person necessarily with people. And even though I don't love being on camera for me, it's a lot easier than in person networking. And I just love the fact that we can do this and sort of have our own TV station, our own podcast. I mean, 10, 20 years ago, this would have been impossible. So Sarah: yeah, that's how I got here. That's insane. It's like mind blowing that, you know, 2005, that it really seems like ages and ages, but that's Lou Bortone: when it came out. So I guess that's what, 18 years. Oh my gosh. I feel so old. Sarah: It really is a long time ago and of course, you know, it went through phases of ups and downs and, and it seems like right now it really is kind of like coming back and, and I want to know from you, why do you think that it has this comeback now? What, Lou Bortone: what, what? It's interesting. And it's the same with, you know, remember podcasting sort of cooled off [00:09:00] for a while and now it's harder than ever. I think part of it is that You know, when, when I was growing up, when we were growing up, you know, there were just a few TV stations and a few options. And now with YouTube and podcasts and streaming, you know, we've got access to, to the, to basically a worldwide audience every time we turn on our computer or our PC. Put our phone on. So I think that's part of it. It's just the accessibility and also the fact that folks who maybe are a little younger than us grew up with. They never didn't. You know, they always had Internet. They always had you do. They always had streaming and all this kind of stuff. So for them. A screen is a screen is a screen, they don't care if it's TV, they don't care if it's you know, cable, they don't care if it's YouTube, you know, whatever they're watching, they can watch anything, anytime, and that's why, you know, another crazy statistic is that YouTube has more viewers than all the U. S. TV networks, all the cable networks, all the streaming services, so when you think of TV, you don't usually think of YouTube, but [00:10:00] YouTube is TV, and TV is YouTube. Sarah: I mean, if we think of our kids, right, that's, that's all they're watching. They're not watching TV. It's Lou Bortone: definitely the YouTube. Multi screens. You know, they're, they're watching YouTube on a, on a traditional television screen, but they're on Twitter or X at the same time with their friends. And I don't know how they do it. I can barely manage one screen. Yeah. Sarah: Yeah. I also feel that. You know, we were also kind of part of the blogging era. And, and so I feel like, you know, Google has changed their algorithm again. And people are like, well, people don't really read blogs anymore. And we can't get any traction with SEO. Now that the market is getting flooded with all the AI content. So maybe it's also, do you think it's also because of that? People are like, well, at least that. That's what it was for me. I'm like, I got to pay attention to Lou Bortone: YouTube. Absolutely. And then the other thing with business owners, I mean, you know, we always read video is the way to [00:11:00] get the most amount of information in the shortest amount of time. So if we're all multitasking, we're all really over scheduled, we're all really busy. Oftentimes it's like, I can't sit down and read a newspaper. But what's that? You know, it's, I have to, you know, go to YouTube and find this quick answer. I have to go to see this thing on Tik TOK or, you know, so it's really just a great way to get access to any information anywhere in the world. Sarah: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. It's, it's, it's, I love it, especially when it's timestamped. So it's like, Oh, I don't even have to watch the whole thing. It's just like, yeah, exactly. So, so yeah. Lou Bortone: So I think now the thing is that. The, the consumer, the viewer, it has more control than ever. Cause like I said, when we were at least in the U S when we were growing up, it's like you had three TV networks and, and they controlled everything. They controlled what you saw, what you heard. And now it's kind of like, well, the consumer can go anywhere they want and see anything they want. So they're completely in control now. Sarah: So that kind [00:12:00] of probably if someone has never done any video kind of sounds also intimidating because it's like, wow, like there's this giant audience out there. Okay. You already mentioned as an introvert, sometimes YouTube is actually probably easier than the networking thing, but maybe it also feels like, well. What am I going to share that hasn't already been said out there? Yeah. So what would you say to that Lou Bortone: question? I think, you know, everybody has their unique spin and everybody has their own, you know Perspective. So it's like you have something to offer. A lot of times if I'm working with my clients or students, they feel like, well, you know, like you said, well, you know, what can I say that hasn't already been said? And I tell them, look, you know, you have a message. You have a unique message. You have a unique way of doing things and your Passion to get that message out to the world has to be stronger than your fear of being on camera. Because again, you know, the other thing too is now that we're all able to be on camera, we're not walking the red carpet at the Oscars. We're just putting on a podcast or a YouTube channel [00:13:00] and showing up and trying to be authentic. Sarah: Right. Yeah. So let's talk a little bit about this trust building and authenticity, like what are some key points here that maybe a story I can tell is like, I remember when I put up my first video and I just seen them all because I cleaned up my YouTube channel and I'm like, Oh my God, this is terrible. But I remember like really sweating it like, Oh my God, I have to prepare everything. Yeah. So. Like, do we really need to have this perfect video or how much of it can we just wing and really be just human and Lou Bortone: authentic? I think you can wing 80 percent of it, probably. I mean, I often make the distinction between quick videos and keeper videos. It's like, okay, a keeper video, your homepage video on your website, you know, you want to, you don't want to be in your pajamas, probably. If it's an important video that's going to have shelf life, like your homepage [00:14:00] video, or if you're selling, you know, a thousand dollar coaching program, you don't, you know, you want to look professional. So those keeper videos, you probably want to spend more time and effort on, but if it's, you know, quick tips, I mean, oftentimes I just think of something and then just go to YouTube and share it. So quick tips or Facebook lives or any kind of live video, it's really more about, you know, just showing up. And sharing your message and being authentic. And a lot of times people think video is about the technology. And what I try to sort of, you know, reshape that or respin it as, no, it's really about connection and relationships and engagement. It doesn't matter what technology we're using. It just matters that we're connecting and being authentic and sharing ourselves. Hmm. Sarah: I remember we, we did the workshop together or something about video for introverts back in the days. And, and I remember we did kind of have one module on, on on technology. And I'm thinking maybe that actually lost [00:15:00] a bit of importance now that. You know, we're so used to these shorts on YouTube and even famous people just kind of like filming themselves. You think it has changed maybe also over time? Yeah. And Lou Bortone: I think that the pandemics accelerated it really quickly because, you know, and basically in, you know, a day we all had to move to zoom and we had to move our events to zoom and we had to move everything online. So I think that just accelerated it. And, you know, it was almost like. You know, well, I don't have a choice. I have to be on camera because that's the only way I can connect with my audience right now, right? Yeah. And I think the other thing was now people realize, Oh, this is, you know, this isn't that scary. And this isn't that difficult technically. And we always hear about no like and trust. And I think people finally realized like, wow, this is a great way to build no like and trust. Sarah: Yeah, it's so true. I'm always surprised that people are watching whole episodes, you know, that I put [00:16:00] on the podcast as well, but no, people actually watched the YouTube version of it as well. And probably it's because that know, like, and trust, right? Lou Bortone: Yeah, definitely. The connection, the ability to watch it on the go, cause people are watching on their phones. And I did, you know, I've, I've done podcasting. Off and on, but the reason that I finally committed to doing a podcast was I saw a statistic that YouTube was now the number one source for podcasts, more than Apple, more than Google, more than Amazon people are going to YouTube for podcasts and whether that's just. Kind of listening to it when, you know, with a slide on the screen or having an actual interview or seeing the person on screen, either way there, it's become, you know, kind of the go to place to see and hear podcasts. Sarah: Yeah, that's interesting. I did see a difference between just having that slide and the moving, you know, lines which I did before. So I didn't have the video portion of [00:17:00] it. And now with, with the actual faces, like there is more engagement or there is more views because yeah, obviously it's more interesting to, to see two people talking than just a line. Yeah. Lou Bortone: Yeah. And that's the other thing that's been interesting too is now with all the AI stuff. It's like, I think there's going to be not really a backlash with AI, but more of a need for like, okay, I don't want to see a robotic, you know, synthesized video. I mean, yeah, I can create an AI version of myself. It's like, hi, I'm Lou, you know, and recreate my voice, but it's still not you, you know, it's still not the real person. Sarah: Yeah. And, and I really feel like that's why I like the really human and authentic videos the best, where you see some people, you know, they have like this fancy background and their logo is up there and their book is up there. I'm like, I get that from a marketing perspective, but. [00:18:00] It doesn't feel real. It feels like if I would see you on the street, I probably wouldn't recognize you because you're wearing so much makeup and I don't, yeah, I don't really recognize you. So for me, it's really that real humanness that comes across. Yeah, Lou Bortone: and that's why I like, you know, I don't do as much live video as I should, but I kind of call it like, oh, a live video is to come as you are party, you know, just show up and, and, you know, be yourself and don't worry that the dogs are barking in the background because that's the way it works, you know, like it's, there's going to be distractions, there's going to be craziness going on in the background, but that just makes it more real. Sarah: Talking about that. I just watched, remember that BBC interview where the walks in and then the baby rolls in and I just watched that Lou Bortone: again. Sometimes those are viral moments. Like, you know, the wife's son doing, trying to do a professional interview and the guy walks by. [00:19:00] You know, husband walks behind her in his boxer shorts, you know, it's like, we're trying to do video here, people. Sarah: And what, what I didn't remember is that that was in 2017. So way pre COVID. So that's why it was like super shocking. You know, back then we were all still like, Ooh, you know, has to be super professional. So I feel like a lot has changed since the pandemic. Yeah. And again, Lou Bortone: You have to find that balance because like I kid like you don't want to look like a hostage video. I mean, you don't want to have really terrible lighting and yeah, that it may be authentic, but it's still not easy to watch like if the lighting is really bad or if the audio is bad. So you have to find that balance between like, look, I have to, you know, look relatively professional, but I don't have to be so polished that I'm on doing an interview on CNN or something. Sarah: Exactly. Yeah, it's, it's true. It's that balance that you're still human and creating trust. But without looking [00:20:00] like, yeah, you're just going on CNN. So we talked a little bit about AI what I just recently started using is this Tool called Clip, Opus Clip or something. Oh yeah. Yes. Opus Clip. And it lets you create these little shorts from longer videos. Right. And, and I love that because it's repurposing existing content. And so, yeah, do you know any other great AI tools Lou Bortone: that people are using? I did a series on some AI tools and Opus Clip was one of them, which is great because if you're going to create content. You might as well get as much mileage out of it as possible. So if you're doing a podcast and you wanted to do clips from the podcast, or you want to do 60 second segments, Opus clip is great for that. Pictory. ai is really good because you can, you know, make your videos more professional and edit them and add, you know, B roll and background footage. And the one that I use probably every single day is descript. com. And the reason [00:21:00] I like that is because for people who are not You know, video editors, you can edit the text and all those changes are made, you know, you're basically editing a Word document and then the changes transfer the video. So I've been using that for pod, you know, to produce podcasts and really every kind of video because it's, it's really faster and you can look more professional and more quickly. Yeah, Sarah: and I love the fact that you just highlight all the ums and take them Lou Bortone: all out. Yeah, I had no idea how many times I used the words and until I found a descriptor like, oh, I can take out all the filler words with one click. And suddenly I sound smarter than I am. And I don't think that damages any of the authenticity or makes it any less real. It's just that like, oh, this is, it's going to be a little bit easier to look more professional without having to go through all kinds of crazy editing and stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Sarah: Yeah, that's true. It doesn't feel like all of a sudden you sound like a robot. You just. I feel like, yeah, you sound [00:22:00] smarter because you're not constantly looking for words or, or, yeah, saying Lou Bortone: them that. And some of it's getting like, it's a little bit weird because there's a feature in Descript where if I'm looking at the screen, it will put your eyes back up to where the camera is. Oh, I haven't Sarah: seen that. Lou Bortone: Ooh, that's kind of, you know, it's kind of interesting. It's a little creepy, but it works pretty well. But again, it's about striking that balance. Like I could do videos where I say, you know, you sort of insert the name, like you do one video, hello. So, you know, it's like, well, obviously that's, you know automated. So you don't want to do so much automation that it's not, you know real anymore. Sarah: Right. Yeah. I guess that's a question that you get often is like, well, where should your eyes be when you're doing either self recorded videos or chats like this one? For example, me right now, I'm looking at the camera. I'm not looking at you, which I always feel like, oh, what a Lou Bortone: shame. You got [00:23:00] to sort of train your eyes. I'm like, Oh, you know, my mom said you have to look people in the eye. Exactly. Great, but the camera, the camera's eye is up here, so I cheat because I have like a little extra monitor up where the camera is, but if I was looking at the screen, it would be, it would feel like I wasn't connecting with you and I wasn't being as authentic because I'm not, you want to try to, the camera is the the other person's eyes. So that's the tricky part. Sarah: Yeah, yeah. What I do is this, because I'm recording on zoom, so I just make the screen of zoom very small and just shove it right under the camera. Lou Bortone: I know. So those kind of tricks of just, you know, try to look at the camera try to have, you know, adequate lighting But again, it's, you know, it doesn't take much. I, I, I like to have a setup where I can just say, okay, my camera is set up, my background's okay, my lights work, and I want to just be able to go. I don't want to have to spend 20 minutes setting up a video every time I do a video. Sarah: Yeah, exactly. It becomes kind of like a nuisance if you're, it feels like, Oh, [00:24:00] I have to do all this setting up. What about what about in terms of the, the body placement? Because one thing I noticed is when I put the things on Tik TOK compared to everybody else, my face was like, Oh God, this is like, this is no Lou Bortone: good. Consider where the person's watching from, and a lot of people are watching on their phone, especially if it's a vertical video. So oftentimes if I'm doing a webinar and I'm sharing slides that are landscape, I realized, well, I can't put this on TikTok or Instagram Reels because it's going to squish it. But like, again, using software like Descript, we can take a video like this and put, you know, the people, Vertically so that it still works. So what I do see a lot, and it's funny cause I did another video about this, is it just, people don't have a very good sense of the spatial awareness. Like there'll be way down here, like, hello. And the trick that I, I heard that works is that, you know, think in terms of like, you don't want any more headroom than you [00:25:00] could fit a golf ball on the top of your head. So. You know, you don't want to be too close. You don't want to be too, too far away. Sarah: So what about here? Like Lou Bortone: it's kind of like, I think, you know, we were used to seeing that from news anchors and TV. It's usually like, you know, the, the typical shot is head and shoulders kind of shot, but again you know, if there are people doing videos who are yoga instructors or something like that, they got to go way back and be No, I think it's really just a matter of being aware of where you are in the camera. Oftentimes we'll see on zoom maybe somebody's on a laptop and they're looking up and you're looking up their nose. It's like, that's no fun. You know, just try to. Have a straight on you know, and use the photography rule of thirds where your eyes should be on the top third of the line. And if you've got graphics, those should be on the lower third, which is why they call lower thirds. So it's just having a sort of a spatial awareness of where you are, what's going on on screen. Sarah: Right. Yeah. [00:26:00] Yeah. I think a lot of it also comes back to confidence and just doing it a few times and not caring if it doesn't look good and just keep doing Lou Bortone: it, right? Yeah. So it's funny when we do, like we did the video for introverts thing a few years ago, but when we do when I do these challenges, I say, you know I do my first video in the car after I just came from the gym. So it's like, okay, this is the worst I'm going to look. Okay. I'm going to, I'm going to set the bar really low so it can only get better. And you know, I'm in the car, the lighting's bad, I'm sweaty, but okay, I'm going to start there and then work my way towards better videos as I go. Sarah: Right. Yeah, that's a, that's a good way of putting it. And I remember those videos after kickboxing, right? Yeah, exactly. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I don't know if I would bear that, but yeah. . Lou Bortone: Well, and I think, you know women have a harder time because of the expectations. Like, oh, you know, my hair has to look good and I have to be wearing. Right, whatever. But I think people are less concerned [00:27:00] about that now than they used to be. Sarah: I think so too. And it's so refreshing. Lou Bortone: Yeah. Cause we just show up on zoom and it's like, look, you know I just came back from the gym or I'm, you know, I've been doing this, that so it's really more about, you really have to. Focus on the message and not so much the quality is important, but it's, it's less important than, than your message and you, and what you're Sarah: delivering. You know what that makes me think of is it's funny that we haven't kind of changed our headshots yet to being more human because sometimes you go on somebody's website and it's this beautiful girl. Like. Once in a lifetime that they look like that. And then you see their YouTube videos and you're like, Oh, they're actually human, Lou Bortone: right? And I, I did have photos when we were in Italy. I'm like, Oh, I want to have my pictures with really old buildings in the background and things like that. And then when people show up, they're like, Oh, you don't look like you look on, on [00:28:00] screen. So I used to do a really silly trick. Okay. Back in the Photoshop days is I would make my image actually a little wider so that I'd look heavier. And then when I showed up in person, people would say, Oh, you have you lost weight? So I was doing that reverse Photoshop, like, well, I want to look better in person. So I'm going to, but again, it's, it's, it is all about that authenticity and connection. And I talk about building loyalty through video, because again, it's really more about A relationship than about what camera you're using. Sarah: Yeah, it really feels like it's. I explained it in levels of intimacy, right? And so people sign up to your newsletter that they get your emails. That's the kind of the low level or before that it's even social media. Right. And then there's a higher level is newsletter and even higher letter that level Dell will be YouTube or, you know, any kind of video. And then probably [00:29:00] zoom calls where it's like in person zoom calls and then the actual in person meeting. But yeah. I do feel already, you know, we're seeing each other's facial expressions and that, yeah, that creates trust and loyalty. I Lou Bortone: totally agree. Yeah. And again, you know, even though, thank goodness we're past the pandemic and live events are coming back and conferences are back, there's still going to be that hybrid events, people working from home much more than they used to. I mean, my kids who are 25 they have never worked in an office. Everything they've done is, is on screen, on zoom, on Google meet, whatever it is. That's just the way they work now. Yeah, Sarah: yeah, yeah. No, it's crazy. Yeah, it really is. So let us talk a little bit to wrap up around the future. So we mentioned AI, we mentioned that, you know, Google is not really easy anymore to have your [00:30:00] blog posts featured. So what is, what do you see the future of video? How do you see it? Lou Bortone: I think it's, you know, obviously there's going to be a lot more volume because people are going to continue to flock to YouTube and watch YouTube shorts. I think we're going to see, you know, shorter bursts of videos, like. TikTok and Instagram reels are going to continue and it's a little harder to make the connection there because you're on for a shorter amount of time. But I think we're going to see the shorter videos, promoting podcasts and longer content where you really can connect because again, you're obviously going to make a better connection with somebody if you're seeing or hearing them for, you know, 15, 20 minutes, rather than. Forty five seconds and i think the other thing is that there may be a little bit of a not really a backlash but sort of an anti AI thing like okay i've seen the robotic you know synthetic version of blue but where's the real you know i'm gonna show up on facebook live and not be perfect but be real so i think you'll start [00:31:00] to see a little bit more of you know as much as we're going to be using AI that's still not going to you know literally replace the person and their message. Sarah: Yeah, I hope so. I mean, I'm, I'm all for AI, but exactly. It's still, in a way it makes the videos that we're doing even more special and more human. So, so maybe that's also a good. Lou Bortone: Yeah. So, yeah, because that's the, you know, it's almost like if you send out an email blast, it's not very personal. If you send out an, an AI video, it's great, but it's not. You know, it's personal or familiar or engaging. And even now that chat GPT is, is starting to put in I think it's called Sora where you can put in a prompt and chat GPT will create a video from nothing, which is great, but it's still not. You, I don't think so. What Sarah: does it do? It creates an avatar of you or just, Lou Bortone: you know, if you say create a video about a trip [00:32:00] to, to Boston mass, it's going to pull in footage from Boston and scenes and sites. And I think, you know, eventually if you record yourself, it'll be able to do sort of a facsimile of you, but it's still not going to be the real you. So, yeah, Sarah: some interesting, interesting things coming our way. That's for sure. Lou Bortone: Yeah, it's crazy. So I think there's still gonna be a place, a really important place for those videos. If I do a lot of video email, I just sort of, you know, rather than sending email, I do a video on loom and, and share something. And I think again, that's more personal. Yeah, it takes a little bit more time, but I think it also has a lot more impact because you feel like, oh, wow, this person's actually talking to me. It's not going to 1000 people. Yeah, I love Sarah: that. Yeah. I love those videos. I remember them from, from the, the trip in Tuscany. One thing we didn't talk about so much, and maybe it's something that we don't need to worry about is the whole algorithm thing, because obviously we're replacing the [00:33:00] Google algorithm by a YouTube algorithm. So how much are you paying attention and telling your clients to pay attention to the algorithm and making sure it gets, you know, right? Yeah, Lou Bortone: I mean, as long as I've, I've been on YouTube since the very beginning, and it's constantly changing and it's hard to keep up with. And I actually work with a YouTube coach just to try to stay on top of it. Can, and he keeps telling me the same thing and I've heard it over and over. And I think it's the best idea is make videos for humans, not algorithm. Don't try to game the system. Don't do keyword stuffing. I mean, I, I was talking to him about keywords and tags and he's like, just don't worry about it. It doesn't even matter anymore. Just make, you know, know who your audience is and, and try to connect with them and give them what they expect from you, what they want from you. And don't say, oh, you know, I'm going to make a knitting video because knitting is really hot. This is like, well, that's not what I do. So, so don't try to gain the system because you're not going to figure it [00:34:00] out and just make videos for an audience and for a person rather than for an algorithm. Man, Sarah: that's really refreshing because it feels like we're trying to figure out the algorithm and by the time you figured it out, it changed again, Lou Bortone: right? I know it's like I used to have coaches are like, okay, your title has to be 69 characters and your description has to be this and you know, it's still important to optimize your video the best you can, but at the end of the day, you know, spend more time making the video than trying to, you know, figure out just the exact keyword to include. Yeah. Sarah: Wow, I'm glad I asked you that early Lou Bortone: relief. It's like save, save you a lot of trouble in, in SEO research. And it's not completely, you know, it's not that important anymore. It's still counts for something, but like my YouTube coach is like, don't worry about the keywords for the tags and keywords, just put in different spellings of your name. So if somebody spells your name wrong, they'll still find you like, okay. [00:35:00] So so it's, you know, and, and the other thing is that with YouTube. It's shifted so much. I mean, maybe keywords were 80 percent of the people finding your video and now it's like 10%. So, and I even look at my analytics and I say, Oh, you know, only a few of these viewers came from search. The vast majority of them came from suggested videos of people finding the video because they, you know, they're seeking you out and they know, Oh yeah, I need video advice or I need to know how to do such and such. Okay. Sarah: Interesting. Yeah. So it just keeps, keeps on changing. So as long as you put your videos out there, you're, Lou Bortone: you're doing something right. Consistency is really, really important. I mean, YouTube likes consistency and YouTube likes watch time. So people always say, well, should I be doing video shorts or longer videos? And really a combination is best because you're sort of getting the best of both worlds. But YouTube, you know, the algorithm still does reward watch time. So if people start a video with you and then stick with it, [00:36:00] YouTube loves that because you're on the channel longer. So that's why I think podcasts are doing so well on YouTube because tend to stick with the, you know, the whole podcast rather than just watch two minutes of it. Yeah. Yeah. Sarah: That's good to know. Well Last question. What would you say people who are just starting out and they're kind of, and maybe they're introverts, what's the first video that they should do? Lou Bortone: I think that the lowest hanging fruit is live video, Facebook Live, YouTube Live. I mean, you can go on and do a video. Maybe you just do it into a Facebook group. But I think live videos have a little bit less of an expectation of perfection. So you can show up, you can make a few mistakes. You can. Do your ums and ahs, whatever, and people are not going to be that concerned about it. So I think practicing with live video is a really good way to get your feet wet and sort of get, you know, ease your way into videos. And then after you've done a bunch of those and you realize like, Oh my God, I didn't die on [00:37:00] video. Then you can say, now I'm going to go record a video for my homepage and maybe I'll make that more professional. Sarah: That's, that's cool. And so in live video, does that mean that people can actually come on live? Right? Lou Bortone: Yeah. And you know, with like Facebook live, again, you can, you can say, I'm only going to go live to my private group. So maybe you feel a little bit safer starting there because you know, the folks in your group. Right. Oftentimes I'll do a video and then on the Facebook setting, I'll do only me. So like, okay, it's, it's live, but it's not, nobody's seeing it. And then maybe later on, I'll say, okay, that, that wasn't so bad. I'm going to change that view to public. So even though you recorded it ahead of time, you didn't make it live until afterwards. Yeah. Sarah: Love that. Very good. Well, thanks so much for sharing all your godfatherly knowledge. Thank you. It's been great. Tell people please where they can find you and, and I know you have a, a free tool for us as well. Lou Bortone: Everything's at [00:38:00] loubortone. com. And I also like people sometimes have trouble planning their video, what they're going to say. So I have a free video planner at loubortone. com forward slash. And that'll just help you sort of map out your video and, and know what you're going to say. And you don't have to script it. You don't have to have it all, you know, word for word. Sometimes it just helps to know, okay, I'm going to do my intro and I'm going to do these three points. And then I have a call to action. Sarah: Yeah. Yeah. I think that's what I do. I think it's really helpful because. By the time you're two thirds in, you don't remember how you wanted to end it. And so it's kind of good. Lou Bortone: Yeah. A few bullet points. And then there's always, you know, editing. You can always go into Descript and use the AI to take out all your filler words and, and sound smarter. Sarah: That's great. I always ask one last question to all my guests and that is, what are you grateful for today or this week? Lou Bortone: Wow. At my age, just waking up, but, but yeah, I mean, it's [00:39:00] here in the U. S. in February in New England, it's, it's chilly out, but you know, the sun's out and everybody's healthy and, you know, it's all good. Nice. Sarah: Wonderful. Well, let's hope it stays like that. It's really good to reconnect with you. Thanks so much for being on the show. Lou Bortone: Thank you. Appreciate it. Sarah: And that's a wrap for today. I hope you got some great value from listening to this episode. You can find out more about Lou and his work at loubortone. com. Lou also has a free video planner for us that helps us plan the content of our video before we hit that recording button. So you'll find this at loubartone. com forward slash planner. And if you're looking for others who think like you, then why not join us in the Humane Marketing Circle? You can find out more about our community at [00:40:00] humane. marketing forward slash circle. And you'll find the show notes of this episode at humane. marketing forward slash H M 1 8 6. And on this beautiful page, you'll also find a series of free offers such as the humane business manifesto, as well as my two books, marketing like we're human and selling like we're human. Thanks so much for listening and being part of a generation of marketers who cares for yourself, your clients and the planet. We are changemakers before we are marketers. So go be the change you want to see in the world. Speak [00:41:00] soon.

A growing number of research studies show that the cognitive and brain development of low-income children differs from that of children in higher income families. For any family, that is a concerning statement. Today's podcast features a project called Baby's First Years, a multi-year effort to test the connections between poverty reduction and brain development among very young children. Here to talk about what the study has revealed so far is Dr. Lisa Gennetian from Duke University's Sanford School of Public Policy, and Dr. Sarah Halpern-Meekin from the La Follette School of Public Affairs at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Transcript Sarah, let's start with you. What is the Baby's First Years study?  Sarah - So the Baby's First Years study is a study of how having additional income matters for children's development and for family life in families that had incomes around the federal poverty line when they had a child. And so, it includes two main components. The first is a randomized control trial that tests the effects of families receiving either a large or a small monthly cash gift each month, families get either $333 or $20 each month on a debit card from the time their child was born until just after the child's sixth birthday. Lisa and our colleagues, Katherine Magnuson, Kimberly Noble, Greg Duncan, Hiro Yoshikawa, and Nathan Fox lead this part of the study. They've been following mothers and children from a thousand families over the past six years. The other part of the study is a qualitative study in which we do in-depth interviews with a subset of those families because we want to learn more about how they think, about making financial decisions, the values and dreams for their children that guide their parenting and how they think about their money they're getting from Baby's First Years each month. This study is complex and would require time to observe change. Can you tell me about the length of time your team has been doing this intervention? Sarah - So the first families started the study in 2018. Lisa - One thing that's unique about this intervention is its length. As Sarah mentioned, it's starts at the time of birth and it's monthly. And families will be receiving this cash for 76 months. So, they'll be receiving it through the first six years of their child's life. Thank you for that detail. Lisa, what is the landscape for food programs and assistance in the United States, particularly for families with infants and young children? Lisa - There are two major programs that are federally funded in the US that are particularly targeted for families with infants and children. One of them is called the Women, Infant, and Children's Program, or WIC for short. The WIC program, let's see, in 2022, served about 6.3 million participants, but it provides a mix of core nutritional needs, breastfeeding support, information and referrals. And the second big safety net program in the US around food is called SNAP, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. This one's broader and has served over 40 million people in 2022. And together both these programs have been pretty core to providing food and nutritional support to families, including those with young children. Thanks for that context. So now, how does the cash gift intervention differ from, or fit with other food assistance programs that these families may participate in? Lisa - The thing that cash can add above and beyond that, so thinking about how this Baby's First Year study might help supplement resources is in two ways. One is thinking about how money that might have been spent on the foods that are provided by these programs are now being taken care of through these food subsidies. One direct way that the BFY cash money can help is by increasing those net resources available for other types of food or for other things in the household. It's a real compliment to these what we call in kind or conditioned kind of food subsidy programs. The second is that there are no conditions. And so, what WIC and SNAP provide, which is really formative and really important for a lot of families, is also has some real parameters on what could be purchased. And so having extra cash means sort more flexibility around direct food resources. And that's actually something we start to see a little bit in the Baby's First Year study. Wow, Lisa, thank you for that. Given that these are means-tested programs, the cash infusion from Baby's First Year's project could influence participants' eligibility for other programs, right? How did you deal with that? Lisa - Oh yes, it's a really great question. Thanks for asking that. For the purposes of this study, we, for several years, worked closely with all layers of government, federal, state, and local to think hard about how to protect the families receiving this cash gift from losing eligibility for these other programs because as you say, right, we're increasing their income implicitly through this cash gift. And so, we did that through some administrative rulings, meaning states agreed that the families would be exempt and to the states, we had legislation passed to protect these families from their eligibility being affected by receipt of the cash gift. We did that as comprehensively as possible. There are some exceptions, but we think that it's been pretty effective kind of strategy we use to ensure that families, when they get this cash gift, that they're not mechanically losing eligibility for these other programs. So, the way to think about this cash and supplementing people's lives and supplementing and accompanying everything else, is also helping how families might think about access to these other programs and choices around that in ways that they might not have had before. That sounds like a large undertaking, and it took extensive planning to get to that point. I imagine you wouldn't want families to lose their benefits because they participated in this study. Sarah, I want to come back to you. What are families' experiences with Baby's First Year and with government-provided food assistance programs in the United States? Sarah - So families in both gift groups are appreciative of having extra money every month. That's even more so the case for those in the high gift group mothers not surprisingly, some mothers in Baby's First Year struggle to make ends meet, for others, even if they can cover their bills every month, having just that little bit extra breathing room is pretty welcome. Like Lisa was talking about across the country, in Baby's First Years, the vast majority of families have experience with food assistance programs, either currently or in the past. It's pretty rare for them not to, relatively speaking, while families often receive WIC, that's the Women, Infants and Children program that Lisa mentioned, when they have babies, many stop getting WIC after their babies turn one, despite the fact that they remain income eligible for that. Most families also receive some benefits from SNAP. And in some qualitative work that I did with my colleagues, Carolyn Barnes and Jill Hoiding, we heard from families about how they thought about engaging with the WIC program. They thought about the value of the benefits they could get from doing so, but also the costs of doing that, like how hard it is to make it to appointments, to fill out the paperwork to use those benefits once you're at the grocery store. And they weighed those costs and benefits as their children grew up when they were thinking about whether or not to pursue those benefits. So Lisa, what are you learning from the Baby's First Year study about where and how families and children are getting food? Lisa - So Sarah has talked about the richness of speaking to moms directly at holistic types of interviews. Alongside that, we've annually been going back and speaking to mothers and collecting information about them and their children. And part of our, so these are our annual surveys, they are in or near the children's birthdate, and we ask them a bunch of questions about how life is going, about their spending, what's happening with income and employment and childcare, their own health, their mental health. One of the areas that we focus on is around food. And one of those food items is called a food security scale. This is a six item, a USDA-approved scale. It asks questions like not having enough money to buy food, questions about hunger, questions about eating balanced meals. It includes a set of items that we would call pretty subjective. For example, the question on balanced meals, but also less subjective. Is there literally enough money to buy enough food for the household? And so, we're learning some really interesting things. First, we're learning that there is very high connection to this food safety net that we were just talking about. So, far majority of the families are connected either to WIC or the food assistance program called SNAP. And that's pretty consistent. Sarah just talked about a little bit of the drop off of WIC, but we certainly see consistent connections to SNAP, all the way through the first three years of the child's life. We see that generally as sort of a kind of good news story. So, these are families who are eligible for these programs, their family's drawn from four very different dates and sites. They're very diverse in their racial ethnic composition and whether they've been born or not in the US in terms of the moms. The fact that there is very high connection to a food safety net system while raising young children, we think is a really positive signal of the food safety net system potentially working pretty well. And then we're not seeing big differences between the high cash gift group and the low cash gift group on this food security measure. In fact, we're seeing pretty high food security amongst these families with very young children on the scale. That doesn't mean that any one of these items, we're not seeing high reports of things like scarcity. So even though the families are very low in food insecurity, we do see that about a third of them are reporting some kind of food scarcity. So, 31% report that the food they bought did not last and they sometimes often didn't have money to get more. For example, we're also hearing from families, they're relying on free meals from non-federal sources. We haven't talked yet about the importance of the faith-based kind of system and support and informal networks in providing food. We ask families this when their children were about three years old, and roughly 10% report some receipt of free meals from other sources. We are inevitably also seeing, as you might expect, some variation across these sites. So that's sort of a hint on what we're seeing around food security and connections to the safety net. We also ask about spending, and we're not seeing overall differences in how much money is being spent on food with one very interesting exception. That's on money, on food spent eating out. We don't ask a whole bunch of information about nutrition, but when the children were toddlers, moms do report, who are receiving the high cash gift, they do report higher consumption of fruits and vegetables among their toddlers. It is a very sort of unique and narrow question, but positive, so more fruits and vegetables and not more of other things like salty treats, flavored drinks, sodas, sugary sweets. And we're looking forward to continuing to follow up on items of nutrition when the children are four. This is fascinating, and I'm so grateful that your team is paying attention to these families' experiences and engagement with the social safety net and the charitable food sector. Sarah, we often understand food, particularly healthy food, as a way to deliver nutrition that promotes health and development. Of course, food provides much more than nutrition. What, if anything, are you learning from the study about the social meaning of food and what it represents to families? Sarah - I really appreciate this question because it's something we've been looking at and thinking about a lot in our research, in the research other people have done before, and in our own study we really hear a lot about the role that food plays in families, beyond nutrition. In so many cultures, food plays a really core role in social time and in family time. This can be things like turning family movie night into something a little more special by microwaving popcorn. It can be having special mom and me time with mom taking a child out to go get a cake pop at a coffee shop. It can be eating a meal at a sit-down restaurant to celebrate a special occasion, a child's middle school graduation, for some of these purchases, you can't use food assistance. And so having cash on hand is really essential to engaging in these kinds of special rituals and family time. Like your question implies, it turns our attention to the role that food plays in family bonding and in socializing. We really want to think about the multiple roles that food serves in our lives and how having this kind of extra income on hand for families who are often income constrained, can change these opportunities for those special family times around food.   Bios   Dr. Lisa Gennetian is an applied economist, Professor of Public Policy, and the Pritzker Professor of Early Learning Policy Studies at Duke University's Sanford School of Public Policy. Drawing on perspectives from the behavioral sciences, psychology, and child development, her research focuses on the economics of child development, specifically child poverty, parent engagement and decision making, and policy and social investment considerations. Dr. Sarah Halpern-Meekin is Vaughn Bascom Professor of Children, Family, and Community in the School of Human Ecology and the La Follette School of Public Affairs at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She is also an affiliate of the Institute for Research on Poverty. She is a sociologist whose research focuses on family, adolescence, social policy and the welfare state, class and inequality, and qualitative methods. Her current research includes examining the role of parents' churning (on-again/off-again) relationships in family life, exploring the experiences and financial decision-making of mothers who are receiving monthly unconditional cash gifts, and understanding how rural men make ends meet, spend their time, and make meaning while disconnected from the formal labor force.

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.

