Property Management Growth with DoorGrow

DGS 329: The Power of Impossible Goals

When you set "realistic" goals for your property management business, you might actually be limiting your growth without even realizing it… In this episode of the #DoorGrowShow, property management growth experts Jason and Sarah Hull challenge entrepreneurs to think bigger, much bigger. Inspired by their experience flying a fighter jet and the concept of "impossible goals" from The Science of Scaling, they break down why realistic goals keep you stuck in current thinking, how unrealistic targets activate visionary leadership, and why 10X growth can actually be easier than incremental growth. They explain how impossible goals shift your brain from grinding harder to thinking differently, why realistic targets often become a yardstick to beat yourself up, and how visionary entrepreneurs use bold thinking to collapse time, find new pathways, and unlock opportunities that logic alone would never reveal. They also share how to handle naysayers, protect your vision, and use doubt as fuel instead of letting it shrink your ambition. If you're ready to stop playing small, stop chasing "safe" growth, and start building something that transforms your market — this episode will challenge the way you think about goals, leadership, and what's actually possible in your business. You'll Learn (00:00) Introduction to DoorGrow and Unrealistic Goals (07:37) The Importance of Unrealistic Goals (15:54) Overcoming Doubts and Limitations (22:56) Visionary Thinking and Future Goals Quotables "I want to tell everybody to be unrealistic." "You need to decide, I can do the things that I want to do." "The slowest path to growth is to do it alone. So let's grow together." Resources DoorGrow and Scale Mastermind DoorGrow Academy DoorGrow on YouTube DoorGrowClub DoorGrowLive Transcript Jason & Sarah Hull (00:01) All right, five, four, three, two, one. All right, everybody, 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 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. All right, so today's topic, Sarah wanted to talk about. I want to tell everybody to be unrealistic. We're going to talk about unrealistic goals. She wants you to be unrealistic. I do want you to be unrealistic. And I also want you to clear all of this off. OK. Yay. Happy. Yeah. Slightly. All right. All right. So one of the things that we got to do very recently is something that I never, never thought we would be able to do because it was seemingly unrealistic. And that was to fly a fighter jet. And by fly a fighter jet. Yes, it was a real fighter jet. It's an L39 Albatross. For those of you that are familiar, it was not typically equipped with fighter equipment. It was mostly used as a trainer. However, it can be armed and therefore is classified as a fighter jet. And yes, we actually got to fly it. We didn't just go in it and take a look and see. Both Jason and I, one at a time, of course, got to. fly a fighter jet and do some aerobatic maneuvers. Which was insanely fun. Right. So we took a trip to Australia and to visit my parents in Brisbane. And we saw a billboard that said, fly a fighter jet. And I was like, what? And Sarah's super into flying. So was like, hey, there's a thing. It says this. And she's like, what? I don't think so. And I'm like, yeah. So it turns out there's, guess, the person there that runs it told us there's three countries in the world that allow you to do this because normally you can't fly one of these planes or go in as a consumer to fly one of these planes because, you know, there's all these rules because it's then a commercial flight and a commercial flight. have all these legal requirements and things you can't in the U.S. They cannot. You cannot charter or pay for a chartered pay for a flight and then not have all these safety things in place. And this is not like, it's not the same, right? Like he's teaching us at the beginning how to eject. He's like, if we need to eject, this is what you need to do and like do this. And I'm like, what? And so there is not an ejection seat on it. There's no ejection seat. So what we'll do is we'll fly up really high and then you're going to. do this thing and do this and the canopy will fly off and