A lot of people are speculating about the real estate market right now. Some property managers are concerned about how it will affect their business. You might not realize that you actually have an opportunity to take advantage of a potential downturn. In today's episode of the #DoorGrowShow, property management growth experts Jason and Sarah Hull talk about what a real estate market downturn would mean for property management entrepreneurs and how they could take advantage of it. You'll Learn [01:15] Uncertainty in the industry [04:21] A downturn isn't the end of the world [07:36] Millions are made in downturns [09:59] Going deeper on the topic Tweetables “Things do not need to be bad in a downturn. You just need to be prepared.” “Serious, savvy real estate investors get super excited when there's a downturn.” “Millions are made is in downturns.” “If you think it's going to be harder in the downturn, you're right, and it will be harder.” Resources DoorGrow and Scale Mastermind DoorGrow Academy DoorGrow on YouTube DoorGrowClub DoorGrowLive TalkRoute Referral Link Transcript [00:00:00]  Sarah: Pick up the phone and have a conversation with your investors and the ones that are like, "I can't wait," those ones are the ones you call first if and when shit hits the fan.  [00:00:10]  [00:00:12] 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 business and life, and you are 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. [00:00:37] 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 Hull and Sarah Hull, the owners of DoorGrow. Now let's get into the show. [00:01:12] So we are going to talk about what? [00:01:15] Sarah: There's a lot of uncertainty right now in the marketplace, especially with might be happening with the real estate market.  [00:01:22] Jason: Okay.  [00:01:22] Sarah: And what to do. What you could do, right? If we have a downturn, because a lot of times people hear downturn and then they panic and they go, "Oh, shit." [00:01:32] It is like winter. It's coming. Woe is me. Things are bad. And things do not need to be bad in a downturn. You just need to be prepared.  [00:01:41] Jason: So I'm thinking related to this also, this is it's 2024. This is an election year. The election cycle is such that every election year, it gets crazy. [00:01:52] Sarah: Like, remember last one? We had COVID.  [00:01:56] Jason: Yeah.  [00:01:57] Sarah: So the craziest one yet.  [00:01:59] Jason: Yeah. So every election cycle, there's like racial tensions, there's whatever it takes to get people riled up on every side, everybody's angry and there's like political tension, there's economic challenges, like, I don't know what happens, I don't know if you're a conspiracy theorist, but things get crazy every election year. [00:02:18] And we have this big black swan event that was COVID and there's been previous ones in the past. [00:02:23] Sarah: Not like COVID.  [00:02:24] Jason: Not like COVID. Not like COVID. But, there was the housing crisis stuff. There's been things in the past that have happened. And so under the potential possibility that there could be a black swan event in 2024, or that there just could be some significant changes in the real estate market, how do we deal with that uncertainty? [00:02:41] Sarah: So it's really, it's being prepared. For whatever happens, right? Because when the real estate market, do you remember? Maybe a year or a year and a half ago, when things were like crazy, you would list a property and you would get like three offers the first like ten minutes. You would always be in a multiple offer situation. [00:02:59] Things were going way over ask price. So you had listed at a million, you knew you were going to get significantly higher than that. And we're not really seeing that so much anymore. Things have started to cool off. Things have started to shift. Interest rates are way higher. So the question always is does this continue to happen? [00:03:18] And do we see more of a downturn or are things going to pivot and all of a sudden, "Hey, we're going to be back in this bull market with the real estate." Okay. So everybody knows what to do. I think that's fair to say everybody knows what to do when things are great. We're like, "Oh, we'll just list a bunch of properties. And then we have a bunch of investors that are buying and then like property management is easier." It's easier to sell and it's just a more healthy market. And like there's lots of new leads coming in and it's fantastic. And then the rental market usually heats up and then it's easy to rent properties and tenants might be fighting over properties and we're like, "Oh yeah, I could get this rented out in like a couple of days." [00:04:00] When we're in a downturn, then it's like, properties sit a little bit longer and tenants aren't as hot as they were before. And now it might take a couple of weeks to get it rented out, maybe even longer and selling properties isn't really happening. And maybe investors aren't really buying. And the thing to remember is investors definitely buy in a downturn. [00:04:24] This is in fact, when they're really excited. Serious, savvy real estate investors get super excited when there's a downturn. So when I was a property manager, what I was doing all the time because I would just connect with my clients. No, I don't ask them every month, but at least once or twice a year, ask them like, "Hey, what's your strategy?" [00:04:43] Has anything changed? This is why I'm really big on year end reviews so that I know what is their plan for the following year?" So right now, if you haven't done your year end reviews, that's fine. Make up a new reason and you can just say, "Hey, it's the beginning of the year. I'd love to just connect with you." [00:04:58] There you go. There's your reason. And you can always say, "Hey, listen, things are weird in the real estate market right now. Things might pick up and they might continue to get worse. So if they continue to get worse. Where are you? Are you decking cash? Are you ready to buy a bunch of things? Are you going to be trying to panic sell? Let's not do that." So that may be a separate conversation, but "where are you?" Because some of my investors, they were like, "Oh, it doesn't matter. I'm not really looking at picking anything up. I'm going to stay comfortable where I am." But some of my investors, they were like, "Sarah, I can't wait for this market to crash." [00:05:33] They were excited. They're like, as soon as things start to dip and really when things start to dip, when there's a hard dip, they're like, "I will call you and we will pick up as many properties as we can pick up." They will do anything. So they might've been stacking cash. They might've had access to capital. [00:05:52] They might've been able to take out a loan. They might've been able to pull equity from properties they already own to purchase new properties. People love a sale. So if you could pick up a property for 500 K, when typically it might be six or seven or nine, which investors that you work with already are super excited for a market crash. [00:06:13] And if you don't know this. Then you are missing out. Pick up the phone and have a conversation with your investors and the ones that are like, "I can't wait," those ones are the ones you call first if and when shit hits the fan.  [00:06:27] Jason: Okay, cool. So I think it'd be a really good piece of knowledge to have, if you aren't super familiar with all of your investors or clients situation to be very aware of which ones are ready to capitalize on opportunity. Which ones have a stockpile cash? Which ones are aware that they could pull money out of their existing properties? Maybe do a cash out refi one as soon as interest rates drop and get into more units, right? [00:06:53] Sarah: Even if not, I would do a cash out refi with an 8 percent interest rate, and I don't care because as soon as the interest rates dip, I'm going to refi that again. Okay. Don't care.  [00:07:01] Jason: Yeah. So we need to be aware, like, what do our clients have and what are their options that are available so that we can help them win if their goal is to do more investing and get more investments and they're thinking, "I have to wait till interest rates drop, like you just said, or I have to wait for this," or whatever it might be. And you can help them figure out how to get funding, or you can help them figure out how to price out a deal, or you've got other investors that are sitting on a bunch of cash that would be willing to go in with another owner on something, right? [00:07:29] So you need to be aware of these opportunities because you could be leveraging this. Even if in the downturn. Yeah.  [00:07:36] Sarah: So in the downturn, this is what we hear all the time. "Oh, but oh, real estate sucks. And tenants like they don't want to rent. And it's harder now." It is not harder in the downturn. If you think it's going to be harder in the downturn, you're right, and it will be harder. But if instead you just capitalize on the opportunity that lays just awaiting then that's where millions are made is in downturns So people that know that they get really excited when like the stock market crashes when the real estate market crashes in 2008 people lost millions of dollars And then there were people who made their millions because of what they did in 2008. [00:08:15] Jason: They were ready.  [00:08:16] Sarah: They were ready. They were like, " things are tanking. Let's get in." [00:08:20] Jason: The people that were ready probably made it happen. I'm just kidding. Conspiracy theory. All right. Be ready and talk to your clients and be ready because when there's crisis... so there's this principle that when there is chaos and crisis and everyone's freaking out and fear is contagious, right? [00:08:36] Fear is contagious. We saw it during the pandemic and it turned out to be not as crazy as we all thought it was right. But we were made to be super afraid. When there's crisis and when there's chaos, the one person that stands up in the local market to all the investors and says, "Hey, here's the plan. This doesn't have to be scary. We've got the roadmap. We know how to support you. We know what to do." In that moment, you instantly take ownership and leadership of the situation and everybody then trusts you even more because they don't know what to do. They don't have a plan. So they're scrambling. [00:09:07] You're like, "Hey, I've got the plan." You are a beacon of light in times of darkness, people. So that is a moment where you can now shine and stand out and get more clients. When owners are like, "man, I don't know if my tenants are going to pay rent." And you're like, "I'm a property manager. I can make sure people are paying rent." [00:09:24] They're like, "Oh, okay. I don't want to be the bad guy." Some people were stacking doors during the pandemic. And then there were some people like, "Oh, this is my excuse for why I lost a whole bunch of business and people freaked out and got out." So I think it's what you perceive it to be. And I think the goal we're talking about here is to perceive it to be an opportunity. [00:09:43] And if you go in with that mindset, how is this an opportunity? How can I make this an opportunity? You can be the select few that lead others towards success. And make a lot of money. All right. And related to this, before we wrap up, we'll keep this a short episode. This is going to be a large focus of DoorGrowLive. [00:10:02] We're going to be talking about... what's the theme?  [00:10:05] Sarah: Creating opportunity in times of uncertainty.  [00:10:08] Jason: That's good.  [00:10:08] Sarah: Or something very similar to that.  [00:10:10] Jason: Something like that. All right. And so we've mapped out over the two days a series of conversations, things to be taught that I think are going to help people really capitalize on growth to get you unstuck, to get you moving forward. [00:10:25] This will be a game changer for anybody that attends and we're really excited. Like we put some serious thought into this and there's some new stuff that we're going to be talking about there as well.  [00:10:35] Sarah: Somebody needed four and a half hours to map it out with me the other day.  [00:10:38] Jason: She's a little bit bent on spending the weekend doing work. [00:10:41] Sarah: So there was a lot that went into it and that was just the rough draft of the schedule.  [00:10:45] Jason: Hey, to be fair, you make me work on the weekends all the time too, so you know this is true. She was like, "we're watching these videos today and we're doing this thing, learning." [00:10:53] Sarah: we're learning too. Yeah.  [00:10:55] Jason: Yes. We mapped out something really cool and we're really excited about this. [00:10:59] So check out this at doorgrowlive.Com. We're going to be adding more and more details as it gets closer, but get your tickets. It's in may. It's going to be at Kalahari resort in round rock, Texas, which is just like a quick drive from downtown Austin, super cool area. And so this is going to be a lot of fun. [00:11:20] All right, then I think that's it for today. So until next time to our mutual growth. [00:11:25] you just listened to the #DoorGrowShow. We are building a community of the savviest property management entrepreneurs on the planet in the DoorGrowClub. Join your fellow DoorGrow Hackers at doorgrowclub.com. Listen, everyone is doing the same stuff. SEO, PPC, pay-per-lead content, social direct mail, and they still struggle to grow!  [00:11:52] 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've been listening to the #DoorGrowShow for a while, you're probably familiar with how DoorGrow helps property management business owners grow and scale their businesses, but you might not be ready to take the leap of faith just yet… In today's episode, property management growth experts Jason and Sarah Hull reveal a new way to get your feet wet and work with DoorGrow to create a personalized roadmap with a low-risk investment. Go to doorgrow.com/clarity for more details. You'll Learn [01:23] The creation of a new coaching strategy [07:43] 4 steps to creating a roadmap [14:57] The benefits of Planning and Discovery Tweetables “So if you want to grow or scale the business faster, understanding each of these strategies and stacking these is going to allow you to grow even faster” “The healthier your mindset, the faster you grow and the more money you make.” “You should be doing less of those things if those aren't the things that you actually like.” “I don't think you'll trust anybody else really to help you move your business forward.” Resources DoorGrow and Scale Mastermind DoorGrow Academy DoorGrow on YouTube DoorGrowClub DoorGrowLive TalkRoute Referral Link Transcript [00:00:00] Jason: If you want to grow or scale the business faster, understanding each of these strategies and stacking these is going to allow you to grow even faster because you're not wasting time with time wasters or tight kickers or doing the wrong thing So the more of these you stack, the healthier your mindset, the faster you grow  [00:00:20] 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. [00:00:58] 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. Now let's get into the show.  [00:01:20] All right. So we came up with this idea this last weekend. And this might be helpful for some listening, we used to sell websites. That used to be the main thing. And we used to be called OpenPotion way back in the day. [00:01:31] And over time I realized I spent a lot of time figuring out how to help these web designers figure out what they needed for their website and to really make it effective as a marketing tool, I had to ask a lot of questions and over time it turned into multiple sessions, like to map everything out. [00:01:49] And I realized the more time I spent with them, the higher the price I could charge. Like I was able to get people to buy more because I was able to showcase more value, help them understand. They realized, 'Oh there's a lot more of the website could do for me.' So it really created this ultimate win win, better than if I just sat down and said, "what do you want?" and just did whatever I was told. And you can go out and find a cheap web designer and just say, "give me a website." And they'll just go, "okay, what do you want?" And they'll just do whatever you tell them to do, but you're not an expert at this, right? Otherwise you would be building websites, maybe. [00:02:18] So I, it got to the point where I was telling them, "here's what we need to do, and here's how to do this." And now I was doing these multiple sessions and then I had somebody that wasn't a really great person eat up my time. I spent like probably six hours, maybe eight hours with this guy, like mapping everything out, getting the site map, homepage layout mapped out, like everything we were going to do together. And we had this plan. And then he's, "thanks so much. I'm going to have my team members in India build it." And I was like, "Oh," I was pretty upset. So Sarah and I were driving back on the way from Dallas with our friend, Roya, who's hanging out in the car and she's coming to hang out with us for a day. [00:02:55] And I was talking with Roya and she was asking about sales and I was explaining how I used to sell websites and what increased the close rate dramatically and added more value. And it was almost, Like I almost never didn't get the deal once I started doing this planning discovery, it was like I always close the deals. [00:03:13] Like everybody would want to work with me after I did that. And Sarah then had the question...  [00:03:18] Sarah: And he's like, "and I would close a ton of deals and it was really great. And I already knew exactly what they wanted and we had this good relationship. And he's and then I would close like a ton of deals. I would have a bunch of projects." And I said "okay, why don't we sell like that anymore then?" [00:03:32] Jason: Yeah, it was kind of like "I don't know. Selling a mastermind is a little bit different than doing the website, but we would just get people into the mastermind, but this would increase the close rate." [00:03:42] And the idea is you know, If they're going to be spending a bunch of money with you, they want to get their feet wet with you. They want to get to know you a little bit. And I've actually coached clients on this strategy of doing planning and discovery sessions in order to increase the close rate and to get more deals in property management. But we haven't been doing that. We haven't done that for a long time. And so I was like, "I don't know. Maybe we should do that." And you're like, "yeah, I think it'd be a good idea." So we then mapped it out while we were driving in the car. Here's what we could do for each session. [00:04:13] Here's why this would be such a great value. And we mapped it out. And so yesterday I had two calls with potential clients and they were small companies. So they were like, "Oh I've got maybe 30, maybe 50 units." And they're like, "I don't have the funds yet to join your mastermind." [00:04:31] And I said, "we came up with this thing this weekend. Let me tell you about it." And they were like, "yes! I want to do that" I closed both of them on it right then. And so we wanted to share that with the audience. If you are considering working with DoorGrow. And you want to experience the magic of coaching, we'll tell you about the benefits of this, but we came up with this planning and discovery process that gives you a lot of wins and it's super low risk and it's only a thousand bucks and it's pretty cool. [00:04:57] So let's talk about this. It's really low risk because you're going to get a lot of value. You'll easily make more than a thousand dollars back in your business from the ideas that you get from this even if you choose not to move forward with us into the mastermind. So it's worth several thousands of dollars. You'll get to know us and we'll get to know you. So this shows us if you'd be a good client, like if you do the homework, if you do the things we give you to do, and it'll allow you to see what it's like to work with us and if you're getting value and it's going to be really deep because this is like one on one with either Sarah or myself. And so I was talking with the team this morning and they were like, "how do we know whether to give one of these to Sarah or to Jason?" [00:05:37] Sarah: You'll definitely be on these with either Jason or myself. This won't be one of our other coaches. This will be one of the two gurus.  [00:05:45] Jason: So a lot of you listening, you're, you might be a little more familiar with me cause you've seen me on TikTok and I've been around for a while and you might not be as familiar with Sarah unless you've been listening to the podcast. [00:05:55] And she's an amazing bad ass. So what I told the team, we talked about how to sell Sarah this morning, which was interesting. So we were just like, how do I sell Sarah? I'm like "she's this amazing bad ass who had 260 units at the peak in her own property management business. They were C class properties that were difficult to deal with. She was able to manage them remotely with one part time person boots on the ground. And she had over 60 percent profit margin." [00:06:20] Sarah: 60 was bad.  [00:06:21] Jason: That was a bad month. Okay. She's flexing now. 70%?  [00:06:26] Sarah: Yeah. Like 70, 80.  [00:06:28] Jason: So this is what we would say. [00:06:30] And also we then talked about some of the results you've gotten clients. Like she's helped some of our clients cut their staffing costs in half from a single call. She's helped some replace some of our clients' entire team and increase their profitability dramatically. Like this sort of thing. [00:06:43] Sarah: I'm good at figuring out how things work and why are they working the way that they're working and how the different pieces fit together? And do we have too many pieces? Do we not have enough pieces? Are there the right people, but maybe they're doing the wrong things? I'm really good at figuring out all of that. [00:06:59] That's just how my brain works. I like to just figure out how things work. And I've done that in every business I've ever worked in. As like an employee and it's uncomfortable for them. It's uncomfortable because I'm like, "why are you doing things like this? You're doing it wrong." [00:07:14] Jason: Yeah. Business owners love their ego shattered by this pretty young lady in their business, I'm sure. [00:07:21] But yeah, you're hurting all these fragile egos. All right.  [00:07:24] Sarah: But clients pay me to do that.  [00:07:26] Jason: Clients pay you. So yeah. So anyway that's how we position Sarah. And so there might be some scenarios in which they might be better off, especially if their challenges are more on team, operations, stuff like this, then I told them like, " then you can sell Sarah to them on this, right?" [00:07:43] So let's talk about what would be included, like what we're going to do. Here's my little roadmap slide, but they can't see that, but we'll show it to you when you get on a call with us. And if you're interested in this, you can easily go book a call at doorgrow.Com. Or just instant message me or anybody on the team on any social and we'll get you on a call and we can tell you more about this or you can just get started by going to our website. [00:08:07] We should have a page up for this very soon. By the time you hear this, probably. And we're working on that this week. All right. Let's talk about the benefits of this. You're going to get clarity on yourself. You're going to get clarity on your business. You're going to get clarity on how to build the right team around you. [00:08:23] To some degree, we're going to help you free up a lot of time. We're going to get you time clarity because time is one of the biggest challenges our clients have. So this is something we coach on a lot. How to free up time. So you have more bandwidth to make more money or to do more of what you want to do. [00:08:39] We may be able to get into some financial stuff a bit to help you find some quick wins financially. And we're going to get you clarity on escaping that solopreneur sand trap or that team sand trap that you might be stuck in right now. And we're going to go over and teach you several powerful frameworks and we're going to apply them to you and to your business in a way that we just can't do by sharing these on a podcast. Like the six core functions, the five currencies, the four reasons, the five exits, and then we're going to get into stackable amplification strategy. So if you want to grow or scale the business faster, understanding each of these strategies and stacking these is going to allow you to grow even faster because you're not wasting time with time wasters or tight kickers or doing the wrong thing. So the more of these you stack, the healthier your mindset, the faster you grow and the more money you make. And so we're going to get into the blue ocean strategy versus the red water, the myth of SEO, the cycle of suck, the four D's to revenue. [00:09:38] That one really increases our clients closing better deals. Lighthouse versus the battleship. Which is prizing and sales. David versus Goliath, dumb David versus smart David. The fifth reason and why you shouldn't be selling property management and what people want instead, and then getting into all the pipeline leaks, we're going to help you. We're going to assess your business and identify the leaks that exist in your sales pipeline, or that exist in the systems in operations so that you have clarity on moving forward. So do you want to take them through the sessions?  [00:10:09] Sarah: Yeah, and I think it's important to know that we don't go over all of those on all of these that would be an immense amount of sessions an immense amount of times  [00:10:17] Jason: Yeah, but we'll go into what they need and what's relevant. [00:10:20] Sarah: So basically what we do is we go in and we have to first assess what your business is like. So on the first call, that's what we're doing. We're digging into your business. What does your day look like? What does your team look like? Do you have a team? Who's handling what? How many doors do you have? [00:10:35] Where are you located? What kind of management do you do? Are you only focusing on long term or are you dabbling in multiple types of management? We're really getting. Into a lot of the details of the business. And then we're also on the call, we're figuring out really, what would your goal be? [00:10:54] Is that what you enjoy doing? And if you could create the business of your dreams, what really would that look like?  [00:11:01] Jason: So yeah, we're going to assess the business. We're going to figure out what have you tried so far towards the things that the business has challenges with. [00:11:08] Thank you. But some of the assessment stuff that we'll do with you will give you a lot of clarity. And then you'll get some homework at the end of this. So we're going to get you started on some time stuff, homework wise, and some assessments for yourself, which leads us to session two.  [00:11:22] Sarah: Call number two. [00:11:23] So then we really dive into you. So we'll look at your time. We'll look at what you're doing and how much time you're spending on certain things. And are you enjoying the things that you're doing or do you feel like you're just spinning a lot of your day? And we'll look at some personality assessments as well so that we can help determine really the things that you actually enjoy doing. [00:11:46] And we'll look at how we can shift you into doing more of those things. And what personality type you may be, everyone has a different personality type and will enjoy doing different things in the business. And a lot of times when I get on calls with clients, I find that people are like, "Oh, I should be doing operations or I should be doing sales and I, like I should be doing this." [00:12:10] And then we start to try to get them closer to those things. And then we realize, no, you shouldn't be getting closer to those things. You should be doing less of those things if those aren't the things that you actually like. Just because you think you have to do them, don't do them if you don't actually like doing them. [00:12:26] So then we find out what they actually like, and then we shift them into doing more of the things that they actually enjoy doing. We've had multiple clients do that and then that changes their entire business.  [00:12:36] Jason: Yeah, this is a big secret to building a business that you actually enjoy being in, building the right team around you. [00:12:43] So getting clarity on yourself will be a big deal. And so we're going to help you understand your personality type a bit more because you're unique and we've got some self assessments that are going to help you figure some of this stuff out. But that clarity alone will help you make some changes in your business. [00:12:58] Doing the time stuff that we will also be assessing during this call, the time stuff that you've started doing. And this will help give you a lot of clarity on how to free up time, how to start to leverage whatever team members you might have more effectively, so that you're getting more yield from the dollars you're spending on staff and payroll. [00:13:14] That alone will probably pay for all of this. All right, then they're going to have some homework to complete some assessments and identify leaks in their pipeline and in their operations and systems, depending on which area they need, if they need growth more, or if they need more on process and ops. [00:13:31] And then that leads us to call number three, session three.  [00:13:35] So basically the third session, we're going to be focused on the systems of the business and identifying which leaks exist. So if the goal is growth, we're going to be getting you clarity on what are the systems and leaks that are a challenge in the growth side of things. [00:13:49] And if it's operations, we're going to be figuring out similarly, what are the leaks and the challenges there? And this will all be applied to our DoorGrow code roadmap and how we can help you scale and map out the future, but we'll be creating clarity around all the leaks that exist and discussing how to resolve them And giving you like your options for what we could be doing in the future and Your homework on this will be to get clear on what you want to get from your future with DoorGrow because that's what we're going to talk about in the next video Session four is coming up with the plan. [00:14:19] So first session: business, second session: you third session: systems, fourth session is the plan.  [00:14:25] Sarah: We give you a personalized roadmap, which is really great because now we have we really understand you and really understand where you are in the business and where you'd like to be. [00:14:33] So now we can give you a personalized roadmap that will get you closer to where you want to be and that roadmap will apply whether or not you continue on working with us. Yeah, so that is not something that it's like, "oh I only get this if I work with DoorGrow." No, you'll get it and you'll have it and you'll know What are the next steps that you need to take in your business regardless of whether you work with us. [00:14:54] Of course we want you to, but you don't have to. [00:14:56] Jason: So the benefit of going through this planning and discovery is one We will really get to know you and your business and how we can help you at a greater level of depth, which is awesome that we do a lot of this during the onboarding process, usually for our mastermind clients. [00:15:10] So we'll get to get very familiar and you'll be able to then know that I, at the end of this, I don't think you'll trust anybody else really to help you move your business forward because you'll be getting a lot of insight, ideas, knowledge, wisdom, and clarity, the most important thing, on how to move your business forward. [00:15:28] And we will paint a really nice future with DoorGrow of how we can support you and help you. And even if you don't decide to work with us, like Sarah's saying, and you just do this. You will walk away with more time, more clarity on your team, more clarity on yourself, and some ideas of how to move the business forward to get to the next level. [00:15:47] And I think at that point, though, you probably won't want to do it without us is our intention and goal. Like we know that we can support you in moving and going through this faster and helping you collapse time and it'll easily be worth the cost. And so you can go through this now here's the kicker where this gets even more awesome. If you do all this with us, it's a thousand bucks, you do these four sessions. And we take maybe a month or so to go through this, maybe less, but we're working together for a few weeks. At the end of this, on the fourth session and when we give you, "here's everything that you could be doing with us, and here's how we could get to the next level. And this is personalized to you." If you decide to continue moving forward with us, this thousand dollars will be applied towards the next thing with DoorGrow. So it's like the lowest risk thing ever. [00:16:34] And if you decide to walk away, you spend a thousand bucks and you've gotten easily more than a thousand dollars worth of value, but we'll apply the thousand dollars towards the setup or towards the in person events or whatever is coming next for you to join in on the mastermind. No brainer, right? [00:16:51] Super low risk, right? So we're that confident in what we can do and help you and how we can help you moving forward. So that's just the idea of our planning and discovery. So anything else we should say about this? [00:17:04] Sarah: I think that when we were creating this, just the one thing that I wanted to make sure is that it's really valuable as a standalone thing. [00:17:14] Yeah. You do not need to do anything else. It's not "Oh, Hey, at the end, like we're going to shove DoorGrow down your throat." We're not, it's going to be very valuable all on its own and in its own, right. Also, we wanted to make sure that the price point was really accessible to people because to get on a call with Jason or myself, our time is very valuable. [00:17:34] So we have made this at a hugely discounted rate. So like our normal rate is $1,000 an hour. So this is at a very accessible price point. And we wanted to make sure that we can do that because sometimes we talk with people and they hear everything. What we're all about and what we do and how much we can really help property managers. [00:17:54] And they're like, "oh my God, that's amazing. I just don't know if i'm ready for the mastermind yet, or I don't know if I can afford the mastermind. I don't know if I can make that move yet." And we wanted to be able to help more people and I think this is a really good way to do that.  [00:18:08] Jason: Yeah, I think just some of the things they'll go through with us and learn just in doing this will help them get to the point where they can then do the mastermind and have the funds to do it. [00:18:18] We'll help them collapse time and we'll help them figure out some ways to generate some more income as well. For those that are larger companies, this should be an easy no brainer. And we may not do this forever. We may not, this may be too costly in terms of time and energy for Sarah and I to do in the business while running DoorGrow with the hundreds of clients that we have. [00:18:40] But this is the offer and I think it's an awesome offer. And get in on it while you can. It's really cool. Personalized coaching with the two of us and we get to see inside hundreds of companies. We get to help them figure out how to grow and scale their businesses. And having that personalized time, you're going to get some value and you'll be able to ask questions and we'll be able to move forward. [00:19:00] Think that's basically it. So if you're interested in this, you can reach out to us at doorgrow.com or message us on social media and we can get you a link to get the call scheduled for your first session with us for this and get you the payment link so you can invest in yourself and invest in collapsing time and invest in moving your business forward with a coach. [00:19:19] Okay. Yeah. All right. All right. That's it.  [00:19:23] Yeah.  [00:19:23] All right. Until next time then to our mutual growth. Bye everyone. [00:19:26] 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!  [00:19:53] 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.

Property management entrepreneurs… how many hats are you currently wearing? It's easy for business owners to get stuck doing things they don't actually enjoy doing. Property management growth experts Jason and Sarah Hull talk about how to get out of the roles you don't enjoy and into the roles you do. You'll Learn [03:17] The myth of wanting to clone yourself [07:51] The pros of a great hiring system [13:46] Which hat do you take off first? [17:58] Next steps Tweetables “That you need 10 people to clone yourself as an entrepreneur.” “A generalist that's good at everything is never the best.” “For every role that exists, there's always a person to fill it who actually really love doing that role.” “If you have office politics, you've got a culture problem.” Resources DoorGrow and Scale Mastermind DoorGrow Academy DoorGrow on YouTube DoorGrowClub DoorGrowLive TalkRoute Referral Link Transcript [00:00:00] Sarah: For every role that exists, there's always a person to fill it who actually really love doing that role.  [00:00:09] Jason: Welcome DoorGrowers, 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 DoorGrower. DoorGrower 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 Hull and Sarah Hull, the owners of DoorGrow. [00:01:03] Now let's get into the show. All right, so we released a funny video. So if you have not seen any of our funny videos, we put out quite a few of these. We have a whole playlist of them on YouTube. You can go to youtube.com/doorgrow and go to our playlist and look for our playlist of funny videos. Our newest funny video that we released is all about hats. [00:01:28] It's got a whole bunch of hats and it's silly, and I'm putting on different hats, and so if you want to laugh at me. Go check that out. we thought we would talk about this idea today. So what's the idea?  [00:01:40] Sarah: So the idea is are you wearing too many hats, aka are you filling too many roles in your property management business?  [00:01:50] Jason: All right, so when you first start out, you have to wear every hat, right? [00:01:55] You do everything in the business because it's all on you. You're like, "Oh, let me send that over to my maintenance coordinator... who's me. And let me get that over to my bookkeeper... who is also me. And Oh, my receptionist will answer my calls for me today because that's me." What are some of the hats that property managers are wearing. [00:02:15] Sarah: There's so many of them. Let's see. There's maintenance coordinator, a leasing agent, there's usually the bookkeeper, whoever's going to handle finances, there's of course the CEO who's going to set the vision of the company, there's the operator who's going to do things on the backend, there's the salesperson or the BDM, there's usually like a property manager, there's sometimes assistant property managers... As companies grow, they sometimes get tenant coordinators or client coordinators like just to handle like tenant or client communications. But when you start out, like all of this is usually you. [00:02:55] Jason: One of the things that I hear a lot from early stage entrepreneurs, people that are just getting started is they're like, "I just need to clone myself. I just need to find somebody else. Just like me." And so this is the big mistake that everybody makes initially in hiring. It's everybody does it like we all go and try and find somebody like ourselves. [00:03:15] That's what we think hiring is. We think hiring is cloning ourselves. The challenge with that is that the clone myth, as I call it, the reality is that you need 10 people to clone yourself as an entrepreneur. You need a different person for each hat. [00:03:32] Because if you find somebody that is as adaptable as you and that can do everything like you and is driven like you, guess what they're going to do? They're going to do what you did and they're going to leave and go start their own company. I've seen this over and over again where people hire a clone and the clone does exactly what a clone would do. They become like you and they leave and sometimes take your clients and start their own business and become your competition. And so we don't want to fall prey to the clone myth. We want to find specialists that we can give pieces of what we do or hats to that are really good at that particular hat and a generalist that's good at everything is never the best. [00:04:17] You are not the best at every role. You probably think, "nobody else could do it as good as me." This is the other belief that early stage entrepreneurs say. "Nobody else can do it as well as me. I might as well do it myself." And that's a trap. It's a trap that keeps you doing everything forever. And if you believe that, then that means you will by default be comfortable getting crappy team members that are worse than you at these hats. [00:04:42] Because if you believe that you're the best and nobody else could be better than you, then you will go hire people and you will tolerate people that are worse than you at these particular roles. And then you'll be frustrated and I have a team of people that are better at their particular roles than I would be and this gives me a lot of confidence being able to let go of stuff. Like Sarah is way better at the details way better operations way better at putting things together. Like you've significantly improved the business and she's better at all of those things than I am and there's things that I'm better at than Sarah, but that allows me to stay in those areas I get to stay in those areas where I am better at those things than Sarah and then we have different team members Adam, and Mar, and they're all better at their particular tasks than I would be. [00:05:31] Sarah: Or I would be. Yeah.  [00:05:33] Absolutely. And that's what you want, is you want someone who is better at whatever this is than you are, especially if you don't enjoy it. So if you've got things in your business that you're holding on to and you think, "oh, I'll just never find somebody who loves maintenance coordination. Like who on the world would love to do that job because it's horrible?" Somebody will love it. [00:05:59] Somebody who likes details and organization and they like having a plan and a structure and a system. There are people who function that way and they really enjoy that. And it's so funny because Jason was like, "for every role that exists, there's always a person to fill it who actually really love doing that role." And it's true. It's really true.  [00:06:22] Jason: That's a good point because early stage entrepreneurs also believe that because they hate doing something like if you hate maintenance coordination, you're like, "man, if I never have to do another maintenance escalation or talk to a tenant again, I'd be so happy." [00:06:37] A lot of times entrepreneurs believe that means nobody else would like it either. It's really a self centered, self centric view to believe that the rest of the world are like you. They're not. Like one of my mentors would say, there are people out there that like changing bedpans, you know? [00:06:52] And I've said that to some people that were nurses or something like that. And they're like, "yeah, I do. I feel like I'm helping them."  [00:06:58] And I'm like, "that's great. I wouldn't want to do that.  [00:07:00] Sarah: Like Evelyn, she says, "I don't like the changing of the bedpans, but I do like that when I do that, I know that I'm helping somebody who can't do it for themselves." [00:07:07] Jason: Yeah. And so she's happy to do it.  [00:07:10] Sarah: You can't pay me enough money in this world to change a bedpan.  [00:07:13] Jason: There is not enough money in this entire universe. That's my sister in law. And yeah that's wild. And so I want everyone listening to believe that there are people out there that can do the things that are your minus signs. [00:07:26] You can find people that's their plus signs and they will do it better than you. If you believe there are people out there that can do it better than you, there's a lot of dinosaur bosses. This is how you know you're a dinosaur boss. If you're the person that just believes everybody in the younger generation is terrible and there's no good hires out there available and nobody wants to work, then guess what you're going to find and attract when you go onto your job search? [00:07:51] There are great people out there. And if you build a really good hiring process, you can find and attract them. But the great people don't want to work for a dinosaur boss, like somebody that just believes that 'if I pay you, you should just do it and you should just like it and just suck it up.' [00:08:06] Because that's not very inspiring and people have options nowadays. They don't have to stay at a job very long. They can go work elsewhere. And the way that we retain team members is we create a culture of people that all share the same vision, same mission to transform property management, business owners. [00:08:23] And because we hire specialists and hire people that are really dialed in personality wise for that particular role that we know they can be great at it. And because each of our team members are great, it creates this sense of mutual respect on the team. Everybody on our team likes each other. Yeah. And they respect each other. [00:08:42] And in our daily huddles, they're like celebrating each other and sharing, like pointing out how awesome different team members were because they can see that these team members are really good at the things they do and it's things they're not good at or wouldn't want to have to do.  [00:08:57] Sarah: Morgan just said, I think, when she came back from leave, I was catching up with her. And then she was on some coaching calls with clients and she shared part of it with me. And I just had this conversation with one of our clients, and she said, "everybody on our team. I love them. Like I really like these people. I work with them every day, but I really enjoy working with them." And she said, "if anybody on the team came to me with any task and said, 'Hey, like I could really use your help on this.'" She says, "I would do it in a heartbeat. I wouldn't even flinch. I would do it in a heartbeat and I would want to do it because I care about these people and I want to help them."  [00:09:34] Jason: And that's because we've created a culture initially entirely around what I want. Like I as the visionary gets to set the culture of the company and I created values and everything. [00:09:47] Now, when Sarah became an owner, we took a fresh look at them. And we revisit them and then I don't think we really changed much.  [00:09:55] Sarah: No, we didn't. I gave her an opportunity to have input, but... [00:09:59] would you, if I wasn't a value match, would you have brought me into the company? You wouldn't have hired me, but nevermind ownership of the company. You don't give ownership of a company to somebody that's like not a culture.  [00:10:10] Jason: If you weren't a value match, we probably wouldn't be married. And so this is the thing. There's a lot of couples in property management. I've noticed we get a lot of couple clients, husband and wife teams. [00:10:21] And it's very typical that the husband is more visionary, sales, wild, cowboy, entrepreneur and that the wife is like stable, crusher of all hopes and dreams, just kidding, grounded, practical, make sure everything works operator personality type. Yeah.  [00:10:38] Sarah: Sometimes we do see, they're like, "we're going to do this crazy big thing!" [00:10:41] And operators were like, "we can't afford that. Cool, but that sounds really insane. So what can we actually do and how can we actually make it happen?" So like we are the ones who make sure that things happen instead of just,  [00:10:57] Jason: yeah.  [00:10:57] Sarah: We're not the crusher of the dreams. [00:10:58] We're the dream makers.  [00:11:00] Jason: They're the dream. Yeah. They bring it into reality. The "maker-happeners". ,  [00:11:04] That's good. That's really good.  [00:11:05] Sarah: It's so good. Madi's going to laugh so hard when she's editing this. She's going to go, "that's not a word."  [00:11:10] Jason: Maker-happeners.  [00:11:11] Sarah: The word now, Madi.  [00:11:13] Jason: This is my Maker-happener. [00:11:15] And yeah, we've got this mutual respect that exists on the team, and if you don't like your team, be honest. If your team increases your pressure and noise, if they stress you out, if you are frustrated at your team members, you have the wrong team and it's your fault. You created it, you allowed it, and you kept these people because you probably thought that's just how business works or that's what's available.  [00:11:40] Sarah: Even if you're like, "Oh no, I like everybody," but does everybody like everybody else? Because if your team doesn't like each other, how quick do you think they're going to be to really jump in and help the other one? Because everybody needs help at some point. [00:11:52] Like deadlines come and things happen or whatever. Like summer happens and we're like, "Oh my God! I thought like I had more time on this and all these leases are due. Can somebody help me?" There is going to be a point in which someone on your team needs help from somebody else that doesn't usually do that thing. [00:12:07] And if they don't like each other, they're not going to help each other. They're going to go, "Oh yeah, look at Susie. She can't even do her own job."  [00:12:14] Jason: Yeah. If you have office politics, you've got a culture problem. If you've got you may have team members that secretly don't even like you and you may not know it, but you can tell. You can feel it. [00:12:25] Most employees probably here in the U. S., that standard American employee doesn't really like their job. They just want safety and certainty. They want stability. They're not there because it's giving them a sense of fulfillment, freedom, contribution, support. It's like the best thing and they love it. [00:12:41] So that means they're B players. A players are what we have on our team at DoorGrow. B players are what one of my mentors called hiders. Their secret goal if they were really honest would be to do as little work as possible, get paid as much as possible, and then they go and complain about you and live for the weekend. [00:13:02] And so if they love the weekend way more than they love their day-to-day, there's probably a problem. Like you want team members that are like, "man, I'm really excited. I love getting to do what I get to do." If I didn't have the role that I have or get to do what I get to do, I would feel probably lost, depressed, and bored out of my mind. [00:13:23] I love getting to do what I get to do. And my guess is that most of the people on my team would probably feel that same way. If they just had nothing to do. So I don't know, maybe there's some that would love to just not work ever a day in their life. I don't know. But for me, that would be crazy. [00:13:39] Sarah: Not anymore.  [00:13:40] Jason: So what else can we talk about related to getting rid of these hats? Because in the beginning they're wearing every hat. How did they decide which had to get off first?  [00:13:49] Sarah: What are the things that you like? Because those are the things you should keep. [00:13:54] And not just "Oh, that's annoying," or like "it's okay, but I don't love it." The things that you really don't like, the things where, like for me it was talking to tenants, that was what it was for me, and sales. I hated sales. I hated doing sales. I was really good at it, but I just, I hated it. Look at, the things that you do and the things that you like, you tend to get them done pretty quickly. Yeah, if you like going through emails. You're going to do that and there's going to be very little friction there. [00:14:23] No one's going to have to say "Oh, did you check your email?" But if you hate going through emails and you're like, "oh my god. Like why is email even a thing? I don't even know why we have to do this," You're going to procrastinate. Yeah. It's going to build up and you're probably not the right person to be doing it. [00:14:41] Jason: Yeah. If there's anything that's been on your to do list for more than a month, it's probably because you are not the person that should be doing it. That's a pretty big clue. One of the big mistakes I see people make when getting their initial hire is they try and find team members to wear multiple hats. [00:14:57] They're like, "I'm going to get an appointment setter slash assistant."  [00:15:02] Sarah: My favorite is, "my operator is also going to do sales for me."  [00:15:05] Jason: Oh yeah.  [00:15:06] Sarah: No, they're not.  [00:15:08] Jason: And why that's a problem is these are opposite personality types. If we're picking people that are two different personality types. If we're giving them a role that's two different personality types, then we are setting them up for some sort of failure. [00:15:21] And they're not going to really do well at the one that is not their personality type. And so we need to make sure we're not throwing multiple hats onto a person. We're trying to offload multiple hats that are different personality types. It's not going to work. We need specialists that are the right personality for the role. [00:15:39] So at DoorGrow, we are experts on matching the right personality types, knowing the personality types that you need for particular roles. There's a certain personality type for a BDM, for an operator, for a receptionist, for maintenance coordinator, property manager, leasing agent. [00:15:54] There's certain personality types that are good at these. And if you hire based on skill, you will miss the personality. And so hiring based on personality and based on culture are more important for the team and for the role. So usually the first person that we recommend in our DoorGrow code that most entrepreneurs get initially to get the most leverage would be an assistant. [00:16:19] Like maybe around 50 units, you should have your own assistant. But we've got clients that come to us with hundreds of doors and they still don't even have an assistant for themselves. They just keep hiring to take care of the business while not taking care of themselves. So they're not really taking hats off or giving up stuff. [00:16:35] They're just helping the business out. And so they end up more and more stressed the bigger the team gets. So a big piece of this is you need to make sure that you are taking care of yourself and the way we help our clients get clarity on themselves in clarity on what are their minus signs versus their plus signs, what they, what drains them versus what gives them energy is by doing a time study. [00:16:57] And this gives them a lot of clarity on how do I get to the next level? How do I offload the negative things so that I can spend more time in my area of genius and wearing the hats that I want to wear? And then we build out job descriptions and et cetera. So we have this whole process for taking entrepreneurs through to give them a lot of clarity. [00:17:14] Then later. Maybe around 200 plus the most important hire that you will ever make in the business will be to get an operator. If your spouse is already an operator, then you already have the most important person that you will ever bring into the business on your team, which is amazing and awesome. This person needs to be very intelligent. [00:17:34] They need to be sharp. They need to be driven to getting systems and processes dialed in. They want to see the business succeed. They handle all the details. They make everything work and they make sure that the team makes everything work. And this allows you to spend more time in the visionary role or in the sales role or whatever it is as a visionary entrepreneur that you really enjoy. [00:17:55] All right. Anything else related to hats?  [00:17:58] Sarah: So I think if you're listening to this and you're going, "yeah, but I'm still doing all this stuff and I would like to offload that, but I don't think I have the money to offload that," because this is what we hear next is, "yeah, that would be great, but I can't afford it. I can't afford to hire, two or three or eight people."  [00:18:18] Jason: So we have processes for this, but we have to back you out of the corner. You've painted yourself into, so first we do need to get you clarity on what you do enjoy and what would make you more money because it doesn't make sense to go get somebody if you could create more leverage, right? And so sometimes it's about creating more leverage related to time right now. So we have processes for helping you get even more done. Like one of my clients did a time study and recently and said that he had found that he was spending an hour after three o'clock, he was spending an hour to get things done that took him 10 minutes in the morning. [00:18:56] And so part of it is just clarity on your circadian rhythm, your time, like your energy, whether you're getting good enough sleep. So we worked on some hacks to increase his brain's bandwidth so that he could do more later in the day and get a lot more done. This may triple the output of what he can accomplish. [00:19:15] Then we have processes like daily planning time studies. We have these different things that help you get more yield from your day. We have a training called the priorities training. It talks about how Sarah was able to run her business with over 60 percent profit margin with only one part time person up to 260 units. [00:19:34] Which is crazy. They add units too.  [00:19:36] Yeah. C class properties. Yeah. In a rough area. Yeah. And she was able to reduce a lot of the communication, a lot of the friction and systematize the business so that it could run very efficiently. And so we train clients on how to do that. We get people come to us and they're like, "I'm burnt out at 50 units." [00:19:55] Sometimes they're like, "I'm stuck at a hundred units. Like I just can't handle anymore." And you can. There's ways of making this easier.  [00:20:04] Sarah: But you can't give nothing changes, right? So if everything stays the same, you're right. You can't, but you need to make some changes probably to yourself and in your business. [00:20:15] And then all of a sudden it will allow more space and you'll be able to add on more units.  [00:20:21] Jason: This is where good coaching comes in is we can help you get more yield from your day, create more bandwidth so that you can spend more time growing the business. We give you the strategies to grow. You make more money. [00:20:32] So a lot of times clients come to us in that scenario. I'm like, "let's create some space and then let's get you focusing on revenue generating stuff. Let's get you making a lot more money. And then let's make sure we hire what you actually need most. So you can spend more time making more money because then you're making smart, strategic moves when you hire. Instead of just hiring what the business needs, which can be really expensive if you make mistakes. And if you get any bad hires, we have a really great hiring system called DoorGrow hiring. One bad hire is going to cost you minimum 10 grand because you're going to spend probably at least three months on them of pay, there's a certain amount of money they're going to cost you and you're going to lose out on because they weren't generating revenue or helping to keep revenue. So there's a lot like bad hires are one of the most expensive and costly things you can do and it eats up your time, which is the most valuable resource in the business. [00:21:24] When you're onboarding and training somebody that's never going to be good at it. And so we can help with that as well, helping you get really good team members and collapse time on hiring. We've helped companies replace entire teams, cut their staffing costs in half like overnight, she does this stuff and and build out really good hiring systems and processes so that you can get people quickly and scale quickly as you're adding doors. [00:21:49] We have the stuff to help with all of that.  [00:21:51] Sarah: We do. Cool. If you're hearing this and you're like, "man, that would be really nice, then you should reach out. Contact us. Get on a call. Go to doorgrow.Com. You can see what we're all about, what we do. You can book a call. If you're like, "hey, this is for me and I'm ready to go right now," cool. [00:22:06] Sign up. Join our mastermind and you'll have some awesome coaches to support you.  [00:22:10] Jason: Yeah. Some of you listening are feeling really stressed out. Every business owner has been there. Some of you listening have felt really stuck. [00:22:19] It's just things aren't moving forward. You can't figure out why the marketing stuff isn't working. You're not really adding doors. You're not getting ahead. You're getting stressed. You're getting burnt out. You probably cannot see yourself doing this for five more years. And you need to reach out for help. [00:22:36] One of the most difficult things for entrepreneurs to do in especially early stage entrepreneurs is to humble ourselves. To be humble and to realize we could use some help and ask for help. We just we always think we can handle it all ourselves, like we've got it. "If I just watch enough youtube videos or try and get enough free stuff I can figure out." Or "if I just work hard enough I can save a dollar and do it myself or if I read enough books..." and so our goal at DoorGrow is to help you collapse time and make a lot more money. You can probably figure it all out, and I've seen people work really hard at doing this, but it will probably take you a decade to figure it all out. Whereas we could probably help you figure it out in a small fraction of the time. We've done it over and over again. So if you're feeling stuck or frustrated, reach out to us, let us help you make it make sense financially. We will help you justify the financial expense of working with us because really, a good coaching program should be making you money, not costing you money. [00:23:40] And if you do what we tell you to do, you will be making more money. Our program pays for itself. This is why we have probably the lowest churn rate in the entire industry. We keep clients because they're winning. [00:23:52] So reach out to us at DoorGrow. We would love to help you get going.  [00:23:55] Sarah: Be open, just be open to do things a little differently. [00:23:59] And if that's the case, if you are interested at all in having your company and your business and your life, just be better and different than this might be for you.  [00:24:11] Jason: The slowest path to growth is to do it all yourself or to think you can do it all yourself. That is it for today. So until next time to our mutual growth. Make sure you join our facebook group at doorgrowclub.Com. We have a bunch of free stuff in there and reach out to us at DoorGrow at doorgrow.Com We would love to help you grow your business. Bye everyone [00:24:30] 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!  [00:24:57] 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.

We all catch ourselves saying, “I just don't have enough time,” especially as a property management business owner.  In this episode of the #DoorGrowShow, property management growth experts Jason and Sarah Hull talk about the excuse of not having enough time and using time more effectively in property management. You'll Learn [01:25] The excuse of not having enough time [05:29] You can buy more time [10:08] Energy management vs. time management [13:23] Doing a time study [16:04] Don't fight your natural energy level Tweetables “It's not actually true to say we don't have time. What we're really saying is, ‘This is not a priority for me right now.'” “Time is a currency you can buy.” “You should not be trading your time for money. If you own a business.” “It's really about energy management, not time management when you're an entrepreneur.” Resources DoorGrow and Scale Mastermind DoorGrow Academy DoorGrow on YouTube DoorGrowClub DoorGrowLive TalkRoute Referral Link Transcript [00:00:00] Jason: It's really about energy management, not time management when you're an entrepreneur. It's about managing that currency of energy. And what I find is we have endless amounts of energy if we're doing the things that we love, that we enjoy doing.  [00:00:15] Welcome DoorGrowers, 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 DoorGrower. DoorGrower 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 Hull and Sarah Hull, the owners of DoorGrow. [00:01:09] Now let's get into the show. All right. So the topic we discussed last night about talking about on the podcast today is time.  [00:01:20] Time excuse. "I don't have enough time." [00:01:23] We hear this a lot. Every day. "I don't have time. I don't have time. I don't have enough time to do this." So we're talking about the time excuse and You know sometimes... we've got this amazing mastermind. Sometimes clients want to cancel. And we have a really low churn rate. We keep clients, so we're usually surprised when somebody wants to cancel. And when we find out and ask why, we got this from one of our mentors, but we now ask the question, "is this a time thing or a money thing?" Which has proven to be really effective because a lot of times it's just a time thing and time is easily solvable. [00:01:59] If it's a money thing, then that's easily solvable too. That's easily solvable too. Just a different route. That's all. So let's talk about time. I've got two clients right now actually that it was a time thing and they're still staying in the program and it's very easy to keep people in the program if it's just a time thing because they're always like, "Oh, we love the program. I just, I don't have time to do all this stuff right now." So what do we say about time?  [00:02:21] Sarah: So this is, I think the thing that I hear the most from property managers. Period. Just, especially in this business is, "Oh my God, I just don't have time for anything. Like I feel like I'm spending my whole day working," and we'll come across clients who are working anywhere from eight to 16 hours a day and that's normal for them. [00:02:45] Jason: Yeah. So it's our job to get them out of that. Yeah.  [00:02:49] Sarah: If you're working eight to 16 hours a day, I'm talking to you.  [00:02:53] Jason: So we have a training that we did once called the priorities training, and it was all about time really. But the reason we called it the priorities training is because saying, "I don't have time," is a very victim sort of phrase. [00:03:05] It's not actually true. You can't legitimately go to any other human being on the planet and say, "I don't have time" when we all are allotted the same number of hours in a day. We've all been given the same amount of currency each day. What's different though, it's not actually true to say we don't have time. [00:03:23] What we're really saying is "this is not a priority for me right now." Or our priorities are just off. So it's really more about priorities. The more honest answer is "I am not making time for this right now because I'm prioritizing something else." And so if you're the type of person that goes around saying, "I don't have time. I don't have time for this," then you are using victim language. This is not effective language if you want to actually be in control of your life. You recognize that you are the creator of your universe, your life, your world. Like you have choice, right? And to walk around saying, "I don't have time" is like putting on the blinders and saying, "the world just takes control of everything I have to do. I have no control of my life," right? You're not a slave. You're not a servant to somebody else. You have control and autonomy over your time. And so you're just making choices. And so the more honest answer would be not to say, "I don't have time," would be to say, "I'm choosing something else right now," right? [00:04:25] Be honest about that. If what you're spending, what you think you should be spending your time on is not really your priority, then maybe you're not really being honest with yourself. Maybe your priority is something else. Maybe your priority right now is family. Maybe your priority right now is another business. [00:04:39] We run into this with clients sometimes, their priority is their brokerage. And they're doing real estate deals. It's not the property management side.  [00:04:45] Sarah: And in the property management side, sometimes their focus is the property management side, but they're prioritizing all the wrong things. [00:04:53] Yeah. They're prioritizing all the little things that the day to day tactical work that has to be done. It has to be done by somebody, but it doesn't probably have to be done by you, right?  [00:05:05] Jason: So what I find is even the two clients that I'm coaching right now helping them get out of this time sort of constraint, they both have assistants, they have team members. [00:05:14] They have an assistant? Yeah, they have assistants. And so what's really funny is that when we say we don't have time and then we are paying other people for their time so that we can have more time, then we're missing something. We're not doing something effective.  [00:05:29] Sarah: Time is a currency you can buy. Yeah. So to say, "Oh I don't have enough time." You have the same amount of time that everybody else has. Some people are just more effective with their time than others, which is why they're able to do so much or do so much so quickly or be so successful. However, with time, that's the beauty of it is you can literally purchase more time. [00:05:50] You can purchase time of another human being. Yeah. To help move your business forward.  [00:05:54] Jason: So one of the concepts that I got from one of my mentors in the past, Alex Charfen, he shared this concept called the five currencies and the five currencies that you have to invest in your own life and in your business are time, energy, focus, cash, and effort. [00:06:11] Now, I believe the most important of those, the scarcest resource of all those is time. We're all going to die. Time is the most significant currency. Time is the most significant currency. It's the most limited. We can do a lot of things to try and have more time and live life a little longer. [00:06:31] But time is a limited currency. The other ones. We can maximize, but we can't generally do a whole lot to maximize time. We can do a lot to shorten it. So we buy time, right? What's crazy to me though, is that when people start working, they don't have a lot, right? When people start into the workforce, the one thing they can sell though is pieces of their life. [00:06:54] They can sell time. So it's pretty wild that I can go out into the marketplace. And I can buy people's time. Like they will pay, like I can give them money and they will give me chunks of their life. They're like, "here you go." As a business owner, we want to get out of the trap of being paid for our time. [00:07:12] We don't want to be paid an hourly wage or being taking care of like hourly. We want to get out of the time trap.  [00:07:20] Sarah: You should not be trading your time for money. If you own a business.  [00:07:24] Jason: Smart business owners are buying people's time with money and not giving their time for money. And so we want to shift that as a business owner and property management is a great business model for that. You can create a lot of leverage. You can build up a lot of doors in your portfolio, and it's not about time. It's not about, Oh I have this many hours. It's all me, right? You can systematize the business. You can get other people to do things for you. [00:07:45] And so we want to. I want to make sure that we make time something enjoyable. And so we've talked about the four reasons before, but we want to make sure you have more fulfillment in the time that you're spending, that you have more freedom, more a sense of autonomy, more a sense of contribution and more support from your team, right? [00:08:06] The four reasons. And then there's a fifth reason of safety and certainty. So we want to get more and more of those as the business progresses and as we grow in the business and as we grow in entrepreneurship. But a lot of business owners end up with less and less time, less and less fulfillment, less and less freedom, less and less of a sense of like of contribution. [00:08:27] And they then burn themselves out even as they build a team. So we want to make sure that we don't do. But what are some of the time excuses or time challenges and then maybe we can talk about how we deal with those briefly and how to get  [00:08:41] Sarah: out of it. I think what's probably. Because there's a gazillion excuses you can come up with, right? [00:08:47] Leases take forever or tenants always call me or what, whatever it is. And every in, in every business, there's always going to be an infinite number of things that can just eat up all of your time. That's how it works in every business. This is how it works. What we need to do though, is really figure out what are the things that I actually enjoy doing and how can I do more of those things? [00:09:08] And then the things that I really hate doing, how can I do less of those things? So how would the time that I have, and if I'm willing to invest, because every minute that you put into your business is an investment. So if you're willing to invest eight hours a day in your business, and if you're working for someone else, it just means you're investing eight hours a day into their business, right? [00:09:31] So you might as well invest in your own. So if you're investing eight hours a day into your business, what can I do in those eight hours a day to really make a difference? And what? In those eight hours a day, can I do that's going to make me happy? Because if you're spending eight hours a day and you hate every minute of it and you're going, "oh my god Is it five o'clock yet? Like I can't wait for this to be over. Is it the weekend yet? Because I can't wait for that to be done," Then you're probably doing the wrong things in your business, and you need to be able to purchase somebody else's time to offload those things that somebody else would actually enjoy doing  [00:10:08] Jason: So it's really about energy management, not time management when you're an entrepreneur. [00:10:13] It's about managing that currency of energy. And what I find is we have endless amounts of energy if we're doing the things that we love, that we enjoy doing. It like gives us energy. Those are our plus signs energetically.  [00:10:26] Sarah: If you're charging our batteries at a party and they just go. The party is done and they're still gabbing away and they're like handing out, whatever and they're like, "oh, let me get your number Oh, let me hook up with you and let me like get-" It's like "guys, wrap up." But there's like that one person who's still going and it's like you have to kick him You're like I don't care where you go. Just don't go here anymore. Go take this elsewhere That's because they really enjoy that. They're like in their element. They're like, "I love talking to people. I love connecting with people. I love networking. I love this. They can do it all day long." Me, I can't do that because I'm much more of an introvert. [00:11:04] So the things that you really enjoy truly will energize you. And you'll find them fun and you want to do them instead of just constantly checking the clock. "What time is it now? How long? Oh, geez. How many more calls do I have to do? Oh, I have to do two hours of calls a day. Ah, crap. All right. Like maybe I can dial real slow."  [00:11:20] Jason: Yeah. And so I think one of the mistakes we make early in the early stages and entrepreneurs, we assume that we need to find people like ourselves. Or we just do because we like ourselves to some degree. But we want to find people that their plus signs are our minus signs, right? [00:11:37] That's where they're a match for us, right? So there are a lot of things that Sarah enjoys that I do not enjoy. He would not. And there's definitely things that are the reverse. right? And you want to find and build a team of people that basically are happy and enjoy your minus signs and are not like you. [00:11:58] Instead of making the assumption, "this sucks, and now I got to find somebody to give this sucky thing to, because I hate maintenance coordination. And now I got to find somebody else that's going to hate it." When you make those assumptions, then you sometimes attract people that are like you and that hate it. But you need to find people that's their plus sign. So we can keep everybody in your team in their plus signs. And if you're not in your plus signs, your team members definitely aren't. It's just really rare that you'll have a business owner that's absolutely miserable, they are holding onto all these hats and things they don't enjoy wearing... so we got to make sure that we move the things off our plate onto people's plates that enjoy it, but you cannot build the right team for you around the wrong person. [00:12:38] You have to be showing up as the right person. You have to constantly be moving towards your plus signs. So how do we get you out of all the minus signs and focus on the plus signs? So these two clients, I've got them doing a two week time study right now. And this is the foundation. [00:12:51] This is the foundation of getting clarity on what things do I enjoy and don't I enjoy because sometimes as entrepreneurs, we just tolerate a lot. It becomes white noise. We just do what we feel like we're supposed to do. " I'm the boss. I have to do sales or I'm the boss. I have to do the accounting" and there's really nothing you have to be doing in the business. [00:13:09] Sarah: And just because you can do it doesn't mean you enjoy doing it. So can you fill all the roles in your business? Yeah. Because at some point it was just you. So of course you can do it, but it doesn't mean that you like doing it.  [00:13:23] Jason: So they're doing their time studies and they got to do it for two weeks because the first week they learn a lot of things. [00:13:27] Like we found three major problems in my coaching call with one of the clients that's been doing his time study already for a week, three major time problems. Like one was he was spending an hour to do something after three o'clock. It was taking him an hour to do something that takes him 10 minutes to do in the morning, right? [00:13:44] So we talked about. His time and how he's becoming less effective at the end of the day because his brain chemicals aren't properly functioning. And then it related to sleep. And so then we were like, "okay, we've got to figure out some hacks for sleep. How do we get the circadian rhythm?" Because he believed his rhythm was messed up because of like working nights previously for a long time. So he had this belief that he was on a schedule. I'm like, "okay we can get your body on a different schedule and affect the circadian rhythm by using light, sunlight in the morning and stuff like this" and some other hacks. So we got into that and that he had two other major issues and he wasn't leveraging his assistant properly. He wasn't doing daily planning. And these are super easy things to install to create a lot more productivity and a lot more space and to actually leverage the team members that this particular client has. [00:14:34] And so the second week of his time study is going to look very different than the first week. Now, the other mistake we make when it comes to time is our team members will say, "I don't have any more time. So when your team members say that, what I find is it's also still a lie, right? And so usually, I'll have my team members do a time study to prove it. [00:14:53] And usually the first time study that a team member does, they magically have 30 percent more time available. Almost always. So it usually takes about two or three time studies before they legitimately need an assistant or some support or you need to hire or get some help or advice, get some software or whatever. [00:15:11] But after you do a time study, a lot of clarity comes out. You're like, "why are you spending four hours doing this?" " This happens and it does this." And you're like, "cool, let's solve that problem." So you'll be able to use your creativity and your innovative mind as to solve problems time wise for your team members. [00:15:27] And this allows you to get a lot more yield from your existing team, rather than just assuming because they're busy that they are productive and they are doing everything that you need them to do and that you need to go hire more people because then you artificially are building out a much more expensive team than you actually need. [00:15:47] It's not based on proof or reality and the evidence or proof that you need an assistant and what you should have your assistant do. And that eventually that. Assistant or team member needs their own assistant is all should be based on time studies should be based on looking at time  [00:16:04] Sarah: You brought up something you touched on it really quickly that I've taught on this on the scale call I think a few times is figuring out what your energy levels are like and don't try to fight your body like literally every body is different. [00:16:19] So some people they're morning people like this one. Some people are not like me. So if you feel really energized in the morning, then utilize that time. And use that time when you feel fresh, when you feel energized, when you feel like, "Hey, I'm like, good to go," use that time to do the most, either the most difficult thing or the thing that's going to take the most amount of brain power. [00:16:46] Or if you're doing something like sales and you feel like you're in your element, do it then. And if you're more like me where I'm more effective in the afternoon, then. Shift those things to the afternoon. But a lot of times people, they go, "Oh, I have to do this. And it's like sales secrets will say that the morning is the best time to do this, so I must do this in the morning." If you're trying to fight with your own body and your own rhythm and how you're feeling, if you're trying to do sales calls and you have low energy and you feel like "I just, I don't want to do this. I feel like I'm either not ready for the day or I'm done for the day." [00:17:24] You're probably doing it at the wrong time. So the tasks that are going to take a lot of brain power. Don't try to force yourself to do them when you have really low energy levels because it will take a lot longer and you're probably going to make a lot of mistakes, whereas otherwise you can just fly through it. [00:17:41] Maybe you know that at least like the back of your hand, it's no problem. But if your energy levels are low or if you're feeling off, then you have to maybe double or triple check some things.  [00:17:51] Jason: You bring up a really good point. These two clients that I'm coaching, we talked about daily planning. [00:17:57] So daily planning is a great way to get more juice from your day and set the intention, but daily planning. I'd like to do the daily planning in the morning because that's when I'm freshest, I have the best ideas. I can think through things. But for some they probably should be doing it in the evening because like they can't go to bed without unloading their brain. [00:18:18] I can just shut down. I just go to sleep. I don't worry about a thing. I can just go to bed. I'm like, it's bedtime. But for a lot of my clients, a lot of other people, maybe you listening, you might not be able to do that. So you might be like, "man, I just keep thinking about all the stuff." And until you get that stuff out of your head and it's on paper where it's safe. [00:18:36] They say the Chinese proverb is the palest ink is stronger than the best memory. When we get it out of our head, it reduces our anxiety and we no longer have to worry that we're going to lose that thing. So I use the notes app on my phone. I put notes all over the place. I just get things out of my head. [00:18:52] So daily planning is a great process to unload everything out of your head. So that you can go to bed and get some good rest. And so for one of the clients, that was what I advised. Do your daily planning in the evenings so that you can go to sleep, get good sleep and wake up in the morning and you already have a plan and you're ready to attack the day. [00:19:10] And then you will know how to leverage your assistant. You'll know how to leverage your team members because you made a plan. And the next step in getting a big to do list is to give it to your team members. So if you have two, three team members, like this client did, then they can give these to their team members, anything that they can so it's not sitting on their plate, eating up headspace and stressing them out, and taking up their day and so then they're able to give up some of that time chunk to somebody else to eat. So cool All right. Anything else we should say about time or this time? Excuse and how to kill these time excuses so that they should be focused on?  [00:19:46] One of the things I ask the clients I'm like, "cool if we create this space if we you are able to give more to your assistants and you free up your time and you've got more time... what are you going to use that time for? How are you going to allocate that? What are you going to do that's going to make the business more money or move you forward or make your life better?" And so I think that's the other thing is we need to have a plan for what are we going to do with our time because we have no incentive to create more space or create more bandwidth or create more time if it's just going to mean we're going to be more miserable, right? So we need to figure out what are we going to use this extra time for? It's just like making money. You need a goal. Like "I'm going to go buy this nice car if I make more money." So it's going to motivate me. You need some sort of motivation. What am I going to do with this extra time? If you enjoy doing sales or growing the business or business development, that might be a really great place to invest that time because then it's going to make you more money and which you can use to buy more freedom. Maybe it's to get a BDM because you don't like doing sales, something like that. [00:20:43] Sarah: So once you free up your time, then you have offloaded a lot of the things you hate, you have some extra time, and now you can decide "what do I actually want to do with that time?" Because if you don't wake up in the morning and go, "what do I want to do with my day today?" Then you may have a time problem. [00:21:00] Jason: All right. So for those of you listening, if you're like, "man, I'm really been in this time trap. Like I've been stuck doing the same default future for the last two or three years. Every January comes around, I'm like, 'I've got big goals.'" And you still are miserable, you're still wearing all the same hats, you haven't really made progress in adding doors. Then it's time to admit you may need some good advice. You may need some extra ideas. You may need some knowledge outside of yourself. And the slowest way to grow your business is to do it all by yourself. It's time to reach out and get some help and we can help you collapse time significantly and that's what it's all about. [00:21:42] That's what coaching is all about is collapsing time, helping you find ways to just shorten the time of learning, the time of making mistakes to learn, the time of figuring things out, like what actually works, what gets results, what helps you outdoors quickly, how do we lower costs? So we want to help you figure that out. [00:22:00] So reach out to us at DoorGrow and go to DoorGrow.com. Until next time, everybody to our mutual growth, bye everyone. [00:22:07] 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!  [00:22:33] At DoorGrow, we solve your biggest challenge: getting deals and growing your business. Find out more at doorgrow.com. Find any show notes or links from today's episode on our blog doorgrow.com, and to get notified of future events and news subscribe to our newsletter at doorgrow.com/subscribe. Until next time, take what you learn and start DoorGrow Hacking your business and your life.

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.

The property management industry tends to get busier during the Summer months and slow down as the holiday season begins. The colder months are the perfect time for property management entrepreneurs to work on their business instead of in it. In this episode, property management growth experts Jason and Sarah Hull discuss how utilizing strategic planning strategies can start your year off right. You'll Learn [01:22] Utilizing the beginning of the year [05:11] Making a plan “to escape property management hell” [11:12] Strategic time helps you grow the business [17:42] Using this time to maintain relationships  Tweetables “Strategic time is what actually grows businesses.” “As the world cools down, you should heat up.” “If you lay the right foundation and you get really prepared during these cooler months, you can have an amazing growth season during this coming summer.” “There's nothing in the business that you have to do personally.” Resources DoorGrow and Scale Mastermind DoorGrow Academy DoorGrow on YouTube DoorGrowClub DoorGrowLive TalkRoute Referral Link Transcript [00:00:00] Jason: If you lay the right foundation and you get really prepared during these cooler months, you can have an amazing growth season during this coming summer.   [00:00:11] Welcome DoorGrowers 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 DoorGrower. [00:00:28] DoorGrower 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. We are your hosts, property management, growth experts, Jason Hull, the founder and CEO of DoorGrow and Sarah Hull, the co owner and COO of DoorGrow. Now let's get into the show.  [00:01:15] All right. So we were talking beforehand, "what should we talk about on today's podcast episode?" And what did we decide?  [00:01:22] Sarah: We decided to talk about the beginning of the year. And getting a plan together.  [00:01:28] Jason: Okay. So I've noticed over time doing this for over a decade, helping and supporting property managers, that property management ebbs and flows. It obviously heats up in the summer. You can even see this on Google trends. It's funny. If you look at the history for property management as a keyword, every summer it spikes, and then it cools down in the winter, right? In search volume, even though it hasn't grown really over the last decade. [00:01:54] And so what tends to happen is property managers, business owners, they get really busy during the summer, things heat up, things feel a little bit crazy, and then it cools down, and things get quiet, a little bit quiet. And what I've noticed is then the business owners start focusing on their business. [00:02:11] Then what happens is some holidays come, they've got Thanksgiving, they've got Christmas, and they start to get a little stir crazy... new years. And what I find is when business owners have idle time on their hands... what do you think they start doing? They start working on their businesses, right?  [00:02:31] All of you crazy entrepreneurs. That's what you start doing. You're like, "I'm going to entrepreneur some more." So you start working on your business even more. And so this is the time, this is the season. It's November 28th at the time we're recording this. And so we just had Thanksgiving and now we're going into these cooler months and there's going to be a slow down, less attention on, the property management stuff for a lot of you. [00:02:57] And that means you can be a business owner and you can start focusing on your business. Use this time. This is the season. This is the time for you to sharpen the ax, to make the business better, to improve things so that you can tackle and grow in the summer. Summer's the greatest time to be able to expand and grow your property management business. [00:03:20] There's a lot more turnover. A lot of owners are looking for additional help. They're not wanting to do this stuff. And if you are prepared, if you lay the right foundation and you get really prepared during these cooler months, you can have an amazing growth season during this coming summer.  [00:03:37] Sarah: So this is a really good time when things are slow and quiet and calm, this is a great time to start a new project. Summer not so much. Don't be switching team members, if you can help it. Don't be changing the business. Don't be implementing new systems or "Hey, I'm going to change my property management software." July is not a great time for that right now is a really great time for things like that. The projects that would rock the boat, as I call it in your business, this is a perfect time to do stuff like that. [00:04:11] Jason: So let's talk a little bit about planning, coming up with a plan. Because if you don't have a plan to succeed and you don't have a system that's going to work for you, then you might blow this season and waste it. And you're not going to have the growth or you're not going to get out of the day to day stuff that you've been holding onto for the last year and the year before that. [00:04:35] And so the goal of a business, to remind you, is to give you more freedom. It's to give you more fulfillment. It's to give you a sense of contribution. It's to give you what you want and money helps with all those things, but you can make more money and have less of what I call the four reasons of fulfillment, freedom, contribution, and support. You should be feeling more supported in your business the bigger it gets. You should be feeling more of a sense of making a difference and contributing to others. You should feel more of these things. If you're feeling less of these things and it's becoming a grind and you're getting burnt out, you're doing it wrong. [00:05:11] And so how do we make a plan to escape property management hell?  [00:05:15] Sarah: The million dollar question, right? I think one of the things that we do really well is, this is all part of DoorGrow OS, which is our operating system. If you are interested in implementing that system, you do have access to it, whether you're a mastermind client or not. You can see all of our softwares that we offer on our website. [00:05:33] But the thing that really helps keep us on track is just our cadence. So we do our annual planning. We do quarterly planning. We do monthly planning. We do weekly commitments. And we do this all the time without fail. There's never a point where we're like, "Oh we just won't do weekly planning today." [00:05:50] Never. We never do that. We always fit it in and this will help keep us moving forward. It will help keep us on track and it really sets the rhythm. And I will caution you against doing annual planning in January. Jason can talk a little bit more about that too. But if you just go into the new year, a lot of times, like this is just a fresh slate for us mentally because it starts a new, right? New Year's Eve. It's a new year. It's a new time. We're like, "okay, let's just forget about the previous year and move on." It's a clean slate mentally. So even if you're in the middle, like for us, this is technically the middle of our year. So January 1 is like quarter three for us. [00:06:36] So it's like the second half of the year, but still it's like this mental refresh. So even though we've already done our annual planning in June and we're now just in the second half of the same year fiscally we still get that reset and we might go, "okay, let's just take a break, take a breath, regroup, and then let's look at things again" and you know, "are we on track? Is there anything that we need to do differently? Are there things that we're lacking? Are there things that we can change?" Because right now, being that it's a slow season. Now oddly enough, it's not a slow season for us. Because when you guys have a slow season, then we pick up a lot. But for you guys, it's a great time to regroup and say, "okay, is there anything that we need to change that has been like a thorn in my side for a while? Let's get a plan together, implement that plan and get it done now and really start that year off with a bang." Cool. So why would someone not want to do their annual planning starting in December because everyone's going, "what? Like that makes so much sense. It's the beginning of the year."  [00:07:47] Jason: Yeah, I think, the biggest reason is, during this season where entrepreneurs like to focus more on their business, your team focus less on the business because it's the end of the year. They're focused on holidays and family. They're thinking about like travel and like whether they're going to have funds to pay for all the Christmas gifts and all the shopping they've got to do. It's like they start another job. And so they've started this other job of family and travel and holidays and they're not as productive a lot of times we're not as effective or as efficient. And this then is where most businesses do their annual planning and try to hit their year end goals. And at the year end, we want to have a big push towards our goals. Property management naturally heats up, but in general this ebb and flow happens for every business. [00:08:42] Things tend to cool down in the winter. And so what we want to do, what we do at DoorGrow and what we coach our clients to do is to offset by six months. And so we start our planning year on July 1st. And so that is the beginning of our first quarter for us in our planning year. And so if we do planning then in the summer, things are exciting. [00:09:07] There's like plenty of movement. We can do things, we can get things done. The team is energized. The team's energized instead of checked out. They've got plenty of bandwidth. There's no like significant holidays, like right in the middle of, June and July that they're focused on. They might want to take some vacation time or like travel or something like this, but they've got the bandwidth. [00:09:28] When it comes to Christmas and the holidays and thanksgiving and New Year's and all of this time period for us is just the middle of the year. So it's just a great time for us to as business owners to do a reset, take a look, "how are we doing towards our annual goals?" [00:09:44] Are we making progress? What do we need to adjust? And so we're just making adjustments. We're not trying to like, get the team to finally hit some goal at the end of the year.  [00:09:54] Sarah: "Hurry up! We still need 28 doors to get our goal, and we only have 32 days to do it." The team is like, "I don't care, man" At this point. It's not that they're completely done, but they're tired. [00:10:08] And the other thing that we have unfortunately, no control over is the weather. That's a real thing. Like once the weather changes and things get a little colder and the days get shorter because for whatever reason we still do daylight savings time. Somebody seriously has to change that by the way, but it really has a physical effect on our bodies and we will just naturally start to slow down a little bit with the weather. [00:10:36] Like animals, they go into hibernation. We're mammals too. This is what mentally we start doing that a little bit. Now, It'd be great if we could just check out and hang out in a den for three months and come out in springtime But our minds do this especially right around the holidays because we kick it off with Thanksgiving, then we get into Christmas, then we get into New Year's, the weather's cold, the days are shorter, It's the end of the year. Everyone's tired This is not a great time of year to be like, "rally the troops guys! Go get them!" Not going to have great success there.  [00:11:12] Jason: Yeah. And this is a good opportunity, when things cool down and your team are a little bit more focused on their personal lives and things are shifting, this gives you a lot of space and a lot of bandwidth to really focus on what you want. [00:11:26] And so I would say is that as the world cools down, you should heat up. Like you should then step more into that strategic role of being a business owner instead of being an employee in your own business, which you're doing at least half the time, probably, or more. Now you can get out of that daily tactical stuff a little bit more and start to focus on strategic. Strategic time is what actually grows businesses. Tactical work, emailing, calling, that's not really what grows or moves companies forward. It just keeps them alive. But what helps is innovating, moving the business forward, planning, scheming. This is your time to be able to come up with a plan, come up with an idea. And if you don't have a really solid plan, you don't know how to 10X your growth over the previous year. [00:12:14] Like you're like, "that sounds impossible, Jason. I don't have a clue. Like the last year before that, we've had maybe consistent growth. Maybe it's even slowing down. We don't know how to 10x it." Then you need a better system and you don't know what you don't know. So you might want to reach out to us and maybe it's that you just want to get out of the day to day. You're like, you're really starting to feel burnt out. Look at the future. Can you do this for another five years? Can you do this last year for another five years? You may have been doing this for five years already.  [00:12:44] Sarah: Can we do groundhogs day again and again?  [00:12:47] Jason: Yeah, and You know that probably feels like a grind if you're not enjoying if you didn't enjoy last year, if you weren't like, "hey I love this. This is amazing," Then you're probably doing it wrong and it's pretty wild to see how quickly we can shift clients' businesses to restructure their business around them and allow them to have more freedom and more fulfillment and more contribution and more support and help them get a better team, help them get better systems, and then they're enjoying their life. [00:13:17] There's nothing in the business that you have to do personally. There's nothing that you have to hold on to. We can build this business around you and you just hold on to the pieces that you really enjoy or that you really love, or they give you momentum. And very few of you really, if you could just do nothing would really enjoy that. [00:13:36] You might be telling yourself that right now, because you're burnt out, but what I find is once clients are in alignment with the things that they actually enjoy doing, then they no longer hate their business and they start to enjoy it and it becomes a source of life for them. That's fulfillment. And that's what freedom feels like. [00:13:56] And then they want to benefit others, and that's contribution. They want to start contributing to their team. They want to make everybody's life better. And what you'll find is if you get in proper alignment, then you can build the right team around you, but you can't build the right team around the wrong person, and you've probably been showing up as the wrong person for a while now. [00:14:16] And it's time to shift that, and it's very doable. We have a process for how to do this. We have clients do a time study. We figure out which things energize and drain them. We then take all the things that drain them that are very tactical, and we create new job descriptions for new hires for this, or we give these things to existing team members. [00:14:35] And then we create a plan to get the business moving forward, either related to growth or related to systems, so that the business becomes scalable. And then, You start to see there's light at the end of the tunnel and business can become really fun. It was fun when you started it. It was exciting. It was new. [00:14:53] You had belief in what you were doing. We want to get you back to that.  [00:14:57] Sarah: Yeah, for sure. So if you're feeling the stress and the overwhelm, then you're holding on to things that you probably shouldn't be doing at this point. We have one client who just, he still won't do it. He knows what he needs to do, but it's so painful for him to do. And he's "I can't fire my team. Can't do it." When he does make that leap, I'm telling you, it's going to be night and day for him. But when you have the right things on your plate and when you have the right people surrounding you in the business, and they're on board with helping you like move the business's mission forward, not just "Hey, I'm clocking in and I'm here to do a job." [00:15:35] Everything is different and everything is easy, which is crazy to think in property management that it can actually be easy, but it can, as long as you're building things the right way.  [00:15:46] Jason: Yeah. A lot of property managers see the pain and the challenge that they have right now. And maybe you have a hundred doors and you're like, "this is tough." [00:15:53] Or maybe you have 200 doors, like, "this is tough." And so what ends up happening in the back of their mind, they see "if I had another 100 doors or another 200, or I doubled the size of my business, it would be worse. It would be harder." But if you do it the right way, it actually gets a lot easier. [00:16:10] In fact, the bigger you get, the easier it can get if you do it the right way. Because you can get better and better team members. You have more resources. You can get better and better tools, right? You have more and more leverage if you do it the right way. And property management can be death by a thousand cuts, especially if you have a thousand doors, or it can be a really great systemizable business that you don't have to be super involved in the day to day, if you're the business owner, especially the larger you get. [00:16:40] And this can happen at any stage. At any stage, you can be miserable or you can be enjoying yourself. And we want to make sure that we get you towards enjoying yourself, because what you'll find is when you are in alignment with the four reasons, your team members then have a chance of doing it, and it'll be a lot easier to help them get in alignment with the four reasons. [00:16:59] And then you'll probably get two to three times the output from those team members. Because they'll be on fire, they'll be excited, they'll be in momentum, they'll have a sense of fulfillment and freedom and contribution and they'll feel supported. And you will get a lot more out of those team members than you do out of the ones that are just grinding every day. [00:17:20] So right now is the time, it's time to make a plan. And if you need some help making a plan or you need a really good system or your current plan is to do whatever you did last year or just wing it, then that's not a great plan. So you need a better plan and we can help you come up with a better plan here at DoorGrow. [00:17:38] So anything else we should say about this season? I don't think so. So I think this is also an opportunity to check in with your owners, reconnect with your clients as you move through this season, since things have cooled down a bit, this is a time that you can re establish the connection and in those relationships to increase the lifetime value of your clientele and to decrease churn and so this is as things cool down, as things are a little quieter, feel free to show some care and leverage the holidays to reach out to your existing clients and just let them know that you care about them. Wish them happy holidays, merry Christmas And Happy New Year's and let them know that you they're in good hands with you. And this is an opportunity right now also to increase future revenue through retention and decreased churn. So I think that's pretty good for today.  [00:18:33] Sarah: All right. Cool. That's my topic for this week's scale call. You must've heard me talking about that on last week's.  [00:18:39] Jason: I did. I heard you mention it. You talk loud. I'm just kidding. All right. So if you are a property management entrepreneur, you're wanting to add doors, you want to grow your business, you want to get out of the day to day, you want to make your business scalable so that adding more doors does not make your life personally worse. Reach out to us at DoorGrow. We can help. We help people like this all the time and we just get better and better every year. So if you have been listening to this podcast a while, or if you are a past client for maybe two, three, four, five, something, many years back, even one year back, even one year back, we've changed super system a year ago, right? We've changed any of that a lot and we've taken the things that have helped us scale our business and we are now leveraging these to help scale our clients businesses and it's working incredibly well. So I'm obviously biased, but I think we have the best stuff for the property management industry. I don't think there's any other coaching or mentoring or consulting that can touch what we're able to achieve with our clients. Our clients are crushing it. [00:19:42] And we can help them through every major issue or problem that they're dealing with, whether it be the op stuff or whether it be adding doors. Our clients are crushing it. So reach out to us. We want to make you our next success in our next successful case study. Hopefully we're talking to you soon. Go to DoorGrow.com. Join our free Facebook group community at DoorGrowclub.Com. And hopefully we're talking and working together soon. Bye everyone. [00:20:11] 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!  [00:20:38] 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.

One of the biggest questions we get from property management business owners once they start building out their team is “How do I compensate and recognize my team members?” In this episode, property management growth experts Jason and Sarah Hull discuss the different kinds of compensation structures for different personality types and roles on your team. You'll Learn [02:15] The difference between you and your team [07:56] The problem with giving out percentages [12:13] How to set up commission structures [21:23] Recognizing your team effectively [25:44] Giving out raises and job titles Tweetables “Business is a more effective vehicle than even a charity at creating lasting and impactful change.” “When you dangle the carrot in front of a great salesperson, they will jump off a freaking cliff to get it.” “Your discomfort in giving somebody a raise should be equal to their discomfort in asking for it.” “Recognition costs nothing.” Resources DoorGrow and Scale Mastermind DoorGrow Academy DoorGrow on YouTube DoorGrowClub DoorGrowLive TalkRoute Referral Link Transcript [00:00:00] Jason: They need to be invested in like committed to helping you grow this business and helping you move it forward, otherwise they are just dead weight and you're creating a bigger and bigger monster of dead weight as the business grows.  [00:00:14] Welcome DoorGrowers 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 DoorGrower. [00:00:31] 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, 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 are your hosts, property management, growth experts, Jason Hull and Sarah Hull, owners of DoorGrow. [00:01:11] That good? Now let's get into the show. All right. We were trying to change the intro right before we did it. And sometimes she's not on it. Sometimes she is. She's mostly on it now. So. Anyway, here we are. So our topic today, I'm getting a lot of questions, a lot of questions, and this has been going on for a long time, but we're getting a lot of questions about compensation. [00:01:37] This just keeps coming up and we see a lot of mistakes when it comes to compensation. So the challenge with compensation is that entrepreneurs think differently than most people that they are paying, and so they make mistakes in how they compensate people because they think it's going to help them get more of what they want and they actually create the opposite. [00:02:00] And so I want you to pay close attention to this today. If you watch this you should not ever ask if you should be giving out a commission or percent sign to somebody or whatever So let's talk about a couple of things here. So where should we start?  [00:02:15] Sarah: Well, I think the best place to start is probably from just for background. [00:02:20] What is the difference between someone who has a sales mindset or entrepreneurial mindset versus someone that may not.  [00:02:30] Jason: Cool. Let's talk about that. The two types of team members that you're going to have. There's two types of people on the planet, those that like money and those that don't. And I know you're thinking, "man, no, everybody likes money." [00:02:42] And you'd be surprised. And so if you had all of your team members take a DISC assessment, there's usually on a nice DISC assessment, a section called the values index. And one of those values is the economic or financial score. And so on the economic or financial score, what you will see is that the score is low, then they don't like money. [00:03:04] And I know that sounds weird. They're not focused on money. They're not trying to get money. Money is not a big part of their psyche. It's just not. And I know entrepreneurs, you don't get this because you like money. Sarah and I do not hate money. We don't hate money. Okay,  [00:03:20] Sarah: I need that shirt. This is the one t shirt. [00:03:22] I'll wear the capitalistic pig shirt  [00:03:24] Jason: Right and so we don't hate money. You probably don't hate money either. If you do hate money and you're an entrepreneur Then you are probably struggling to have money, right. Money is the ability to change lives, make a difference and have impact. This is why business is a more effective vehicle than even a charity at creating lasting and impactful change in my opinion. [00:03:47] Okay? Because it has healthy motivators connected to it. Right. And money is the energy and currency of what everything moves through to happen. Right. So let's talk about this. So if the economic score is low, what does that mean? I'll tell you whose economic score is high. If your economic score is high, you are probably an entrepreneur or a sales person, right? [00:04:11] Those are probably the only two personality types or people that you should be paying out more money or bonuses or commissions to incentivize better behavior. That means most people, you should not be paying bonuses, additional financial compensation to try and motivate or change behavior. Now, if you just want to be generous and it's Christmas, that's different. [00:04:36] But if you're trying to consistently compensate somebody and motivate them, the motivators need to be connected to what your outcomes are and most people are doing it incorrectly. Now, if the economic score is low, this is what this means, they would rather what they most value is recognition. They would rather be recognized. [00:04:55] And recognition costs nothing. It costs nothing. And if you don't give them recognition, but you give them bonuses, it's often the opposite, it has the opposite effect. There's another values index called the charitable score. If they have a high charitable score, which means they might want to volunteer to soup kitchen. [00:05:14] They want to like donate money. They want to give money away, not get money. They want to give money away. And then they have a low end economic score. That means if you pay them more money than what is comfortable for them. You pay them more than that. They will start to become a worse team member. They will start to self sabotage because they feel guilty. And then they're going to project that and externalize it because they have to justify it. They're taking more money. They don't want to give up the more money, but they feel guilty. If Sarah was my boss, it'd be like, "Oh, Sarah's giving me more money. Well, all right. I have to be worth this. So I'm worth this more money. And you know what? I'm entitled now. And maybe I deserve even more because I'm developing this kind of cancerous blind spot of I deserve this money because I feel guilty. So I externalize it. And I blame that uncomfortable feeling on my boss. Oh, well, my boss is like terrible and doesn't do this stuff. So I deserve that more money to compensate for it." And so they start to find fault with the boss and they start to justify them taking this more money cause they feel bad so that they can feel somewhat okay about it. And then their behavior starts to show that and they start to perform worse. [00:06:23] I know entrepreneurs, you're like, "that makes no sense." But that's how a lot of people think. Most people do not enjoy seeking money. This is not their goal.  [00:06:33] Sarah: There is a caveat team members, they have to have enough to be comfortable, right?  [00:06:38] Jason: If they're starving, broke or hurting, they're not comfortable.  [00:06:42] Sarah: In pain or like worried, like, "Oh my God, I might lose my house or I can't feed my kids." [00:06:47] Like. Yeah. We're not saying, Hey, like give them no money, they'll work for free. That's not the case at all. Right. They have to have enough to feel comfortable to make sure that their needs are met and make sure that they're able to provide for themselves and anyone else or anything else that is important to them. [00:07:02] Once they reach that level though, and I think studies have been done on this, which is really interesting to me I don't know if they just surveyed Americans. Don't know, but I think $75k was like that magic number or $65k. It was something like that somewhere in that ballpark is that's like where people feel like they have most people feel like they have enough. [00:07:25] So once they feel like they have enough money to live and be okay and make sure their needs are met and bills are paid and things are taken care of and like Johnny can do soccer and whatever they, you know, they want to do, they don't then go, "well, now I want a hundred and now I want 200." They don't keep trying to climb that ladder. [00:07:46] Once they feel comfortable and they have to make sure that their needs are met, then they're not interested. So if you take it from 75 to a hundred, they're like, "it's okay."  [00:07:55] Jason: Okay. So the other piece to this, another challenge that I see is that because business owners want people to have skin in the game and they want them to, they think everybody wants money, they hand out percent signs. [00:08:08] This is one of the most dangerous things to hand out. We even made a silly video called, what's it called?  [00:08:13] Sarah: I think it's called Percentage Breaks the Property Manager for the Property Management Business.  [00:08:19] Jason: Yeah. So you can check that out on YouTube. But the idea we're playing this, these roles and I'm a business owner and I don't have money in the beginning, so I'm going to pay her a percentage of all the doors that I get in. [00:08:29] We made it ridiculous, like 50%. Right? Which means if you're handing out a percent sign, and we see this all the time, say Sarah's my employee and I'm the boss, and I hand out 50% or whatever to a property manager.  [00:08:42] Sarah: Or even if you're like, "okay, here have 30," because like even 10, 30, 40, I still, I see the that a lot. [00:08:48] Sometimes I see 20.  [00:08:50] Jason: It doesn't matter what the percentage is, right? The challenge is in a business, some property management companies don't even make 10 percent profit margin. And so handing out percent signs is really dangerous for businesses. So what they'll do is hand out a percent sign. So let's say I give her 50%. [00:09:06] That means my 50%. My, the other half, all of the expenses have to come out of that. And usually if a business has 50 percent profit margin, that's pure expense. So then I'm broke. So what happens is she's making more and more money because she has all upside. It's pure profit. And I have all the expenses do not give a percentage to a broker. [00:09:28] Pay them a flat fee of like five, 600 bucks. Do not pay a percentage of broker. If you don't have your broker's license, don't create relationships or situations where you are giving up a percentage to a property manager. "Hey, you get like 50 percent of each door that you get on when you get a 30 percent of each door," whatever, right? [00:09:46] Because then what happens is these property managers, if they're the personality type of handling property management, instead of doing sales, they are not going to be focused on getting more business on. They're going to be focused on just helping run the business and you're giving them more and more money the more doors you get, which means you're making less and less money, right? They're making more and more money, the more doors that you get. And they will get more and more lazy and more and more comfortable because there's no incentive for them to go work harder or hunt or chase to get money. You need to make sure if you're handing out a percent sign in any capacity, that's like giving out ownership of the business and they need to be invested in like committed to helping you grow this business and helping you move it forward, otherwise they are just dead weight and you're creating a bigger and bigger monster of dead weight as the business grows. This is why a lot of people join a franchise and then regret it later on because they're paying out six to eight percent, which is a lot, of their gross revenue not of profit not of what's left over for you. And some business owners. [00:10:56] That's their whole owner payout. Yeah, that's like top one. Some business owners, that's what they take out like you're giving away that to basically to a team member that's not really adding value. I could go on and on about franchises. You can check out my YouTube video about franchises. [00:11:12] I'm obviously like not a fan of the franchise model because I believe it hurts the entire industry. There he said it. All right. So don't hand out percent signs. Do not get into a relationship with a business partner and give them a percent sign unless they are the type that wants to hustle and grow and make money. [00:11:33] The challenge is I see a lot of business partnerships are like, "here's a percent sign" when they should have just said, "here's your salary. You can be the operator." So operator personality types, for example, systems, process, whatever, they don't usually want ownership. They're not often that entrepreneurial type. [00:11:51] They just want to make sure they're getting paid enough and taking care of enough. Now there's exceptions to this, right? But you don't want to be handing out percent signs to somebody unless it's like super critical for growth. And I do not recommend. I recommend in any way possible, don't hand out any percent signs to anybody ever except to yourself and maybe a salesperson. [00:12:13] Now, let's talk about commissions, right? Let's say somebody is money motivated and they can help you make more money. So if they're money motivated, then you need to be using them to help you make more money. If you're going to pay them a percent sign, but you're not going to pay them a percent sign residually. [00:12:30] Because then you're motivating them to not do more work. What you want from a good salesperson or a BDM, a business development manager, or a BD business development person. What you want from them is what? You want results, which is more doors. You want them to add more money to the business. That's the result you want. [00:12:49] So you're going to pay for them to get more business, not keeping the business because keeping the business is the rest of the team. And that's fulfillment. So don't pay them a percentage residual. You pay them a percentage of maybe the first month or the, like some sort of commission upfront. [00:13:07] And it could be a percent, or it could just be a flat fee. Like, "Hey, we'll give you 200 bucks or 300 bucks or 500 bucks or per unit that you bring on." and give them an incentive. So that means they have an incentive every month. They stay to hunt and to chase. Now, another mistake people make with salespeople is like, "I want to get a salesperson, but I want to have zero downside and I want all the upsides. [00:13:33] So they create another unfair structure where they're like, I will pay you pure commission. And if you don't hunt and kill, you starve. And if you hunt and kill, I make money and we both make money." so I need to address this. That only makes sense if you are giving the salesperson, all of the leads, they have a great follow up and nurture system, and all they do is show up to calls and close.  [00:13:56] Sarah: Now, can you clarify what giving them the leads means? Because you're like, "Oh here's the leads. Like, here's a list of 10, 000 people."  [00:14:04] Jason: Okay. That's not what I mean.  [00:14:05] Sarah: So yeah, exactly. So let's clarify that.  [00:14:09] Jason: Okay.  [00:14:09] Sarah: So 18, 000 people in my CRM. Here's your leads. [00:14:13] Jason: If somebody is going to be paid pure commission, which means they're just paid for basically closing deals, they should not have to go find potential clients. They should not have to be hunting for potential clients. They shouldn't be spending any time doing any of that stuff. They should just be taking appointments, somebody else scheduled for them and closing deals. [00:14:33] Then they're a closer. Everything that happens before that would be handled by a setter and the setter would be cold calling, following up, like all this stuff. Setting appointments. Setting appointments, rescheduling.  [00:14:46] Sarah: Making sure people show up. They don't show up. Right. Calling them again.  [00:14:49] Jason: Feeding the closer. [00:14:51] Feeding the closer. Then the closer can be peer commissioned and the setter would be paid a base, mostly a base, plus a small percentage for each like appointment they set or some sort of results. So they're motivated to get more results and they should be a little bit money motivated, right? Now, most people are going to hire a BDM and expect them to do both. [00:15:11] And if you're going to hire a BDM and expect them to do both, you need to pay them a base. I would recommend at least maybe 20 to 30 K, something like this of a base that covers their setting activities. And then they, the rest, they should be able to make somewhere annually about maybe six figures should be possible. [00:15:30] So work it backwards, but there should be a commission structure that if they're adding 10 to 20 doors a month, they should be able to make. Some sort of six figure sort of salary would be the goal. So figure out a commission on top of that base. Because what you're doing, if you say it's pure commission, you're expecting a closer who lives or dies by whether they hunt or kill and create some money, you're expecting them to starve for at least two months, usually. Because usually three. Because it takes about 90 days to build up a sales pipeline. So they're going to have to do networking and prospecting and outreach and they're working for free and. If they're starving for 90 days, they're just going to quit. [00:16:10] I've seen so many BDMs burn out and it sounds like this great model. "Well, I'll pay you basically nothing in the beginning." And you might get somebody to agree to do that, but they might be stupid if they're willing to do that. And then they're going to be like starving and not figuring it out. And then you don't give them a good system. [00:16:26] If you plug them in to DoorGrow, we can get them making a lot of money. We have an amazing system. Like we had a client in just 10 to 15 hours. We go from zero to a hundred doors in six months. And he didn't spend any money on ads and he was a solopreneur. He was all by himself. This is absolutely possible. [00:16:44] We can help BDMs crush it. We've helped some BDMs add two- three hundred dollars in a year. That's absolutely possible to do but they need to be able to dedicate their time to that and you are not going to get that kind of result if you just pay them a commission because they will only focus on the closing type of activities or the commission generating activities, and they won't do what the leading activities that actually generates the opportunities to close. [00:17:12] And so you're putting too much attention on the wrong thing. They need more attention. Most of the attention should be on the leading activities. Phone calls, outreach, networking that leads to this and then deals will happen. They don't even have to be super amazing at closing if they're doing enough leading activities And so we want to make sure we give them a base and then we give them an incentive to move those things forward.  [00:17:35] Sarah: Okay. Now with the base, this is the big one. "Well, how much is the base supposed to be Jason? I don't know?" [00:17:41] Jason: 20 or 30 K. Maybe  [00:17:42] Sarah: You need to find an amount that would be uncomfortable if that's all you made. It needs to be comfortable enough that if that's all they made, they're not going to be starving and eating out of a dumpster. [00:17:58] And it needs to be uncomfortable enough that if that's all they made, they wouldn't be happy and they would be hungry for more.  [00:18:06] Jason: They need to be hungry. They got to be motivated. It's financial compensation is all about motivation, right?  [00:18:13] Sarah: With a salesperson, when you lay out their commission structure and you let them know like, "Hey, this is your base and I'm giving you this base because of these reasons. I don't want you to be starving. I want you to be motivated. The real money, it's over here. This other piece, I'm going to give it to you because there's things like phone calls and settings and appointments and you know, all the stupid crap that you don't want to do, but that you will do because it leads to deals." [00:18:38] And they're like "yeah, I get that. But the real money is over here. So when you close deals, that's when you start to make money." And when you dangle the carrot in front of a great salesperson, they will jump off a freaking cliff to get it. The problem is if you just give them the carrot and you're like, here, have a 50, 000 base, have 100, 000 base, have a 200, 000 base. [00:19:03] They're like "Yeah. I don't need to work that hard. I mean, if I do nothing, I still make 50k." We just at the boardroom event, we had a client whose BDM has a 50, 000 base.  [00:19:13] Jason: And then he was wondering why they weren't super motivated.  [00:19:16] Sarah: She doesn't really, she closed like two doors a month. And I'm like, well, yeah, cause she's comfortable. [00:19:22] She's super comfortable there. So she's never going to be motivated to work harder and do more and stretch herself and go above and beyond. Because she doesn't have to, you gave it to her. I have to work for it. There's a difference. And the other thing is salespeople who they love the challenge. They don't want you to give it to them. [00:19:43] They don't want it. Like they'll tell you like, "Oh, I'll take 500, 000 a year for doing nothing." But they wouldn't really be fulfilled by that. They'll probably take it because they love money. I mean, who doesn't, but they wouldn't be fulfilled by it. Yeah. If you give them 500, 000 for doing nothing versus if they make 500, 000 because of the work that they did and because of their efforts, there's a big difference. [00:20:06] They're going to feel really proud of that and they're going to want that. So they're going to chase it. So you have to dangle the carrot and make it something that's interesting enough. You have to, you, and you have to set it up so that they have the ability to make at least six figures because that's what sales people want But don't just throw it to them.  [00:20:24] Jason: And to be clear No, bdm should be making five hundred thousand dollars.  [00:20:28] Sarah: That's not accurate at all. [00:20:30] Jason: There's really great bdm. Maybe if they're helping do some acquisition deals If they're adding 500 a year, maybe all right So but if your bdm can live comfortably without adding 10 doors a month, your commission structure is wrong. They should be minimum adding about 10 doors a month as a full time BDM minimum. [00:20:52] And they should need to do 10 doors a month in order to just reach comfort. And if they're really motivated, they'll do even more than that. They'll do even more than that because then it gets exciting, right? Then it's the game, right? It's the hunt. Okay. So we talked about compensation. [00:21:08] Is there any other challenges or mistakes we see people make compensation wise?  [00:21:13] Sarah: I think those are the big ones. I think let's though, before we wrap up, let's talk a little bit more about the recognition piece and then we'll close it out. Okay. Because people are like what do you mean recognition? [00:21:25] Like, "Hey, I see you." [00:21:26] Jason: So recognition is a process of just helping the team members be seen, especially in front of other team members for doing good things or accomplishing things. So the way that we do that in DoorGrow and in our operating system, DoorGrow OS. Maybe you've heard of like EOS or traction or some of these things. [00:21:43] DoorGrow OS is better. And what we do in DoorGrow OS to increase the amount of recognition is in every meeting we share wins. So if it's our weekly commitments meeting, we're sharing what wins did we have last week and everybody adds to the list. What did we do in our monthly goal setting? [00:22:03] We share wins for everything we did the previous month. Same thing with the quarter and annually, and it's pretty awesome. Like, we're building these lists and everybody feels great. And then even in our daily huddle meeting, which is like a 15 minute, 20 minute meeting we do every morning, I guess we do ours in the afternoon, but we do with our team. [00:22:21] We do Caught Being Awesome and we allow team members to share their wins or to highlight somebody else. And so our team are highly motivated because most of them are recognition motivated. So we're recognizing them. If we do give a bonus, like say for the holidays or something like that, we do it in a way that the focus is we wanted to recognize you because of what you've done for us this last year. So it's still about recognition and appreciation. And so that will get you team members that are incredibly loyal to you, that love being part of the team, that feel a sense of belonging, and that means a lot more to most of your team members than getting more dollars. [00:23:04] Is that good?  [00:23:04] Sarah: They want to feel important and they want to feel valued and they want to know that you care about what they're doing and especially in an industry like property management because it's tough. Yeah. Everybody has those like really awful days because let's be honest, sometimes owners or tenants or vendors and sometimes life just happens, right? [00:23:27] So it's tough and sometimes it's tough. All the time or it's tough for a while. This is not an easy industry. So when you've got this pressure all the time and this like annoyance, like, "Oh, that tenant's going to call me and yell at me again, or, Oh, like, Oh, I have to have this uncomfortable conversation and tell my client that we need a $15,000 sewer repair. [00:23:50] I don't want to do this." The it's the little things that will keep your team going and make sure that they understand like, "Hey. I know it's not the most glorious thing. I know it's always not super exciting, and it's not always super easy. However, what you're doing really makes a difference. It really is important and this is like the bigger mission and vision of the business and you contribute directly to that vision and what you're doing matters." [00:24:22] So that way it's like, Oh, you know, it's not this grind and this drain and we don't have a lot of churn on our own team and burnout and you know, bad team members that are like, "Oh, I hate my job." Right. Because that's super easy. It's easy and then you make it even harder. It's easy just by itself and then you make it harder because it's property management. [00:24:43] So it's super easy in property management to have that. So let's combat that. And just by recognizing them and saying like, "Hey, I saw you took care of that thing. Like, hey, oh my god, you got all the leases done. And hey," like, and it could be the littlest things. It's things that they do. Anyway, it doesn't matter. [00:25:00] They don't have to do anything that's like spectacular. "Oh my God. You like cleaned all the bathrooms today, Sally. Thank you. That was amazing. Like you didn't have to do that." It's little things and it's things that they're going to be doing anyway, but just let them know, "Hey, I see it. And I appreciate it." [00:25:16] Jason: All right. So the other thing I'll say about recognition is you might be thinking, well, salespeople and entrepreneurs, do they like recognition? The answer is yes. They like it too. We still like it. They like it too. So if you're giving them recognition that adds more fuel to the fire, right? And so you need a system like DoorGrow OS in which everybody gets recognized for their accomplishments and everyone will perform and behave better because they feel seen by everyone. [00:25:42] And that has value, right? Now one more point I want to make is you might get somebody, an assistant, you're like a VA, you're like they're amazing. I love them so much. They're so awesome. I don't want to lose them. And then you are like, because you're hardwired to be so money focused, you're like, I'm going to pay them a whole bunch more money. [00:26:02] I see this happen so often. Be very careful about just giving out raises prematurely. Be very careful about this because what I've seen over and over again, I've been in masterminds, multimillion dollar business owners, we're hanging out together and they're like, "Hey I just got this assistant. She was super amazing. So I gave her this big raise 'cause she's so awesome. And now she's showing up late. She's not like getting things done. She seems like entitled." This is what happens when you compensate people financially, instead of giving them recognition and doing it based on how you think instead of what they want, you then sabotage their efforts or they start to sabotage their efforts. [00:26:43] So don't start paying somebody more just because you like them, right? There needs to be a justifiable reason and they need to be able to justify that reason. And so they may need to come to you and be like, "Hey, here's why I deserve more compensation." And you're checking in with them regularly and saying, "Hey, how are things going?" [00:27:01] And if you have an open communication with your team members, they're going to tell you when they feel like it's time that they deserve some more money. And it's going to be really uncomfortable for them to do it if they don't like money, it's going to be so uncomfortable to have that conversation, but it's also uncomfortable for you to spend more money. [00:27:17] Team are the biggest expense. Your discomfort in giving somebody a raise should be equal to their discomfort in asking for it. It's my thought. And so they need to be reaching out. To some degree, and you may recognize somebody deserves more pay, you know, deep down they're being paid too little. [00:27:36] So then you can give them a raise, but be careful about handing this out.  [00:27:40] Sarah: My other little tip with raises is I worked in corporate for a bit and it was like every year, you know, you're going to get a raise and how much of a raise you get depend, depend on all your stupid numbers and metrics and all, you know, call time and all that stuff. [00:27:55] So you knew you were getting a raise though, like for sure, unless for some reason they're firing you, right? But other than that, you know, like, "Oh, my annual review is coming up. How much money am I going to make now?" And then they expect it. And then you don't really appreciate it because it's expected. And it's like normal now it's like, "Oh, well I'm getting a raise now. [00:28:13] Now I'm going to raise." And then. What also happens is, "well, I'm getting a raise," and sometimes people go, "Oh, well I deserve like this much." And then they don't get that. They get less. And then they're like mad about it. They're mad because they're making more money. It's not as much money as they wanted or as I expected. [00:28:30] So one of my big rules when it comes to raises is with raise comes responsibility. Don't just throw out more money. Like, "Hey, if you want to go from here to here, I'm happy to take you there. This is what that would look like. Are you in?  [00:28:44] Jason: Okay. One last thing. Titles. Titles are heavily connected to compensation. [00:28:49] So I dealt with this week. I talked to a property manager. They had like 20 doors or something and they hired a director of operations. No. You can't afford a director of operations. So the thing is, yeah, I said, "tell them they are an operations assistant in ecrow." And said, I gave you this inflated title. [00:29:06] You're an operations assistant. Maybe then eventually they could graduate operations manager. Maybe then be the, you know, maybe eventually. The director of operations, VP of operations, COO, but titles matter. So be very careful about handing out titles. Start everybody out as a something assistant or junior  [00:29:24] Sarah: property manager, junior assistant, property manager, or you can just have levels, property manager, one property manager, two property manager, three, like. [00:29:32] There's a lot of different ways you can do it. Be careful about titles. Yeah, be super careful about  [00:29:36] Jason: titles. Because they'll go look it up on salary. com and they'll be like, "Oh I deserve this. I'm director of property management. I guess I should be getting 150k or whatever, right?"  [00:29:46] Sarah: And also, 20 doors, fun little caveat. Be careful when you're reviewing resumes with titles for the same reason. Because titles they sound really impressive sometimes and they mean they could be made up They mean nothing when I got hired at an insurance job. They were like, oh we have to make your business card And I said, "okay," and they said "well, what do you want your title to be?" [00:30:05] And I said, "I pick my own title?" And they're like, "yeah, you can put whatever you want on there." And I said, "well, aren't I a sales rep?" And they're like, "yeah, but don't put sales rep." I'm like, "oh, okay. So what should I put?" They're like, "put like account manager or account executive or like something like that." [00:30:24] So I don't remember what we came up with, but. Came up with something that sounded like I was like, "Ooh, I'm a big deal." I was a sales rep. That's it. I sell things. That's it. But the title sounded a lot more impressive. And sometimes that can go to people's head just a bit. And keep in mind, money is connected to the title. [00:30:45] It always will be. So get on. And if you're like, "well, I don't know what to," Google will help you just get on. Well, I just had this conversation, I think two weeks ago with client. " Well, I don't want to hire like the COO of the company. I can't afford that." You're right. You can't. So. [00:31:00] What are they doing? Maybe they're the team leader. Maybe they're the office manager. Maybe they're an operations assistant. Like get on, find some kind of title, get on Google and say, what are other job titles for this thing? And it will tell you and pick one of those and avoid things like manager, juror, and like VP president or like, Senior account executive, things like that. [00:31:26] Because it. It will be startling if someone. Looks at their position and realizes. "Oh, I should be making 125 and I'm only paid 55. Huh? That's odd."  [00:31:38] Jason: All right, so wrap us up. Give us a call to action. [00:31:41] Sarah: Just If you feel like you're struggling with any of this and I know there's so many of you that are like, "oh man. Yeah, that's me." [00:31:48] I might have made some of these mistakes and that's okay because we all have we've done it to Go on doorgrow. com Book a call with us. We can help you with this stuff.  [00:31:56] Jason: This is what we do. Yeah, and if you made any of these mistakes, I guarantee there's a lot of others going on in the business you can't see right now. [00:32:03] We can help you get this cleaned up and help you make a lot more money, help you grow a lot faster. All right. All right until next time, to our mutual growth. Bye everyone. [00:32:11] 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!  [00:32:37] At DoorGrow, we solve your biggest challenge: getting deals and growing your business. Find out more at doorgrow.com. Find any show notes or links from today's episode on our blog doorgrow.com, and to get notified of future events and news subscribe to our newsletter at doorgrow.com/subscribe. Until next time, take what you learn and start DoorGrow Hacking your business and your life.