then you gotta push off. then once you're in the air and you've then pulled this thing, if your parachute doesn't automatically deploy, you wanna grab this. And I'm like, if I don't remember all this, I die? Like what? Yeah. So. It's just two levers. Could you imagine if you're on. It's two levers to open the canopy and he's gonna fly and you don't have to jump. You're like, have to launch yourself. right, you don't have to launch yourself. You pretty much will just wait for the plane to fall out from under you while you float in parachute. Could you imagine you're like, get herded in like cattle into Southwest and you're like, you're on the Southwest bus, right? And you get your seat. Actually, they're going to have assigned seating now, I guess. But before I was just free for all. you're like, get in and you're like, and they're like, hey, by the way, here's how to. like find a parachute and here's what all the steps you need to do in case there's a problem. Do you have this down or you die? You ready? We're like, wait, what? Yeah. They're just like, here's a flotation device and your seat and like here's how to use your seatbelt and then breathe in this thing if you need to. And otherwise, like that's it. But yeah, like parachute down. Because on the airlines, it's like, if you survive the crash, then we'll tell you what to do after that. Don't worry about it. OK, so. Sorry. Yes. So no possible goal. It's very, very safe to fly on the airlines. is. it's it's consistently getting more and more safe. This is slightly different than flying on an airline. This was it was really cool. Super fun. He let us take the little joystick control and like. The little joystick control. What do you call it? What is it called? The little joystick control. It's between your legs and it's a joystick. Don't get any ideas. just called But you grab this thing and like, yeah, you take the stick. like, do you want to do it? He's like, all right. He guided me through doing, I got to do a barrel roll. Yep. And I got to do a loop. Yep. Which I call a loop-de-loop. Yeah. But I got to do a loop-de-loop. And it was really, it was crazy. Like I'm like doing, I'm like, and we got a video like on his DJI camera, like a GoPro, like the whole thing was recorded. So there's evidence that I did this. Right. But yeah, it pretty wild. was really wild that we could go do that. And apparently if you spend enough money and you're in the right country, you can do maybe anything. I don't know. There are certain places, upon further research. There are certain places in the US that will let you fly certain jets. And the Albatross is actually the most common out of the ones that you can fly in the US. The is finding someone that will allow you to fly it. that's a bit different. Yes. Like if you get to control it. Because, yes, exactly. Yeah. And sometimes ⁓ these are owned by private owners. So like if you know a guy and you go, hey, can you... Can you take me up? They might let you take the controls. might let you do it, you know, but there's also schools. I think there's one. Oh, I forgot where it's called, but it's called like Jet Trainer Center or something like that. The guy that runs it is Larry and they have an albatross is one of them, but I think they have like six different actual jets that you can fly and learn as well, which is really cool. But then there's schools. So it's not impossible in the US. It's just there's a few extra hurdles that you might need to cross. it's something though that I thought I would never ever get to do. Like when you look at these crazy jets, generally I don't think you look at it and go, yeah, I could fly that one day. We went to that air show. During any of that point, were you looking at those planes going, yeah, I could fly one of those. Yeah, I wonder what it would take to fly one of those. No, I was not thinking that. right, because you just don't usually think that it's possible. You think, oh, wow, those are probably owned and many of them are by museums. or by some sort of club that's funded to keep this thing airworthy and maintained and flying, they probably aren't going to let the public fly it. Okay. So why is it important to have unrealistic goals? Well, I think you should be very un...

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DGS 328: Why Property Managers Miss Millions in Syndication Deals

Feb 2300:44:12Tap to summarize

When your corporate job feels "secure" until it suddenly isn't, real estate can become the Plan B that turns into your best move… In this episode of the #DoorGrowShow, DoorGrow founder Jason Hull sits down with John Casmon (multifamily syndicator, host of Multifamily Insights, and co-creator of the Midwest Real Estate Networking Summit) to break down how corporate professionals can transition into multifamily investing without becoming a stressed-out landlord. They dive into how John went from corporate bankruptcies to building a multifamily portfolio, what passive investors actually need to know before putting money into a deal, and why trust + clear expectations matter just as much as the numbers. Jason and John also unpack what this means for property managers: how to align with investor goals, why the best operators project calm control (even in chaos), where syndicators hang out, and how PMs can position themselves to win more multifamily doors. You'll Learn (00:00) Transforming Property Management: An Introduction (00:59) John Casmon's Entrepreneurial Journey (02:56) Transitioning to Multifamily Investing (04:33) Understanding Investor Types and Property Management (05:48) The Role of Property Managers (07:49) Investor Control vs. Trust in Management (09:33) Challenges in Property Management (11:17) Aligning Goals with Property Managers (14:19) The Real Product of Property Management (17:14) Managing Investor Expectations (19:50) Syndication: A New Avenue for Property Managers (23:44) Legal Considerations in Syndication (26:41) Calmness in Chaos: The Key to Success (31:40) Partnering with Syndications (33:54 The Role of Property Management in Syndication (38:29) Finding Syndicators and Building Relationships (42:24) Understanding Passive Investment in Syndication (47:45) Identifying Your Investment Goals (51:54) Assessing Risk in Real Estate Investments (55:15) Choosing the Right Market for Investment (01:00:12) The Three C's of Raising Capital Quotables "The first C is confidence. Confidence comes from preparation." "The investment itself, we got to go out there and execute. But that investor psyche is a completely different game." "It is not your job to hope. Your job is to analyze the information in front of you and make an informed decision." Resources DoorGrow and Scale Mastermind DoorGrow Academy DoorGrow on YouTube DoorGrowClub DoorGrowLive Transcript Jason Hull (00:01) All right, five, four, three, two, one. All right, I'm Jason Hull, the founder and CEO of DoorGrow, the world's leading and most comprehensive coaching and consulting firm for long-term residential property management entrepreneurs. And for over a decade and a half, we have brought innovative strategies and optimization to the property management industry. 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. So my guest today, I'm hanging out here with John Casman, a multifamily syndicator, host of the multifamily insights podcast and the co-creator of the Midwest real estate networking summit. And in today's episode, John's going to break down how corporate professionals can transition. into multifamily investing, how to find the best markets, how to raise capital effectively, and what separates successful operators from everyone else. John, welcome to the DoorGrowth Show. John Casmon (01:10) Yeah, Jason, thank you for having me. I'm really excited to be here. Love the intro, your intro, not my intro, ⁓ but excited to be here and share as much as we can on our journey to help all of your listeners reach their goals. Jason Hull (01:22) Cool. So John, ⁓ it's great to have you. I would love for people to hear about your entrepreneurial journey. How did you get to where you are now? And then we can get into your business. John Casmon (01:34) Well, the short answer is bankruptcy, right? I worked for a couple of different companies that went through bankruptcy and that really made me consider my other options. You know, I was at General Motors back in 2007, 2008, 2009 when we went through bankruptcy and I was there and I watched what that did to a lot of my peers. I one day in particular when we were going to have a lot of layoffs, I went to work as late as I could. But when I got there, I had a red message, a little red dial on your phone. for anybody who's worked in corporate and remember voicemails. So I had a red dot on my phone, picked it up, pushed the play button and my heart skipped a beat because I thought maybe I was getting to the can, right? And it was actually a colleague of mine who sat kind of kitty corner in front of me and he had been let go. He, you know, was diabetic. He didn't know I was going to pay for his medication. He just was venting in his voicemail. And I just remember feeling empathy for him, but also a sense of I just never wanted to be in that situation. So it made me really start to think about Plan B. Eventually I moved to Chicago, realized real estate was going to be that path and learned everything I could about investing. So it kind of took me down that pathway to say, you know what, I need a Plan B because no matter what you do, when you work in corporate America, you do not control your future. You know, there's politics, there's policy, there's a lot of different things involved that you do not control. And sometimes it does just come down to someone not liking you for whatever reason, or they think you're a threat. And I didn't want to spend the rest of my career navigating those issues. So I figured I had to take more into my own hands. Jason Hull (03:16) got it. And so you start taking things in your own hands and what was the result? John Casmon (03:20) Yes. So we landed on multifamily investing, started with small multifamily. My first investment was a two unit building. We house hacked it, which is a common popular phrase now. But back then it wasn't quite as common. But we lived upstairs. We rented out the first floor unit and it worked great. You know, it worked so great that we went to refinance and we had created enough equity in that first investment to pull out a six figure line of credit and go out and buy another property. So. Jason Hull (03:45) Nice. John Casmon (03:47) That really got the ball rolling. bought a three unit building, we bought an eight unit building, and at this time I'm still working in advertising, still working in corporate America, and I enjoyed what I was doing, and I just had my second child, but the agency I was working for also went through bankruptcy right at this time. We had expanded, we were growing, and we had kind of combined with a few other agencies and kind of became this little conglomerate, and it just eroded just as quickly as it grew. I remember again, just sitting there and I've got some real estate. I've got a little bit of cashflow, but not enough to pay all my bills. New baby. And I just realized this real estate thing is working, but the exact strategy I'm employing doesn't allow me to insulate myself from these economic changes and shifts. So I had to change my strategy and that led me to syndication. Since then, we've acquired over $150 million worth of apartments. We've partnered with busy professionals to buy these properties and give them some passive income. And that's what we've been doing ever since. Jason Hull (04:50) Got it. So your area of genius really is helping these people that were similar to you, they're in the corporate environment transition into being an investor in real estate. John Casmon (05:01) Yeah, exactly. And I would say too, it doesn't have to be you're going to quit your job and do this full time. And in fact, most people don't, you know, but most people do want a little bit more control over their life. You want a little bit more flexibility. You want to earn and start building up, you know, your net worth. You want to have a little bit more liquidity. You have to look at your investments to say, what should you be doing? I think most people know that their 401k, their, you know, company issued life insurance. probably not enough to really get you on the fast track to retirement. So what else could you do? Certainly you can invest in the stock market. Lots of folks do that. But real estate is a proven vehi...