Several property managers find themselves feeling alone in their difficult market. It might feel impossible to grow after being stagnant for so long. In this episode, property management growth experts Jason and Sarah Hull sit down with DoorGrow client Brian Bean to talk about how he grew his property management business despite the challenges he faced. You'll Learn [01:55] Getting started in property management [06:20] Making business partnerships work [09:47] Shifting from real estate to property management [18:21] What's next for your property management business? Tweetables “It's really difficult for partnerships to be successful because for most people, the ego is getting in the way.” “What you focus on is what you get.” “Until we learn how to get and find people that we feel safe with, I don't think we're supposed to trust.” “When you get really great people, it's not hard to trust them.” Resources DoorGrow and Scale Mastermind DoorGrow Academy DoorGrow on YouTube DoorGrowClub DoorGrowLive TalkRoute Referral Link Transcript [00:00:00] Brian: After 10 years of just being flat from 30 to 35 units. And then now literally doubled it last week. And that's been from following your instruction, your philosophies and you know, focusing on building this business.  [00:00:15] Jason: Welcome DoorGrowers 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 DoorGrower. DoorGrower, 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. [00:00:58] 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.  [00:01:18] So our guest today we're hanging out with Brian Bean, who is one of our clients and Brian your company is Dream Big Property Management.  [00:01:28] Brian: That's right. We're in Merced, California.  [00:01:30] Jason: All right. In Merced, California. So Brian welcome to the show. Oh, Riverside. You said Riverside. [00:01:37] Okay. Got it. I know this area. So yeah, I grew up in Rancho Cucamonga. So just a little bit near there. So Brian tell us a little bit about your journey and how you got into property management and then eventually how you stumbled across DoorGrow, I guess.  [00:01:55] Brian: Right, so, I was a newspaper editor and reporter and I got a job, grew up in the Pacific Northwest, got a journalism degree, got a job in Palm Springs on the Daily Newspaper, and moved to California in the 80s. [00:02:11] And so I did that for 13 or 14 years toward the end I, you know, coming from an entrepreneurial background, my uncle gave me my first, second, third job when I was a kid he owned a, like, old style service station. So I grew up in that small business atmosphere. And when I went to work in newspapers, you know, I had these lofty aspirations, these utopian ideas, you know, you're getting your twenties about doing something to change the world or, you know, to have an impact. And I found out after about 10 years, that was just, it's just another corporate job. And so I was looking around for something else and I looked at a lot of different businesses. [00:02:55] And I ended up coming upon real estate and I was able to, while I was a newspaper editor, I was able to buy five, two five unit apartment buildings in Palm Spring. Nice. And that was my introduction to property management. I was pretty much doing that during the day. We were putting out newspapers in a, from like three in the afternoon to midnight, you know, the press would roll at midnight and and I did it all, you know, I, from everything from dealing with the tenants face to, you know, patch and drywall to whatever collecting rents, chasing rents, made all the mistakes. [00:03:33] And I was, it was self education trial by fire. And then a few years later, I went into real estate full time and sales. I had a partner in the apartments who was actually the listing agent on those apartments at the time, but he invited me into real estate full time in 2001. [00:03:49] And then we were off on a, and it was a run. And so I, I did property management for a while from on our own properties. And then I've just morphed into sales and we were pretty successful and very busy and then the market crashed, and you know, we just kind of moved with the market.  [00:04:08] Jason: And when was that? [00:04:09] Like 2006,  [00:04:11] Brian: maybe, or?  [00:04:11] Yeah. So 2006 at least in our area, it was August, 2006 when we peaked sales wise. And in 2007, we had, I don't know, a dozen listings and nobody, you couldn't buy a showing, you know? And so 2007, it was the real estate market was, you know, dead man walking. It was, there was nobody really knew what was happening? Well, the masses, right? Some people knew, right? There was stuff going on obviously on wall street, but, the masses didn't know what was happening. Prices stayed up for awhile and they were, it was just like that, that hovering just before the, you know, you throw a ball in the air and it just kind of floats at the apex for a moment right before 2008 and then wow. [00:04:54] Right. Who knew? Yeah. So, You we just kind of morphed with it. I've worked, I did a lot of, I helped a lot of people with short sales, we worked in foreclosures and. And then I met my current business partner in sales working in an REO house as a buyer's agent. And we started our own company, Dream Big Real Estate, and that was 2008, 2009. [00:05:15] So from there, a couple of years later I just happened to say to my partner, you know, even though we were very busy, I said, "I really think we should launch a property management division" because at that time, my mentality was, it's a place where we can create sales listings, right? [00:05:35] And so we did that for a few years. And, you know, the interesting thing about it was that we didn't do any marketing. It was just really word of mouth, but. The day that I mentioned that to my partner, Tim, he just said, "yeah, cool, whatever." Right. he knew I was going to probably be working on it because I had the background in it, but I didn't tell anybody. [00:05:55] And the next day the phone rang and our first property management client just was calling out of the blue. Still have them, still work with them. [00:06:03] And then a week later, somebody else called. And it was the same thing, and that was our second client. Still working with them as well. And the, you know, I'm not into rubbing crystals or sleeping under pyramids, but you know, you ask the universe and the universe will provide. [00:06:19] Jason: One of the things that you mentioned, Brian, that I think's really interest is, it sounds like part of your journey, like there's this importance you've probably realized in partnerships. [00:06:28] because you've mentioned multiple times, you know, you partner with the listing agent and then eventually you partner with Tim. And so how is finding the right partners been instrumental in your growth and your progress? [00:06:41] Brian: Well, I will say this is that later on more recently, this year, they have broken out the property management business that was running as part of our real estate sales business. I've broken that out separately, and I'm now solo doing that. Right. Have had partners in the past, and I have found working with partners to be that there's advantages and disadvantages. Totally. It's hard to find, it's really difficult for partnerships to be successful because most people, the ego is getting in the way or, you know, there becomes a battle about, you know, who's doing what, who deserves this, who deserves that. [00:07:24] Yeah. Personality wise, I'm kind of roll with it person, you know? I'm more of a solution oriented person. Just what we need to get from point A to point B, what's the best way to do that? What for the good of the company, not necessarily for what's best for me personally. Yeah. So I've gone through a couple of partnerships with different people, I have been able to make that work from my point of view, because. [00:07:49] Because of my personality type, I think, but it is not for the the weak hearted, you know, I mean, it is some days are a lot harder than others.  [00:07:58] Jason: I've seen some of the most successful I've seen have really healthy partnerships in some of the worst situations I've seen where they couldn't grow because one was like an anchor, not willing to move and they had just as much decision making power and until they were able to get that partner out of the business, they weren't able to progress. So it can be a boost in the positive, but it's really difficult to find a really good match. [00:08:24] Brian: Yeah, and that's the thing is like, I'm more of a behind the scenes person, just in general, I'm more like I can implement. I generally will have the ideas as well, but I'm the one that I'm kind of a control freak, quite frankly, and so one of my character flaws is right now that I'm trying to work on is feeling like I need to touch everything, you know, because that's that is a throttle in the business. [00:08:48] Jason: Well, I think we all start there. Every entrepreneur starts there, so everybody listening should be able to empathize with that because you know we want to do a good job because we care. We want to look good. We care about how we look right like whatever it is. The challenge with being a control freak is trust and until we learn how to get and find people that we feel safe with, I don't think we're supposed to trust, you know. We're not supposed to just trust blindly. We need to find people that deserve to be trusted and know how to build that team. And that's probably kind of the next level, right? Is for you maybe is to build that team of people that you trust because when you get really great people, it's not hard to trust them. [00:09:30] Yeah. But they need to match you. Like they need to be a good coach. And then it's a lot easier to trust them. And so in this journey, you split out your business and then you have a property management business. It's all yours. You're still doing real estate stuff also? You still connected to that? [00:09:47] Brian: I am, but my mentality has shifted. It's probably been more than two years since the first time I talked to someone from your company and yet we didn't start with your company until, when was it, March this year? It was a two year lag of wrapping my mind around the philosophy of, Just making the shift, right? [00:10:06] Because property management always for us was a, just a holding place for future sales listings. And now, it's the business. Property management's the business and sales is ancillary benefit.  [00:10:21] Jason: So what prompted that shift? How did your brain work that out eventually?  [00:10:25] Brian: I think it's a combination of a variety of things. Having now 20 plus years in the business, I've been through an up and a down and an up and a flat, right? Who knows what the next one looks like. Is it eighties, nineties, or is it two thousands downturn? Yeah. And where I am in life, right. And I mean, do I want to work forever? Just slinging, right? Do I want to be out there, you know, showing, opening doors at, you know, 68 years old? [00:10:57] Jason: And chasing deals? Yeah.  [00:10:59] Brian: So mailbox money, right. Building a business that's sellable. Right now, or up until this point, I should say, it has been 100 percent every dollar that comes into our house is product of my labor, and that is a train coming down the track. [00:11:19] Right. So I needed to make some changes now that would have dramatic impacts on my future. If I wanted to change what I was doing, you know. [00:11:27] Jason: Yeah. Got it. Yeah. That switch from kind of recognizing you're kind of trading time for dollars to realizing, "Hey maybe I want to build something." [00:11:36] I mean, it's really tempting because you close one real estate deal, that can be a lot of money, but eventually I think there's a lot of real estate agents that wake up to this, that they're like, "Hey, if real estate kind of takes a nosedive or do I want to do this forever?" Maybe not. [00:11:52] Property management might be a really great business model.  [00:11:55] Brian: Like I said, we did our sales under under Better Homes and Gardens now, and I don't know, did I say that? Maybe in my own head. So the property management is under my own brokerage. The sales that we do, we work under Better Homes and Gardens. [00:12:10] I, you know, Tim and I as sales agents here until this year, we've been the number one agent, like since we came here. So seven, eight years, however long it's been. I do see the changes. I have seen the changes come in and perhaps it's a little bit of you just mental scar tissue from the crash of, you know, '8, '9, '10, ' 11. Yeah. It's just, you know, because the cracks have been forming in the foundation of this real estate sales market for a few years. Right. And it's been propped up artificially by government policies. Yeah. For three, four years. Right. And so, I've been waiting for a shoe to drop quite frankly. [00:12:51] And so two years ago a guy used to work for you, Jon. I called Jon back in like February this year. "Hey, Jon, you still working over at DoorGrow?" Jon was actually the one who said to me two years ago, two and a half years ago now, " if you do this, our expectation is that you're going to change your philosophy. You're going to be a property manager who doesn't do sales." What? That took me a while to embrace.  [00:13:17] Jason: Yeah. Yeah. Jon's a good friend of mine. We just went out to lunch recently. He's really sharp, dude. So, you know, I'm really curious, Brian, this journey from being a reporter for a while to real estate, to now shifting your identity into being a property manager, and that's the focus. How do you feel the reporter in you helps the property manager?  [00:13:44] Brian: Yeah, perfect proving ground. It's who I am is based on education, information gathering, being an advocate for consumers, right? [00:13:56] That's what I was trained to be as a reporter and editor, as a journalist, and that just morphs perfectly into what I do now, which is to look after my client's financial well being, right? And it doesn't hurt that I tend to over explain things, right? Because that's what I do, right? Is my job is to go out and gather information and then provide it in an objective way so that people can then make the best decisions for them and their family, right? So that's being a reporter, right? It is to shine a light on the facts so that people can decide. I mean, sometimes you got to take them by the hand and lead them down the path, right, educating them along the way. Yeah, for sure.  [00:14:37] Sarah: So what was the thing that made you go, "all right, I'm finally going to do this. Like I'm going to jump on board, get involved with DoorGrow and start really focusing on this property management thing? [00:14:49] Brian: Yeah. So earlier this year I had been kicking around, you know, you're looking at numbers, right? Kicking around the idea of "how much more time do I want to do this?" [00:14:59] And there were some personal things that got into it too, because you start looking at relationships and your family and looking at the things that are most important in your life. And priority wise, where have they been on your list? And so I decided I wanted to make some changes and then I lost some friends and family members just in the past year. [00:15:25] And so, one of the things that I picked up in the newspaper was Spending too much time in the office and and spending the less time seeing family and, you know, coming out of COVID and just, it's just like a combination of a lot of things all crashing together at one time.  [00:15:41] Sarah: We are under attack in our house right now. [00:15:43] We have groceries being delivered.  [00:15:45] Jason: Dogs are going nuts. [00:15:49] Our professional podcast, everybody, so.  [00:15:53] Brian: Anyway, so that was you know, some personal stuff came up and I decided to reevaluate. Now, in the past 10 plus years, I've been doing property management. [00:16:04] providing a supply of say two to six listings a year and making that shift. I don't know, it was a conversation with my wife and you know, running numbers and trying to figure out like, is it even possible? And there's a transition period because what you focus on is what you get. Right. So if I start focusing a hundred percent on property management, and how is that going to affect my income for people? You know, because what I do today in sales, that's not income for 90 days. Right. So at some point you have to be able to make that transition. And so, you know, it was a bit of a leap of faith. [00:16:42] And so, like I said, when I called Jon to ask if he was still working with you guys, then he said, no. He called me back though, but he said no, but he then referred me over to somebody. So, but making that switch, it wasn't an overnight decision by any means. [00:16:58] I agonized over it. It was sleepless nights, some nights. But I knew that I had to do something.  [00:17:04] Jason: So, well, you took a big risk then this leap of faith and then jumped on board with DoorGrow, decided to focus on property management. You feel like you made a good choice? [00:17:14] Brian: Yes. You don't know what you don't know. And so, I've been on a journey of learning what other people are doing, best practices, ancillary services to go along, you know, support type pieces of everything from other streams of income that are related that are, you know, not just management fees and placement fees, right? [00:17:37] I mean, there's a variety, but it's crazy what I've implemented just in the past six months, it's just been an insane pace and now I'm like eight days away from moving to a new, property management portal, and that will be the cherry on top, really. Most of the footwork of putting the foundation together will be mostly done, and then it's digging into processes. [00:18:02] Jason: Awesome. Yeah. So. Yeah. So you've made a lot of changes to your business and you said you've been learning it at an insane pace. So hopefully we're not making you bored with all this stuff. We've got plenty of stuff, right? It can be a bit overwhelming. We give the feedback on. So Brian, well, what's what's next for you in the future? [00:18:25] Brian: Right now I'm just trying to continue to learn from you and I'm just focusing on growing the number of doors that we manage and creating a business that will have sustainable and continuous growth and then part of the process has been, yes, putting the tools in place and doing the things that you know, I've been advised to do to create this and grow this business. [00:18:53] But when you start, you don't necessarily believe it, right? It truly is that leap of faith. And over time, my belief is starting to catch up with my activity. And so, you know, to go like when last week we literally hit the doubling point of when we started with you and after 10 years of just being flat from 30 to 35 units. And then now literally doubled it last week. And that's been from following your instruction, your philosophies and you know, focusing on building this business.  [00:19:30] Jason: Yeah. Well, I'm glad that the next 30 doors didn't take 10 years. That's awesome. Doubling in four months and I think things will speed up from here. So, well, I think that's a good place to end on. I think that's really awesome. So we appreciate you as a client. It's been great seeing your progress. You know, I think there's a lot of property managers out there that are like you, they come from the real estate industry. They want to get out of the hunt and the chase. Maybe they've been doing property management for even a decade, but you know, they haven't really made progress in their growth significantly in the last year or two or three or 10, you know, and and now maybe it's time, maybe it's time. [00:20:10] So maybe some parting words, Brian, what would you say to those that like they've been watching DoorGrow for a while? What would you say to them?  [00:20:17] Brian: Don't wait. You know, where would I be if I'd started two years ago? . I think about that occasionally, and then I have to stop myself because that just takes me off track. [00:20:26] And you get into that regret, you know, loop in your head. Like, no, I don't have time for that. I am where I'm now. And everybody is where they are now, right? And so you can either take action today or not, your results will reflect that. Yeah.  [00:20:42] Sarah: And you're exactly where you're supposed to be in that moment. I can do that to myself too. I can go back and go, "Oh, what if I did this sooner? It could be so much farther." Right. But I think that things just tend to work out the way that they're supposed to work out and things kind of line up. And I think you were prepped, right? [00:20:59] You knew about DoorGrow. You were kind of checking it out. You weren't sure if you were going to make that jump and you did when you were ready and it paid off.  [00:21:06] Jason: Yeah. So, there's a cool book called the gap and the gain. And the idea is that it's so easy for us as entrepreneurs to focus on the gap between where we should be by now. Where our dream or what we could have done. And that's not really an effective comparison psychologically. Like that, like doesn't make us feel super great about ourselves. But what is effective though, is to look at the gain. How far have we come? And I mean, four months. You've come a long way. [00:21:34] And so the next year, I think it's going to be really awesome for you. So I'm excited to see what you do, Brian. So thank you. All right. Thanks for coming on the DoorGrow show.  [00:21:44] Brian: Glad to be here. Thanks.  [00:21:46] Jason: Thanks again. All right. If you are a property management entrepreneur, you're wanting to grow your business. [00:21:51] Maybe you've been sitting stagnant for a while. You haven't had significant progress in the last year, maybe the year before that you might even be a really large company and you're not making progress. I've talked to several with thousands of doors in just the last week. We just got one of them on as a client and they've been struggling to figure out how to grow and they cannot even spend any more money on ads to get any more clients.  [00:22:13] It's not working. If you want to figure out how to start moving your business forward significantly, we can easily help you add 100, 200, maybe even 300 doors in a year. And it's without wasting money or spending money on advertising. And that might sound ridiculous, but Brian's going to do it. [00:22:29] Like we're seeing people do it all the time. So reach out, you can check us out at doorgrow. com. We would love to help you grow your business. Talk to you soon. Bye everyone. [00:22:39] 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!  [00:23:06] 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.

Have you been looking for ways to improve your owners' experiences as property management clients?  In this episode, property management growth experts Jason and Sarah Hull sit down with Matthew Kaddatz from Appfolio to talk about elevating the owner experience in property management. You'll Learn [01:35] Getting started in the property management industry [05:18] Improving relationships with owners and investors [10:24] What does your ideal client look like? [18:31] Why you get stuck doing things you hate [26:25] How elevating the owner experience helps you Tweetables “Once property management gets you, you're stuck. You're not going anywhere.” “I think one of the biggest mistakes property managers make by not having clarity on who their ideal customer is they try to get everybody.” “‘No' is often better than ‘yes' if you're being careful and focused.” “I don't think that you can really figure out a lot about your clients and what they truly want, what's really important to them, if you're unclear on what you truly want.” Resources DoorGrow and Scale Mastermind DoorGrow Academy DoorGrow on YouTube DoorGrowClub DoorGrowLive TalkRoute Referral Link Transcript [00:00:00] Jason: I think one of the biggest mistakes property managers make by not having clarity on who their ideal customer is, is they try to get everybody. Then they're taking on a lot of accidental investors and they churn out like after a year.  [00:00:12] 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're interested in growing in business and life, and you are open to doing things a bit differently, then you are a DoorGrower. [00:00:28] DoorGrower 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. I'm your host, property management growth expert, Jason Hull, the founder and CEO of DoorGrow, along with Sarah Hull, my wife, co-owner and COO of DoorGrow. [00:01:11] Now let's get into the show. All right. Today's guest. We have Matthew Kaddatz from Appfolio. So Matthew, welcome to the show.  [00:01:22] Matthew: Yeah. Thanks for having me excited to be here.  [00:01:25] Jason: So we have not yet had somebody from AppFolio, but we have a ton of clients that use AppFolio and we've heard great things about it. The perception has always been, it's the Mac of the property management software out there. [00:01:37] So, Matthew, why don't you tell our listeners a little bit about you? How did you get into property management into this industry? And and you know, what do you do at Appfolio?  [00:01:48] Matthew: Yeah. So, I've been in property management pretty much my whole professional career. I studied computer science in college, realized I didn't want to be behind a computer all day and knew some developers developing some land, and they were looking to turn over the management and there weren't a lot of local operators. And I was like, "Oh, I could do it." You know, naive, 22, and 2006, right? So that all thought the best way to make money is real estate. It's 2006, everyone was making money right at the brothiest point in the industry. [00:02:23] And I went down and started the property management company. These developers were my first contract and I ended up really liking the business, building the business. I grew it in the local area, did property management, community association management, a little bit of short term rentals, small, little, mostly second home market. And had a fun time growing it. Ultimately, I ended up selling it to an outfit out of Texas called Associa, and was looking to do something else and found my way to AppFolio.  [00:02:58] Jason: All right. Now you are then, based on the numbers you shared, you're about to hit the big 4-0, right? [00:03:05] I am. And did you ever think as a kid when you turned 40 someday that you're going to be doing property management stuff? [00:03:13] Matthew: No, never. Even when I sold my business, I stayed around for two years and was looking for something else. I looked hard to get out of the industry. I wanted something different and the furthest I could get was a technology company that provides software for the industry. [00:03:31] And you know, I joke around once property management gets you, you're stuck. You're not going anywhere else.  [00:03:37] Jason: You know, a lot of property managers joke about it and they complain and they throw out memes like about drinking wine is solving their problems, you know, and stuff like this. But I fell in love with the industry because I love how, 1. MRR is a beautiful business model. Yes. It's monthly residual revenue, right? It's the ultimate business recurring revenue, monthly recurring revenue. And I love the residual income of a coaching business and property management is similar. [00:04:07] And so what I love about the property management industry is that it is it's similar to me, right? The people that I get to serve and they're my people. They're a little bit nerdy sometimes. They tend to like technology to some degree, or they have to at least use it. And they they're entrepreneurial and they're not just the sales oriented person that's just hunting and chasing the next deal they want to build. That recurring revenue.  [00:04:35] Matthew: You know, the SAS business model, like technology, like AppFolio is very similar as well. The parallels and just how we think about our customers and how our customers think about their customers are wildly similar, which I think gives us some insight into just how to build great software. [00:04:54] But I too am obviously attracted to the business model. It's a really good business model. You're not always hunting for that big fish to get or whatnot. You have predictable revenue and that gives you some comfort to take a step back and kind of think about what I truly love is like strategic priorities. [00:05:16] Jason: Yeah, it creates some stability. So the topic we're going to get into today is elevating the owner experience. And so, where should we start with this? [00:05:27] Matthew: Yeah, good question. So I've been my job at AppFolio is to really focus on small business property managers and make sure we're building product for them. And I've been doing this for two and a half, almost three years now here. I've had other jobs AppFolio, but this recent gig has been really focused on the small business property managers and you know, six to eight months into the job, I realized the owner of the property is just so fundamental to how the SMB industry works, which is less true as you go high up market into like large multifamily. The relationship between the property manager and the property owner is just so important, and I think really understanding that dynamic from my perspective, like helped us think through how we're going to innovate and build software to make those relationships better to leverage software. But what got me more excited was just learning how great property managers think about this, how they think about acquiring these people, how they think about onboarding these people, how they think about retaining these owners and how the group of property owners, it's not a homogenous group, right? Like there are different subsets. [00:06:50] A person who owns five four plexes is going to think and operate different than a person who had to leave town for work and is giving their house over to property manager because they had to leave town for work for a period of time. So just understanding the dynamics there is really important. [00:07:13] And the great property managers, I think do that well, but it's amazing how many people don't think carefully about who their clients are, what their interests are and how diverse they can be.  [00:07:24] Jason: What do you think are some of the most common mistakes people are making? In the small business category with their owners? [00:07:32] Matthew: I think they're pushing to either one of two polarizing extremes, right? Like one size fits all, my services must fit for everyone in which like they don't because it's not a homogenous group or, I will be everything to everyone which doesn't scale. And that's probably the more dangerous thing. I think property management tends to attract people great at customer service who like to say yes and hate to say no, and it's hard to not be every thing to everyone. If that's just sort of your disposition that got you to be very successful at providing great customer service, you can't grow a business that way. [00:08:15] You can't scale a business that way. Once you have to hire people to manage owner relationships.  [00:08:20] Jason: Yeah, we see these problems as well. The one size fits all usually relates very simply to how property managers are pricing. Like everybody's like, "we'll just charge 10 percent or we'll just charge a flat fee." [00:08:32] And one of the things that we teach is this three tier hybrid pricing model where you're focused that psychologically on at least three different types of buyers based on their motivation or based on their pain psychologically so that it's not just one size fits all. It's tailored towards the pain threshold when it comes to spending and it's tailored towards, you know, the level of service or safety and certainty when it comes to like what they're hoping to spend money on. [00:08:58] And so that's really interesting. And then you mentioned: don't be everything to everyone. So I have this slide and one of my slides in my pitch deck says "you're not Burger King." " your way right away," right? And so "don't be Burger King" is what it says. So, and the opposite is like to be the lighthouse, right? [00:09:16] The lighthouse is guides, but it doesn't move, right? It has boundaries and standards.  [00:09:22] Matthew: Yeah. So many great operators have done too much of everything to everyone and they get to what, 300 ish units and they can't figure out how to get beyond. They just can't figure out how to scale because. It actually costs a bit of money to go from 300 to 600 units. [00:09:40] You have to like reorganize a bit.  [00:09:42] Jason: That's funny. We call the stage between two to 400 units, the second sand trap.  [00:09:49] Matthew: Yeah.  [00:09:49] Jason: Interesting. It's basically the swamp of success. We call it the team sand trap because usually it's because staffing costs are so high at this stage, they end up stuck and it's usually they think they need more processes. [00:10:02] But what they actually need are better team members.  [00:10:04] Matthew: Yeah, and I would argue higher degree of focus. Yeah, the way I like think about my customers is I get very clear on who they are and what they care about. So, you know, AppFolio is a large company. [00:10:19] We have lots of customers and as much as we'd love them to be homogenous, like all the same property managers are very diverse group of small businesses. So it's really important for me to understand the profile of business that I'm solving for what type of product and service are we building for that specific profile? So much so that I want to be so intimate with that profile of customer that if I meet them, it's easy for me to have a conversation with them. I know what their common pains and challenges are. I know what they care about. Like I could talk to them for two hours and they were like, "Oh, it felt like I've known you forever." That's how like close I want to understand their types of businesses. [00:11:04] And I think that's similar for property managers as they reach out to different types of owners. So you have accidental landlords that care about something very different than an like mom and pop investor that's trying to grow a real estate portfolio. And depending on your market might depend on which one of those or both of those you focus on. [00:11:26] But having a degree of focus and on that specific buyer or owner that you fit best for is really important to scale because then you can build systems and processes around that. You can build what you mentioned earlier, pricing and packaging around those people. And you're not trying to do everything for everyone. [00:11:49] You're focused on solving the needs of. A specific like group of people. They, I think it's Seth Godin who talks about a thousand true fans. And I think his point is to be very successful in life, you just need to have a thousand people that really love what you're doing and want to pay you to keep doing it. [00:12:09] You think about it, like people are looking for massive scale, but you can actually have an incredibly successful business just by solving the needs of a thousand people.  [00:12:19] Jason: So when you said be everything to everyone, I was immediately thinking, "Oh yeah, some property managers just like are doormats." [00:12:25] They're trying to do everything. What you're talking about, I think is also super powerful, which is this, having this, a higher degree of focus, which you said. And I was thinking we'll focus on what, right? And you're talking about like really getting clear on their avatar, like really getting clear on who they want, what their ideal customer looks like. [00:12:42] Sarah does a lot of work right now with our clients in our rapid revamp program, focusing specifically on this.  [00:12:49] Sarah: Well, I think one of the things we do and actually we're going to be getting into that in a couple of weeks right now, what we're focused on is figuring out their why and their business why. [00:12:59] And I don't think that you can really figure out a lot about your clients and what they truly want, what's really important to them, if you're unclear on what you truly want. It's like that saying, like if you can't love yourself, you also can't love another person, so don't get into a relationship. It's kind of like that. [00:13:20] So if you're unclear about what you're doing and why you're doing it. And why... the big thing is, why does it even matter? Then if you can't answer that question and feel really solid in that answer, then you're never going to be able to figure that out about other people either. Because if you can't start with yourself you're never really going to absorb the information the way that you need to in order to create a really powerful relationship with a client. [00:13:47] Jason: Yeah. Powerful. If you get into a relationship with somebody and they have more clarity on what they want than you do, they win. Totally. You are giving up what you want because you just never got clear enough on it. We all have things we want. It's built into us. Like we have desires. But a lot of us aren't willing to just want things like the, a book I read recently on 10x is easier than 2x kind of talks about this a little bit on the audio book. [00:14:15] They were talking about wanting and how important it is to want, but society, religion, everything kind of conditions us that, "well, you don't need that." And that's what we always hear. "You don't need that. What do you need that for? What do you need that for? Why do you need a house?" [00:14:29] Matthew: You know, I think about what I've noticed is a common theme of the skills that got you here aren't going to get you there. And, what I mean by that is like a lot of people do fall into property management by accident. [00:14:42] Yes. Yeah. I, for one, can definitely relate to building a business that tried to do everything for everyone. And that helped me get a foothold into the market. It helped me build a reputation of a doer. I was really successful at creating customers who really liked me. But I sold the business before I ever learned to scale it. [00:15:04] Effectively. I've learned those scaling skills working in a software company but I've had to go from highly successful doer to slowing down, thinking strategically, getting to the why and being careful about choices and realizing like "no" is often better than "yes" if you're being careful and focused. [00:15:28] And I think that set of skills is, at least for me, it was incredibly hard to go from doer to strategy is kind of how I talk about it or think about it. And that is how you get a business from working very successfully, but working 60 hours a week to growing. And maybe you're still working 60 hours a week, but you're not unclogging a toilet because you can't get ahold of a maintenance person and you have a plunger in the back of your truck or whatever, you know, you're building systems and procedures to allow things to grow sustainably.  [00:16:09] Jason: Yeah, there's a really good book. We've had the author on the show and he's spoken to one of our conferences. [00:16:14] Mike Michalowicz wrote a book called The Pumpkin Plan in which he talks about this analogy of growing a business is akin to like growing prize winning pumpkins in a pumpkin patch. One of the principles is it's impossible to grow the business that you want if you plant the wrong seed. You cannot grow a prize winning pumpkin if you plant a pumpkin pie pumpkin for example. It's just not going to be big enough. Right? And I think you'd mentioned accidental investors. I think one of the biggest mistakes property managers make by not having clarity on who their ideal customer is they try to get everybody. Then they're taking on a lot of accidental investors and they churn out like after a year. [00:16:52] Right. And churn is it's impossible to outpace with adding more doors and growth, a bad churn rate. That's really a grind. Like that's brutal and painful. And it actually takes less work to work with 10 year buy and hold investors, less work to convince them to use you, less work to do stuff versus you know, working with accidental investors. [00:17:14] And so if a business builds a business off of the back of accidental investors, they're building a business that has a high churn rate, the MRR model gets destroyed, and it's a grind, and their business will more likely fail or stay stagnant for years.  [00:17:31] Matthew: That makes total sense. What I think about too is like, how do I build software tools that help the property managers elevate the conversations they're having with their intentional investors, mom and pop investors, or how do they convert an accidental investor into a more active investor? Like How do we help them show property performance and move the conversation beyond the like three bids we got for the last maintenance issue to what's the overall longterm value of this property and what type of return should it produce? And what's your ideal investment, what types of returns are you looking for? Does this asset actually fit what you're looking for? because property managers, they could underwrite markets better than anyone else can in terms of property investment. [00:18:30] Jason: And I think they're connected to reality. You know what actually works and they know which things need to be improved or change on a property to get the best rent rate. They like, they know all this. They're the best equipped to handle investors, period.  [00:18:44] Matthew: And they're stuck having these, like, what arguably are low level, like not important conversations around, "do we like this maintenance bid or that maintenance bid or like the tenant paid three days late. Are you sure we should renew the lease?" Like, like stuff that's like fairly insignificant for the overall, like performance of the assets.  [00:19:06] Jason: Yeah. Yeah. I agree. Like big focus on the minuscule things that really aren't that significant or that important. And a lot of times it's, they've just set up a relationship that involves way too much communication. Just unnecessary and irrelevant. And then I think that's just has goes to setting boundaries. I mean, Sarah was able to set amazing boundaries when she ran her property management company, like her stats and metrics were ridiculous from what I've seen inside thousands of property management companies. [00:19:37] And so, I mean, she had like 60 percent profit margin, 260 doors, C class properties and ran it remotely part time with one part time person boots on the ground. Like it's insane. And then we see clients that are like the complete opposite. They're like working like a dog with 50 units and like stuck in the first sand trap. [00:19:57] Sarah: I hear them say like, "I have 37 and I work like 58 hours a week." I don't even know what you're doing. What are you doing? How?  [00:20:03] Matthew: I can relate to that.  [00:20:05] Sarah: I don't understand what you're doing. I don't get it.  [00:20:08] Jason: The testament to having a really sharp operator in a business. She makes us a lot more efficient. So, so how does Appfolio help with all of this? [00:20:17] So you've mentioned you know, having some clarity on the customer and, you know, getting clear on who you want. How is Appfolio software facilitating these owner relationships?  [00:20:29] Matthew: Yeah, our main channel is the owner portal that we have, right? That's the main channel that we can build technology in that allow property managers to communicate better with their owners. [00:20:44] So we've been making a lot of investments to bring property performance into the owner portal in and visualize it via dashboards to give more insight to the property owner about how the property is performing. I think the first problem that we solved rather successfully based upon customer feedback is how can I get data to my owners so they stop calling me about things that are low value and relatively trivial? [00:21:16] So like getting all of that, like did they pay their rent on time? Approving maintenance work orders, like simple things that most of the time can be just a click of a button and happen via technology that's been like, now we're looking at like, what are other ways we can help visualize the performance of the property so that property managers can, if they want, have what I would call like a more asset management conversation as opposed to a like operational conversation. [00:21:49] What I believe is going to continue to be true is there's going to be more consolidation of single family, and there's going to be less accidental landlords over time and more people that are actually looking for real returns on their assets. And so property managers are going to have to learn how to have asset management type conversations which talk about cash on cash return, IRR, those types of things that might sound intimidating. [00:22:22] They're really not that complicated if you spend some time learning them. We basically want to empower our customers to have those conversations easier and try to be thought leaders for the real estate investing space, which they serve and typically are their best customers.  [00:22:40] Jason: Yeah, I love that. [00:22:42] Sarah: So the, I feel like our ROI calculator does a really good job of that. And that's something that's new. So most people have no idea what that is. because we just rolled it out. But we gave early access to some people who had attended an in person event last month with with us. And they all really loved it. [00:23:02] But what I think I like the most about it is a lot of property managers, they have great knowledge. They have great understanding and they have great data. Sometimes, not all the time, but sometimes there's a little bit of a gap. When an investor or there's a little bit of an like just the clench, right? [00:23:20] When an investor, like a really savvy investor calls, any property management owner and says, "Hey, you know, I'm looking for, you know, properties with X cap rate," or, you know, I'm, you know, looking to get this kind of right. And sometimes they're like, "Oh, I don't know how to approach this conversation. I just don't. Maybe I know some of the data and I just don't have all of the data. But I think our ROI calculator really helps with that because it kind of breaks down. You just enter it and it's really easy. You can get it from the MLS. So literally anyone can do it. You just, you don't even have to be a real estate agent. You just pull the data from the MLS. And there are certain things you might need a property manager's guidance on things like, you know, how much might the rehab take and how much is market rent for this property or this area. [00:24:11] And from there, it'll show you, you know, does this property cash flow well? And what kind of tax benefits do you get from owning and holding the property? Because everyone, I think when they think about real estate investing, they think, Oh, it's cash flow. It's not always about the cash flow. There's so many other ways to actually make money in real estate. [00:24:37] And cash flow is a small little chunk of the pie. So I think the ROI calculator really helps empower property managers to have these really great deep conversations with realtors and with investors and do so confidently, not just, "Oh, well, I think this will be a good property to invest in, or I feel like this is probably a good..." [00:25:03] We know because now we have the data and now it just comes down to: do the numbers work or not?  [00:25:10] Matthew: Yeah. What you're talking about sounds really familiar to what I call like underwriting. And that's really common in multifamily. Every single multifamily operator or investor underwrites a property before acquisition so that they have a pro forma. [00:25:28] They know how it's going to operate and that will happen more in single family over time. It's just been such a fragmented market that is less mature, but the returns and yields are higher. And that's why you have invitation homes and other big, large owners that own nationally in this single family space, because if you can figure out how to buy in a market that's working, has the right fundamentals and is working, can get quite a good return. And so, yeah my belief is everyone in this space needs to learn how to have these conversations. And our part is to build as much technology as we can to make it easier for people to navigate. [00:26:16] What I view is a world that will continue to change and mature and get more sophisticated over time.  [00:26:25] Jason: Well, love it. I think to wrap this up, I think it's really an interesting thought to, you know, when people are picking property management software, I don't think the owner portal is at the top of their list. [00:26:36] I don't think it's their main focus. They're like, "how is this for me? How is this for me?" Instead of the person that's going to pay them, you know? And so I think this is an interesting take or an interesting concept that Appfolio is placing some attention to focus on. You know, optimizing the owner portal and maybe innovating there to improve the owner's experience, which in turn will benefit the property manager and hopefully help them retain clients longer or showcase the value maybe depending on how you develop it, even convince accidentals to turn into buy and hold long term investors, you know, like, because they can see some numbers and some stats and go, "why would I like give this up?" [00:27:14] But I think it's an interesting concept and And it also adds some validation to our ROI calculator that we brought to the industry to, so, well, Matthew, it's been great having you on the show. How can people find out more about Appfolio and any parting words for our listeners? [00:27:29] Matthew: Yeah, go to our website. I'm also pretty available on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn. So look me up. Hopefully my name's in the show notes, Matthew Kaddatz at appfolio.com is where we got. I love having conversations with property managers about just what they're experiencing in the business. So always happy to have a conversation with anyone. [00:27:50] Thank you both for your time. Really appreciated the conversation. Excited what you guys are up to. Sounds like there's some overlap and parallel, which is always a good thing.  [00:27:59] Jason: Well, awesome. Great having you on the show. Thanks Matthew for being here. All right. So if you are a property management entrepreneur, you're wanting to grow your business and you are interested in that ROI calculator that Sarah mentioned, make sure to reach out.  [00:28:13] Sarah: It's live now so everyone can get it. [00:28:16] Jason: So basically it'll show the the ROI on a property, so they can contrast this to like investing in stock or anything else and generally the property is going to win, right? You know, on almost anything. There's no way people can get these kind of returns if they invest. And tax benefits. The tax benefits. [00:28:35] Sarah: The tax benefits, like this is where it's at people, the tax benefits. And the nice thing, I will also plug this too, is it shows you on a particular property, if you were to buy it cash versus if you were to finance it because sometimes one or the other like totally wrecks the deal Or sometimes one or the other you're like, "well, this is what I want. This is what i'm really looking for tax benefit wise or cash flow wise." Well, okay, then if that's what you're looking for now, I know as a property manager or as a real estate agent. Now, I know which way does the deal make more sense for you? Because perhaps it doesn't make sense if you buy in cash, if you're looking for cash flow or vice versa, right? [00:29:17] So it kind of gives you the, you know, here's if you do it this way, this is what it looks like. And if you do it this way, this is what it looks like. And it shows you the benefits of both really of both on one report. And it's it's really great. I think it makes it I think it's streamlined everything that make things super simple and it makes these I think one of the big problems really is there are some investors that know how to do this. [00:29:43] Like we, we talk to them sometimes and they can just, they spit out. They're like, "Oh, I know based off of this data, this is how the taxes would work." But I would say the majority of people, they aren't as familiar with the tax code because it's not a very interesting read. So if they're not as familiar with the tax code, they might not look at it through that lens, or they might miss something. [00:30:10] This is really nice because it will show you exactly, you know, here's all of the tax benefits, and here's actually what it looks like on this particular property with these particular numbers. Yeah.  [00:30:20] Jason: So special shout out to John Chin for working closely with me on developing this. He has a certification for real estate agents to become investor savvy, all the certified residential investment specialists or Chris. [00:30:34] So, you know, check that out. And we, I work closely with John for months developing this tool and getting it to work in a certain way that it outputs a nice, pretty PDF. And what's really magical about this is that this is a lead generation tool so that you can provide these documents to on each property. [00:30:56] You can provide an assessment for real estate agents, and it's branded with your brand and you can give this to real estate agents. They will come and fill out a form and submit a property so that they can get this. You will give it to them. You can create a video about it and send them the video and this document. [00:31:13] We have give you a script for this as well, and you then have this tool or this resource and they're giving it to their investors, the investors. It's already got property management factored in as part of the investment strategy. And so it's part of the conversation. It's an assumed given thing. So this allows you to get property management clients is the bottom line. [00:31:34] This is why we developed this for our clients to help them grow faster. And our clients are loving having conversations around this. Yeah.  [00:31:41] Sarah: And they're like, "I'm going to plug this on my website. That way I can just get all this traffic on my website. I can get people right there. Easily accessible. I can promote it right from there. The data goes right to them." It's fantastic.  [00:31:51] Jason: Yeah. This allows you to help real estate agents look smart and look good with investments because most really aren't that good with investments. They aren't familiar. A lot of real estate agents don't even have a single investment. And so 50 percent real estate agents didn't even do a deal last year. [00:32:05] So let alone with an investor, right? So this allows you to help some of them become more investor savvy and feed you more deals as a property manager. So pretty awesome. So anyway, reach out to us at doorgrow.Com to get access to the ROI calculator. And I guarantee it's going to make you a lot of money if you use it effectively. [00:32:23] All right. So that's it for today until next time to our mutual growth. Bye everyone. [00:32:29] 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!  [00:32:56] 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.

Do you feel comfortable where you are at in your property management business? You might have achieved your initial goals. You started the business, you got the number of doors you wanted… now what? Today, property management growth experts Jason and Sarah Hull talk about growing beyond the initial goals you set as a business owner by leveling up your mindset. You'll Learn [01:30] Don't be a slave to your own business [04:11] You can achieve more [09:28] The 3 different levels of want [16:33] The 3 things necessary to achieve [20:15] Only YOU know what you are capable of Tweetables “You know, deep down whether your business is great or not.” “You're able to make a bigger impact and a bigger difference if you have a successful healthy business.” “Find a way to justify success because success allows you contribution.” “You spend your whole life trying to fit in when really you need to spend time trying to stand out.” Resources DoorGrow and Scale Mastermind DoorGrow Academy DoorGrow on YouTube DoorGrowClub DoorGrowLive TalkRoute Referral Link Transcript [00:00:00] Jason: Are you a "kinda" property manager or business owner or entrepreneur or are you non-negotiable, you refuse to be in an industry and not be one of the best. You're going to be great. Like you've committed to being great.  [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. 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. [00:00:51] At DoorGrow, we are on a mission to transform property management, business owners. We want to transform the industry, eliminate the BS, build awareness, change perception, expand the market and help the best property management entrepreneurs win. I'm your host, property management growth expert, Jason Hull, the founder and CEO of DoorGrow. Now, let's get into the show. All right.  [00:01:14] So, a lot has been going on. Last episode, Sarah and I talked about how we had just come back from an event. We had a whole bunch of different ideas. This last week, then her family came to visit, so I haven't been able to implement a lot of these ideas, but it was super great seeing her family. [00:01:30] And, you know, one thing I was really grateful for during the last week, at the end of the week, I said to Sarah, "you know, it's really great that we have a business that allows us that when we want to, we can have those moments with family. Like family had come to visit, we can spend that time with them." And she agreed. [00:01:48] And so. This is something that I want all of you to be able to have an experience too. Hopefully you have this already in your business. If you do not, if you're struggling, if you're like, man, "I haven't even taken a vacation, let alone a few days off to spend with family. I haven't taken a vacation or a few days off to spend with family or anything like that in a while," then you have built the wrong business. You didn't build a business for you. You didn't build a business based on what you wanted. You built a business based on what your clients want maybe. You built a business that you let take over and become its own boss. And the business is now in control of you. You are now a servant or a slave to your business, and you should be the one in control, the one in charge. And so if you're in that position, you know, I want you to get out of this. I want to give you an escape route. So I just did a masterclass on the biggest secret killer or thief in a business, and that's interruptions. And I talked about doing a time study, and this is also the beginning gateway to escaping your business and creating some freedom is to do a time study. [00:02:58] And you can use our time study. If you'd like, reach out to us. We can give you our time study document. Just DM me on social anywhere and just say time study or something like that. And my team will say “what am I supposed to give them? Give them the link to our time study document." But the basic idea is that you're going to track your time every 15 minutes. [00:03:19] You're going to figure out where your time's going. You're going to figure out: "What am I doing that gives me fulfillment and what am I doing that's taking it away like it's draining me?" And so you're either going to have a plus sign or a minus sign that you're going to write next to every 15 minutes of where your time goes. [00:03:36] So if you're doing something where you feel like you're in the flow and you really enjoy it and this is fun for you and whatever it is, plus sign if you're like, "man, if I never had to do that ever again, and I had a team member to do that thing..." minus sign. Put down a minus sign. I have a special guest Welcome, Sarah.  [00:03:55] I'm giving up. [00:03:55] To the DoorGrow show. She was waiting for somebody to show up at our door They didn't show up. [00:04:00] So, all right. Nope. I was mentioning that if they haven't been able to take a trip or vacation a while, that they should maybe do a time study. So that's kind of where I've gotten so far.  [00:04:11] All right. Cool. So I was thinking at funnel hanging live at the event that we went to, I really enjoyed Eric Thomas. Yeah. And here's my notes from that, but I was thinking we would touch on that for the remainder of the episode. [00:04:25] Yeah. That's cool. Cool. And it's kind of related. He's an inspirational speaker, this gentleman named Eric Thomas. And he's gotten to speak to Warren Buffett and billionaires and, you know, stuff like this. And he was sharing this idea about this concept of these three levels of desire. [00:04:42] And he started out by talking about, you have to give yourself permission. So if you want success, you want to achieve, and I want you all to crack your mind open and be open to the idea of having massive success in your property management business. I don't know why you would want to suppress that anyway, right? So be open to the idea that a thousand doors would be a lot more fun, give you a lot more money and be a lot easier to do as a business owner, because you have a great team than doing a hundred doors. Right. And some of your dreams, like a hundred doors, I want you to 10x that. They need to go big, and we also got to hear Dr. Ben Hardy who wrote 10x is easier than 2x, which is a great book that I read. I really love that. So why don't you think 10x bigger, but give yourself permission to dream and the level of your ambition dream and set that level higher. Not to the level of other people's expectations. [00:05:32] And it talks about this in 10x and Eric Thomas touched about this, but it's the idea that a lot of times we are too afraid to just want, we're too afraid to just want something bigger. And so we feel almost guilty for wanting what we actually want or wanting something big. And so instead we hear this feedback from the world that says, "well, that's nuts. You don't need all that. You don't need a nice car. You don't really need a nice house. You don't need this." And that's other people's expectations. But that might not be what you want. And I really believe God puts desires in our heart for a reason. [00:06:06] Like, so the first question he asks is "what do you want?" Not what do other people want? Like, what do you really want? And whatever you want is okay. You get to want whatever you want. And then he asked, "why are you here? Why are you here?" And I've heard other coaches ask, what do you want and why does it matter? [00:06:23] But there needs to be a why. I like, "why are you here?" Because this speaks to your purpose. We have a purpose and what you want and your purpose are probably aligned in some way. Like having, you know, your dream life and being able to benefit others and have success. They're all interconnected. So, and he talks about three levels of want. [00:06:44] So I don't want to do all the talking. Do you want to talk about the three levels of want?  [00:06:48] Sarah: Yeah. Well, there's something too that I want to kind of add in because I've heard this my whole life and I've been different for a long time and I'm totally fine with being different. Like even, you know, elementary school, high school, like I've just always thought differently. [00:07:03] I've done things differently. I don't like fit in with like the popular kids. I'm weird. Yeah. I'm weird. And I'm really good with being weird, but sometimes people aren't. And especially when they're in school and they're young and everybody's like, "Oh no, you must conform and you must like fit in." [00:07:19] You spend your whole life trying to fit in when really you need to spend time trying to stand out, trying to be different. So, I've, like I said, I've always just done things a little differently. And a lot of times when I make a decision, you know, people will ask me like, why do you need that? [00:07:36] Why do you need that? You know? And I'm like, I don't need it. I want it. And that's been my answer every time. Like my whole life, you know, like I bought, so I refused to my very first home that I ever bought. I bought when I was 26. And until then I had just been renting, but I bought my very first home on my own by myself. [00:07:55] No help. I did have a mortgage. Yes, but like I didn't get money from my parents or like money from a spouse. Like it was me. I just did it. And I refused to buy a starter home. I was like, I am not going to buy a house that I want to live in for, you know, a year to three years and I'm going to just make it work. [00:08:15] And then I'm going to like upgrade and, you know, do the normal thing that people do. They're like, "Oh, I'll just start here and then I'll upgrade later." I refused to do that. And so I bought a home that I could live in for anywhere from like five to 10 years, I was like "I'm not doing this stupid game that people do." [00:08:33] So I just did what I needed to do in order to make that happen. And everybody was asking me like, well, "why are you doing that? Like, just buy a house that's smaller, just buy a house that's less expensive. Just do this. Just like, why do you need all that?" And I was like, "I don't need it. I don't need it. I want it, and it's okay to want big things and it's okay if the things that you want are not necessarily the same things that other people want." [00:09:01] So I really want to Mention that because I think we get this like pressure sometimes to conform to, you know, societal norms and just, you know, do just do what you're supposed to do. Just do the thing that everybody else does. And there's a lot of times I don't want to do the thing that everybody else does because it's not exciting. [00:09:22] So it's okay to like think outside of this box that everybody's trying to put you in. But anyway, so, there are three different levels of want. This is one of the things that he was kind of talking about is if you kind of want something and you're like, "Oh, that would be nice." Right. This is what I'm going to call like, "Hey, I'm like, I'm fantasizing" like, "Oh, it'd be nice if one day we could take this amazing vacation and go to Italy for like three weeks and like, you know, tour everything and like just like forget about all of our stresses at home. Oh, wouldn't it be nice if one day we lived in like a million dollar home? Wouldn't it be nice if one day I had a Maserati, right?" Like, and we all do this. Every person on the planet does this. [00:10:04] Like, "oh, it'd be really awesome. Like, this is like my dream life. Like if I could just snap my fingers and make something happen, like it'd be great if I lived in this mansion, right?" That's when you like, kind of want it. You're like you can think it, you can maybe say it out loud. [00:10:17] There's nothing solid behind that. You're just like speaking it out and you're like, "oh yeah, it'd be cool if this."  [00:10:23] Jason: Yeah. He said I can't, he says when you kind of want it, it's, but only if it isn't too difficult or inconvenient, I want it. That's how bad I want it. I want it enough that, yeah, it'd be nice, but only if it isn't too difficult or inconvenient. [00:10:38] That's the lowest level. What's the next level?  [00:10:41] Sarah: So then there's something when you really want it. Now, when you really want it versus when we kind of want it, when you really want it, you're like, "Hey, I'm going to do things, I'm going to make this happen, like I'm going to take some action, you know, I'm going to make some, maybe some choices a little bit differently." [00:10:58] This is like, "Hey, I'm going to take the thing that I want and I'm going to connect it to action." And that's, I think where most people live, is in this I really want it stage. They're like, "Hey, I really want to make this happen. Like, I'm going to start the business. I'm going to, you know, like make the calls. I'm going to reach out to people. I'm going to promote myself. I'm going to do what it takes." Right. "I'm going to do it." And I think this is where a lot of people think they live right here. You're like, "I'm doing the thing. Here I am like, I'm showing up, I'm doing the thing." Right. And I think what happens a lot of time is this is where we get comfortable because we're doing it. You're like, "I want to start a property management business." And then you did it and now you have clients and maybe you have a team and you've got like, right, you've got money coming in and you're like, "I did it. I did it." Yeah. Cool. Like first, are you dreaming big enough? Like did you started a property management business? [00:11:47] Maybe you have a couple of doors, maybe you have a hundred doors, maybe you've got 500 hours. Right. But are we thinking like as big as we should be or, and are we living in this like "I'm just kind of doing it" stage. Like I'm doing it. I want it. I wanted it. I really wanted it. I made it happen. And now here I am doing it. [00:12:03] And I think stage two and stage three are really different. And stage three is when the thing that you want is an absolute non negotiable thing. I don't remember if it was I don't remember if it was Eric or if it was Namaia. I don't remember which one it might've been. It might've been Namaia. [00:12:21] Jason: Eric is Namaia's mentor.  [00:12:22] Sarah: So yeah, they probably both said it, so, but one of them said, "listen, I have to do this. Like, I want to do it. I want to. Yeah, I want to. Like, I'm committed. I, like, I have the desire. I have the dream, but I also have to do this. I have an obligation to do this. And I have to do this because if I don't do this... he's like, I retired my mom. [00:12:44] I retired her. She's been retired for 10 years. If I don't do this, if I stop doing this, my mom has to go back to work and that can't happen is like, if I don't do this, my wife has to go get a job and that can't happen. If I don't do this, my kids see me quit and they see me stop and they see me playing small, and that can't happen. So when you want it so much so that it's an absolute non negotiable and you're willing to do anything that it takes, obviously ethically, anything that it takes until you get this thing and then you keep going That's I think a different level than like I just really want.  [00:13:25] Jason: So yeah Eric said that non negotiable level when you want what you want, like you want to breathe, then you'll have it. [00:13:34] And I thought about that. I mean, you have to want something pretty bad. I know what it feels like to want to breathe. Right. And I mean, that's serious desire. He then got into the three levels of why, cause we talked about why. And again, there's kinda, really, and non negotiable. [00:13:48] And you know, we have a motive and it's like, "well, I want, you know, kind of as maybe, well, it'd be nice to have some extra cash or whatever." That's not a big enough motive. Really want it, man. "I'm really hurting for cash right now, maybe," but non negotiable is like, "I 100 percent committed. I'm all in on this because this has to work. I have to make this happen. I feel calling inside myself. This is my purpose and I need to fulfill it. I need to achieve it. You know, no matter what the cost." there's always the one way that's going to get us there to make it work, and it's not going to be unethical. It's going to be the right way. And so I think focusing on what do you really want and figuring out what would be a non negotiable for you? Like I'm going to have this and what's a really solid why for some of you, like we were able to, I think last year, like a charity reached out and we donated like four grand to this charity to help, I don't know, homeless people or something. [00:14:46] And, you know, if I was in a financially difficult spot with cashflow in the business, and personally, I wouldn't be able to just drop money to charity like that and benefit a group, right? And as a company we wouldn't be able to do that. Are you able to benefit groups? Are you able to do good things for other people then you need to be making more money if you're not able to So find a way to justify success because success allows you contribution. [00:15:13] We talked about the four reasons: Freedom, fulfillment, contribution, and support. Contribution. You're able to make a bigger impact and a bigger difference if you have a successful healthy business. And one of the things that Eric said that I wrote down, he's a inspirational speaker, [00:15:29] and so he said, "I'm going to be the best inspirational speaker. I'm going to study it. I'm going to do whatever it takes. I'm going to speak before Kings and rulers, you know, I'm going to be the best." He said, "I refuse to be in an industry and not be one of the best in the industry." He said, "be great." So are you a kinda property manager or business owner or entrepreneur? [00:15:50] Are you like, you know, you really level or you non negotiable, you refuse to be in an industry and not be one of the best. You're going to be great. Like you've committed to being great. I've always had this commitment at DoorGrow. Sarah shares this with me. We've always had this commitment to being the best, and we believe we are the world leaders. [00:16:12] Nobody else has what we have in property management coaching. We're the best. And I'm committed to staying the best. And this is why we invest so much into the business. In terms of learning, investing in other masterminds, getting coaches, getting mentors. We spend more on that than other programs probably make, you know, other coaches probably make. [00:16:33] So you talked about three things that are necessary in order to like achieve what you want and have the success. And these three things, I recommend you write these down. First, you need desire. So we kind of talked about that. You have to really want it and you have to have a why and that's that, and then he said, you need an A team. [00:16:52] You need a really awesome team, like of A players. And then he said, you need a system. And what he shared these examples. He's like, Michael Jordan was, you know, an amazing basketball player. But until he got Phil Jackson as a coach, he was not able to play super well with others and he wasn't able to get championships. [00:17:11] He needed a system and Phil Jackson created a system that allowed Michael Jordan to win and succeed multiple times. But before then he was just getting lots of points, but he was not winning championships. He then talked about Michael Jackson. Michael Jackson needed a system and then he found Quincy Jones and started to have a ton of success. [00:17:32] And he shared some other examples. People need a system. And I got really excited when I heard this. I think I leaned over to you and said something. I think I was like, "we're the system." We are the system. I was like so excited. I'm like, that's us. We are the system! We just need to find the Michael Jordans and the Michael Jackson's out there. [00:17:52] Like the property managers that are like the greats, the ones that want to be great.  [00:17:57] Sarah: And can I say too, because I already know what's going through at least like three quarters of y'all's brains right now, they're going, "well, I'm better than everybody else in my market. So look, I am great." Yeah, and that's fantastic, right? [00:18:13] But if you're the best one in the market, and you might be, so I'm talking to you right now, because I was the best one in my market, hands down. There was like no competition but I was still playing really small. I got up to 260 doors because I was in that really want it. I wasn't in this, Hey, I'm like going to make this a non negotiable. [00:18:32] And I know, like, I was very aware. I knew where I was. Jason's like, you could make this a thousand door company if you wanted to. I know that I could, and it would have been really easy. I already know what I would have done. I could have doubled my business overnight and I know that. But I wasn't in this stage where it was a non negotiable. [00:18:47] So was I the best one in my market? Hands down, but am I really playing full out? No. And I knew I wasn't so if you're thinking like, yeah, but I am the, like, I am the greatest already. You might be but I think the one thing that I would say here because I realized this Actually when I was working at an insurance company, you can't compete with other people That is not don't and we all do this. [00:19:16] Like this is super common for us to do We go, "oh, well like my neighbor over there just got a new ferrari now I have to get a new ferrari." No, you compete against yourself. So every day you need to be better than you were yesterday. [00:19:29] That's the game you have to play. You can't worry about what your neighbors are doing, what your competition is doing and what other people in your market are doing. Who cares what they're doing? Let them do whatever they're doing and you worry about yourself. And if you are, you're like, "Oh, I'm already the greatest one in my market." [00:19:47] Fantastic. Then you got to keep going. So if you're the greatest one in your market like me and I was at 260 doors, don't stop at 260 doors. Don't be like, "oh, I already did it. Like look at me." Keep going. So at 260 doors, double that and then double it again And when you're really on this path, like that is how you become really great. [00:20:10] Don't just say like, "Oh, I'm already the best in my market. So I'm there." You have not arrived yet.  [00:20:15] Jason: So I think those listening, I mean, you know, deep down whether your business is great or not. Whether you're really delivering the level of service and you know there's flaws. You know you're not at that great level yet. [00:20:29] And to Sarah's credit, she was running a really effective business. I mean, you had 60 percent plus profit margin and you were part time. She's flexing here. So, but she fell in love with coaching clients at DoorGrow. She was like part time and she was like, "Hey," and she fell in love with something that she then really wanted to be great at. [00:20:50] Here's the thing. You need to know who you are, ET talked about this. You need to know who you are and you need to become great. Not just the best in your market, if the bar is really low, but you need to become where, you know, deep down is great. And that level you know, Ben Hardy, who wrote the 10X is easier than 2X said the only person that knows your potential, that's between you and God and everyone else might say, "Oh, what you're doing is amazing. It's great." But you might know if there's more and no one else is going to be able to set that higher bar than yourself. You need to know what great is and decide what that looks like, and you need to become great. And what he said when you become great, the system that you need will come like Michael Jordan invested and became great. And then you're The right people were attracted to him. He found Phil Jackson, right? Michael Jackson found Quincy Jones, right? Then when you become great, you will, then the system will come. [00:21:44] The system is out there. It's available and you will find the right system. And then once you have the system that you need, then you can leverage greatness. Then you can really leverage that greatness and truly showcase your greatness. And you don't have to be the most talented if you got the right system. You don't have to be the smartest [00:22:04] if you have the right system, you don't need to be different, you just need be a better version of yourself and compete with yourself. And you know, that's it. You just really need the right system. And I got excited because at DoorGrow, we've built the system. We built the system for the best property managers. [00:22:22] That was our intention. And I was really excited because I'm like, "we're the system! We've got the system." We just need to find those that really want to be great. And so I'm challenging everyone listening. I want you to want to be great, but you've got to want it. No one else is going to do it for you. [00:22:35] And Sarah wants me to wrap up. You want me to wrap up? We'll wrap up. So only you can do the work, but doing it alone is a choice. That's what he said. So find he had this scripture. He said, find a man that's diligent at what he does. And he will stand before Kings. Nothing can stop you. [00:22:51] Only you can stop you. You owe you. And then he said, he had people chanting, "I can, I will, I must." And so when you want to succeed as bad as you want to breathe, then you will be wildly successful. And we would love to be part of that journey. I'm a conductor with my pencil. All right. I'm just getting excited. [00:23:12] I'm going to poke somebody in the eye here.  [00:23:13] Sarah: It's going to be me.  [00:23:16] Jason: "It's going to be me." All right. So anyway, reach out the DoorGrow. We would love to support you. And until next time to our mutual growth, bye everyone. [00:23:25] 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!  [00:23:51] 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 me and guest Mark Silver in a deep dive into ethical pricing, dissecting models like "pay what you can" and the intriguing "pay from the heart." Mark, drawing from his new book "Heart Centered Business," emphasizes the crucial elements of transparency, balance, and assertiveness in pricing. The discussion explores ethical selling, treating clients individually, and a holistic, heart-aligned pricing strategy for sustainable business practices. In this episode, Patrick and I talk about his 'pay from the heart' price model as well as: His view on what money is (and it's NOT energy!) How to price ethically The elements of a successful ‘pay what you can' approach Who should adopt these models? Why neediness is not a bad thing Client sovereignty And so much more Ep 178 transcription 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. I'm Sarah Zanacroce, 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 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. You can 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 at Humane. Hello and welcome back Humane Marketers to the Humane Marketing Podcast. Today's conversation fits under the P of Pricing and I'm so happy to have a returning guest Mark Silver from Heart of Business and we're going to be talking about Ethical pricing. 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 this is your first time here, you probably don't know what I'm talking about, but you can download your [00:03:00] one page marketing plan with the humane marketing version of the seven P's of marketing at humane. marketing forward slash. One page, the number one and the word page. And this comes with seven email prompts to really help you reflect on these different piece for your business. So it's not prescriptive, but really reflective. Everything we do here at humane marketing is questioning our. Assumptions, what we assume and what we think we should be doing in marketing and question those assumptions and then come up with our own ideas. So before I tell you a bit more about Mark, allow me to invite you to a special week of events that is hosted by our community, the Humane Marketing Circle. Expo. We're calling it the Expo because we're exposing many different workshops and events that are all hosted by the members of our [00:04:00] community. It really truly is an unsummit, a different kind of experience that is organized and held by our community. And why an unsummit or what is an unsummit? Uh, it's because it's not just about what you'll learn, but how you'll experience it. Really, we decided that for this event, connection is our guiding star, and we believe in a different kind of learning. One where human connection is just as vital as the knowledge gained. So, our expo is about real conversations. It's shared experiences in a participating atmosphere that emphasizes the power of community. So it's not just about getting in as much content as you can and watching hours and hours of recordings, but really attending live. You can expect workshops, discussions, and connection calls that are aimed at fostering a sense of togetherness. And it's not just about [00:05:00] being passive, but an active member. About sharing, learning, and growing together, the activities range from a LinkedIn profile makeover to doodling for stress relief to data analysis, the human way we have grouped the different offerings into four areas that we believe make up a humane business and they are being. Relating, thinking, and doing. So please join us for free at the humane dot marketing forward slash expo E X P O. And while it's free to join, we'll ask for a small donation to attend the workshops because all revenue goes towards the fundraiser of the first ever real live meeting of our community in Sicily in May, 2024. So I hope to see you at the expo. The link again is humane. marketing forward slash expo and humane is with an [00:06:00] E at the end, humane. marketing forward slash expo. Okay. Back to this week's episode with Mark Silver. Since 1999, Mark has worked with heart centered entrepreneurs to help them realize that Every act of business can be an act of love. Mark is one of the pioneers in integrating real spirituality with the nitty gritty of small business. He founded Heart of Business Inc in 2001. A designated master teacher within his Sufi lineage, he has received his Masters of Divinity. As a coach, teacher, and spiritual healer, he has facilitated. Thousands of individual sessions with entrepreneurs and has led hundreds of classes, seminars, groups, and retreats. His weekly writings and teachings are followed by thousands of people around the globe. A fourth generation entrepreneur prior to heart of business, Mark ran a [00:07:00] distribution business, turned around a struggling nonprofit magazine and worked as a paramedic in the San Francisco Bay area. So in today's episode, we talked about Mark's view on what money is, and it's not energy according to him, how to price ethically, the elements of a successful pay what you can approach, who should adopt these models, why neediness is not a bad thing, client sovereignty, and so much more. So let's dive into this conversation with Mark Silver. Hi, Mark. So good to have you back. Thanks so much for indulging me again and, uh, uh, taking another round and another shot at this conversation. We had some tech issues the first time, so thanks so much for coming  Mark: back. Oh, yeah. Oh, my goodness. If I think of all the times I've had tech issues or problems over the last couple of decades. No worries. [00:08:00] Part of it.  Sarah: Thank you. Thanks for being here. So we're hosting this conversation under the topic of ethical pricing. You've been on the podcast on a previous episode where we also talked about pricing, but, uh, a different aspect of, well, part of ethical pricing, which is this, uh, thing that you often talk about, which is pay what you want or pay what you can model. So we'll address that as well, but I feel like we could have easily called this episode the, um, ethical business, uh, episode, because you just wrote a book called Heart Centered Business, right? And so I, I read it and I, I'm going to kind of pick your brain about certain questions that came up for me, if that's okay. Mark: Yeah, I'm delighted. I'm delighted to dig in.  Sarah: Wonderful. So quite in the first pages of the book, you talk about money. And I think if we talk about ethical pricing, well, [00:09:00] obviously we need to talk about money, right? So this idea that often kind of makes it circles in the spiritual realms is this idea of, uh, money being energy and you make a very clear statement that money is not energy. And so I'd love for you to unpack this and explain, uh, yeah, your approach to it and why money isn't energy.  Mark: Yeah, so, um, thank you. It's a, it's a, it's a really good question. So this whole idea that while money's just energy, um, is something that I've seen make the rounds, as you said, in a lot of like spiritual business circles, and it's very often used, I think, as a bit of a, of a bypass, meaning, you know, not really POSITIVE pinpointing. You know, as taking permission to not really look at what's going on. Um, the truth is, it's true. Everything is [00:10:00] energy. Everything is divine at its essence. However, money only exists as money in the physical world. And when something is present in the physical world, it abides by. The, um, constrictions, the restrictions within the physical world, you know, it's like I look out my window and it's, you know, we're moving very close to winter. All the leaves are off the trees. This is not a time to try to plant tomatoes. You know, it's like, it's not going to work. Um, it is a time to plant trees, however. So it's like, Thank you. Because trees need to be dormant in order to over the over the winter. I don't need to get deep into regenerative farming and planting, but I did not know that. So thank you. Yeah. Yeah. You can plant them in the early spring. We could spend the whole episode on trees. I love trees. Anyway, um, so. When we talk about money as energy, it's really important that we're not thinking that that's an excuse [00:11:00] to bypass just being responsible with the, with how it works in the world, you know, it's, you know, there's, we have to pay attention to it. We have to account for it. We have to care for it if we want it to be in our lives. Now, It's also important to say that the economic systems that are in place in this world are extremely unjust there they've been manipulated they've been set up to benefit certain people and to harm others and so it's not like we just want to be. Um, unmindful of questions of justice or ethics or morality when we're dealing with money, but it does behoove us to really open our hearts to dealing with the real world aspects of what is needed to make money work in our lives. [00:12:00] Yeah.  Sarah: What comes to mind is, is the, um, I'm missing the words that, you know, the movement, um, that manifests anything, the, yeah, I can't remember the wording right now, but, but basically this idea of that, you know, if you just wish for it hard enough, then it will appear, um, kind of thing. And I, my. Left brain has just never been a big fan of that idea because it, like, I have a hard time actually understanding it because I, I do believe money is physical as well. So it's like, well, how, how is it just going to end up? And then again, sometimes, yes, you know, it does happen. Some weird circumstances make it, make it happen, but I don't think you can just sit back and. And manifest everything, anything and everything you want.  Mark: Yeah. So, you know, as a spiritual person and someone who's had a wide [00:13:00] variety of experiences in this world, I've witnessed miracles. I've witnessed things happen. Um, you know, You know, the, because the opposite isn't true either. Everything doesn't have to be hard work. You know, again, going back to, um, the land, like, you can set up, um, regenerative agriculture. You can set up permaculture. So the plants care for themselves. You can set up your business. You can set up your money so that it's easier to do. And it's not so much hard work. However, in the physical world, yeah. The physical world is limited and we're asked to care for one another. We're asked, you know, it's like a one person, you know, if we have a pie, somebody takes the whole pie, nobody else gets to eat. Right. We have to, we're here to share and we're here to care for one another. Right.  Sarah: Yeah. So, so if we take this idea of money being physical, so what does that then mean for our ethical pricing? How do we [00:14:00] apply ethical pricing with physical money?  Mark: Yeah, it's a really good question. And I, I looked at it very closely in particular in my industry, um, around business development and business coaching and business training. And I have seen for. For years and years and years and years, I mean, since, you know, 20 years, 23 years, I've been doing this now. I've seen people charge. Very high, very, you know, five figures, you know, 10, 000, 20, 000, um, to offer business training for people that are in the very beginnings of their business building. And when I think about ethical pricing at that level, there is no way that a brand new business just starting to take on. Learning about business is going to be able to generate the kind of income and revenue, uh, that is going to make that kind of investment worthwhile. Um, there's no [00:15:00] way that you can jumpstart. You know, it's like a plant takes what it takes to. To grow i've i've watched you know over the years we've seen really clearly that it takes two to four years for a business to go from creation to momentum if you're really focused on business development it doesn't happen in six months it doesn't happen even in twelve months although you can make a lot of progress and gain. Um, and gain traction there, but so ethical pricing is when the investment is balanced. The price that you're paying is balanced with what a reasonable outcome could be. You know, not, um, the, the home run, you know, people who, who do a variety of programs like to point out the stars. It's like, oh, yeah, they did my program and they quadrupled their income. And now they're making 6 figures easy. And 1, they're often hiding. The background of the person that that got those results [00:16:00] and what we really want to see is but what is the average person because you want someone who's doing a program most people are going to get average results and are those average results which can be great average results are great are they are the average results worth the investment or are you hoping on a lottery ticket that you're going to be the one person that gets the home run. We have to pay attention to that.  Sarah: I think it's all about honesty and talking about results with honesty. Right. And in humane marketing, we talk a lot about this idea of being transparent and honest marketers. And, and so what we usually see is exaggerated pricing with exaggerated results, like the worst of both cases. Right. Yeah. Like, yeah. And, and so, and the sad thing about this is that. Then people start to [00:17:00] expect miracle results, right? And if you as a humane marketer show up and say, I can't promise you 10 clients within 3 months of working with me. Um, then there's like disappointment or they're like, well, this other person promises this and that. And, and so it really feels like we need to have this conversation that there. Is no miracle solution. Yes. I also believe in miracles, uh, Mark, but in terms of business building, especially if you just start out, well, there, you know, the leaps usually happen a bit later, but in the first year, it's very, it's very seldom that you get these leaps. And especially you can't believe that you. Just because you invest 20, 000, you're going to get these leaps, right? That's exactly right. Honesty conversation we need to have. Yeah,  Mark: we do. And the, and the miracles which can come, I've seen people like, you know, they, you know, they, uh, you know, they [00:18:00] suddenly get a slew of clients, but if they don't understand where those clients came from and how to repeat it, then that's not really, you know, that's, that's not really what the, um. That's not really the cause of whatever program you're taking, right? It's like, you can, you can be set up to receive those clients. I've seen people be on the receiving end of miracles, but their business isn't structured to receive people. And then that definitely can create a problem. Like, you know, like, I think of a client, I think of clients who suddenly got big media exposure just because of that. By luck, but then the people that came towards them, they didn't know how to handle that. So, you know, I've worked with clients who say, oh, my goodness, I'm getting this big media exposure happening. It's going to be coming in a couple of weeks. I'm like, okay, let's ABC, like, let's handle these things so that your business is ready to receive whatever comes towards you. But, um, but you, you do need to, um, not. Pinned on [00:19:00] miracles and home runs for your business to work.  Sarah: Yeah. So let's talk about this, uh, idea of the sliding scale. So this, um, kind of accessible pricing in order to serve as many people as possible. That's kind of at the opposite end of the spectrum, right? Um, I do notice myself also, um, after having had discussions with colleagues, Having strong emotions with that scheme as well, because I do feel like, well, if we're selling that as an ideal business model, then that is not necessarily the beginning point for everybody either. Because otherwise you're going to burn out and, you know, if you start by just giving away your stuff for like really cheap pricing, then how are you going to get create momentum? So I'm really curious to, to [00:20:00] hear your thoughts on that.  Mark: Yeah, I think it's really important to understand that most of us. You know, we've been exposed to this, you know, large scale capitalist model, where it's like, we sell a lot for cheap, you know, the, the Walmart or Amazon or whatever model, and it's not healthy, you know, all of the small businesses, micro businesses are boutique businesses, you know, you can't, you can't. You can't sell 10, 000 or 100, 000. It's not realistic that you're going to get there very quickly. It takes, you know, if that's your business model, there's other things that we need to put in place. And we should talk to make sure that's really where you want to go. However, I'm very actually against sliding scale. And my pay from the heart model is significantly different than just a plain sliding scale. What I observed years ago with people using sliding scales was that there were, uh, Two things generally going on. [00:21:00] One was that there was this genuine desire to make their work accessible. Beautiful, beautiful. It's really important. There are people who can't access services, and it's wonderful to see people make attempts to make services available to them. However, what most people who were using sliding skills weren't doing is facing their own money issues. And so. Instead of facing their own money issues and coming up with something that works, they were unloading their money issues on somebody else and saying, Oh, I'm struggling to name a price. So you name a price. And when that works, when that happens, one, people do tend to go to the bottom of the scale. Um, just because. You know, struggling on their own in whatever ways, but, um, what also happens, which people didn't really realize till I started pointing this out to some of my clients was that if someone is struggling with money [00:22:00] issues themselves and everyone in this culture. Is if they have to choose the price they might choose not to buy it all because it's such an emotional struggle between i want to i want to care for myself i don't have a lot but i want to pay what they're worth it's too much to decide i'm just going to leave right yeah exactly exactly and overwhelmed so when we talk about pay from the heart there's a whole structure around it because, you You do need to, you know, I encourage people to really get clear on what your own business needs are and make that really clear to people. You know, we, we've just opened up a new course and, um. And we have, uh, our suggested price and we have a minimum price, and then we have a way for people to pay less than the minimum. But we make very clear that, oh, this [00:23:00] is for people who are going, who are struggling with food or shelter people that are, you know, like, it would do you a lot of harm. This is not just pay whatever's comfortable. Right? Because we need to be supported also. And so it's, it's much more of a collaborative process than just letting people choose whatever it is they want to, whatever they want to pay.  Sarah: Yeah. And I highly recommend we'll, we'll put the link in the, in the show notes page to the initial, the earlier discussion we had was only about that. And what I remember you saying, and I kind of gave this picture to my client of the, the star yoga pose, you know, take up space. I remember you're saying that I'm like, Oh yeah, that's a good way to put it. It's like you need to take up space as well and take up the space to explain things. You know, usually people just say, pay whatever you want. And then, like you said, they usually pick the lowest price. And if you [00:24:00] explain it well, then they'll understand. Um, And that takes you kind of showing up with, with confidence and space. Yeah. Right.  Mark: And we, and we made a mistake with this, um, in that we had launched it and we were way on the generous side. Going, you know, if you're really struggling, you know, et cetera, um, and people were paying below our minimum way more than was sustainable for us. And we're looking at it going, what's going on? And then we looked at our language. We're like, Oh, we're not taking a strong stand. And ever since we've taken a stronger stand, um, kind with kindness and with love and compassion, but including our business in the compassion with one of our offers, um, people really responded. And we really started seeing a market increase people, people care, you know, our clients are adults. You know, if [00:25:00] someone's paying you, they're going to be an adult, even if you work with kids, even if your business works with kids, the people paying you are the adults somehow, and they know that your business needs. You know, that you need to get paid, like, they know that it costs money to access services. And so you're not going to be surprising anyone when you put out what your financial needs are around and off. Right.  Sarah: So, so, yeah, this idea of neediness also comes up. In the book, and I guess that's what you meant by it, right? This, this are that our business has needs as well. And of course, as individuals have needs, but that in this case, neediness is not a bad thing. Um, is there anything else you want to add to that point of neediness?  Mark: Oh, my goodness. So this is a huge spiritual topic. And it's one of the core [00:26:00] things that we like to help people with. And in fact, our one of our flagship courses, the heart of money and power is really at heart about coming into a relationship with healthy neediness. We're all needy. We're all needy. It's this culture that has Told us that neediness is not healthy or not right, but we often aim our neediness in a wrong direction in a way where we're not going to get our needs met. And I'm, I mean, I'm needy. I can't manufacture the air that I'm breathing. I can't create the water that I drink. I can't force food to grow. You know, I'm needy on so many people doing their part in our culture for, you know, to survive. And so. When we can embrace our neediness, then we can be in a healthy relationship with it. We can be appropriate with it. When we try to [00:27:00] shove our neediness down and not embrace it is when it comes out sideways. You know, that's when it comes out in the sales conversation or comes out in our marketing. And it has this weird feeling of like, Oh, please buy for me or I'm not going to make it. And that feels horrible. To you as the business owner and it also obviously feels horrible to the client, but if we can just slow down and allow our heart to be fed our heart to drink in the love to drink in the care to know that we're cared for deeply. Then that allows us to feel grounded and solid and then we can start to provide a refuge for people and our clients can then lean into us not feeling like we're trying to extract something from them. Yes, we want to get paid, but we really want to care for people at the same time and it becomes a [00:28:00] much healthier interchange and it allows us to get at our marketing and our sales in a way that can feel really good in the heart. Because we're not trying to get something from people in that same kind of twisted way. Sarah: I feel like our, both our work is so aligned. You, you talk about sacred selling. I talk about selling like we're human. I have this visual of having a conversation with your client in the serene garden, right? So this groundedness is very much there. And, and I, yeah, I really hear you with what that means in terms of the neediness. But then there's also this other aspect of the client sovereignty, which you also talk about in the book, right? It's kind of this counter piece almost, uh, where yes, we have needs, but we also want the client to be sovereign and, you know, make their own decision and respect their decision. And their [00:29:00] timing and all of that, which is not what we're usually told in marketing or selling. We are told to push at any cost. So, um, yeah, what's the sacred selling look like for you?  Mark: Well, it's, it's so interesting because when I, when I. If my former career was as a paramedic, or 1 of my former careers was as a paramedic in the San Francisco Bay area, and I did it for some years in pretty intense environments like Oakland, California. And I, um. When I came into business more came back into business, I should say, I found that I was really good at sales and I was like, how does this may even make sense? And I realized that because I was a really skilled paramedic, I was skilled at doing rapid assessments and chaotic, chaotic environments where people were often scared or upset. I was good at. Caring for people and [00:30:00] assessing that that's basically what sales is. It's this assessment that, um, we're trying to get to the bottom of what is it that they really need. It's interesting. Another interesting thing that I discovered was that in, uh. English the word to sell the word cell comes from an old English word cell gen. I'm not pronouncing it correctly. I don't speak old English. Um, but the original meaning is to give something to someone in response to a request. So if you were to say, hey, Mark, can I have that pencil and I handed you the pencil that's selling. I would have sold the pencil to you because you asked for it. That's the heart of what we're trying to do is just get people what they need, not force people to make a decision that's entirely on us. So one of the, one of the keys of selling, uh, successfully is actually, and I. And I, I think this can be counterintuitive [00:31:00] sometimes for people that are hard centered, is that it's a numbers game. Um, you, you want your business to reach enough people that your need to have business and clients, which is totally legitimate. Of course, we need business and clients doesn't put that pressure on any one individual person that you're talking to. You can't really help it so much and it takes a lot of spiritual work and heart soothing in the beginning of business because you don't have such a wide network yet. You know, to not put that pressure, but as a business develops part of what happens is that. You naturally start to gain a larger audience i mean you work towards it you develop it you put things in place that help grow the audience and i don't mean tens of thousands of people i just mean hundreds of people or maybe a couple thousand that your business is reaching. So that when you have an offer, there are people that are naturally ready to [00:32:00] step forward and you're not putting pressure on people that aren't ready. And you can easily in your heart, give people space when they're not ready.  Sarah: Yeah, that's a really good way to, to put into perspective why we, I don't, I'm not a big fan of the word audience, but in this case, it makes sense, right? Why we need our work to reach. Several people, not just the ones that we talk to, and then we feel like we have to push our services onto them. So, so to me, it's always been such a gift when I put out an offer and then people resonate with that offer and come to me, right? That's such a more natural way of, of then having this, uh, humane, uh, gentle sales conversation. Mark: Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. And I'll tell you why I. Do you like the word audience? Um, I think that, and there may be other words. I'd be interested to hear what your [00:33:00] language is around it, but audience for me has an element of honesty about it, you know, so for instance, heart of business, we reach thousands of people, you know, our emails. When we send out our Wednesday email, or if I'm on social media, there's thousands of people I don't have, I have a warm relationship and anyone who steps forward to talk to me, we have a warm connection. But I don't have an in, we do as a business. And for me as a, as the, as the head of the business, I don't have a warm, uh, I don't have an intimate. Relationship with each person on the list and, um, I care, obviously, you know, we care. It's not to say we don't care, but until someone steps forward and wants to have a deeper relationship, you know, joins our learning community or joins a course or something, then it becomes 2 way relationship. And until then, it really is a relationship. With an [00:34:00] audience, um, with, uh, you know, that's more or less a one way communication, unless someone chooses to reach out and email me, which I always, I mean, I love to get those messages, but the truth is the vast majority of people don't. So,  Sarah: yeah, no, and I get that. I think it's, it's, it's more the. Again, it's one of those buzzwords that has gotten a bad reputation because once you unpack the word, yeah, that's what the word means, right? And there's nothing bad with that word. But the problem is that, um, the guru marketers, you know, they tell you to scale your audience and grow. And so it becomes this negative thing where, again, we make. People feel like they have to have this giant audience and, you know, not everybody wants to have the same kind of business module like you do, or some of the other, um, marketers do. And so that's why to me, when I work with one on one coaching clients, for [00:35:00] example, they're like, I don't have an audience. What is an audience? Right. And so when I explain it to them, what it means, then. Then they get it, right? So it's all a matter of making sure that we speak the same language and understand  Mark: each other. It's so important because these words do get really twisted.  Sarah: Yeah, yeah. Wonderful. Well, let's come full circle and come back to pricing. Um, any kind of, um, thoughts, actions that you'd like our listeners, watchers to, to take and just to. Go deeper into this ethical pricing.  Mark: Um, I think so. Arriving at a price is a little bit of an alchemical process. Um, you know, you need to have some knowledge. Like, I really encourage people to figure out what are your financial needs? You know, what are the needs of the business? You know, what is it? What is a price that a That you don't [00:36:00] have to be overwhelmed by clients in order to make a living and at the same time we need to be aware of our somatic body of our of our heart resonance because especially when we're newer in business i like to see people prioritize getting energy flowing through their business as opposed to like sticking to their guns and quote unquote charging what they're worth which doesn't make any sense that phrase doesn't even, You Make any sense. Um, and so oftentimes people begin, you know, we encourage people like, what is the price that you feel in your heart, in your body? You can say without shaking that you can put out there and feel really solid about and feel comfortable welcoming people in, even if it's lower than what you really need. Because what happens is, is that yeah. You know it's it's it's never only the price that's keeping people from saying yes [00:37:00] there's all these other pieces that need to be looked at in terms of how are you communicating and are you reaching the right people and you know and a lot of other things and. If all of those things are true, you know, and you get all of those things in alignment, then finding the price feels resonant in your heart. Even if it's lower, we'll start to get the flow going if your business is newer and you don't have a lot of flow. And so, um, and then that builds up your container. You start to go, Oh, I like working with clients. Oh, I've gotten to practice the sales conversation. I've gotten good at that. Oh, I like, I see that my offer is working and I've managed to tweak it. And once those things happen, generally, we start to feel comfortable at a higher price at a price that may be, you know, more sustainable. On the other hand, yeah. There may be people who have been in business for a while, and [00:38:00] they're actually not charging enough. And that's part of why their business is struggling. And, you know, and I'm talking about ethically in terms of being in alignment with themselves. We, I, I've had clients who said, you know, I've learned from this person, they've been doing it for 40 years, they're a master, but they're only charging this much. And so how can I charge more than them? And I, I often say, you know, well, they're, you know, they may be really good at what they do, but maybe they haven't worked on their money, money issues, maybe their pricing is stuck in a somatic memory from the 1980s instead of, you know, present day and, um. And a lot of times people in those positions don't realize how they're affecting everybody downstream. And so there's like an ethical need to embrace sustainable pricing, you know, sustainable pricing for the business owner. I think ethical pricing. We often look at, okay, are we [00:39:00] doing harm to the client? And that we do, we need to pay attention to that. But I also, you know, Notice that a lot of, uh, people that we work with see the systemic injustices, see the ways that people are struggling. And I'm saying, and I like to tell people, you cannot make up for systemic injustices on your own back. It needs to be a collective response and, um, and often our economic, economic system is asking, you know, exactly the people who shouldn't be giving yet more free labor, you know, women, people of color, um, queer folks, people who are disabled. Always the good people, right? Right. The people, the people who are, who are already being taxed by the system, who are already being asked to give more and to do more. And. These folks, and, you know, you need to have, um, sustainable pricing.  Sarah: [00:40:00] Yeah, I'm so glad you brought up this other side, which I, yeah, I truly believe in both sides and I do, I kind of see the same thing happening as in the sustainability field where there's so many good people, you know, putting. Themselves and, and, and their work into making these changes that we need to make, but they're not taking care of themselves, right? They're burning out in masses and, and that is not humane, uh, either. And so that that's not helping anybody. And so it's the same for the, for the humane business owner. Well, we need to actually first have you take care of yourself. Uh, once you are sustainable and you feel like I've taken care of myself without working day and night, right? A humane best business, in my opinion, is a business where you do actually have time to be human. We need to have this. Time to [00:41:00] to, yeah, create spaciousness for being human again, which we have, you know, forgotten how to do. You're talking about, you know, um, uh, plants and things like that. Well, we don't do that anymore because we're working all the time. But, um, so, so, yeah, I could go go on and on about this. This is like. One of my passion topics right now, but it's so true that we need to listen to, to both of these things. Yes. We want to be ethical towards others, but also towards ourselves.  Mark: Absolutely. Yeah. Well, and I think it's important for most people to, you know, people come into the field seeing, Oh, Hey, you know, come into their business thinking, Oh, I want to do this. You know, I want to make it accessible. I want to, you know, And I'd like to remind folks that most businesses, the business model that they're ultimately going to be successful with is not a business model that is accessible when they're in the very beginning of their business [00:42:00] and, um, you know, our pay from the heart model for our learning community. I couldn't even even created the learning community back in the beginning of our business. I didn't have the material created. I didn't have the solidity and the knowledge and the clarity that I have now on how to help people without having my hands directly on their business, you know, 1 to 1. And so it's quite a natural progression to, um. Start with getting the business on sound footing and then as you're, as you evolve and as you gain knowledge, and as you get clear on your work and your body of work, then to start to think about how can I shift this business model, not only to make it easier for me, but also to meet some of the goals I have around making it accessible to others. Sarah: Yeah, that's a good strategy. Wonderful. Well, thank you so much, Mark. Why don't you tell people where they can find. About [00:43:00] you and also your book and maybe tell us about who the ideal reader is for your book as well.  Mark: Yeah, thank you. Well, I mean, we live at heart of business dot com, uh, you know, if you're interested, you know, you may want to just start with our email list and make sure that, you know, I, I'm, I'm actually who I say I am and that the. Stuff that's coming out is consistent, you know, and it make and it makes sense on practical on practical level. Um, you can on our homepage if you scroll down, uh, uh, get an excerpt from the book, um, to read the 1st chapter and to see the table of contents. And, um, again, that's a good way to get it. Get a sense of it. Um, it's interesting when you write a book, it's definitely for, you know, heart of business. We specialize in working with micro businesses, which is people that are self employed up to, you know, maybe a double handful of people involved in the business, you know, from [00:44:00] people that are just trying to replace the professional salary all the way up to, you know, small businesses that might be struggling. Yeah. Making high six figures or low seven figures. That's kind of our range. Um, but I've been told by a lot of people that work with much larger companies, that the book actually applies very beautifully to people working in large corporations. And, um, um, and, uh, and so, yeah, um, we're just trying to get as much support. I'm really grateful. You're doing the work that you're doing, Sarah, because, um. We need as much love in the realm of business as we can get. There is so much healing and so much change that's needed, uh, to, um, undo the damage and to have a much more humane, much healthier, much more heart centered approach, uh, to being in business in this world. Sarah: For sure. Yeah. Thank you. I [00:45:00] always have one last question, Mark, and that's, what are you grateful for today or this week?  Mark: Oh, I am so grateful for where we live. Um, I get to, I know a lot of people don't have access to this and I'm just grateful to have access to, um, the woods and, uh, and the land around our house where we can grow food and where we can walk the dogs and just be in connection with nature. And it's just, um, it's just a, it's a balm on my soul.  Sarah: Hmm. Wonderful. I'm grateful our internet connection worked for this conversation.  Mark: Yes. That too. That too.  Sarah: Thanks so much for hanging out, Mark.  Mark: Yeah. Thank you for having me. Sarah: I hope you got great value and insights from listening to this episode. You can find out more about Mark and [00:46:00] his work at heartofbusiness. com. And of course, go over to heartcenteredbusinessbook. com to get a free excerpt of the book and some other information and of course, also links to buy the book. If you are looking for others who think like you, then why not join us? During the week of December 4th to 8th in our community, we're hosting an expo. We call it the Humane Marketing Circle Expo, and we'd love to see you there. At the expo that is hosted by our community members, we prioritize connection as a guiding principle. This means you'll find engaging workshops, intimate discussions, study groups, and even a walk in nature. We believe in the power of a Collective wisdom, learning together and creating a truly participative atmosphere. The sessions are curated into four themed categories, being, relating, thinking, and doing, and these [00:47:00] are all addressing spectrum of topics that engage both our left and right brain, our masculine and feminine energies. So would you like to be part of that? Well, go over to humane. marketing forward slash expo and join us for this week of Humane Business Offerings. It's free to join, and we just ask for small donations to attend the workshops and the raised funds all go towards our first live event of the community in Sicily in May, 2020. You find the show notes of this episode at humane. marketing forward slash H M 178. And on this beautiful page, you'll also. Find a series of free offers, the Humane Business Manifesto, and the free Gentle Confidence mini course, as well as my two books, Marketing Like We're Human and Selling Like We're Human. Thanks so much for listening and being part of a generation of marketers who cares for yourself, your [00:48:00] 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.[00:49:00] 

Last time we talked about the difference between cold and warm leads. So how do you take this information and use it to grow your property management business? Join property management growth experts Jason and Sarah Hull as they reveal the top strategies and DoorGrow secrets for growing a property management business. You'll Learn [01:09] Strategy 1: The Neighbor Strategy [07:33] The 3 kinds of neighbors to target [11:59] Strategy 2: The Review Strategy [16:26] Strategy 3: Real Estate Agent Referrals [20:26] Strategy 4: Presenting to Groups [25:32] Strategy 5: Product Research Interviews Tweetables “Not all leads are equal.” “There is just so much abundance, and if you put yourself in a scarcity mindset, you're going to experience that for sure.” “There is no shortage of business if you're a property manager.” “This like scarcity mindset, we have to kill it. We have to get out of it.” Resources DoorGrow and Scale Mastermind DoorGrow Academy DoorGrow on YouTube DoorGrowClub DoorGrowLive TalkRoute Referral Link Transcript [00:00:00] Sarah: Especially in the U S like there is no shortage of business if you're a property manager.  [00:00:08] 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. [00:00:23] DoorGrow Hackers love the opportunities, daily variety, unique challenges, and freedom that property management brings. Many in real estate think you're crazy for doing it. You think they're crazy for not because you realize that property management is the ultimate, high trust gateway to real estate deals, relationships, and residual income.  [00:00:42] At DoorGrow, we are on a mission to transform property management business owners and their businesses. We want to transform the industry, eliminate the BS, build awareness, change perception, expand the market, and help the best property management entrepreneurs win. I'm your host, property management growth expert Jason Hull, the founder and CEO of DoorGrow along with Sarah Hull, co founder and COO of DoorGrow now let's get into the show. [00:01:09] All right. So the topic we decided to talk about today is how to get the best leads for property management. We talked about previously the difference between cold and warm leads, right? So not all leads are equal. And if you missed that episode, go check that out. I highly recommend it. It will save you a ton of money and time, wasting your energy, cash effort, et cetera. So today we're going to talk about some of the best strategies. We're not going to go into a lot of detail. If you want to go deeper with us, you can reach out and we can coach you through this stuff and help you grow your business without spending a bunch of money on marketing. [00:01:51] All right. So why don't we kick this off and we can tell them a little bit about the neighbor strategy, which we have a really cool training on that we will give to the audience for free. We'll tell you how you can get it. Let's do it. So, do you want to intro that one?  [00:02:07] Sarah: No, you do it, because this is your whole thing. [00:02:10] You set up the whole page, so you do it. I don't want to miss anything.  [00:02:14] Jason: So, the Neighbor Strategy is a really simple concept. And the concept is, you probably have gotten a phone call before, at your property management office, And somebody said, "Hey, do you manage in X area, in some sort of area?" [00:02:30] And the answer was no. And you just said "no." Or your team just said "no." And they hung up and said, "nope! We don't. Sorry!" And that is a perfectly good lead that somebody, one of your neighbors would love to have. And you just threw it in the garbage. So the analogy I use, if you go to neighborstrategy.Com and get this free training, you'll learn how to make this strategy work, but it's really simple. Our clients never get told no. They reach out to neighboring property management companies to just explain this. "Hey, sometimes I get calls for your area and I usually just throw that gold in the garbage. Would you like to have it?" And they always say yes. And in that I teach how to convert, even if that's a cold lead that came in for them, I teach you how to convert that or have your neighbors convert that.  [00:03:23] If you share the neighborstrategy.Com landing page with them so they can learn the training how to convert that from a cold lead 10 percent close rate into a 90 percent close rate warm lead. So you're able to refine this gold for them, give it to them, and they can then get this gold and they're getting business. And so we've got clients that are doing that with each other that are in neighboring markets. You can even do this with property management companies that are in your market that focus on a different niche than you. [00:03:52] So if you do single family residential largely or small multi, there might be commercial companies and they get asked, "Hey, do you, can you also manage my rental home" and "no," and they throw it in the trash. You would probably like to have that, right? And so the neighbor strategy is a simple way and you can stack and add neighbors all around your market neighboring property management companies. [00:04:15] Capturing some of that rain that they can't capture that could go to you and companies that are in your market that are a different niche than you, and I give you scripts. I give you the language to use and I have drawings and I explain how this all works and how to convert these from a cold lead into a warm lead and how to get your neighboring partners to do this as well. It's really a simple strategy that is super effective.  [00:04:39] So I highly recommend you check out neighborstrategy.Com. Go get this free training. We want to give this out because we know that if you have neighbors that are doing this strategy, then everybody wins. Everybody benefits. This benefits the entire industry, and it's really simple. Like leads should not be getting lost. And we don't want them just going and searching on Google, becoming cold, desensitized, looking at cheap pricing and becoming terrible potential clients. That hurts the entire industry. So this is a way to benefit the entire industry, which is part of our mission here at DoorGrow. [00:05:16] Sarah: I think with the neighbor strategy, let's just address the elephant in the room because everyone goes, "I don't want people to know what I know. Like I want to be different. And like, I want to keep my knowledge a secret, right?" that's why I hear this all the time where they're like, I don't want anybody else to know. And it's that kind of mindset that really holds us back because there is just so much abundance, and if you put yourself in a scarcity mindset, really, that's like, you're going to experience that for sure. [00:05:43] Like for sure. Especially in the U S like there is no shortage of business if you're a property manager. Most people do not know what property managers are. The ones that know what property managers are, they might not have a great perception of what property managers do why because they may have been burned in the past. They may have had like a really bad experience. [00:06:06] They may just go, "oh, well, yeah but you just do like rent collection like I could do that myself," and any of us property managers that have had a conversation like that, it's hard to not laugh when someone's like "I could do it myself." You're like, "okay, do it yourself. Call me when you're ready. Do it yourself, and if you blow it up so bad, I probably won't even want to help you at that point because it's just going to be a huge mess for me." But there's so much that goes into it, right? So we have to also kind of keep in mind that if we really think about it, like you can kind of break this down by almost any sector, right? [00:06:42] So if you see like a fast food chain, like Burger King, Wendy's, McDonald's, very, very rarely are they the only one in a huge area. They do better when there's more of them, like, packed closer. So, it's funny because you notice this when we drive around. Every time there's like a CVS, we'll see a CVS, and very close by, somewhere there's a Walgreens. Why would that be, right? So, why do these multi million dollar companies choose to put a CVS here and right across the street, a Walgreens? If they were worried about competition, do you think that they would do that? Hell no. They'd be like, "well, if CVS is there, I'm going way over here." But they know that by putting two similar options close together, it's actually going to draw in more business. [00:07:33] Property management works very similarly. And the other thing to kind of keep in mind with this is I think there are three like neighbors kind of to target. One is neighbors that are outside of your area. So if you cover. Like Austin, but I don't go to Round Rock. Well, then find somebody in Round Rock, right? Like find people who border the area that you cover. That's the first one. The second one is find people that cover the same area that you cover, but in a different sector, like Jason said. So maybe I only do residential. I might want to partner with somebody who does commercial. Because odds are, at one point in time, I'm going to find somebody who wants commercial, and I don't do it, and I'd love to have somebody to pass that on to, and vice versa. [00:08:20] And the third one, and this is the one where everybody goes, "I'm not doing that," just test it and try it. And I used to do this myself, so I'm not steering you in a direction that I would never have done. Find someone in your area does the same exact thing that you do now. Everybody here goes, "Whoa, now that's scary. I'm not giving business away to my competitors." Well, here's the thing is not all business is business that you want to take. And that's something that you really have to get solid in is what business, what properties, what clients, what tenants do I want to take? And what do I want to have in my portfolio? Because if you work with us at DoorGrow. We train everyone on the cycle of suck. And it's super easy to get like trapped in that. And it's because you just take on everything. You do not want to take on everything. And it doesn't mean that they're a bad client Maybe they're just not a fit for what you do. [00:09:16] Maybe you could tell like the relationship isn't probably going to be super great. So when I was running my business, I was happy to give those off to somebody else. Why? Because I would rather them work with another property manager, even if it is my competitor, I would rather give that to a property manager so that they at least have some kind of chance with their rental property versus, "well, I'm just going to do it myself." [00:09:39] And we all know, guys, we all know how that works. So those are the three that you would want to target with the neighbor strategy.  [00:09:45] Jason: Yeah, didn't you get some leads coming from a neighbor?  [00:09:49] Sarah: Yeah. Yeah. I got mostly from like neighbors that were outside of my area. My competitors were the type that would just take on anything. [00:10:00] And it was fun to me because I was like, "well, if they're not a fit for me..." because I was a lot more picky. So if they're not a fit for me, if then I'm not taking them anyway. It's not like, "Oh, well, I'm going to give Jason this lead that I want." No, you're not going to give away leads that you want, right? [00:10:17] You're just, if you don't want to take the business, if it's not a fit, if you like, it's just not going to work out, then does it hurt to give it away? No. They're going to have a better experience with some property manager than trying to do it on their own. And we want investors to have a good experience with their rental properties, even if it's not with you, because they're going to then buy more investment properties, right? [00:10:43] And this is going to like promote the industry. So this like scarcity mindset, we have to kill it. We have to get out of it.  [00:10:51] Jason: Yeah, I think one month you have five doors from a neighboring property manager one month.  [00:10:56] Sarah: I got like 17.  [00:10:57] Jason: Yeah Okay. Yeah, so and that's from one right? And so If people are intentional, especially if you're in you know larger markets if you can hit all the people that are around your market or people that get sometimes get called or Asked about your market then you can get a bunch of business, right? [00:11:18] It can add up all right for sure. [00:11:20] Sarah: Like we even have clients. We have a bunch of clients like in the like la orange county area, but it's so crazy there with the traffic like, you know, like yeah on the map It says it could take you like 15 minutes but because of traffic it might take you an hour and a half or like two hours, right? So we even have like clients in our program that like refer business back and forth just because they know, because of the traffic, they're like, "well, if it's on the North point, I just don't want to take it." So that's another... and that's people in the same area that do the same thing that they do. And it makes your life easier because now your operational costs are going to be lower because you're not trying to drive like two hours to go do an inspection.  [00:11:59] Jason: All right. Let's talk about reviews next. Cool. So one strategy that's helped some of my clients add easily 200 doors in a year, if they get this game dialed in is online reviews. Now, all of you know this game you think, and a lot of you try to play this game and you think you know how to get reviews, but what we focus on at DoorGrow is focusing on reviews as if it's a sales lead, like putting it into your pipeline, following up and getting the majority of every new tenant and every new owner to give you a review. [00:12:34] And there's a way of doing this so that it doesn't sound slimy. And it doesn't sound like a used car salesman in a way that they want to help you back and reciprocate. And we have scripts for this. We have ways that we help clients do this. And we have a tool to facilitate that and make the process even easier, which is GatherKudos, which any of you can sign up for GatherKudos at GatherKudos.com. It can integrate with things like Property Meld, and it just makes a review funnel that makes it easier for you to get valid feedback in your business, whether it's good or bad. And if it's good, it pushes them to choose a review site and gives them directions how to do it. So it just lubricates that process, makes it so much easier for your prospects to leave good reviews. [00:13:21] Because we know that the negative reviewers are highly motivated and the good reviewers need a little bit of motivation, and so we have a training called Reputation Secrets where we teach how this can work super effectively. We've got clients that are crushing their competition in getting more reviews because they're getting almost all of their tenants and owners to get reviews if they really build this growth engine out. They can at least get the majority of each new tenant and owner to give them reviews. [00:13:51] And if you're growing and adding doors, you're getting new tenants, you're getting new owners, and you can then be also getting new reviews. And if you're crushing it at the review game, that's better than having the top spot on Google because reviews function like warm leads.  [00:14:06] Sarah: And then James and Brian, when they came into the program, like when Brian came on, I think he said they had some online reviews, but they were either like a two something or a three something online. So like not super great, right? Why? Because all the people who were angry were like, "I'm going to be a keyboard warrior." And then they focused on the strategy and they got up to over four stars. And I think that helped them break the thousand door barrier. Yeah. They had added like over 400 doors in one year. [00:14:35] And this was part of the strategy that helped them do that.  [00:14:38] Jason: Yeah. And less than a year. So the cool thing about this strategy of building this particular growth engine is that this is one that is very easily done by your team. This doesn't have to be your BDM. It doesn't have to be a salesy person. It doesn't have to be the business owner. This one can easily be done by your team and it can be systematized. It can just be part of your tenant and owner onboarding process if you build this engine correctly. So, and I guess that's all we probably need to say about that one. Yeah, it's a really great strategy. Really simple great strategy  [00:15:13] Sarah: It's free. It's a free strategy. This is not costing you any kind of money. You're not, you know spending money on marketing or advertising or ads or nothing like that. And it's really great I had so many clients contacting me or prospective clients contacting me because they're like, "oh I saw your review."  [00:15:33] Jason: Yeah, this strategy also helps boost your local SEO. If you're familiar with local SEO or ranking, Google looks at review diversity. Which means getting reviews from lots of different channels. So GatherKudos, and our method helps with you getting more reviews, not just on Google, but also Yelp and maybe Angie's List, City Search, Thumbtack, whatever you have or using, right? [00:15:57] And so, review diversity. review quantities, so getting more reviews on each of those channels, and the review ratings, like getting good ratings. This helps filter out the bad ratings as well and helps you capture it locally so you can actually do something to mitigate that and help those people, which is what they usually really want. [00:16:16] And so it makes the whole process easier. So we highly recommend that strategy. Very easy growth engine to build out if you understand how and we train our clients on that. So let's talk about the one that probably is one of the fastest methods to grow a property management business. I mean, one of our clients that added over 400 doors at another client that I had 310 in doors in just a year. This strategy. If you have, especially if you have a full time BDM, and if you don't, we can help you with the hiring piece and training of a BDM so you don't make mistakes there because we get a lot of people coming from BDM coaching companies and BDM placement companies that do not have good experiences. [00:16:58] And then we help them clean that up. And people don't even know that we focus on that. So this would be referrals from real estate agents or from a variety of other sources that we talk about. But this can be very effective, but usually is very ineffective. Most property managers try to focus on this and get very few referrals on a monthly basis. [00:17:23] Sarah: Yeah. And I was lumped in that too. And then back in my insurance days, cause I was doing insurance and I was doing property management when I first started out. And I was like, "Ooh, I'll get referrals from everyone. And it'll be so great." Cause everybody would just send me business. And I was doing everything the wrong way. And I wasn't getting a lot of referrals. And then things started to shift when I realized, "Hey, this is not working the way that I wanted it to work." So I had to make some changes to make it work better. But everyone like, they just always go about it the wrong way because this is like, this is a really common thought is like, "Hey, I'll get referrals. Like this is how a lot of businesses work is on referrals. So I'll just do that." And then what happens is they start to focus on getting referrals. They Don't know exactly how to make it work, but they just think "hey, it's simple like you should just be able to send me business," and then they wait and usually nothing comes in or if something comes in it's like, "thanks, but that's not really what I wanted."  [00:18:24] Jason: Yeah, the secret is you actually have to destroy the idea of getting referrals in the mind of the people you want referrals from and get something better. And so I touched on that on some previous episodes, if you dig around, but this is some of the really magical stuff that we share with clients, how they can get more real estate agents, connecting them to investors and close a lot more deals. And this creates warm leads. They're easy to close. They're early in the sales cycle. [00:18:54] You can charge more money than typical in these situations. And so it's a win, win for all three parties all the way around. This is a, this is the fastest way I know of to grow a property management business. It works really well, but there's a lot of pitfalls in this. There's a lot of mistakes. We've listened to phone calls of some of our, you know, clients, setters or BDMs trying to. [00:19:20] Like get relationships created with real estate agents and doing the outbound partner prospecting stuff that we talk about and there's a lot of failures and We have to coach them through this and it this is a and a growth engine that takes probably 90 days to build effectively to get to work effectively. The first 30 days you're going to build that engine from scratch and the second 30 days, we're going to make some major tweaks and changes. [00:19:48] And then the last 30 days is where you start to hit pay dirt, where we tweak things to get that last 10 percent of dialing things in. That gives you 90 percent of the results. And this is where the magic happens. And most people quit too early, don't do it enough. They just go present to a big real estate office meeting while people stare at their phones and wonder why nobody like gives them leads. And it doesn't work. And they're like, "I've tried referrals. I've tried that," you know, so we hear that all the time. You've not tried it the way that we do it cause it works. And if it's not working for you, you're doing it wrong. That's all I'll say.  [00:20:23] All right. So, let's talk about groups. [00:20:26] Let's talk about groups.  [00:20:28] Sarah: So can we talk about the big mistake of groups? Sure. . So everyone goes, oh, a group, I'll do a BNI.  [00:20:35] Jason: Oh yeah. wah wah. or a Chamber of Commerce. So we hear this all the time, like, "oh, I go to the BNI or I go to Chamber of Commerce" and I mean, that one's really simple. And to throw people a bone, we get asked this all the time, "well, I'm thinking to join a BNI group." would that be effective? The answer is usually no, because the way BNI works is you're going to have one expert in each category, which means there might be one real estate agent there you might be able to get a referral from. You'll have one of, one property manager, which is kind of nice. You don't have competition, right? [00:21:09] But the challenge is most of the people there are not your target audience, and a lot of them are not able to connect you to your target audience, and there are better groups available in which you can either create the group and own it, or you can go find groups that exist and be part of it, in which you can have an entire group of potential referral partners, or an entire group of potential clients. And that's probably the first big step is just like, if you're going to go hunting, go where the game actually is. So, now groups, we recommend you do groups after you get good at one on one. And the challenge is most people go and try and present to a group and they think this is going to be so great, and they have no way of collecting people's information that are interested in the group. They don't know how to optimize that. They don't know the things to say. They don't understand concepts like trial closes and getting people to buy into things. They don't understand how to create leverage and how to get leads. [00:22:10] You should be able to walk away from any group situation with leads and appointments. Yes. With scheduled appointments. And we teach our clients how to do this, how to optimize this, and how to identify and capture the people that are quick, early adopters, the people that take a little bit more nurturing, and the people that are a bit more skeptical. And this is something that you do throughout your presentation if you're doing it effectively, but you really, it doesn't make sense to go do a group presentation if you're not good at selling yet, and you're not good at one on one interactions, and you haven't built up, you know, the ability to close deals one on one, because groups, you're not going to close people in a group situation. [00:22:56] You don't close them. In a group situation, at best, you can get a one on one interaction typically scheduled, and then you can close them. So we need to teach you how first to be really good at one on one. And then you can graduate to doing the group thing, but don't waste a good group opportunity. These are not super common. [00:23:16] If somebody is like, "Hey, I'll let you come present to my group," and you blow it. Yeah. Yeah. You wasted all, like you wasted probably hundreds of doors of business that you could have gotten if it's a decent sized group. One of our clients went to a group, used a presentation that we gave him and he was able to close in his first time. He went to this group, it was a realtor investors association, real estate investor association, a rea group, whatever. And he was able to present to like 200, 300 people, the group had like 500 and he walked away and he had been stuck at like 60 doors for the first three or so years of his business. He couldn't figure out how to get ahead. He got 20 doors that month from doing one presentation. He got four or five owners. They each give him like four or five units or something like that. And he was able to add about 20 doors a month from just hanging out at this group. And being part of this group, and it's, he spent maybe max about five hours a month investing time into this group. [00:24:20] That is an amazing return. Five hours a month to get 20 doors a month, right? He was at 300 doors in six months of using the strategy. And then his business started to fall apart a little bit because he was adding too many doors. And back then, way back then, we didn't have the systems that we have to help clients with that problem. [00:24:42] We're like, we need to help clients solve that problem. We're good at solving that problem now. Like how do I deal with all these doors that I'm getting on? Which is a problem we think is super easy to create for clients to start adding an up doors that it gets painful. So groups can be very effective. [00:24:56] But make sure you get good at one on one first. You don't waste those opportunities. I've heard so many stories of wasted opportunities presenting to a group of real estate agents And then afterwards they're like, "I don't know. How'd I do? I don't know. I think I did okay. Some couple people came up to me and said I did all right."  [00:25:12] "Cool. Did you get any appointments or leads or anything scheduled?" [00:25:16] "Nothing," right? So and then maybe a lead here will trickle in like over time, but that's not effective. So a lot of these growth strategies they stack and they compound on each other.  [00:25:28] Let's touch on one more to wrap this up. Last one. This is a strategy we love to use with startups because startups they don't have a lot of confidence. They don't have a lot of knowledge. They're lacking a lot of knowledge about property management, and one of the big gaps in knowledge that they don't have that a lot of you that have been doing this for a long time and you've talked to a lot of owners is they don't understand their prospects' pain. [00:25:55] They don't understand the prospects concerns. They don't understand the language that their potential clients use, and they don't understand the objections that are preventing them and knowing all that. Sometimes can take people a decade to really dial in. And so our way of collapsing time on this dramatically quickly, like really fast is a technique called or strategy called product research interviews. [00:26:18] And this is also a great way to get your initial pool of clients, even if you're starting from zero. And so this strategy can work very well. I call this the Trojan horse of selling, but you're going to interview and we have the script for the interview. We have the four phase process for doing this. If you do this correctly, if you interview people that have rental properties and you do this effectively, you will be getting clients because getting clients is about having conversations with your target audience. And this gives you an excuse and an in to be able to get to know your target audience, to ask them questions and allow them to help you and give you advice and to why they are not currently working with a property manager and then be able to deal with all these and learn how to deal with all these objections and then how to do the ultimate pitch and how to solicit them in a non salesy way to do and give you another opportunity to pitch. But you get to pitch during this interview, you get to pitch your services. [00:27:22] To people that may not have considered property management before. So this is an easy way to get your foot in the door and get some of your first initial clients and build a relationship of trust. And that can be very effective. Did you want to say anything about product research interviews?  [00:27:35] Sarah: No. Michael used it. He was still over the 200 something door mark, and he used it, and I think he said he added like five or six doors in one week, and that was only after doing a few phone calls.  [00:27:48] Jason: He said 10. He added 10. I don't remember. Something like 10.  [00:27:51] Sarah: So, I don't remember exactly how many. I can go back and look at the stats. [00:27:54] Jason: Yeah, Michael Sullivan, he was on one of our podcast interviews we just did recently, a really great episode. Highly recommend you check it out. But he was like, "well, I'll try this and I'm an experienced property manager." He just came up with a different excuse to interview people instead of saying, "Hey, I'm starting a business and want to get some feedback." [00:28:10] He used a different strategy and use this strategy. And he was able to add doors from the first person that he interviewed. And we've had clients have that situation happen as well. So this can work. It's not just for starters, but it can work for anybody. In fact, this is the strategy I use when I first started our mastermind. [00:28:29] I did product research interviews to figure out what, how can I create the ultimate mastermind? Cool. I'll just interview people and ask them, what do you want? It was a little bit more complex than that, but that's kind of the idea. And that allowed me then to say, "Hey, would you be interested in this if I launched it and it had some of what you mentioned and the stuff that I'm pitching you on?" And everybody says, yes. And then I probably closed about half of them. And so that's how I started the mastermind so that I had a nice cohort and a pool of people to kick things off with. So, and this is one of the strategies I've used over and over again. [00:29:05] With new product launches or new offers to figure out how do I make this as good as possible? And this will help you make your product and your offer and your pitch as good as possible Really cool strategy and we've got the goods on how to do that as well And we've got other growth strategies, but these are some great ways to get leads that costs less money. [00:29:26] They take less time and they get you more warm leads and you'll close more deals more easily at a higher price point. And then if you do cold lead advertising, so there you go. And that's how to add lead, like get leads without doing SEO, without doing pay per click, without doing content marketing, without doing social media marketing, without doing pay per lead services, internet marketing. [00:29:50] You don't have to do internet marketing in order to grow your business and to grow faster than those that are. So, and that's it. Anything else? Nope. All right then until next time to our mutual growth, everybody make sure to join our free facebook group Doorgrowclub.Com. We put trainings in there. We give out information, and our goal in that group is to nurture you and warm you up so you can trust us and become one of our clients. We then can change your life and that's what we want to do is to transform this industry. Until next time to our mutual growth, bye everyone.  [00:30:26] 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!  [00:30:53] 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.

In this episode of the Humane Marketing podcast, we dive into the ‘P' of Pricing, exploring the art of authentic pricing conversations and strategies with our guest, Nikki Rausch, CEO of Sales Maven. Our conversation covers essential topics such as whether to list prices on your website, how to approach pricing objections, the delicate balance between transparency and personalization in pricing, and much more. Join us in this discussion as we strive to make pricing a humane and ethical aspect of our businesses. In this episode, we talked about: Whether we should list our prices on our website – or not How to have pricing conversations Whether to offer payment plans How to handle pricing objections And so much more Ep 175 [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 Zanacroce, 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 works and what doesn't work in business. [00:00:54] 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. [00:01:16] 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 dot marketing forward slash circle. And if you prefer one on one support from me, my humane business coaching could be just what you need. [00:01:40] 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. [00:02:05] You can 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 at humane. marketing. [00:02:30] Hello friends, welcome back to the Humane Marketing Podcast. Today's conversation fits under the P of pricing. If you are a regular here, thank you so much. You already know that I'm organizing the conversations around the seven P's of the Humane Marketing Mandala. And if this is your first time here, uh, you can download your one page marketing plan with the Humane Marketing version of the seven P's of marketing at humane. [00:02:56] marketing forward slash one page. That's [00:03:00] the number one and the word page, and this comes with seven email prompts to really help you reflect on these different areas, these different P's in your business. So it's not. Prescriptive, but it really helps you, uh, think deeply about these things in your business. [00:03:19] So today we're talking about pricing and I'm talking to Nikki Roush. Nikki is the CEO of SalesMaven. Where she helps people transform the misunderstood process of selling with 25 plus years of selling experience, entrepreneurs and small business owners now hire Nikki to show them how to sell successfully and authentically. [00:03:42] Nikki has written three books, all available on Amazon, and she has a podcast called Sales Maven, which you can find on your favorite podcast platform. I. Really love this conversation. We talked about whether we should list our prices on our website or not, [00:04:00] how to have pricing conversations, whether to offer payment plans, how to handle pricings, objections, and so much more. [00:04:09] Be ready to take some notes for this ones and let's dive in. Hi, Nikki. So good to spend time with you to talk about sales and. Pricing and putting prices and websites and all that good stuff. Welcome to the show. [00:04:26] Nikki: Thanks for having me, Sarah. I'm really excited to have this conversation with you. [00:04:29] Sarah: Yeah, same here. [00:04:31] As I said offline, this question about putting our prices on our website or not, it's Whenever I bring this up in the humane marketing circle in our community, for example, it's like, oh, really, should we and here's why we shouldn't and like, all these different opinions. So I'm curious to, yeah, to start off our conversation, maybe with the prices and, uh, you know, you mentioned, or [00:05:00] I think I've seen it on your, um, On your website, this idea of the customer journey, right? [00:05:05] And so take us a little bit into that customer journey. And when, what happens when people come to your website, what stage they're at probably in the customer journey and what happens when they do see the prices or if they don't see the prices. [00:05:21] Nikki: Yeah. Yeah. Well, okay. So I just want to start off by saying that, you know, what I teach is always built on rapport. [00:05:30] So I would say relationship first rapport always. So when somebody is coming to your website, they have indicated interest in some way, right? Like, Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You don't just randomly go to somebody's website and start poking around. So there's something about them that has drawn them here. And that, that is usually an indication that they're interested in working with you or, or buying from you or taking that next step with you. [00:05:58] And the reason you want to have [00:06:00] pricing on your website is because. It is helping them establish whether or not they're an ideal client for you. So if somebody comes to your website and they don't see prices, one of the things that they often assume is that your prices are much higher. And in order for them to get that information from you, you're forcing them to take another step, which is to get on a live call with you. [00:06:29] And I know that a lot of sales coaches teach, like, don't put pricing on your website because you want the opportunity to have that conversation with people. But that's for your benefit. Not for the clients or the prospects. So when you're forcing somebody to do something, what, what happens in the start of that conversation is they already feel a little bit on the back foot because they're nervous now about having that conversation with you because they have no idea what kind of pricing [00:07:00] you're gonna. [00:07:00] Come back with and they might end up feeling embarrassed or ashamed to have to admit to you that they can't afford that. So, to me, it's a real breakdown and rapport for the start of the conversation for somebody to be nervous because what's the pricing? The other thing too, is it kind of sets the stage that, um, not only are you in charge of the conversation, but that you're. [00:07:29] Okay. Like, how, how much do they trust you yet to have that conversation and for you to list pricing because how do they know that you're giving them a price and giving somebody else the same price? So there's, there's, to me, it shows a lack of trust. It also, I think it's important for you to stand in your credibility and in your authority and, and. [00:07:51] Charge whatever it is that you charge and be revealing about it. You shouldn't have to hide your pricing in order to try to force people to have [00:08:00] conversations with you. You should be attracting your ideal clients, having them look at that and go, I do want to have a conversation with Nikki, or I do want to have a conversation with Sarah because I'm not sure what is the right offer for me, but I can tell already that she's got something. [00:08:15] She's got something for me. Yeah, I [00:08:18] Sarah: love, I love your approach and I definitely share the same you and, and you mentioned something where other sales coaches might tell people to not put their prices so that, you know, you get, people have to get on a sales conversation with you and you said that might be in your benefit. [00:08:38] I actually don't see it as a benefit. And I'm sure a lot of my listeners won't either because. I feel like we don't want to be in that convincing energy on sales calls anyways, right? I agree. It's uncomfortable. Yeah. I actually think it's our, in our benefit. If [00:09:00] people have the prices. On the website. So they, they know exactly what to expect and you're, you're right. [00:09:06] It's, it's so uncomfortable. The unknown and embarrassment comes in. It's just human to feel uncomfortable to talk about money. And so to have that upfront and just kind of like, okay, here's the deal. And also, like you said, it creates this trust of, there's not going to be any hidden stuff that I don't know and don't expect, and it's just like, it's all out there, totally agree. [00:09:31] Nikki: Yeah, you know sales your job is not to convince people to buy from you and if you're approaching sales from this Mindset of like I've got to convince people Well convincing somebody of something It does come off a little manipulative and it does come off a little like icky and you know, I think one of the misconceptions about selling is that people think sales is something you do to another person and kind of taking a, you know, a page out of your book about that humane [00:10:00] approach. [00:10:01] You shouldn't have to do anything to another person. I teach that sales is something you do with another person. It's a collaboration. And as much as you're deciding whether or not I'm a good fit for you, I'm also deciding whether or not you're a good fit for me, for my business. Can I really serve you and solve the problem or meet the need that you have? [00:10:22] And being really candid and honest about that, and not in a way that I don't have to feel bad about myself if you're not a good fit, you don't have to feel bad about yourself if we're not a good fit. We just bless and release and move on. And that's okay. [00:10:38] Sarah: I feel like it's, it takes that pressure out of this. [00:10:42] What I call the gentle sales conversation, right? Um, in the selling like a human book, I say, you know, picture yourself in the serene garden where you're just having a cup of tea or coffee with your ideal client. And, and there, the money doesn't even come [00:11:00] in or it comes in very shortly at the end because it's already dealt with, right? [00:11:04] I, I even send out like a coaching guide where again, it explains, you know, here's how Our collaboration works. Here's the price again. And like they have time to look at this in detail before we ever get on a call. And so then we just have time to be human together and do what you said. It's like, Oh, we're figuring out if we're a good fit and if I can truly help you. [00:11:29] And it's kind of like this being human and trying to do something to someone like you said. [00:11:37] Nikki: Yeah, yeah, exactly. I totally agree. I [00:11:39] Sarah: love that. Thank you. Yeah. So in terms of the pricing, it looks like we totally agree yet. I think sometimes people asked, well, what if I have custom projects? You know, it's like, what if I don't work hourly and it's not just like, oh, my hourly rate is this. [00:11:58] I create custom [00:12:00] projects. So I can put. The prices on the website or can I is there another solution you offer? [00:12:07] Nikki: Yeah, you actually still can. You could put a range now and I want to be really clear about this because a lot of times people think, well, I'll just put a. A starting at price and that's a mistake. [00:12:20] If, if you put a starting at price, you just have anchored this low price and that's not what you want to do, especially you get on a call with somebody, you find out, you know, how in depth their project is and that starting at price isn't even close to what the price is that you're going to. Have to charge them in order to facilitate it. [00:12:40] So you can put a range. You could say prices, you know, for this type of project range typically between, you know, and you, you know, have the low price to the high price. And it can, I don't care if it's a thousand dollars, John or a thousand dollars, just by putting a range, it shows that you're being revealing. [00:12:56] Now you don't want to put, you don't want to say something that's not [00:13:00] true. So always stand in integrity. And if you know that projects. Could potentially range between 30, 000 and 100, 000 put that and then when they get on the call with you and you say to them, you know, based on what you've shared the, the project, you know, that we're looking at here is probably in that 70, 000 range. [00:13:19] Well, they can feel relieved because it's not the high end. They're like. At least it's not 100, 000. But if you say 30, 000 to, you know, just starting at 30, 000 and then you say 70, 000 to them, they're going to be upset. They're going to feel like, oh, wow, you're gouging me. No, I'm giving you a legitimate price and I have been candid about this is the range, right? [00:13:45] Sarah: Yeah, so is that similar to the the idea of anchoring? [00:13:51] Nikki: Yeah, exactly. That's exactly what it is Yeah, so so you wouldn't just put the high price here because that that is a way to anchor [00:14:00] the high price But you wouldn't want to do that because that would probably scare off the people that would fall in the smaller, you know Pricing. [00:14:06] So put a range on the website. Now, when you talk about your offer or you talk about the ways that you could solve the problem for them in a conversation, I do believe in doing top down selling. So that is anchoring the higher price first and then work your way down from there. And again, you always want to stand in your place of integrity, don't recommend 100, 000 project. [00:14:30] If that is so outside of scope of what's going to solve their problem, you know, you still have to show up from a place of integrity, which I suspect that all of your listeners already are committed to doing that, right? This is what would attract them to listen to you and follow you. So they're already not going to recommend something that's out of. [00:14:50] You know, out of reach or out of scope or out of integrity, frankly, but when you say to somebody, you know, based on what you've shared, there are 3 ways that we could work together. We [00:15:00] could, and you're going to start at the top. You're going to say we could do the full package, you know, the full project. [00:15:06] It's going to get you everything that you want. And the pricing for that is this. You know, we could also kind of start in the middle where we could get most of the things you want to see how it's going and then, you know, whatever. And the price and now this is a smaller price and you go, or if you're just wanting the basic package just to get that first piece. [00:15:26] You know, done for you, then it's this price. So you always start top down. And the reason you do that is the way our brains work as humans. We come out of the womb already knowing how to grasp like babies already know how to grasp things, right? Like now. You ever help hold a baby and they get a hold of your hair like, you know, you know, they already like nobody had to teach them how to pull hair. [00:15:52] Like they know how to grasp. So as humans, we like to, we like to attach to things. So when you start at the [00:16:00] top and you work your way down, it's easier for people to make a decision that is a better decision for them because they don't like to have, they don't like to give up things. In order to get what they want, but on the flip side of this, the reason you don't start at the bottom and work your way up is because we don't like to pay more to get what we need. [00:16:21] Sarah: Yeah, I'm gonna say that again. We don't want to pay more to get what we need. So that's why we start from the top and work. So that's interesting because usually what I heard is, um, you know, sales coaches would say, oh, mention your price and then just. Like probably the highest price and then just stop talking and see what the reaction is where you are saying, no, give all the options starting from the top and then have a conversation around it. [00:16:58] Is that correct? [00:17:00] Well, [00:17:00] Nikki: uh, almost, I'm going to say almost, I'm going to, I'm going to, if I can just clarify a little bit around that. So. I'm totally fine. If I have a conversation with you, you tell me what you need. And I have a specific program that is going to meet your needs. I'm happy to say, you know, based on what you've shared, the program that is going to meet the things that you've talked about, it's going to get you this, this and this. [00:17:26] And 10, 000. Now, I'm If you clutch your pearls and go like, Oh, my God, 10, 000 sticky, that's a little rich for my blood, right? I might have missed the mark a little bit there with you. So I sometimes, you know, based on what people have shared, there are a couple different ways where, you know, a couple ways for them to get it. [00:17:52] So if you're going to lay out more than one option for somebody, don't ever give them more than three, Okay. Initially to make a decision [00:18:00] with, and when you do that, if you're going to say, you know, there's a couple of ways that I, you know, like just a basic question. So just to give you a real life example, if somebody said to me, you know, Nikki, what are the, what are the ways that you work with clients? [00:18:14] Have a lot of ways that I work with clients, but I'm never going to answer that question when with more than three answers So I'm gonna say, you know, I have private coaching clients I have classes that I offer and then I have a group coaching program of those three Which are you most interested in hearing more about now? [00:18:32] I haven't actually listed pricing But if they say what you know, what are the three ways or what other ways you work with clients? What's the pricing I could say? I have private coaching. It ranges from this to this. I have classes. They typically are priced at this. I have a group coaching program and it's a monthly. [00:18:50] You know, payment. And it's this of those three, which are you most interested in hearing more about? Because if I try to tell somebody all the ways I work with [00:19:00] them, I will overwhelm them and an overwhelmed mind is not going to buy. They're not going to make a decision. So I have to be the expert. I have to be the person that will stand in my place of authority and recommend because I've asked you the right questions. [00:19:18] Thank you. What's the right solution for you? [00:19:21] Sarah: So to come back to my question about, you know, do you state all three or just the one and then wait for an answer? Um, I guess it depends whether they have a very specific request and, you know, you basically already talked about something that is very. Fitting for their needs, then you would just offer that. [00:19:41] And then maybe from there, if they're like, Oh, that's a little bit high. Is there anything else we could do? Then you could offer your group coaching, for example. So it's really just kind of going with the flow. That's how I've always done it. And it feels good to be able to offer. Different solutions, [00:20:00] depending on, you know, depending on the budget that people have and then say, well, you know, maybe we can do this. [00:20:07] And sometimes I even come up with new offers and say, well, Okay. You know, I really want to help you because you're, you know, doing such good work for a cause that really is important to me. And then, you know, I'll come up with with a new offer or add them to a program as well as my 1 on 1 coaching things like that. [00:20:28] I think we can. One thing that I learned with pricing and selling is like, we are taking ourselves often too seriously. Like we, we think we have to be just, you know, rigid kind of business owners. And it's like, well, actually, you know, you, you can still make money and just be a bit more in the flow. Um, I don't know what you think about that, Nikki. [00:20:49] I [00:20:50] Nikki: agree with you 100%. I think, you know, um, if I could just comment on what I'm hearing you say, and you please correct me if this is not [00:21:00] in alignment, is that the sales, the sales conversation. Is a conversation, right? And so it has this back and forth flow. You shouldn't just be talking at people the whole time. [00:21:14] And so you should talk with and the way to talk with people oftentimes is to ask questions. So if you lay out an offer and somebody's like, Oh. That's a little bit more than what I was expecting, then my next thing I'm going to say to you isn't to shame you or try to push you into it. I'm going to follow up and say, well, what were you expecting? [00:21:36] Like, it's a conversation and then you come back at me and I say, well, I do have maybe a way we could get started together. And I do think as a, you know, depending on the size of your business and who's doing the selling in your business, if you're a solopreneur entrepreneur, like there is something about being a little nimble, you know, being, I always say my all time favorite quote is blessed are the flexible [00:22:00] for, they shall not be bent out of shape. [00:22:03] And the idea in your sales conversation. Is to have some flexibility, you know, if you identify the person I'm talking to right now is an ideal client, they definitely have a need and I feel compelled to want to serve them in some way, you know, I wouldn't develop a new product offering for every single conversation because then you're going to probably burn yourself out, frankly, in your business, but sometimes you can add a little tweak here and there, you know, every once in a while, somebody like I just had somebody yesterday. [00:22:34] Okay. I put out an offer on a training and somebody followed up with me and said, you know, Nikki, I really want to do this with you, but I can't start it, you know, until after the first of the year. And I said, well, I'm happy to wait, you know, like I, I didn't tell anybody else that, but this is what this person needs. [00:22:57] And so I'll do that for that person. Cause [00:23:00] I have the ability to make that decision in my business. Yeah, [00:23:04] Sarah: that so resonates. We also talked about humane payment plans in the community, uh, recently. And that's another thing that we feel strongly about. It's kind of this integrity piece where we, if we are safe ourselves, right, if we have enough to pay our bills. [00:23:23] And and yet someone is struggling a little bit and can't make the whole payment and then, you know, why would we make payment plans that are non humane where it's like, oh, now you have to pay 20 percent more just because you can't make the one full time payment. And so we were just discussing how can we make it a win win situation where it's like. [00:23:48] Yeah, I really want you to have this program or coaching or whatever it is. And yet, you know, there needs to be a huge trust and that trust [00:24:00] I now see is established already before, right? Obviously through your marketing, that's what humane marketing is all about, but even through the pricing, uh, like having these prices on your website. [00:24:13] That also creates trust because it's like, well, it's all up there, you know, it's all understood and clear and, um, yeah, I think there's a lot of integrity to that. Um, yeah, just curious what you think about payment plans and if you have any thoughts on that. [00:24:30] Nikki: I love the idea of payment plans. As long as it's still like you said, it's, it's not, it's not hurting your business, you know, from a cash flow standpoint, it's not causing you to not be able to pay your vendors or pay your team or something like that. [00:24:44] Then I think there's nothing wrong with a payment plan. As a matter of fact, I love payment plans. And even the program that I mentioned yesterday that I offered when you go to the, you know, to the Page to sign up right underneath there. There's an option for a [00:25:00] payment plan. Sometimes I promote payment plans heavily and mark, you know, and I'm marketing an offer. [00:25:06] Sometimes I don't. I just put them, you know, subtly on the page for somebody because if they've clicked with an interest and they've shown some interest by clicking on the page and wanting to learn more about whatever the offer is, Yeah. And if there's some part of them, it's like, dang, I'd really like to do this, but I don't have this, you know, I don't have that much money right now available to spend on, you know, coaching with Dickie or whatever they see like, oh, there's a payment plan there. [00:25:33] And for me, it's. It's fine. Like, I'm, I'm happy to do that. Um, I will say, you know, just to comment on payment plans. One, one, one thing that I think sometimes can be a limiting, um, belief around payment plans for entrepreneurs, for business owners is they think that the payment plan has to be the same amount. [00:25:58] Over a certain [00:26:00] period of time. So, for instance, I'm going to do a payment plan. That means I've got to break it up into, you know, it's a 3 month program. So it has to be 3 of the exact same payments and and that to me isn't always the case. Sometimes if a lot of the work, the heavy lifting is done in that first, you know, part of working together, I often will give people the option of paying 50 percent up front because I know that my like the majority of the work that I'm doing, the really heavy lifting and the stuff that costs my business, the money, you know, to it. [00:26:36] You know, pay for whatever the extras are, the stuff that comes like I need to be able to cover those costs. But then what I'll do is then I will split up the other 50 percent over the next two months or whatever. Like there's so make sure that you're giving yourself a little bit of flexibility in your payment plans to you don't want to make it confusing or crazy. [00:26:56] But, you know, I just had a client where I was coaching her around this [00:27:00] and she was like, it's so hard for me to do a payment plan because of all the costs involved in that first month. And I was like, well, what if we collected 50%? And she was like, would people do that? And I was like, People do it with me all the time. [00:27:13] Let's try it. And then she came back and she's like, they were so happy to do it that way. And I was like, yeah, again, blessed are the flexible. You don't have to be bent out of shape, be willing to do things that work for your business, but also make it easy for people to say yes to hiring you. That's a good [00:27:30] Sarah: reminder, because again, the humane approach is not just serving your clients. [00:27:36] It's also serving yourself. And so it really is important that you don't get into trouble because you're, you know, making everything possible for them, where then you are struggling in the back. So, so it's really just, yeah, having the conversation and saying, look, I'd love to offer you this. Uh, but this is what I need, right. [00:27:57] And then have this conversation. And I think [00:28:00] it really comes with this trust building that is so important. And I think that's also where you can, you just said, you know, you wouldn't have offered to wait to just anybody who will ask, but this person, that's what they needed. And so you're like, yeah, I'm happy to do that. [00:28:19] So in a way it's like, well, just because you have a standard program or a standard fee doesn't mean you have to exactly do the same thing for everybody because, um, especially, you know, in the service business, we are, we're in the human business. And so we should be talking to people about these things. [00:28:41] We shouldn't just say this is. You know how it is and that's it. And yet so often that's what we're taught in sales. It's like, no, you come up with your price and that's how it is. And you know, no flexibility at all. So, yeah, yeah, appreciate your input [00:28:57] Nikki: here. Yeah. It, is it okay if I just add [00:29:00] like one little piece to this idea of payment plan in the conversation of the sale? [00:29:04] Right. Um, So one of the things that I think is important also to remember is so if you're having a conversation with a prospective client and you talk about the offer and they say, Oh, my gosh. You know, that sounds perfect for me, but really, I just don't have the funds right now to do that. One of the cautions that I would say is don't default to the payment plan conversation check to see if the payment plan conversation is appropriate. [00:29:35] So I was. I always look at things of like asking permission. So instead of, you know, somebody pushes back on price, if you go right into the payment plan option without getting their permission to talk about it, it, it can come off a little salesy and aggressive. So when somebody pushes back to me on price, I will usually say, now, if I was able to offer you a payment plan, would that be something [00:30:00] you'd be interested in considering? [00:30:01] And would that make it more feasible for you? Right, so I don't go into the payment plan because if they say no, Nikki, even with a payment plan, I just couldn't do it, then I'm going to respect that and I'm going to pull back. But if you go right into payment plan again, it sounds like you're kind of ignoring what they said to you that they can't afford it. [00:30:21] But I'm glad you brought that up. [00:30:23] Sarah: Yeah, that's so important because yeah, we're not trying to push the payment plan somebody. Right? Because it's like this. You know, praise no is an answer. And, and, and it's really, that's what it is. It's like, if they just don't want to, or can't, then, then we should respect that. [00:30:43] And a payment plan is not going to solve that. That's so true. It's a very different energy when they asked for the payment plan, whether one kind of. You know, bring on the topic and actually want to kind of push them towards the payment plan. I totally [00:31:00] agree. I don't think I ever bring it up. Um, yeah, I, I would probably rather go, you know, offer another solution, like the group coaching or something like that. [00:31:12] And then maybe they would come back and say, actually, you know, do you offer a payment plan? So, because I think they're quite. No, now, and so sometimes people, you know, often people ask me about payment plans. So yeah, that's a good distinction. Thanks so much for for bringing that in. Yeah. [00:31:30] Nikki: Thank you for letting me. [00:31:33] Sarah: Um, anything else you want to share about. Prices and payments and selling conversations, um, shared a lot of things, but anything else that comes to mind? [00:31:45] Nikki: Well, one of the things that I want to, um, maybe just touch on in case this is helpful for your audience is. There's a difference between being pushy and aggressive in a sales conversation versus making it easy for somebody to [00:32:00] make a decision. [00:32:01] So I, I find that a lot of times when people are uncomfortable with sales, they're hesitant to ask somebody to move forward or invite them to take that next step with them. And. I want to just say in a really loving kind way that that's your stuff and you need to set it aside. That's your mindset stuff because your job is to make it really easy for people to make decisions. [00:32:25] Doesn't mean the decision's always going to go in your favor. But you still want to make sure that if you are talking to somebody and they've got a need and they've got, they've expressed interest in some way, please, please, please make sure that you ask them for their business so that they can decide in the moment whether or not it's the right next step for them. [00:32:47] But if you don't ask them, Don't assume that they'll decide because our brains are lazy and we have decision fatigue and we're overwhelmed. And so if you don't make it easy for somebody, a lot of times they'll be like, Oh, I'm just going to think [00:33:00] about it. But then they actually never think about it because they have too many other things to think about. [00:33:05] And then they don't ever get the solution to the problem or the need that they have. So make sure you always follow up in, in the appropriate time in a conversation. And go ahead and ask for the sale, ask for the business and then be quiet and let them say one way or the other. [00:33:22] Sarah: Yeah, thanks for that reminder. [00:33:25] One, one thing that also just, I remember there's a question that I always ask about expectations because we talked, you mentioned integrity a few times and I do. And just earlier, before I call, I had another email or LinkedIn message from someone who bought a big package and was disillusioned because of, you know, promises that were not kept. [00:33:47] And so I think it's really important that piece of, um. Expectations to ask in a gentle sales conversation. Well, what's your expectations for our work together, you know, to really [00:34:00] understand what they're expecting and what you can actually be in full integrity deliver, because that again. It helps you understand where there are and what their actual beliefs are. [00:34:13] And it also helps this trust building again. And then it's just kind of like, you know, it's, it's setting the stage for a beautiful collaboration. Then have not addressing it. And the person thinking, oh, I'm going to get 20 new clients from this and. You, meanwhile, not thinking that at all, right? You're like, no, this is, you know, I can't promise that. [00:34:35] So just putting it out into the open and having a conversation about that is really important, I think. I [00:34:42] Nikki: love that you said that and commented on that. It's you know, you never want to you never want to over promise and under deliver. But at the same time, you don't if you don't understand what your client has in their mind because they haven't been given the opportunity to articulate it. [00:34:59] You [00:35:00] may. In inadvertently leave them feeling like you over promised and under delivered and how Disappointing not only is that to them But also for you and it starts to get in your head and you start to think well Maybe i'm not as good as I think I am or maybe my offer isn't the right offer Like all of that negative mindset could have been avoided doing exactly what you just said sarah. [00:35:23] I love that so much [00:35:26] Sarah: This has been wonderful. Thanks so much for For being here and doing such good work. Nikki, please do tell us where people can find you. And I believe you have a, an offer [00:35:36] Nikki: for us as well. I do. Thank you so much for having me. Um, I always like to give a gift when I get to come and be with somebody and spend some time in front of their audience. [00:35:46] So I have a course, it's a really short little training, and it talks about the five steps to a sales conversation. That's my signature framework. It's called mastering the sales conversation, and it will give you the five steps [00:36:00] and what to say or do in those five steps that isn't, it's not script. It's teaching you how to show up and be your authentic, genuine self in those conversations. [00:36:09] So you can get that by going to your sales maven. com forward slash humane. And that'll be there for you. It's free. You can download it. And once you do that, then we'll be connected. [00:36:20] Sarah: Wonderful. Thank you so much. Which, uh, social platform are you usually, uh, most active on, [00:36:27] Nikki: Nikki? I tend to be the most active on LinkedIn and Instagram, but I also have a podcast too called Sales Maven. [00:36:34] So since you're, you know, these are your listeners, if they are looking for another podcast to check out, I would encourage them to check out the Sales Maven [00:36:42] Sarah: podcast. Wonderful. Yeah. And as you know, I always have a last question and that is what are you grateful for today or this week? [00:36:51] Nikki: You know what i'm most grateful for today is that the weather here where I live in Boise, Idaho is starting to shift And i'm so excited for fall And we're [00:37:00] starting to let go of some of those really hot days. [00:37:03] So i'm so grateful for the change in the season [00:37:05] Sarah: Wonderful. Yeah. And over here it's like an Indian summer. It's still warm, but definitely crisp in the morning and at night. So that's lovely. Yeah. Wonderful. Thanks so much for hanging out Nikki. [00:37:19] Nikki: Thanks for having me. [00:37:26] Sarah: Did you take some notes? I hope you got great value from listening to this episode. You can find out more about Nikki and her work at yoursalesmaven. com. And she's also offering us a free resource about being our confidence in the sales conversation and you'll find that at your sales maven dot com forward slash humane. [00:37:49] And as always, if you're looking for others who think like you, then why not join us in the humane marketing circle where we have deep conversations about marketing, [00:38:00] but also about selling and pricing and. Humane payment plans, and all of this good stuff. You can find out more at humane. marketing. com forward slash circle. [00:38:11] You'll find the show notes of this episode at humane. marketing. com forward slash H M 1 7 5 on this beautiful page. You also find a series of free offers such as the humane business manifesto, as well as 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. [00:38:33] We are marketers who 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.

Michael Sullivan is a property management entrepreneur who has grown his business to 275 doors. Join property management growth experts Jason and Sarah Hull as they chat with former DoorGrow client Michael Sullivan to learn about his experience starting and growing a property management business. You'll Learn [01:44] Getting started in the property management industry [07:49] Growing a property management business [24:01] Having support and feeling fulfilled in the business [28:13] Growing and scaling to the next level Tweetables “To go faster, you need to invest the currency of cash if you want to get more of the other currencies and to get the business to the next level.” “If you're not making mistakes, you're not learning.” “A lot of us business owners, we have a bit of ego.” “Being an entrepreneur can be one can be very lonely, and it is really important to have people in the same industry kind of in your village.” Resources DoorGrow and Scale Mastermind DoorGrow Academy DoorGrow on YouTube DoorGrowClub DoorGrowLive TalkRoute Referral Link Transcript [00:00:00] Jason: To go faster, you need to invest the currency of cash. If you want to get more of the other currencies and to get the business to the next level. 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 of DoorGrow, along with Sarah Hull, the co owner and CEO of DoorGrow. [00:01:09] Now let's get into the show and our guest today is Michael L Sullivan. Michael Sullivan is here hanging out with us. He is a client of ours and of Sullivan property management. Did I say that right? MLS ullivan property management. All right, your initials. Got it. And Michael, welcome to the show.  [00:01:33] Michael: Thank you. Thank you very much. Good to be here.  [00:01:36] Jason: We're glad to have you. So we've really enjoyed having you in our program and it's been really amazing seeing your progress. So maybe to kick things off, let's start with talking about how you got into this crazy industry of property management. Like you woke up when you were like maybe five years old and said "property management is the thing for me" maybe. [00:01:57] Michael: Yeah, like every little boy and girl, dreams about being a real estate agent or a property manager.  [00:02:03] Jason: It's right there next to veterinarian and firefighter. [00:02:06] Michael: I think that's right. That's right or professional baseball player so, I left the teaching profession in 1993 and became a real estate agent, a general brokerage real estate agent here in the Greater Research Triangle region of North Carolina, and I did very well. I, on average, sold anywhere between 5 and 15 million dollars worth of real estate when our average sale price was $150,000. Yeah, we were shifting a lot of shacks, and it was a good life. And for the 15 or so years between 1993 and the Great Recession of 2007, 2008, my biggest fear was, "what is going to happen when the market flips?" Because inevitably, real estate flips. It goes from a boom market to a bust market, a buyer's market to a seller market. And so during those years, I socked away cash. When the market crashed in 2008, I had an inventory of 40 general brokerage homes that were for sale. I had clients that were still moving to Massachusetts or Plano, Texas, or Austin, or Seattle, you know, to the other tech hubs in the United States and my clients were like, "All right, problem solver, what are you going to do because we still have to move?" And I was like, "we're going to rent them." And so with an Excel spreadsheet and time, because I had lots of time then I started managing property and in the first year, our goal was 30 homes and we had 50 and it was me and one part time assistant and an Excel spreadsheet. Well, after about 18 months, that didn't work anymore. So I went out and I found what I thought was a reasonable property management software. And then over the course of the next decade or so, we got up to 110 properties or so and things were good, you know, we were chugging along and profits were good, but I really didn't know what I didn't know, I kind of. [00:04:22] Believe that once you had an Appfolio or a Buildium on board that you had won the day and that your business was set and you know, it should be easy. And I soon discovered when I got to 115 doors and just kind of got stuck there that the business wasn't growing the way it should be. And I couldn't figure out why. I was on Facebook one day. And there was this guy, Jason Hull, talking about this company called DoorGrow. And so I did the click, click, clickety click. And then I started listening to some of his podcasts and I started researching DoorGrow and I thought, " huh, this guy knows a whole lot about this industry and maybe this is someone I need to engage with." and so that's how I came to DoorGrow about two and a half years ago, I think.  [00:05:21] Jason: And now you're on one, you're on one of the podcasts.  [00:05:24] Michael: I know.  [00:05:25] Jason: So what challenges did you start to realize you were dealing with at the time? Because generally, you've made a ton of changes in your business since working with us, and you know, it's been impressive to watch. What do you feel like were your challenges at that time? Like, what did you not know that you did not know? So  [00:05:43] Michael: I knew that there were currencies in a business, but I didn't know that there were five of them. And I knew that I was working really hard. So the currency of effort was there. Yeah, my bank account showed me that the currency of cash was there. Yeah, the currency of focus was really lacking because I was still doing a lot of general brokerage and still trying to do property management. The focus of energy was lacking. Because it was draining me kind of going in these different directions. And then there was a lack of time. I didn't have time to take off. I didn't have time to turn it off because it was me and an assistant property manager at that time, I was still doing all of the day to day operations and the round pegs in the round holes work. And figuring out those currencies and how to better divide them and focus on them was one of the things that I didn't know and that once I could put a name to it and once I could focus on fixing where there was a deficiency, then I kind of won the battle. I felt, you know, before you launched all of your different systems to help property managers, I listened to you and I went out and got Lead Simple. I went out and got Property Meld and kind of brought them into the fold. And I recognize that those tools, which you paid dearly for using these outside vendors, really bring you a wealth of time that didn't exist before. So I was able to capture that currency and by extension, the currency of effort was able to kind of tamp down because I had systems now in place to deal with the endless maintenance requests that having a practice that. Goes up over a hundred percent in growth is going to require.  [00:07:48] Jason: So let's talk about that growth. You had mentioned you'd gotten up to maybe, where were you when you started with DoorGrow?  [00:07:56] 118. [00:07:58] 118. Okay.  [00:07:59] And where are you at right now?  [00:08:01] Michael: 275.  [00:08:03] Jason: I mean, it sounds like you had pretty decent profit margin before. Well, what was that? If you don't mind sharing, what is it? [00:08:09] Michael: So, on a gross per door basis, when I joined DoorGrow, we were right at about $122 a door per month. Yeah. And today we're up. $153 and 82 cents per door per month.  [00:08:26] Jason: That's very specific. So, you know, your numbers, which is good.  [00:08:30] Michael: Well I try. Yeah. And year over year revenue increases from last year is up 58.7%.  [00:08:36] Jason: Wow. That's awesome. So money's up. So the cash currency has improved the focus currency. Have you been able to do less in the business and narrow your focus?  [00:08:48] Michael: Yes. So Saturday is my benchmark. I call it my Zen day. And if Saturday can be a Zen day for me, where I don't feel like I have tasks that I have to accomplish, that I can do the things that I want to do, still working on the business, not in the business, then I feel like the week has been a win. If I feel like there are pressing tasks that I have to work on within the business on Saturday, then I feel like the week has not been a win. So if Saturday is Zen, if I come into it feeling very kind of centered and relaxed, then I feel like things are in balance the way they should be. [00:09:34] Jason: So what percent profit margin are you operating at now?  [00:09:37] Michael: So coming into this year 2022, we were at 27 percent profit margin, but a lot of that was really underpinned by very robust general brokerage sales. I made a concerted effort this year to pour gasoline on the fire to really grow the business. The goal is to be over 300 doors by the end of the year. So we're 25 away. Nice. I'm pretty sure we're going to make that, you know, that goal. But our profit margin right now is at. 11 and a half, 11 and three quarters percent. So it's down substantially, but that was deliberate.  [00:10:14] Jason: Got it. And is deliberate because  [00:10:18] Michael: why? [00:10:18] Because we're making an investment in people. We're making an investment in systems and we're making an investment in things like vehicles and computers and marketing.  [00:10:30] Jason: Yeah. So I think that's an important thing for business owners to recognize that. To go faster, you need to invest the currency of cash if you want to get more of the other currencies and to get the business to the next level. And you can grow faster if you have thinner margins, which can feel a little more dangerous. And you know, if you're investing into the growth of the business and into the future, but you know how to add doors, so this isn't a concern for you. [00:10:57] Michael: It isn't. My bookkeeper and my accountant were a little apoplectic until I told them like, this is where we're going. And what I said to my bookkeeper was before the great depression of 1929, Ford motor company was the preeminent motor car company in the world. They had an amazing market share. Then the stock market crashed and the economy tanked and Ford circled the wagons, folded their tents and got very conservative. They scaled back. General Motors, by extension, said, "ah," and they saw it as an opportunity and they poured gasoline on the fire. And for the next 70 years, General Motors was the dominant car company in the world. And so I kind of am using that model.  [00:11:47] Jason: Yeah. So, now a lot of people listening to this might think, well, cool, I can get Property Meld, I can do something, you know, get something like Lead Simple, or we have a better tool now, which is DoorGrow Flow. " I can go and get tools and maybe I can do it on my own." Because I think this is the challenge. A lot of us business owners, we have a bit of ego. " I've made a lot of mistakes in the past and we think I can do it myself. Maybe if I watch enough YouTube videos, listen to enough podcast episodes, I can figure it all out on my own. I don't need DoorGrow or I don't need it." Like, so what would you say to people that listening to this or thinking that?  [00:12:22] Michael: So I would say to them, when I think back to me and one assistant and 115, 110 doors and good profit margins. You know, and a good life. I was in a really kind of felt very isolated and very alone I didn't have other friends or colleagues in the property management space that I could talk to. I felt like I was the only person in the world that was doing this, and once I joined DoorGrow and made very valuable, long lasting friends within the organization that I can call on off hours to discuss specific problems related to property management, that burden of feeling on my own and alone disappeared. Being an entrepreneur can be one can be very lonely, and it is really important to have people in the same industry kind of in your village. And that's why that's 1 of the benefits of joining DoorGrow is that I can call friends in Texas, Idaho, Pennsylvania, California and say, "hey, I've got this going on. What do you think?"  [00:13:40] Jason: Yeah, and I think you know, that's a testament to you is that you've been such a contributor that in the mastermind that it's allowed you to connect with all of these people, you know, there are some people that join the program and they still stay somewhat isolated. They're like, "I'm going to watch videos I'm going to learn stuff and do my own thing and they maybe don't get some of those advantages or benefits But I think that's key. [00:14:02] So yeah Yes. I mean, Sarah, when she had her property management business, I imagine you experienced some of the same sort of things of thinking it's. You know, this is, you're the only one in the world doing this. You're on your own.  [00:14:17] Sarah: Yeah, very much. And especially in the area that I was in I was always different and I just kind of do things differently and I think differently and oftentimes people are like, she's nuts, like, why would you do that? [00:14:29] Even my mom, sometimes she's like, are you sure you're going to do that? Like, are you sure? Like, I'm kind of nervous. But I've just always done things a little differently. And it's so, it is really lonely. And I think the mindset that I had back when I was in Pennsylvania versus, you know, the mindset I have now really has a lot to do with who you surround yourself with and that can. [00:14:53] I think it can just give you hope and it can show you like, Hey, like, I'm not so crazy. Like I've got it. Like I've got it figured out and I'm like doing the right thing and I'm on the right path. And you know, it feels right, but sometimes it's just, you know, you're like, Oh, is this really right? [00:15:07] Because it feels good to me, but man, everybody else is doing something so different.  [00:15:12] Michael: Yeah. And that's another benefit that DoorGrow has given me is. I now have the ability to say no. So I am the business development manager. I have someone in charge of maintenance. I have someone in charge of tenant experience. [00:15:28] I have someone in charge of ops within the office. They color within their lines and we are good. My job is to go out and build the business to work on the business, not work in the business. And until I joined DoorGrow, it didn't matter what came my way. Property wise, I was going to take it last week. I turned away more properties than we took on because they weren't the right fit. [00:15:53] And I have a very nice conversation with prospective clients about qualification and that they're qualifying us to make sure we're a good fit for them. But at the same time. I'm qualifying them, their mindset, their properties, their attitudes toward spending money, their attitudes toward maintaining their properties, and if those things don't align with what we believe here, that housing is a human right that people have the right to live in nice homes that are maintained and maintained properly, then We're not going to accept the business. [00:16:30] We're also not going to accept people that are rude, mean and abusive. Because I've learned since kind of letting the stress of being a general brokerage real estate agent. Slip away that there is plenty of good business out there and that it's more important to have the Philosophical fits with the business than it is to take just any property no matter what the cost  [00:16:57] Jason: Yeah, your ability to say no in business Gives you a business that you feel you can easily say yes to each  [00:17:03] Michael: day. [00:17:04] That's right.  [00:17:05] Jason: Yeah. Yeah. It's nice to not have to wake up and go, man, I really don't want to do this today. And that's because we're setting boundaries for ourselves and that boundary in those containers allow us to create a business that we really like to be inside.  [00:17:20] Michael: Right. That's correct. Yeah. Now,  [00:17:22] Jason: when you came. [00:17:23] To us DoorGrow initially. I remember like you really had this mindset that you, and now you're doing business development, you had mentioned, you really believed you were the operator. It all was on your shoulders to operate the business, do operations, and you were good at it, but you believe that was your primary gift, I think, to the business and what your contribution needed to be. [00:17:45] And and I know you had some conversations with Sarah and some shifts in that, so could you touch on that a bit?  [00:17:51] Michael: Yeah well, control freak and always have been a control freak. I know one of those. You know, own it. And to a certain degree, I still, I observe. I trust and verify, but I don't get involved. [00:18:07] My number two said it best the other day. He said, yeah, with you. I only have to come to you if I know it's a problem that I can't solve. So I have kind of empowered the people who work with me to color in their lines. And when they are in trouble, come here and ask and we'll figure it out. I have also given them permission to make mistakes because if you're not making mistakes, you're not learning. You're static, and I let them see that I make mistakes and that I admit when I make a mistakes above all else. I expect complete honesty here. We make mistakes. We admit our mistakes. You know, if we have to eat it because it's a financial error that we've made well, then by golly, we're going to eat it because it was our mistake. And we come by it honestly the empowerment of becoming a business development manager is I don't have to worry that the books are balanced every week because I know that there is someone who I've paid good money to who has balanced the books and they can't hide because the system has been created where I can see that it's been uploaded into the accounting software and that the books are in balance. [00:19:25] I can verify that the financial piece of the puzzle in the business is running properly because I get a report monthly from my accountant and my bookkeeper that says, "this is where we are. This is your cash flow. This is your profit. This is where you're spending a lot of money. Are you okay with that?" and I pay them good money to do those things. I have a maintenance coordinator who deals with maintenance and on the Property Meld dashboard, which I log into every morning. I can see the tasks picking off or I can see things progressing and I can see that we're handling our maintenance requests in 3 to 4 days on average and that's fine. I've also told him to maintain his sanity because he's a bit of a control freak. If it's after hours and it's a garbage disposal in a dishwasher and it's after 5 o'clock, you don't need to deal with that today. If it's a leak and we have a catastrophe, then you deal with that after five o'clock, but the small stuff can wait until tomorrow. [00:20:26] It's still important. It's important to get it done and move it off our plates, but you don't have to deal with it when you need to be spending time with your children at soccer camp or baseball practice or whatever he does in the evening with his four kids. And then my other teammates, I can see that they are moving their tasks forward and that I don't have to worry about the job that they're doing. And that's empowered me to go out and find the right properties to bring into the practice for us to manage.  [00:20:56] Jason: You know, one of the gifts that I see in you, which I think really sets you apart, Michael, is coming into the program you're really intelligent. You know this. You're an intelligent guy. I think everybody can pick that up just by hearing you and listening to you. But even though you're intelligent, you have humility about, you know, and this openness to learning. And you've come into the program and you just started to do stuff. Like you tried it out. You experimented, and you allowed yourself the time to prove whether or not it would work or not. And some of the times we get clients that are intelligent, but they're not humble and they're usually the biggest stumbling block to themselves. So I just wanted to point that out. I'm curious what Sarah's experience has been of you as well, because she worked closely with you on like reviewing some of the systems, reviewing your team assessing you and some of this kind of stuff. [00:21:54] Sarah: So, yeah, I think I definitely agree with what you just said about being open to learning and trying things just a bit differently. And I think a lot of entrepreneurs, we do things differently. We're okay with that. But sometimes if it's not our idea, then we're like "I don't know if I want to do it because I didn't think of it." right. So, I think Michael is, he's open to thinking differently. He's open to trying things out and implementing a system. He'll do the research. He doesn't just, you know, blindly jump and he's like, well, Jason said to do this, so I'm going to do it, but he'll do the research and he's very thorough. And I really appreciate that about Michael. He's all into the details and he knows exactly what's going on in his business. He's not like, "Hey, I'm just going to kind of sit back and like, let the team run everything, and then I just, I'm going to cross my fingers and hope and pray that everything is going well, right?" like we know that it's going well because you're not the one who's doing it, so you've been able to get out of the hot seat in a lot of different ways and get yourself more into the things that you actually enjoy. because I remember that conversation with you about the operations and you said, "well, I really just, I love to sell" like, okay, then let's let you sell. Like if you're doing things in the business and you're just holding on to them going, "well, I have to be the one to do this." I think it's really common for us to think that like, " well, I own the business, so I have to do this piece or I own this. And it has to be me. It doesn't always have to be you." do you have to know what's going on? Absolutely. Do you have to have the right people on your team? Absolutely. And do you have to set it up so that things can run smoothly? Absolutely. But do you have to be the one who's actually like doing the work? Right. And I think that's one of the biggest shifts that I've seen in you is that you're able to say, okay I don't have to do this part and I don't want to do this part. [00:23:54] This is where I want to be. So I'm going to move closer to this and I'm going to figure out how to get these pieces kind of offloaded.  [00:24:01] Michael: Yeah. Yeah. When you taught me how to write R docs and after I had a disastrous hire two years ago, disaster, and I had to fire someone, something I'd never had to do, but it was my fault. There was nothing wrong with the person I hired. She was just the wrong fit for the job. And then we sat down, we wrote R docs. With detailed job descriptions and parameters and that made bringing on the next person who is now in that role a dream because she fit the culture. We knew what her profile was before she even interviewed with us. We knew who the person was and then she walked through the door and poof, there she was. And that's one thing I didn't know. I just thought you could teach someone into a position. Well, you can teach skills, but you can't teach the human touch. And that's what I had missed with the disaster, the mistake that I made.  [00:25:02] Jason: Yeah. You'd learn some concepts from us, like the three fits , mapping out R docs. One of you explain what R docs are for those of us. This is DoorGrow speak here.  [00:25:11] Sarah: I know it is. So an R doc, it's just basically a fancy word for job description. We call it R doc because every section on it starts with 'R.' [00:25:20] Jason: There you go. So the ultimate job descriptions. Awesome. So, yeah, so all of these little pieces and systems and mindsets that you've installed in your business have really, I think, primed your business for a lot of growth. Like, where do you see the business going in the future?  [00:25:37] Michael: Oh, so that's another thing I learned. And it was at, I think, Austin at the Austin meeting. And it was you said it in the first like two minutes and I got my nugget and I was like, okay, I can go home. I got it. You said, don't limit your growth. And I had constantly said 200 doors, 200 doors. That's where I'm going. That's where I'm going. And you already passed that now. Yeah, you said that. And I was like. " Why would I create like this false ceiling that I'm going to just bump into and stop at?" Yeah. So, ultimately, and I'd like to retire in the next 10 to 12, 15 years, maybe. We're realistically thinking in the neighborhood of 1,000-2,000 doors. Yeah, people have started to come a calling about, "Hey, do you want to sell your business?" And the time is not right. Some of the financial offers that have been made already are very intriguing. Yeah. But then I'm like, " what will I do with myself?" You know, "what's the next iteration?" And I think until I figure that out, we're going to just stay the course. [00:26:47] Jason: Yeah, I think that's one of the key things that I think a lot of people realize in the program that if it was just about money, then maybe you'd cash out, but it's not just about money, right? There's other things we want out of our experience here on this planet. And that's something else you got a lot of clarity on is what really personally drives you, which allowed you to build the business and the team around you so that you really could move into those plus signs and out of those minus signs. [00:27:13] Michael: Yeah, so the key is I went to the Netherlands in May to see art because it's my thing. Cool. And a little ostentatious to fly to Europe to see Vermeer, but I did it. And I was gone for a good long time and things here chugged right along and it was beautiful. And I knew then that we were doing things right, that I could leave and not be here for 10 days, and the business continued to operate. I continued to watch and check in. But they didn't need me.  [00:27:49] Jason: And how's that different from before you came to DoorGrow?  [00:27:53] Michael: Oh my God. Like the first meeting in Austin that I came to, I had I came really close to not coming because I was like "I can't leave. I just can't leave. I can't leave them." I was wrong. I was wrong and I went to Austin and I went to Vegas and you know, things were good. Yeah.  [00:28:12] Jason: Yeah. So awesome. Well, it's been really cool to see your progress. We really appreciate. Seeing your growth and yeah, there's no question in my mind. A lot of people hear you say, Oh, maybe a thousand, 2000 doors. And they probably think: this guy is ridiculously off his rocker that he could just believe that and the audacity to have that mindset. And I'm sure when you first came to DoorGrow, a thousand doors was like, probably magic, some magic, like pipe dream in the ethers that you would never even consider. I don't know, but. [00:28:40] Michael: 300 seemed unimaginable.  [00:28:43] Jason: Yeah, but now it seems very doable. And you're aware of the DoorGrow code and like we've got clients breaking a thousand doors. We've got clients doing it. And there's no question in my mind. You could easily do this in the next two to three years. If you really wanted to easily.  [00:28:57] Michael: Yeah, I work my golden 100. That's another thing I learned at DoorGrow. To have people that are valuable people that I love and care about that. I have to touch every 30 days because they love and care about me and buy it. So they send business. They ask questions and we share information. Yeah. And for that, I'm indebted to you.  [00:29:19] Jason: Not at all. Well, great. Well, yeah we, it's been really awesome seeing your growth. So cool. Anything else we should ask Michael? We've got him hanging out here with us. What's next for you, Michael? What's next?  [00:29:31] Michael: Well, once we go over 300, then the double it again. [00:29:34] Jason: Yeah. So what I see next for you is you've got some of the systems installed. And then I think what it will be next is to level up your three key systems of. People, process, and planning and maybe starting to build out even a little bit more of that executive team. I think you've got a good team going now and I think then what would be next would be maybe starting to acquire you'll be the one eating up some of these other companies. And I think, maybe working with us on acquisitions, and I think that'll be the quick pace to grow. And that also bring you really great people too, if you want. So [00:30:07] Michael: we're working on two. They're on a slow simmer because companies that I'm looking at have some. Bookkeeping issues. We'll just put it at that.  [00:30:17] Jason: It's an opportunity. Yeah. Always do.  [00:30:20] Michael: So we may be able to fix the problem. Definitely.  [00:30:24] Jason: You'll be able to fix the problem. Yeah. Yeah. Very cool. Well, I'm excited to see what you do in the future. I know like, I've seen companies hit all these different stages. I know. We know the challenges that you're going to hit at these different stages in growth. We're here to support you. And for those listening here on the DoorGrowShow if you are struggling, you're hitting some of these sticking points, these milestones, you're stuck in your mindset, whatever. Be like Michael, be like Mike, not Mike, but all the reference, be like Michael and you know, talk to us and let us map things out with you and see if we could help you out. We'll be sure with you. So, well, Michael, appreciate you coming on the show. We appreciate having you as a client and grateful for you.  [00:31:09] Michael: Thank you. Thanks. I appreciate it. Have a good day.  [00:31:12] Jason: All right. Cool. So, if you're wanting to get into our free community of property management entrepreneurs on Facebook, go to DoorGrowClub.Com. We have some free gifts that we want to give to you. You'll provide your email as you join the group, we'll give you an, a drip, an email drip of some free gifts, including a fee Bible and some vendors that you can use and some different tools just to help you help yourself and help the industry level up. [00:31:42] And we, and if you provide your info, we will also reach out to see if you'd like to have a conversation with us and see if we could help you grow your business, which the answer usually is. Yes, we can. So we would love to support you and help you out. And if you're wanting to test out your website, which you think might be amazing, go to doorgrowcom/quiz and test your website. A lot of times, this is a great gateway to realizing that you have some blind spots in your business. When you see that your website is leaking lots of money. Which is something we can help you out with. There's a lot of other leaks you can't see, and this might crack your mind open, get you to be open minded like Michael and allow us to be able to help you and support you and make a lot more money, have a lot more freedom and make a bigger difference out there in the marketplace. [00:32:34] We appreciate you listening to our show. If you could do us a favor and leave us a good testimonial on, if you're hearing us on iTunes or like, or comment all of these things help us out and help us get the message out to enact our vision and our mission for this industry of helping it level up. [00:32:50] And until next time to our mutual growth, everybody, bye everyone.  [00:32:54] 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!  [00:33:21] 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 do you decide to differentiate yourself and your business from your competitors? There's only so much you can offer to owners and tenants before you completely burn yourself out. What if there was a way to benefit you, your client, and the tenants all at the same time while increasing your profit margin? Join property management growth experts Jason and Sarah Hull as they chat with Andrew Smallwood from Second Nature. Learn how a resident benefits package can create a win-win-win scenario for you and your clients. You'll Learn [04:56] Is it Possible to Double Profit Per Door? [07:13] What is a Resident Benefits Package? [21:37] Ways to Protect Your Investors/Owners [25:19] The Pitfalls of DIYing Resident Benefits Packages [32:07] Increasing Profitability with Resident Benefits Packages [39:31] At What Stage Should You Implement a RBP Tweetables “Property managers don't just have one problem. They have a thousand.” “If we can move the needle just slightly to increase revenue, but also just slightly to decrease operational cost, right, it's very easy to double profit margin in a business.” “It doesn't matter how many doors you have if you're not taking anything home.” “It's important for property managers to keep the main thing, otherwise it's so easy to get distracted as an entrepreneur.”   Resources DoorGrow and Scale Mastermind DoorGrow Academy DoorGrow on YouTube DoorGrowClub DoorGrowLive TalkRoute Referral Link Transcript [00:00:00] [00:00:00] Jason: If we can move the needle just slightly to increase revenue, but also just slightly to decrease operational cost, right, it's very easy to double profit margin in a business.  [00:00:15] Welcome DoorGrow Hackers to the DoorGrowShow. If you are a property management entrepreneur that wants to add doors, make a difference, increase revenue, help others, Impact lives, and you're interested in growing in business and in life, and you're open to doing things a bit differently, then you are a DoorGrow Hacker. DoorGrow Hackers love the opportunities, daily variety, unique challenges, and freedom that property management brings. Many in real estate think you're crazy for doing it. You think they're crazy for not because you realize that property management is the ultimate high trust gateway to real estate deals, relationships, and residual income. [00:00:52] 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.  [00:01:18] All right. So our guest today is Andrew Smallwood of Second Nature. Andrew, welcome to the show.  [00:01:25] Andrew: Hey, thanks for having me excited to be here.  [00:01:28] Jason: So we were talking beforehand and I was expressing how jealous I am of his amazing digital SLR camera. That's so zoomed in on his face. So you look really good today.  [00:01:37] Andrew: Well, we'll keep it on the face because I've still got some like summer workout to do the summer bods. We'll keep it the neck up here.  [00:01:44] Jason: Got it. All right. Yeah, I'm working out too. All right. Cool. So our topic today is doubling profit per door with a resident benefits package. You guys, your name has come up— Second Nature— over and over again related to this topic. So I'm excited to get into this before we get in though. Why don't you share a little bit about yourself? How did you get connected to property management? I doubt you woke up when you were a little kid and said, "property management" Second Nature... this is my dream future. This is what I want to be doing." So there's always a story of how people get into this industry, so.  [00:02:19] Andrew: You know, that's true, Jason, although if I think about every five to 10 year period of my life and where I may have predicted I would be five to 10 years from now, I don't think I've ever gotten that answer right, to date. So, I think I'll probably just stop trying, but really have enjoyed— you know, since 2017, actually is when I found the company at the time. It was called FilterEasy. A couple of years later, we rebranded to Second Nature as we saw our customers were looking at, you know, they had more than just one problem to solve. I think you guys know probably better than anybody property managers don't just have one problem. [00:02:52] They have a thousand. [00:02:53] You know, customer said, "Hey, we love the way you're working with us on this. Like, is there more that we could do there?" You know, rebranded to Second Nature, but I'll be quick with my personal story because I think probably other things would be more relevant to the audience wants to hear, but my background came up and coming up in sales was in sales and sales management for 10 plus years, also got into the nonprofit space involved with the Front Row Foundation, which is a cause I'm still passionate about. They put people battling life threatening illnesses in the front row of their dream live event. And so I'm the board chair for the Front Row Foundation today. I've been involved with them in various roles before finding my way to property management. And yeah the CEO and founder of Second Nature, Thad Tarkington, and I actually worked in the same company, although we didn't know each other super well. We were acquaintances in our previous company. And and I was looking to get into B2B from where I was. And that's what attracted me into the cool business. I saw it was a really great product. The customers really loved it. And that's what attracted me to the industry and I've loved it ever since. [00:03:57] Jason: So what do you think the major difference you see between B2C and B2B? What like really was driving that decision?  [00:04:06] Andrew: Yeah, I think, you know, in B2C, it was very transactional, like, have one meeting. And it was, you know, this was like a luxury house where items just to put that in perspective. And so it was like, you know, an order might be a few hundred dollars or a few thousand dollars, and it was like, if you didn't have an order form in 20 minutes, then you didn't have an order, right? Yeah, there wasn't a decision at that point. And, you know, I got a lot of like professional foundational skills that I really appreciate from those experiences. But, you know, what I appreciated was developing relationships and continually, you know, working to drive success right over a longer period of time with customers. But that was more interesting and more fulfilling and also would involve developing new skills and learning new things. And so that, that's what attracted me to B2B.  [00:04:56] Jason: Awesome. All right. Cool. So let's get into the topic at hand. So doubling profit per door with the residence benefits package. So is it possible to double their profit per door? [00:05:10] Andrew: Yeah, it better be, right? If that's the title of our episode. So, yeah, I mean, fortunately, Second Nature works with a little over 1500, just shy of 2000 management companies across the United States. And if you believe the, you know, studies that have been done out there and benchmarking a lot of property management companies can see their profit per door, you know, somewhere in the 10 to 15, you know, per unit range, obviously some less than that, right. And it's sort of some more than that, but a lot of companies we encounter, that's the range, you know, oftentimes when we encounter them, and the cool thing about a resident benefits package is in 30 days or less, they can be adding, you know, oftentimes $17 in profit per door, sometimes more, sometimes less. We can get into the details of why that can vary, but it can be a really dramatic move. And if it's a fully managed resident benefit package, it can actually be a very easy one to get going. So a powerful step to take.  [00:06:08] Jason: Yeah. I think a lot of property managers maybe don't see this. They don't realize this. We get so focused as business owners in the beginning of just trying to get revenue up, trying to get in revenue, and the challenge is: if we can move the needle just slightly to increase revenue, but also just slightly to decrease operational cost, right, it's very easy to double profit margin in a business. And Sarah had ridiculous profit margin in her business because she's ridiculously efficient. What was your profit margin?  [00:06:41] Sarah: On a bad month, it'd be like 60%.  [00:06:43] Jason: Yeah, so. Wow. And the big secret was she just wouldn't talk to people on the phone. Like that's a big part of it. And still had to talk to people. Yeah. So she's been able to do some amazing things with our clients in increasing profit and profit really per door is the thing that property managers should be taking a look at because it doesn't matter how many doors you have if you're not taking anything home. So let's talk about how they can increase this using a resident benefits packages. Let's define a resident's benefit package for those that have never heard of this idea. Let's start there.  [00:07:17] Andrew: Yeah. So the way we think about the resident benefits package, and I'd say, this is a generally accepted definition in the industry— is this is a suite of products and services that elevate and professionalize the resident experience, right? And so that's the 1st thing that it does, and it's creating an experience that residents will pay for, and that they'll stay for a recurring monthly charge, right? Alongside rent, there's the costs, right, of all these ancillary service. We can get it into examples of what those different products and services are in a minute. But that's what the property manager is doing. They're saying, "we're going to bring a different level of service. There's value in that service." and if there's a cost associated with that service as well, that's how they drive that as a profit center, but 1. That is bringing value to the resident, also protecting the investor from risk, and then the property manager benefiting as well. We call that a triple win. And that's what we focus on.  [00:08:13] Jason: Nice. Yeah. Value to the resident, protecting the investor and what was the third one?  [00:08:19] Andrew: Yeah. And the property manager should be reducing costs and adding a profit center as well.  [00:08:25] Jason: Love it. Okay, cool. So those are three awesome benefits. Now maybe we'll get into some specific examples, but let's go to this first one, the value to the resident. And does this work only in— because I know some property managers right now are listening and "this won't work in my market. My residents are cheap or my residents don't want extra value  [00:08:48] Sarah: or they don't care." [00:08:49] Jason: Yeah, you just want the lowest price possible maybe. So let's tackle the value to the resident. [00:08:55] Andrew: Yeah. Well, I mean, I think first i'd like to acknowledge some of the truth in that, which is that if I look at different asset classes, right, and you look at like multifamily, which has really done a lot of investment, like you think about class A multifamily major MSAs and like there's golf simulators and bark parks and like, you know, three water fountains and like all kinds of investment. [00:09:19] Right. And then generally the way you see them monetized is both as a part of the rent— they've figured out how to, you know, classify their property to place where they can actually monetize that in the rent itself. It's amenitized and then also their services like valet, trash and other things like that, right, that are going to be charged as a separate ledger line item there. And so when we think about single family and smaller boutique, multifamily and scattered site properties and third party managers, you know, and I think about the resident profile of who's running the class A, you know, golf simulators place we were just talking about is probably that's probably different value for that person than, like, you know, your typical couple in their 40s with a couple of kids and a dog right in the suburbs, like they're not looking for the same things, right? And what would be valuable and important to them? [00:10:09] So, I think it's okay to acknowledge that different resident profiles may value different things, right? Where we started. Where we started with this was, okay, we see a future where there's actually a really and truly incredible resident experience. I mean, dozens of dozens and dozens of products and services and bucketing them into what's already required in the lease. Right and so we started with that before going to "hey, what's like standard, but could be opt out or what might be really cool for some residents?" like, you imagine lawn care as an example. That's probably not something that every resident would pay for. And some would choose to do it themselves and. You know, but there's probably a small percentage of residents that really would appreciate having that kind of service done and coordinated for them. And there could be a great revenue opportunity there. So we're working towards that, but starting with the mandatory stuff, that's things like renter's insurance is generally a requirement of the lease, right? That they have it. When you think about paying rent on time, like that's an essential responsibility. [00:11:10] So how can we make things easier by creating a reward system by every time someone pays their rent on time, it actually boosts their credit score, right? Automatically this is happening. It's almost crazy to think that somebody's largest monthly expense is the only one that they aren't getting rewards points for and that they aren't getting credit, you know, benefits of their credit score for. We obviously started with filter delivery service. [00:11:32] Like, they got to change the filters on time, but how do we make that so easy to do? It's going to happen the vast majority of times versus all the friction that gets in the way but otherwise, and on down the list. So, hey, we've kind of tackled these things that are core least responsibilities first, and what we've seen is: yeah, occasionally a resident might say 'Hey, I'm not sure about the value of this," and they need some additional explanation. But when it's properly priced, when it's properly positioned and you've got the right product mix, right, with those things all done together... extremely effective, right, for property managers that hasn't gotten in the way of being able to perform, you know, and drive their core leasing KPIs and things that would create a trade off or a compromise for investors or the managers. So that it keeps that triple win intact.  [00:12:19] Jason: Got it. So what are some of the things that might be included in a residence benefits package?  [00:12:28] Andrew: Yeah. So we just alluded to rent reporting. Every time someone pays their rent on time, what we do is we actually help take that information. Get it to the credit bureaus so that it's building the resident's score and to give an idea of the impact of that, you know, it's common to see 20 30 40 point bumps. There's some incredible you know individual kind of outlier cases where we've seen 70, 80 point increases, right, in individual profiles. People who did not have a credit score before actually establishing the credit score, right? Which is a big deal and when you think about You know, especially today where interest rates and everything has gone like— the cost of credit has just. Like, if you look at the interest rates on auto loans, they've doubled in just the last few years. Obviously, everyone knows what's happening, probably, you know, with mortgages, right? And what's happening the rate on the home loan and credit card, right? Credit cards. Those are really the big three. And you look at the savings. Over somebody's lifetime of having a 40 point higher credit score, they were at some point to purchase a home, purchase one or two cars, right? And, you know, carrying the average credit card debt that American family has. It's 6 figures, right? It's 6 figures in savings of their lifetime. So it's a really big deal. So that's exciting. The rewards points that we mentioned every time someone's paying on time, they're getting cash value, which they can go then redeem in a marketplace where there's hundreds of brands, right? That they can go redeem that everything from practical stuff of Starbucks, gift cards do like, I actually redeemed for some like bamboo pajamas. I don't know if you guys have seen this or any listeners have seen it, but this bamboo— I'm a sucker for like soft material, like tactile stuff. So anyway, I got the bamboo pajamas. That was my thing, but there's wine, there's dog food, like all kinds of stuff from really practical every day to kind of fun and luxury spend, right, that people can leverage that for, and they can use it right away or they can save it up and bank it. They don't lose it over time. You know, the other things we were talking about was on time filter delivery. So as opposed to "Hey," putting it in the lease and saying, "this is your responsibility." but then residents don't know what their size is. They don't know what quality to buy. They don't really know how often to do it, or they're not going back to page 18 at least to remember that. There's all these things that get in the way. And typically it's your residents who have been homeowners previously. That would be like probably the best at doing this. They felt the pain, you know, themselves, or they've replaced or paid for HVAC, you know, bills or oil cleanings or what might you you know, those are generally your best change, but that's, it's a small percentage. Most property managers report 5, 10, 15, maybe 20 percent of residents are changing exactly on time with the exact right filter, exactly the way the property manager would want them to. [00:15:06] So what we did, it's not perfect. You know, Jason and Sarah, it's not like, okay, a hundred percent of the time it works every time. But we actually did a study with the national rental home council across 8, 000 single family rentals, 18 months. And we looked at four operators. And it was A B test, right? So some it's hey, you're relying on the resident to do it in some cases, even leaving some in the closet for them to change. Right? Most of the time they're right at move out right where you left them versus a delivery program where they're being delivered every 2 to 3 months. Exactly when they need to change, and what we saw was a 38 percent reduction in HVAC work order volume, right? Between those getting delivered and those not. And the reason that happens is because you go from, you know, 10 or 15 percent changing them to all, but 10 or 15%, right, change them. That's what drives different resident benefits because they're saving on their energy bill and they're breathing clean air and it's as easy as opening their front door now to take care of that lease responsibility. [00:16:07] So, that's a great one. I'll pause here for a second, but we could talk about renters insurance, which is a big one, ID protection, on demand pest controls, actually the newest feature that we've rolled out most recently, so that's a newer one. A fresher one. Yeah. Happy to dive in more if you guys feel that's appropriate. [00:16:23] Jason: Yeah. Yeah. I think, you know, people understand the list of all the things their brain starts to go, Oh, I could see how this would be beneficial. This would add value to the resident for sure.  [00:16:33] Sarah: So if you if you had a property management company that does not have a resident benefit package currently, and they're looking to implement one, but they're like, "I just don't know, like what I should put in there. Should I put everything? Should I put like just one thing?" Like what is some advice that you have on like what to include and why?  [00:16:52] Andrew: Excellent question. So we can provide a link, I think to you guys the other show, but rbp.secondnature.com, right, is a place that people can go. And we've actually built a contact form there where people put in the state that they're in, sarah. It'll actually pull up the calendar of the person on our team who works with property managers in that area. And so what we generally do in a call is talk about what are their company goals, like what are they trying to optimize for, right? That's the first thing we'll consider. But then really define what you want your resident benefits package to do for you and your residents, investors. Map out that triple win. Once that's clear, the next thing we will do is kind of share, like, Hey, in your market, like your resident profile, your property type, right, your area, here's the product mix, right. And pricing and presentation, right, that we are saying that's a. Compliant, right. Compliant with your local laws and regulations. And then B. You know, is getting the best business results, you know, for that. And so we provide that kind of consultative approach and it can vary. [00:17:55] I mean, the fact of the matter is filter delivery in Orlando, Florida, right, is a different problem than in San Diego, California. Right. So we're not going to recommend the same thing in two different places. We take a kind of like value based approach. Once we help work with the operator to figure out, you know, what that's going to be and what the right fit for them is. [00:18:17] Sarah: That's awesome. Super helpful. And I like that it's like, very customizable because I think this is something that people just, they hesitate on a little bit because there's so many options. And especially when we take clients through pricing. Like, what do I include in my high plan? What do I not include? Like, what are the things that I should— and these are always where we see people get stuck is like, what are the benefits that we should include? And if there's something that really helps them figure out, like, am I compliant? What am I actually looking to do and like what in my area seems to be working well already? I think that would be huge for people. So I'm really glad you brought that up. Thank you.  [00:18:54] Andrew: You know, I'll jump in with 1 thing, and then I think Jason was going to go maybe towards the investor side. If that's where we're going next, but something we saw included in benefits packages early. That we've started to see phase out. Like maybe that could be interesting for people if they've heard about the past, you know, keeping up with this is originally before we had a lot of what Second Nature and other point solutions have been able to do and really productizing and scaling some of these services is. You know, problem is we're figuring out, well, what can I do on my own? And I think some of that is still relevant of communicating anything that differentiates you from a for rent by owner, right, versus a professional management company that you have multiple payment options, right? Maybe you have 24/7, you know, maintenance coordination that somebody can file a maintenance request at any time versus I remember one of my first early renting experiences, you know, I rented from a dentist who had four rental properties and it was like two weeks to get ahold of him to let him know that it was freezing cold in DC. Yeah, I was a college kid that like wore flip flops when it was 10 degrees outside. I didn't complain too much, but you know, thinking about those kind of experiences being a professional, like probably the people listening to this, I would never have that experience, right, working with their company. And so, hey, we do think it's important to communicate those things. Even if you don't monetize them or necessarily charge them in your RBP, it's a good place in the RBP to communicate those differences between a professional property manager and the FERBO. But the one that I've seen phased out were these kind of like early on before there were things like filters and insurance and credit and stuff that felt like really tangible to bring in. We often saw things like, hey, here's a get out of jail free card on late rent, right, or an NSF fee. And the reason we saw that early on is because it was so easy for a property manager to say, hey, this is worth $50, right? Or worth 40. It's like this tangible value of what you're giving, right? As a part of that and communicating it. Because they felt like they didn't have a lot of substance up front. But as more substances come in, we've seen that phase out because people started to realize, well, if I'm incentivizing, you know, on time rent, is that really a triple win for like my team that has to deal with that? Is that a win for the investor? That's not getting their rent on time. And so it's really about how do we incentivize the right behaviors, right? That's good outcomes for everybody. And so that's, that is something that we've seen change over the last couple of years, some of that stuff kind of phase. [00:21:26] Out and focusing on a more proactive and incentivizing what you want to have happen type of approach.  [00:21:32] Jason: Yeah. Incentives matter a lot, especially with tenants. Okay, cool. So let's get into then protecting the investor. So, I mean, I can see how some of these things, just if the tenants are behaving better, it's going to protect the property better, like getting filters changed, things like this. [00:21:51] But maybe you can provide some more detail on that.  [00:21:54] Andrew: Yeah, I mean, I think you know, a huge one is if you think about in single family rental and that investor profile, you know, in particular, I think about how important it is to keep the property occupied. Right? And you know, if you can keep a resident happy and renewing, right, renewing their lease, then yeah, that's a big win for the investor versus all that. It's not just the vacancy cost, right? It's also all the maintenance and repairs and everything that has to happen during that time. And so we, I mean, we have a client. They've got a scaled single family rental organization, over 7,000 units that they manage in a few markets, right? And their average their average tenancy is just under seven years. Wow, which is like really incredible, right? And that's not just because they have a resident benefits package. It's more than that. But it's really interesting to see a lot of the property managers really pushing for "how can I drive a great resident experience?" That people will pay for and that they'll stay for right and extending you know, attracting great residents and then keeping them longer. How that drives investor value. And then while they're there in the property, they're taking better care of it. The filters are getting changed on time. There's less HVAC expense, right? 38 percent less HVAC bills eliminates 38 percent of those bills that it makes an investor question, you know, "I got into this for predictable and like risk adjusted returns and then boom, I have this 7,000 expense." [00:23:23] Maybe I'm thinking about selling or do I really want to stick through this or I just ate up the rest of my year's returns, right? You can eliminate those kind of moments. That's really what we're after, right? How do we attack those kinds of moments that you know, create those emotional kind of negative experiences for investors that would make them say "you know, I want to, maybe I want to put my money somewhere else, or maybe I'm not up for continuing this." so we think about how do we create a resident experience so good. Residents don't want to leave. How do we create an investor experience so good, they don't want to sell? They want to buy more. How do we create a team experience so good, the talent wants to be in this industry and wants to grow in this industry forever. And that's that kind of flywheel of what a triple win experience creates.  [00:24:07] Jason: Yeah, I like it. They're increasing the lease renewals. They're lowering their operational costs by not having those happen as often and because they're taking better care of things, there's going to be less maintenance challenges, et cetera, better property care, lower HVAC expenses. [00:24:23] I mean, this sounds like an investor benefits package.  [00:24:26] Andrew: Yeah. I mean, if you look at, if you were to Google resident benefits package, You'll see Second Nature's content, but you'll also see a lot of property managers. And of course, property managers, their website and their content is often generally pointed at property owners, right? And you'll see a lot of the results are like, "Hey, our resident benefits package, how it benefits investors". And you'll just hear it from their mouths, right? It's the things I mentioned and more, like if all of your residents have renters insurance. Guess what? You can get a lower cost on your property insurance as a property owner and investor, right? If that's the case because you're protected from liabilities, especially if there's a master policy in place that has special coverages that protect the investors. Like our insurance products and others that offer great insurance products in the industry. So, whether you're working with Second Nature or not, you know, bringing these kinds of programs and designing things to be a triple win is something we'd, we really encourage people to pursue.  [00:25:19] Jason: Now, if somebody were trying to design this on their own, then they're probably going to have to source several different tools and services, which I'm guessing you guys like have aggregated and some of this stuff is in house, like the filters and some of this you've partnered, I'm guessing, but you've already brought all of this together. So, one of the challenges or one of the concerns is in those situations is the business owners thinking, "well, I'm going to be cheap. I can do this for less if I go and source all these components myself. Is that accurate?" [00:25:51] Andrew: Yeah. Yeah. Great question. You know, it's funny. I think I was telling you, we had our whole team in Nashville this past week. And we actually brought a couple of our customers in, three customers to have just like a customer panel. It was great for people not in sales and account management roles, like people in finance, people in technology, IT, to really hear directly what it's like to be a property manager and everything else. And Kevin Patterson was with us. He's a property manager, manages about a thousand units out of California. And Kevin was talking about it. He's like, yeah, "I saw what you guys were doing. I'm like, 'I can do this.'" And he is like, "so I bought pallets of filters, right? And had them shipped to my office. And then we realized, oh my God, like now we have to store all these filters and inventory. What a mess. Yeah. I still have some too, you know, two years later." [00:26:33] So, I mean, here's the thing. I would say there's probably a percentage or two, like my observation is there's a couple percentage, you know, of companies out there who are wired in such a way and just so passionately logistically detailed that if they wanted to do, you know, a couple of these things really on their own, they probably could do it. [00:26:53] But I think most property managers recognize. That, "Hey, if I can make $17 in profit per door, I don't have to add to my head count. I can have this whole thing up and running in 30 days and bring that impact to my business." Right. You know, fortunately Second Nature hasn't lost. I can probably count them on a hand or two, customers out of 2000, right? That we've signed over the years. And that's our job, right? It's to continually provide a competitive rate that's attractive, that would make people want to pick us, but I will say this: we've advised a couple of companies who just say, "I want to try it and go on my own." And sometimes with Kevin, like we give them some advice, they end up working with us later. A couple of them have been able to make it successful on their own. We're happy to help, you know, in either case you know, and provide some insight and help avoid some heartburn. I think some things are harder than others, like insurance. Like if you're going to build your own insurance products, you've got to get certain licenses. [00:27:47] And I want to set up a whole different entity and everything else, you know, for that, but you know, some things are easier than others. Some things are harder than others. So it kind of can just depend what we decided to put together.  [00:27:59] Jason: Yeah. I think it's important for property managers to keep the main thing, otherwise it's so easy to get distracted as an entrepreneur. We're like, "let's add this and let's do this," and then suddenly the main thing starts to slip. So you're like, "cool. I'm going to beat that $17 that Andrew Smallwood's going to get me per door. I'm going to get it to $20 or to $30," or whatever. And then they're losing out on hundreds of dollars because they're not getting more clients. They're not focused on the main things in the business and retaining clients. And they're like, "Oh, now we have to do this," because you know, in order to do all of this, it's building another business. Building another business in the business. And one of the biggest problems I see with entrepreneurs, especially in early stages of their development is this idea that they need to just keep doing more stuff themselves and they start like expanding, doing other businesses. They have 20- 30 things. The most efficient model for an entrepreneur is one business. That's the most efficient. Generally, all these billionaires scaled one business, right? They cause they have so much focus. And I think focus is the most important of all five currencies of time, energy, focus, cash, and effort in relation to scaling or growing a business it's focus. That laser focus. And so keeping the main thing I've made that mistake, you know, doing my first conference, what I call my $2 million mistake, because we were growing at a healthy pace and then 300 percent a year, and then it was like, let's do this crazy, big, expensive conference and then sales marketing, like everything had to go towards this conference and it distracted the business because we were on the hook. You're on the hook with hotel. You're on the hook with the vendors, like everything that's going on. And that was really difficult. And that was a big lesson to me that the main thing has to stay the main thing. [00:29:51] It's super important.  [00:29:52] Andrew: Yeah. I mean, you said it so well, like when I think of Second Nature's own outsourcing decisions, right? Like I look at it through three lenses: so one is scale, right? Do I have scale or does the partner of scale? Who's going to deliver value through scale? Right? Second is skill, right? You know, do I have a certain skill or competency? Do they have a skill or competency, right? Who's going to drive more value that way? And then the third is time, which we were just talking about of like your opportunity cost and your focus on what you do and you know, I suppose there's a probably a fourth dimension there of just control of like ultimately the customer experience that you're trying to create can't be created reliably by an outsourced partner. And they're not dedicated and committed to that, or you're not aligned on that. Yeah. That would be another reason to do it yourself. But but yeah, it's, man, I take your point, Jason, of just, it's so easy to be ambitious and want to take a lot on and not stay focused on here's my core competency that I can continually leverage, to drive a lot of value. And here's how I can bring in complimentary pieces around it to create something bigger than that.  [00:30:58] Jason: Yeah. I mean, a big part of what we do at DoorGrow is just getting entrepreneurs to focus and then they start to scale really rapidly. So, I mean, in this industry, it could be diluted focus on different types of properties they're managing because each different type is almost like a different business. They're like, "I'm going to do commercial, I'm going to do associations," and then they're like trying to run multiple businesses with team members that are trying to jump into multiple businesses. And then it's a mess. And they're just not going as fast. And so this I view as, this is like adding on another business, and if you can strap on these tools from vendors, other companies, and get these resources, you can go a lot faster and keep the main thing. So, yeah, love it. So the third thing we talked and we've touched on this in a few instances of how this can help, but the third thing was increasing profit. So, I mean, there's the obvious bump that you're charging a fee for this and you're get convincing the residents. And for the residents, I think a lot of this would sound like a no brainer. They're getting more value in their mind than what they're going to be charged, and then it becomes a no brainer for them to do this. [00:32:03] And it protects them and it helps them get better credit. But let's talk specifically about profitability, like increasing profit.  [00:32:11] Andrew: So, yeah. So I think, you know, at Second Nature, like we do care about the experience and providing convenience to people, but it's also really important to us that there's a strong economic case for all parties. And so the way we often design and the recommendations we make on pricing. I mean, listen, it's a property manager's business. So Sarah, we're going to let them choose, right? Here's it's their pricing that they're charging their customer. We're not going to get in the way of that. That's in their control. But when we make recommendations, which I'll say nine times out of 10, right? If not more. It's set up in such a way where a resident is saving over $100 per year compared to what they're already spending right on the same expenses if they were to go with the status quo, right? Versus being enrolled in the benefits package. And then we make that as easy as signing their lease. There's a clear economic benefit, right? For the resident for the investors with HVAC savings. Everything else we're talking about earlier. Well over a hundred dollars per year in annualized savings for the investor. And then for the property manager, as we were talking about, well over a hundred dollars per year. Right. And so that's when you create new value. The way we think about it is you have a bigger pie that can be shared right across all parties, as opposed to taking the same pie and saying, "how do I shave off a little more for me?" but then you're cutting into the very relationship that you kind of depend on to support the business. And so how can we find new ways to add on and expand the value and share in that value because that makes it really sustainable and that builds trust while also building your balance sheet and so that's the focus and approach. You know we recommend that property managers take when they approach pricing and the other thing I'd probably give advice on here is that some property managers will go about this and then recognize very quickly, "oh, this is the thinking. I can't—" it's so frustrating, right? When I see an owner do this, you know, like, cost based pricing or a cost based approach as opposed to a market based approach. And what I mean by that is, "hey, here's all my costs. I want to make $17 per door. So here's what I'm going to charge, right?" [00:34:21] It's kind of like a investor saying, "well, here's my mortgage and all of my expenses, and I'd love to cashflow $800 a month. So I'm just going to charge this for rent." At which point Sarah tells them, regardless of what the market dictates, "yeah, your property is going to sit vacant for six months or it's only going to be vacant for two days and you way underpriced." [00:34:39] Right? And so the point is, "Hey, here's actually a market based approach to pricing that drives fair value and a good value proposition to everybody." Is the main encouragement we take. And again, if somebody wants to talk to Second Nature, whether they work with us or not, we're happy to advise on what we observe and see is happening in that market as it relates to pricing. [00:35:00] Jason: Yeah, ultimately the market's King. However, there are different segments of the market. So if people are targeting people at the end of the sales cycle that are searching on Google for property management, for example, the market is going to pay less there, because now you're a commodity. Whereas if you capture people in the blue ocean that are not searching on the internet, which there's a lot more of those, then you can charge more, have more fees, et cetera. And they're easier to close, right? And so the other factor lever that we've noticed with our clients at DoorGrow, increasing their profitability is increasing their ability to sell. So their ability to sell services and to sell the value and to create the pain gap between where people are and where they want to be, what value they want. [00:35:46] That ability as well as another lever in which they're able to charge more than their competition and close deals more easily. And there's some other levers as well. And so there's the market's one of the factors, but there are some levers that can be leveraged as well. And depending on who you're targeting in your audience, then you also can charge more money. [00:36:08] So that's something to keep in mind. So, yeah, this is super interesting. So everybody wants to increase profit if they're smart, those of you listening, if you're smart, you want to increase profit, you want to protect your investors, that's like your business, what you do, and you want to provide value to the residents. [00:36:24] So why would people just not do this? Why? Like have they just not heard of a resident benefits package or why would they not be doing this?  [00:36:32] Andrew: Yeah, I mean, there are definitely people that fall into that camp, and I'm sure there's probably going to be at least a couple people listening to this who haven't heard of a residence package. I also think over the last few years, this has been a really hot topic that's been talked about a lot, and people are seeing it more and more. As more companies adopt it, they just see it. Like they see our flyers in the Zillow listings, you know, the second photo, you know, beyond the thumbnail, it's like, here's a list of all these benefits, right, that people are putting in the marketing language or listing language or on their competitor's websites. And so I do think awareness is rapidly growing here. I mean, 101% empathy is property managers are often so busy, right? like just to do the kind of like table stakes of property management. It can take a lot of investment into their systems, into their process. I know that's something that you guys offer to folks and help them with. It can really feel like it's hard to implement a change in my business, let alone, you know, I think this is where Second Nature saw a real problem to solve. Like, how am I going to go through seven different sales processes, right, which is really like 21 to 30, if I want to look at more than just one vendor for a service, right? Go through all those processes, line up all my agreements, get those executed, and get my onboarding and implementation set up at the same time. [00:37:53] And align everybody the same, like consistent experience on going throughout it. That feels like going to Mars, you know, it's like a real big thing to tackle. So that's where we really just wanted to be like the easy button for that and drive, you know, "Hey, we've got a million plus residents on our platform, you know, thousands of property managers that we're working with. And, you know, can we drive some efficiency and pass that benefit alone to the customer," you know, is core to our value proposition. And so that's, I think what has brought, you know, a lot of people to us while we're growing very fast, have earned the reputation that we have, and at the same time we don't take it lightly. There's a lot more work to do. There's still still more change that needs to happen here, but I think the big thing is just the anticipation of all the effort and just the hard work of making any change in your business, right? Is a lot of times what people come up against.  [00:38:43] Jason: Yeah. I mean, there's a lot of property managers, people have heard me talk about the Cycle of Suck on the show before. There's a lot of overwhelm. There's a lot of stress, a lot of property managers struggling. They're in a race to the bottom in terms of pricing. They're focused on internet marketing, SEO, pay per click, content marketing, social media marketing, which is the bottom of the barrel owners that are the ones left over, the crappy scraps that fell off the word of mouth table. Like there's a lot of challenge there, by the way, we can help you with that. Reach out to us at DoorGrow. So that may be a big reason why they're just not doing these things that are in their mind, ancillary, auxiliary, and they're not adding this additional value and they're leaving money on the table because they're just too focused on trying to just get their business to eke out a little bit of dollars and, you know, they're stressed.  [00:39:31] Sarah: So I've got a question that Andrew if you have a recommendation on, at what stage would this be easiest for a property manager to implement? Is it easiest right off the bat when they're starting and they have no doors or a few doors? Is it easiest when they have maybe 100? Is it easiest when they get to the 500 plus mark? Or is there a stage at which it's like, maybe it's just in their mind, it feels too hard, and you're like, "Oh, actually, it's really easy, and here's why."  [00:39:59] Andrew: Yeah, great question, Sarah. I mean, here's the thing. Second Nature works with customers who have as little as their first one to two doors and are just getting started, right? A lot of our customers have hundreds or a couple thousand doors, and we work with a few clients that have 80,000 plus units in their portfolio. So we've worked with people at all sizes who have come and started all sizes. I will say this though. I think if somebody has under 20 to 30 doors, even as simple and easy as Second Nature makes it, you know, probably that person would be better served as they're getting their first couple of dozen doors on in focusing on their core operations, their core systems, their accounting platform getting set up. I would recommend probably holding on the— I'm sure my S and B reps are going to be listening to this and being like, "what are you saying, man?"— [00:40:47] And jokes aside, like I have talked to a few people where I've like pushed them on it a little bit. Like, "Hey, they've got eight doors," and I'm like, "okay, so here, this handful of hours, right, that you could spend doing this. Let's add $17 per door times your eight doors. Like, here's the business impact to this, and then what are you going to do with that amount," so to speak, right? And "how are you going to reinvest that in your business? Like, how do you see that as the best use of your time versus spending that going and doing, you know, business development or, you know, generating realtor referrals or whatever your strategy is for growing?" Okay. Your business to kind of that you know, initial point of profitability to support yourself. Like, how are you seeing that? And in one case, he said, "this is my differentiator. This is what I get to talk about in my market that I do that others don't. So it's actually going to help me attract more owners. I really want to do this now." Cool. Like I wouldn't stop that person from working with us, but I'd say generally, probably somebody in their first couple dozen doors is better focused on growing that and getting their core processes in a really stable place.  [00:41:47] Jason: Sure. They can add like one door and make what they would make if I had $17 times eight, right? So if they're focusing on that, but yeah, I get that. So I would imagine then maybe right around that 50 door stage is a really good place. This is where a lot of people start to stack and add vendors and get sort like. Then it starts to make sense to get some leverage because this is a lot of times I call the first sand trap where they start to get stuck between 50 to a hundred, because they're doing everything themselves. And this is probably where they can start to get some additional leverage and add some additional services. [00:42:18] Andrew: So if I can compliment you guys real quick, I saw like the DoorGrow code thing, and I think part of it may have been blurred out, but I think I got like the gist of it, I remember seeing, you know, how you guys had kind of stages. I'm like, wow, that is so cool. And if I was a new property manager, I would love having and seeing a resource like that of just, "man, here's like what I can focus on at this time that's right for me. It's going to get me to the next phase and then what to focus on here to get to the next one." Like what a helpful and useful tool. [00:42:47] So I just wanted to say kudos to you guys for putting that out there.  [00:42:50] Jason: Yeah, thanks. If anybody wants that for free, like they can go to DoorGrow.Com. Click the big pink button on the homepage. 'I want to grow.' And on that page, there's three steps. The third one is a YouTube video, 95 minute training called the DoorGrow Code. It's all about it. So it'll show you how to scale. And we're confident we're doing this with clients that we could take any business from zero doors to a thousand doors in five years or less. If they just listen to us and do what we say at each stage. Yeah. Very cool. So thanks for plugging us. Appreciate it. [00:43:25] Andrew: So I'm solicited. Yeah. Yeah. But it felt right in that moment.  [00:43:29] Jason: Yeah. There's very specific things that happen at different stages. And I think if you are at least at that 50 door stage or beyond, like you'll be crazy not to do this. And I love the idea of getting your resident benefits package as a unique differentiator just to stand out, which will give you more confidence in sales. And when people need confidence, the most is when they have the least doors. This is where confidence is a huge factor for them. Like when we take them through our process of cleaning up their brand, their website, all of this, we're really just helping them with their confidence level to go out and sell. [00:44:04] And they can go out and sell without all that stuff. They don't even need a website. They just need clients. Right. But doing these things helps them. And this is something else I think they can boost their confidence a little bit. And that's worth it. That's worth it for sure. So, well, cool, Andrew, anything else we're missing about this? And if not, then how can people get in touch with you or with Second Nature?  [00:44:25] Andrew: The only other thing I'd say is anybody who's made it right to this point, 45- 50 minutes in, like, I feel like you deserve a medal or something like that with attention spans, considerations fans. So thanks for sticking with us. I hope you got some value today. Sarah and Jason, I really appreciate the opportunity to be here with you guys. I really enjoyed our conversation. I love you guys' energy and vibe you know, excited to get to know you guys better. And and I'd say this if people are looking for you know, more resources and things like that, we've got at rbp.secondnature.Com, there's a bunch of things, we've got articles, we've got the triple win podcasts that we record a bunch of episodes there that people can check out. If that's of interest to them, we've occasionally got events, digital events and things like that, that we're putting on, if they're just looking to learn more, we've got some of those kinds of resources, or if they're looking to talk to someone specifically about what we talked about here today they can find a contact form to do that as well. [00:45:16] And just want to express appreciation to you guys. Again, really appreciate you inviting me on and having a chance to do this.  [00:45:21] Jason: Cool. Thanks for coming on the show.  [00:45:23] Sarah: Yeah. Thanks for being here. I think this is something that if you don't have it, just look into it. I feel like there's not a downside in this anywhere. So just look into it. If this was something that I had known about when I owned my business, man, would have done that in a heartbeat, but, I really think it's something that can like benefit all parties. It can like help set you apart from other people that maybe don't know about this or just aren't doing it yet. [00:45:50] And it sounds like they make it easy for you. I think that you're probably right, Andrew. Like you hit that right on the nose. Like they're busy and they're like, "Oh, this is hard." It sounds like they understand that and they'll work with you to make it easy.  [00:46:04] Jason: Yeah. Yeah I love that you guys are helping people through this process and making it easy. So We'll definitely be pushing our clients to take a look at this episode so that they can start getting the stuff implemented Thanks for coming on the show. Appreciate you. Awesome.  [00:46:17] Andrew: Thanks guys.  [00:46:18] Jason: Thanks. All right So if you are a property management entrepreneur that's wanting to add more doors grow your business reach out to us at DoorGrow We would love to help you out anything else we should say All right, then until next time to our mutual growth. [00:46:31] Bye everyone. [00:46:31] 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!  [00:46:58] 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.

In this episode of the Humane Marketing podcast, we venture into the 'P' of People as part of our ongoing exploration of the 7Ps of the Humane Marketing Mandala. Join me in a conversation with Cara Steinmann, the visionary founder of the Ravel Collective and host of the Ravel Radio podcast. Together, we delve into the art of authentic networking, emphasizing the importance of core values, unconventional approaches on LinkedIn, and the profound impact of empathy on your business relationships. Discover new insights that could transform the way you approach human connections and meaningful networking. In this episode, Cara and I discuss: Her experience with traditional networking and how she redefined it How to bring our core values to our networking How Cara uses LinkedIn to create connections, but not with a lead-generation mindset Networking for introverts How to be intentional when networking The importance of quality over quantity And so much more Ep 174 [00:00:00] Sarah: Hi, Cara. So nice to meet. Hi, you. [00:00:04] Cara: Good to see you, Sarah. How's it going? I'm good, thank you. [00:00:08] Sarah: Thanks for having me. Yeah, I really look forward to this conversation with you. I was on your podcast recently and we really [00:00:15] Cara: we're [00:00:16] Sarah: aligned, so I'm glad we have you on the humane part, marketing podcast, and talking about networking. [00:00:23] Right? So that's kind of your. Specialty and, uh, yeah, I want to just go dive right in. So tell me how did you come to make networking part of your specialty? And how did you build a community around networking? Why is networking so important to [00:00:45] Cara: you? It was kind of an accident because I don't really think of myself as a networking person and I think a lot of people probably feel that way because there's this connotation around networking that it's sort of like very businessy and very like you imagine yourself in a [00:01:00] room with very professional people and you're handing out business cards and you're talking about things that are very business related, but I think in my life, uh, in my career, I've sort of acted more as just a connector. [00:01:12] I think of it as connecting with people and building relationships. And that's usually not on a grand scale. It's one person at a time, usually in a one to one conversation. And it doesn't feel like what you would imagine networking to be. So I think maybe a little shift in the way we think about networking can help a lot of us who don't like that whole, you know, big corporate business vibe and really care more about. [00:01:36] One to one relationships and what goes on beyond the business. Yeah. [00:01:40] Sarah: That's already such a, a shift when you say relationship building versus networking. Mm-hmm. has that term work in it. Right. And so it feels like I'm the one going into this crowd and I have to work my way through it. Like, and, and yeah. [00:01:58] Collect the business cards [00:02:00] and you know, it's kind of like, yeah. [00:02:01] Cara: That, and I think. Be I think expanding our understanding of network be working beyond or even relationship building beyond thinking of who we are going to build relationships with to thinking about who we can connect so they can build relationships, because then you expand your network exponentially because then they also. [00:02:23] They also consider you part of their and both of you're part of both of their network. And then they're connecting. And then when they meet new people, they want to introduce you. So it's kind of kind of like weaving a web of connection with people that you genuinely want to talk to and spend time with and respect. [00:02:37] Sarah: It's funny you guys use that term weaving because in our community, uh, we have. One of the calls that is kind of like a networking call, um, but we actually call it net weaving. So I love that it's this idea of, yeah, we're together and we're getting to know one another, but we're weaving, uh, these [00:03:00] relationships. [00:03:00] Cara: And yeah, I love that. Yeah, we unravel. We have connection calls that are just to talk about whatever we want to talk about and connect. We had one yesterday and a bunch of us were on there just talking about what vacations we're taking and a little bit about business and what we're looking at challenges right now. [00:03:14] And then we have a small, small business mastermind where we all break off and then we have a happy hour once a month. And otherwise we're just hanging out in the community, getting to know each other and asking business related questions and personal questions. And, you know, it's about, I think it's a little bit deeper than just. [00:03:30] What do you do and who do you do it for? Like the pitch does, the elevator pitch doesn't matter so much when you know somebody. Yeah. [00:03:38] Sarah: Yeah. Yeah. You really addressed something there. It's this superficiality that I always hated at networking events that I felt like people were only listening to themselves talk and preparing what they're going to say next. [00:03:55] Listening to me and, you know, really having a conversation. And then [00:04:00] of course you add, you know, this was prior to COVID you add kind of like, you know, surrounding noise to it and you don't really hear one another and it was just [00:04:10] like [00:04:10] Cara: a nightmare. It is. It's a nightmare prior to COVID. I, I always loathed. [00:04:17] In person networking events, conferences and things like that, because it just, I knew I was going to end up in situations talking to people who really weren't necessarily a very strategic fit for like a strategic partner or referral partner, and that they would, like you said, just be waiting for their opportunity to say what they needed to say about their business and having a lot of surface level conversations because I think a lot of business culture requires you to leave the personal at home. [00:04:41] And I don't want to do that. I think we bring ourselves to our work and to our business, our core values, the way we operate. And I would rather, like we were talking about introverts before we hit record. Right. And I don't really consider myself an introvert, but when it comes to those kinds of things, I really act like one, because I would much rather have an [00:05:00] intimate conversation about things that matter than talk about, you know, What you do, what you do for people, because that's gonna, if you're an entrepreneur, you're going to find that out. [00:05:08] Anyway, we can't help but talk about that. Right. [00:05:10] Sarah: Yeah, yeah, no, it's so true. It's these deeper, meaningful connections and conversations and actually. Also pre COVID, um, there was this, uh, movement on, on LinkedIn, uh, called the LinkedIn local events. Yeah. And so me who always hated networking all of the sudden, I was like, well, these events kind of had a different tone because they, they came with topics and they were really open to this idea of. [00:05:40] Bring yourself to the conversation, bring the human side to the conversation. And so I actually put my hand up together with, um, another, uh, local friend here. And we started creating these LinkedIn local networking events. And, and we created themes, you know, where people would pick [00:06:00] cards and have really deep conversations and people loved it, people were like, Oh, this. [00:06:05] So different. Right. And then every now and then the person would walk in and you could tell, you know, they were like business suit and they probably had their stack of business cards and they're like, what is this? Why [00:06:17] Cara: are people doing here? It's funny. Cause I had, I used to host a speed networking event in Ravel and, um. [00:06:24] I actually, I learned this from a coaching program that I was in and they would do a lot of like more personal questions. And so I love that we only did it once a month and I was like, we need to do this more often. And so the challenge was calling it speed networking because what we actually do when you get there is break up into small little breakout rooms. [00:06:40] And I would. I would offer questions or topic starters, like what's the weirdest thing in your fridge right now? Like things that don't have anything to do with business, but you end up deciding kind of who you really mesh with and who you want to take that relationship further with and really get to know about them and their business and how you can support one another. [00:06:57] Cause you don't really want to support people you don't [00:07:00] care about. Right. So that's kind of the first step, I think, is deciding who you want to care about. Right. [00:07:05] Sarah: Yeah. Yeah. Before you also addressed core values. So, so huge. What do you think are the, you know, the core, or I guess there's two questions. What are the core values that we should bring to networking and why do they [00:07:21] Cara: matter so much? [00:07:23] I think we should bring our own core values to networking because the truth is we are all I like to think of them as core drivers because I think corporate culture has kind of ruined the term core values for us. We think of the little poster on the wall that doesn't really mean anything. But if you really get into your core drivers, what it means is it's what motivates you. [00:07:40] It's what drives your behavior. So my core values are freedom, authenticity and connection. And I notice when I'm in a funk or when I'm out of sorts, it's because something is going against my core values. So if you're going to network, I think you should network with people ideally who share your core values. [00:07:58] And then you'll [00:08:00] naturally network in a very comfortable way. Like when I started Ravel, I very intentionally invited, I seeded the community with women who I knew shared at least one of my core values, knowing that birds of a feather flock together. And so it worked really well because now we're up around a hundred women and anyone who's referred someone has always been an amazing fit. [00:08:18] I have to do very little background on the applicants now because if I know Maggie int introduced someone else to the group, I know Maggie and I know she's not going to introduce somebody to the group who's not a good fit because her core values align really well with mine. Yeah. So I think that makes it just so much easier to predict how someone's going to behave and what you can expect from them. [00:08:40] Sarah: Yeah, and it really defines the community, [00:08:42] Cara: right? Yeah, it makes it easier to hold that community in a shape, like my goal when I started Ravel was to create a community, just create a space and hold it in a shape, such that people would feel comfortable and vulnerable enough to connect with one another and really get to know each other. [00:08:58] And by inviting the. [00:09:00] Types of people who would be strategically aligned to be most likely to refer one another, like complimentary service providers. They're all B2B service entrepreneurs and they're women. So they have a lot in common and, you know, financial professionals who serve agencies can network with coaches who serve agencies. [00:09:17] And because they share core values, they're going to probably get along pretty well. And it makes it easy to build that kind of rapport that they need to. Want to connect with one another and see what's up in their business and say, Hey, you should talk to so and so. So it's like kind of building relationships with like the happy by product that you get referrals in business works really well. [00:09:36] Yeah. [00:09:37] Sarah: That makes a lot of sense. Usually we hear this this idea of quality over quantity. Um, you just mentioned your communities about 100 people. Um, so, so what do you think about quality over quantity in terms of the networking? Is it a, is it a numbers game or is [00:10:00] it a quality game or is it something [00:10:01] Cara: in between? [00:10:02] I think it's quality over quantity, 100%. And I think it's evolving, honestly, constantly, right? Like, so if you're, cause your business evolves, maybe you shift who you serve or how you serve that person. Um, and so maybe you have a handful of really great referral partners and. you shift your business a little bit. [00:10:21] You might have to, some of those referral partners, it might not be as strategically aligned anymore. And maybe they stay, you stay friends, but you might start looking around for different strategic partners who might be more well aligned, but it's not like you have to shift your whole network. You just start networking with a few different people and start figuring out who, who fits with you. [00:10:38] Um, and I think like a hundred is a lot of women. Like, I don't, I don't intimately know every member of the community anymore. When it was like 20 women, it was like, It was really easy. And, but what we've done is we've separated into smaller groups too. So we have a Slack channel where we have different topics. [00:10:55] We have rabble travel, and we have ADHD all day and moms. And [00:11:00] so we have these different things that we care about. And the women who gravitate to those channels tend to get to know each other well enough that. Even if they're not strategically aligned to refer one another as well as some others would be, they kind of cross pollinate between the community, the micro communities within the chant, within the community. [00:11:17] And then they say, Oh, you know who you should get to know. So there's a lot of paying it forward, introducing people to other people. That is such a, an underrated gift that you can give someone is to say, I think I know somebody who you need to know. Who would, you'd benefit from knowing each other. I mean, making a connection between two people who you think would get along is such a gift. [00:11:38] Yeah. [00:11:39] Sarah: Yeah. So true. Um, you mentioned a few times this word strategic, and I guess it's for you, it's like, well, there's a strategy to networking because again, as an introvert, This idea of networking can sometimes feel so overwhelming because we think, well, does that mean I have to network with [00:12:00] just anybody, you know, so it's like, Oh my God, I don't have the time to network with just anybody. [00:12:07] So, so what, what is a good strategy, um, that feels, you know, empathic and yet very strategic. Um, and I guess time conscious as well. [00:12:20] Cara: Yeah. Yeah. I think. Um, that's probably how most people think of it is just like, it's very overwhelming. You have to make a lot of people think there's a list you have to make and you have to contact X number of people a day. [00:12:31] And that feels very impersonal and kind of, um, like required, which doesn't feel good for a lot of people. Um, I've approached it differently. Like I spend a lot of time on LinkedIn. Um, just for networking, though, I don't spend a lot of time scrolling on LinkedIn, but if I find somebody offline, say I'm listening to a podcast or reading a book or find somebody's website online while I'm Googling or going down a rabbit hole of some kind, and I feel like they are strategically aligned with my business, meaning either they're, uh, [00:13:00] Complimentary service provider. [00:13:00] So we serve the same client, but we do different things, or we are a shoulder niche peer, meaning that we do different things or do we do the same sort of thing, but for different clients. So maybe I serve, um, the financial industry and they serve, um, like agencies or something like that. And so we can refer one another because we don't really serve the same ideal client, and this requires knowing what you want and what you're good at. [00:13:24] I don't think we are all suited to do, you know, the same thing. We're, we're all so different. I think it also, I think it's a successful networking in this way requires that you don't believe in competition. We're all so different. There's so much, so many factors that we can own as, you know, authentic to who we are that maybe somebody else doesn't want to own. [00:13:45] And if we know ourselves really well, we can understand what we do best and who we are best suited to serve. And then there's just no way that somebody else is going to bring exactly the same thing to the table that we are. So. We have to kind of get rid of that idea first. And then we're free to [00:14:00] network with people who look like they do something similar to what we do, but probably don't do exactly what we do or for the same person. [00:14:07] Um, and then you can also look for people who are, um, centers of influence coaches for, if you serve entrepreneurs, maybe you're wanting to network with coaches who serve entrepreneurs, and maybe you're a done for you service provider or something like that. So they're in a position to refer you there. [00:14:24] The people you're looking for to network with are the ones who are most likely to be in a position to refer you. So not somebody who's working in a totally different industry with clients that aren't even related to you. Um, but I don't, I don't think you have to go like search for them. I think you can listen to podcasts that are interesting to you and just start taking note of. [00:14:47] Someone who's interesting to you, who you think you might like and say, is that person in a position to refer me perhaps, and then you can just reach out to that person individually. I usually on LinkedIn because it's the easiest place to get [00:15:00] really connected with somebody. Yeah, [00:15:03] Sarah: so the idea is really to find referral partners. [00:15:07] and connect with them. [00:15:09] Cara: Yeah. And to be open about it and say, Hey, I think we have a lot in common. I think we might benefit from knowing each other. Um, I like you. I like what you're doing. Let's connect and just say hi. Mm-hmm. . [00:15:20] Sarah: Yeah. Do you then stop at the, you know, first conversation or how do you. Because it, you know, we always say in networking, you have to stay top of mind. [00:15:31] So how do you stay top of mind with this [00:15:33] Cara: person then? I don't think everyone is going to stay top of mind all the time, right? Like, you're gonna, you're gonna meet a few people who you really click with. And a few people who you don't really click with. One of the reasons that I started Ravel was because it is hard to stay top of mind when we're all busy and we're all running around doing all our stuff all day long. [00:15:52] And I don't, I'm not the kind of person, let's do, we have to do what works for us, right? If you're an organized person and you like lists and you use a [00:16:00] CRM, maybe you can stay top of mind with people in your own strategic way. I can't do that. So I put everybody in a container that I like so that I can stay connected with them in a container. [00:16:12] We, we naturally stay connected because we're having calls or somebody is asking a question and we're learning more about their business that way. And we're commenting and sharing our expertise. And so I think it's about proximity. And then if you're connected with them on LinkedIn and you're following them, you might see them. [00:16:26] It's like, The top of mind thing I think is more about the mere exposure effect than, than the top, than staying top of mind. It's just staying in front of someone who you want to, to stay connected with. And you can do that in a lot of different ways just by commenting on their stuff on LinkedIn. They see you, you learn a little bit more maybe about what they do and it don't think it has to take a long time. [00:16:46] It can take five, 10 minutes to, to go on. And in the case of LinkedIn, I would say like a lot of people suggest. That you'd be connected to a ton of people and follow a ton of people. But I find that really overwhelming. So [00:17:00] I only follow and want to be connected with the people that I really want to stay connected with because then my feed isn't really overwhelming and I can just, I can see the people that I want to stay in touch with and I can comment and like, and stay. [00:17:12] In front of them. And then they remember me. [00:17:15] Sarah: Yeah. So, so, so does that mean that you actually, you know, hide some of the updates of people who you don't want to see anymore, just so not, not to. [00:17:26] Cara: I just unfollow them or disconnect. I am a little bit ruthless that way because it's, we only have so much time and I don't really want to be connected with people that don't align with me really, really well. [00:17:36] So, you know, when I. I've been on LinkedIn for a long, long time, but my, my career has evolved. You know, if the past 15 years I'm doing very different things than I was in the very beginning. And so I, when I decided to reinvest in LinkedIn as a way to connect with people, I went in and I, I had, you know, thousands of connections and I got rid of all but 400 and some odd. [00:17:57] Because it was like, if I don't want to have coffee with this [00:18:00] person, I don't need to be on LinkedIn with them. And perhaps that's different if you're not an entrepreneur and you're trying to get a job. I don't know about that, but for my situation where I want to spend time connecting and networking with people who care about the same things I care about. [00:18:18] That means there's a lot of people I don't need to connect with. And I don't want to waste my time looking at their stuff. if I don't care about it. Right. And they don't know, so it's not mean or anything. [00:18:33] Sarah: Um, yeah, it's really interesting to, to see how, you know, usually we always hear, Oh, use LinkedIn for lead generation, right? [00:18:43] Yeah, that's not how you're looking at it. You're like, well, I, Only want the people I care about. And so they, yes, they might be potential clients or they're, you know, some other level of connection or [00:18:59] [00:19:00] network. [00:19:00] Cara: That's how you. I think that's a giant, you're speaking to something that's really important that I think a lot of people miss. [00:19:05] It's a giant mistake to go into like a community or a networking container and think you're going to sell to the people in that container. You're the benefit of being in a container with a hundred women. Is the connection to the 150 other people they know that they might be able to connect you with. [00:19:24] And yes, we buy from each other. I've purchased products and services from tons of the women inside Ravel and we buy stuff. We hire each other all the time, but it's not because we're sharing our offers and trying to convince each other to buy from us. It's because we happen to know each other really well, and we have a problem and we know that person can solve it. [00:19:42] But most of the time we're introducing someone. To another person, like I'll run. I talked to a friend of mine, or I go to an event or something, and I hear somebody has a problem. And I will say, I know somebody you should talk to. Let me connect you with so and so because I know what she does. And I like her and I know she'll do a good job. [00:19:59] Right. [00:20:00] So we're, we're building the relationships. We're not selling to people and LinkedIn is You know, a breeding ground for people doing lead gen on LinkedIn. We should be doing strategic networking. [00:20:11] Sarah: Yeah, I think that that's really the, the, the difference is not thinking of everybody who is somehow looking like a client just because they, you know, have a human body that, that you think of them as your ideal client. [00:20:29] And especially if you then think of a community where Uh, you know, the minute you bring that kind of energy into a community, the community is basically, yeah, it's destined to [00:20:41] Cara: fail. I've seen it happen in Ravel a couple of times where a couple, where a couple of people have, you know, crossed that line between, Hey guys, here's what I'm doing. [00:20:49] Check it out. Cause we want to share, we want to share what we're doing and we have a space for that, you know, but, um, a couple of people have, you know, gotten a little bit salesy with it. And it's not that they [00:21:00] get slapped down or anything. It's just that nobody responds. Right. It's just not something people are looking for in a community where we're trying to build relationships. [00:21:10] But what we do is we have calls and we connect with one another and we learn what's going on. And then we will often share on another person's behalf. One of our, one of our members, Cara, Cara Hoosier, she's getting ready to publish a book and it's really exciting because she's been through an incredible journey to get where she is. [00:21:25] It's called burnt out to lit up. And it's about. preventing yourself from burning out and what to do when you get there. And she's getting ready to launch this. She's looking for people to help her, you know, do reviews and read her book. And I was super excited for her. So instead of her getting on there and she's saying, Hey guys, look at what I did. [00:21:43] I said, can I share this with the community? Because it's really awesome. And she was like, sure. And so I said, you guys look at this, our member, our fellow friend here. is publishing a book. This is so exciting. Who wants to help her? I know that anybody else in here who is publishing a book would want the community to help them too. [00:21:59] [00:22:00] And so it's a very different message when you lift up another woman, as opposed to saying, look at me. It look at her sounds a lot different than look at me. Sure. So we help each other that way. Yeah. [00:22:12] Sarah: At the same time you as the host. What would you do? And this is not to do with networking, but just as a, you know, fellow community host, what would you do with a member, you know, several times trespasses that kind of unspoken rule that we're not selling in this community? [00:22:34] What would you do? [00:22:36] Cara: We had one instance in two years. In the last two years, we've had one instance where someone really kind of did cross the line. And I wasn't online that morning, but I got a bunch of messages from other community members who were like, Hey, we don't like this. Like we got to do something about this. [00:22:52] Um, and they were upset for me because she was trying to poach a bunch of members into a different community, which I think is fine actually, because [00:23:00] it's, I mean, I don't think poaching is fine, but I think women should have more than one community. They serve different purposes. I. intentionally keep Ravel at a very reasonable price because I want to belong to many communities, and I know that other women do too. [00:23:13] Um, but the way she went about it was really kind of gross. And so I had to respond to that because the community was saying, this feels gross and we don't want to be around this. And so I did ask, I said, we're going to go ahead and Remove you because this is not how we operate in here. I wish you know, but bless and release This might just not be the right place for you Which is important to remember because there are people have different core values people believe different things They operate different ways and just because she doesn't operate the way that we want to operate doesn't mean there's not a place Where that's totally fine for people to do, bless and release. [00:23:46] Um, so it's really more of like the community managing itself. I don't moderate and I don't tell them what they can and can't do. [00:23:54] Sarah: So, yeah, but in a way it's beautiful to have them, you know, kind of [00:24:00] show up and say, Hey, this is not how, this is not how we run here. [00:24:05] Cara: And yeah. And yeah. And that's my whole goal with the community is I don't, I'm not a coach. [00:24:10] I don't. Sell them anything other than the place inside the community, like the space. And so that's what, how I view it is. And I mean, we're kind of getting away from networking into community at this point, but I view it as myself just holding space in a particular shape. And that's my job is to make sure this play, this space is safe and a good place for people to be vulnerable and build relationships. [00:24:31] And if they can't do that, I'm not doing my job. So it has to be a safe space online. Yeah, yeah, [00:24:39] Sarah: that's beautiful. Yeah, we kind of meshed community with networking, but that's what [00:24:45] Cara: you're, that's what it is, right? Yeah, it, if when you're networking, you're building community. It just may not have a specific container it lives in. [00:24:54] Sarah: Yeah. And I also think. If we're changing that [00:25:00] term of networking into net weaving, then that's what we're really doing in a community is weaving a web together because the whole definition of a community is people being connected with each other. Not just to you as the host, right? [00:25:17] Cara: Totally. Yeah. And, and I, and this is why I use Slack, but I pay for the analytics. [00:25:23] I could use it for free, but I want to see what's happening behind the scenes, which is valuable because more than 50 percent of the conversations that are happening inside the community are in the DMs. And I know I'm not having that many conversations. There are thousands of conversations happening during the month. [00:25:36] And I know I'm not having that many. So there are a lot of private conversations happening and partnerships. Um, I introduced a couple of gals recently who are now partnering in business and, and they're super excited and doing some really amazing things. And I know that has nothing to do with me, but we're weaving. [00:25:54] These connections, not just for us, but for other people as well. And I think not, you don't even have [00:26:00] to, like, we can think of containers as smaller things, even text threads between two people or three people. Like if I have several people I want to connect with, because we all live locally, we're on a text thread together and the three of us send funny memes to one another. [00:26:12] And it doesn't have to do with business all the time. Yeah, [00:26:16] Sarah: I agree with that. It can also be more fun, right? It [00:26:18] Cara: should be more fun. Don't you think we should have more fun? I need more fun. [00:26:25] Sarah: Um, Yeah, maybe, maybe that's a good way to close with the, with the fun networking. Um, but maybe just also for people who right now, you know, there's so many communities out there yet, yet they're like, well, I don't either, I don't have the funds or I just can't decide which one to join. [00:26:45] So how can you start networking with that community as, or with that community notion without being in a community? What kind of advice would [00:26:55] Cara: you give? Um, I would say, I would say just [00:27:00] start connecting with people you enjoy. I listen to a lot of podcasts and I reach out to people who I think are excellent, either hosts or, um, interviewees, guests. [00:27:10] And I just tell them, I really, I like just start, start connecting directly with people that you admire, or you think have something interesting to say that you align with. Um, because like, there's that thing homophily, we're attracted to things that are similar to what we love or, or who we are. And so we're, they're going to be attracted to you. [00:27:28] If you share something either, I mean, location's really obvious, but beyond that, like core values or a mission or a purpose or something like that, like, I think you and I initially got connected on LinkedIn long, long ago, because I heard your podcast. And I was like, I, you're doing awesome things. We need to be connected. [00:27:45] And like, it didn't go anywhere for a long time. We had a little back and forth on, on LinkedIn, but eventually here we are trading podcast interviews. And so I think being in it for the long game and having conversations in the DMs, not expecting every [00:28:00] conversation to go somewhere, but being open to it going somewhere. [00:28:04] Yeah. [00:28:04] Sarah: And probably also not coming with this expectation that. Everyone you reach out to is gonna open your, their calendar [00:28:13] Cara: to you, you know, like, yeah, like when we connected initially, I was not expecting a one to one call. I, we live across the country, across the world from one another and we're both busy and eventually maybe we connect, but I genuinely just wanted to tell you that I really like what you're doing. [00:28:30] And I think that's people want to hear that it's people are open to hearing that you agree with them and that you like what they're doing. And if that's all it is, you've put some good energy out in the world and you can leave it at that. Right, [00:28:41] Sarah: exactly. It doesn't doesn't have to become a lead generation. [00:28:45] Cara: Yeah, it doesn't have to even become like a really intense networking like relationship there. We're going to have this whole gamut of closeness in our network, right? And we don't have the capacity to be really close. With a bunch of bunch of people like [00:29:00] 510 people, we're going to be really close with. [00:29:02] Um, and if we're all running in roughly the same circles, there's going to be opportunities for collaboration and referrals and those things. So it's a little bit of a leap of faith, but you got to just trust that if you're doing good work and you're helping people and people know you do it, that they're going to tell somebody exactly [00:29:20] Sarah: plant those seeds. [00:29:21] Yes, that's wonderful. Well, do you tell us a bit more about rattle and your community [00:29:28] Cara: and where people can find it? Yeah. The website is ravelcollective. com and it's for women B2B service entrepreneurs. So financial professionals, lots of marketers, content writers, stuff like that. Consultants. We've got some coaches, some, um, coaches for women entrepreneurs, and it's just a networking community, a really casual networking community where we Get to know each other. [00:29:50] A bunch of us are going to Mexico in a month together. I haven't met three of them, but I, and it's not an official event. I just said, Hey, I'm going to go to Mexico for a week and [00:30:00] do some like 2024 business planning. If anybody wants to join me, I've rented this house. And so it's not, you know, we probably won't talk business all the time, but. [00:30:09] It'll be fun. So we're kind of trying to put some of the fun and like person to person relationship back into business so that we can rely on, I don't know, our, our relationships to sustain us instead of, you know, just relying on ourselves. So yeah, it's 39 a month and it's month to month and it's just a space that I'm holding for women who want to build more professional relationships. [00:30:34] Sarah: We'll make sure to link to it. I always have one last question, uh, Cara, and that's, what are you grateful for today or this week, this month? [00:30:45] Cara: Oh my goodness. I think I'm most grateful for my family this week. It's there's a lot of, there's a lot of lonely people out there and I have a wonderful husband and a, an amazing son and I'm really [00:31:00] grateful for them. [00:31:02] Wonderful. [00:31:03] Thank you for having me.

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.