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DGS 327: AI, Survival & Property Management's Future

Feb 1700:26:24Tap to summarize

As property management faces rapid technological disruption, what happens to the businesses that refuse to adapt… or the ones that go all-in on AI and eliminate the human element entirely? In this episode of the #DoorGrowShow, Jason and Sarah Hull sit down with Joe Oliveri in Brisbane, Australia to unpack the accelerating AI revolution and what it means for the future of property management. With over 30 years in the industry and 16 years as an international real estate business coach, Joe shares why he believes the next three years will determine which companies survive, and which disappear. They explore the shift from traditional property manager roles to data-driven client relationship managers, how AI can transform processes like lease renewals, the risks of deepfakes and security threats, and why the winning formula will be a strategic blend of technology and human connection. You'll Learn (00:00) Introduction to AI in Property Management (00:40) The Evolution of Property Management (01:58) The Impact of AI on Property Management (05:35) Integrating AI with Human Interaction (10:30) AI's Role in Tenant Management (14:17) The Need for Verification in AI (16:30) The Future of AI in Property Management (21:44) Consequences of Ignoring AI (25:43) Finding Balance: AI and Human Roles Growth Quotables "If this industry does not change and truly understand AI, we're going to be irrelevant." "Three years is all we've got to make the changes." "AI isn't something that they can go back to their office and say, we're going to build this AI. Let the experts do it." Resources DoorGrow and Scale Mastermind DoorGrow Academy DoorGrow on YouTube DoorGrowClub DoorGrowLive Transcript Jason Hull (00:00) that companies will need to be able to make to keep up and really frankly, survive. It's recording. We can time up. Shifts in layout. Let's count. All right. You think it's going to work there or should we hold that? Well, we'll probably have to do this. All right. Cool. No introduction. Well, no. Just do it. I'm saying not the full intro that you normally do the way you read the entire thing. Just do a quick. You're not going to have all that when we're going to send it. OK. Do an intro, but you're not going to do the normal intro. All right. Put those somewhere. Hang them on your shirt or do something. Okay. That's very Brisbane. Well you have to fit in. When in Brisbane, do like Brisbane. Right, so we are... It wasn't pretty. Okay. Five, four, three, two... If you can see the camera, it can see you. Can you see the camera? can. You don't... can. Okay. Alright, you ready? Five, four, three, two, one. Alright, so I'm Jason Hull. This is Sarah Hull with DoorGrow and we are Hangout with Joe Oliveri. And we're in Brisbane. Brizzy. Brizzy, yeah. And you can't see but we're overlooking the beautiful city and the river right now. And what is this, a wine room? Yeah, this is our wine cellar. Private wine cellar. Private wine cellar. Okay. And so we're going to be chatting today about AI, the future, and how that's going to impact and affect property management. So, Jill, why don't you give people a little bit of background on yourself and who you are and how you got into property management. Yeah well that's a long story but I'll make it short. So I've been in the industry for about 30 years now so it makes me feel old when I say that. ⁓ But for the last 16 years I've been a real estate business coach and I've been lucky enough to coach people in Australia and the USA so I get a really good oversight of what's going on in the world. ⁓ But you know my focus for the last 16 years has been where is this industry going and how can we help businesses to get there and what do need to do? So basically, yeah, for the last 30 years, I've been doing property management and yeah, I think it's exciting where it's heading and through that journey, I met you guys, which is wonderful. So yeah, yeah. Yeah, fantastic. We've been able to have you out at one of our conference events and have you speak and yeah, it's been delightful. ⁓ I know, I mean, in 30 years, you've seen a lot of changes, but it's speeding up. Like we're in the middle of this AI revolution right now. Everything's changing dramatically. And so what are some of the things that you're noticing? And you have a process software called Thrusos, which we use to run our own operational side of our business. ⁓ What are some of the things that you are right now? thinking are going to happen and you're trying to figure out. Yeah, well, I'm actually concerned about the future for property management in a positive way. If you can kind of like say that. Because what I'm seeing is we are going through rapid change. I remember when I started in the industry 30 years ago, we were just introducing property management software. Everyone was still using spreadsheets and you know. paper documents and all sorts of things. ⁓ Carbon copy leases, know, that's how far back we go. And there was major pushback on property management software. And the pushback probably took about five years for the industry to completely transition to understanding you had to use software. Well, we don't have the luxury of five years anymore because my belief is it's changing so rapidly. And it's the consumer expectations that are going to force change that if this industry does not change and truly understand AI, we're going to be irrelevant. So I believe in three years time, we're going to see completely different roles in the way that we do things. in the next, like leading up to that three years, I believe that in the first year, we're going to see probably about 40 % of businesses starting to struggle and disappear. They're losing managements, clients are going elsewhere because they're expecting AI and seamless processes and interactions and tasking. And then that will speed up. And by the second year, we'll see 80%. And then we'll only have a small percentages. I know this seems like doomsday, but it's a reality. Only a small percentage of existing businesses that are around today who will be around in three years time. If they do not adopt AI and AI is very broad. So they've got to understand AI, but you know, that's my belief. That's what I'm seeing as well. So yeah, you know, we've got to sit up and take notice. Yeah. And I think a lot of the things that I've been noticing, some people kind of shift right away and some people are a little bit more reluctant to shift. Yes. And I think the ones that it's almost you need to find the balance. You don't want to go all in and all AI and you don't want to have no AI. You want to kind of find the right balance and that happy medium and really figure out what is the best way to utilize AI. and have a human component. Because I do not believe it will be able to be all AI. I just, think when it really comes down to it, it is a relationship business. It's a human to human contact business. really when things go wrong, humans want to talk with other humans who understand. They don't want, have you ever been on the phone and you're going, agent, agent, representative, and it's not. understanding and you're like, just get me to the human. do I, what button do I need to push? What option is it that I the human? And I think that will continue, that will prevail. However, AI is such a powerful tool that I think we just need to figure out what's the most complimentary way that the humans and the AI can interact together to provide an amazing experience so that the tenants are happy and the clients are happy and the property management business is happy. really be able to figure out what's the best way to do this. And something that you were telling me yesterday, I went, ⁓ she is so smart for doing that. Can you talk a bit about your, ⁓ tell us first about Flusos and what it is and how it works. And then tell me what you were chatting with me about at dinner last night about what you're going in and updating in Flusos because of all of the advancements in AI that are happening. Yeah, yeah, so you're 100 % right Sarah, you know, there will always be the human element. It's necessary. We're a service business. So people want the customer relationships. They want that person who lets them know, hey, this is all right. You know, we're going well here. But the role of the property manager has changed. There will always be a role for property managers, but not in the way that we see it today. And that's where we've got to make that transition. But one of the simplest flows to talk about, when I talk about flows, Flusos is workflows on all of the various tasks that we do. To help people understand how AI integrates with the human side of property management is if we look at a tenancy renewal. So when we're doing that renewal, there's so much that AI can do that ...

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DGS 326: The Three Key Ingredients for BDM Success

Feb 1600:14:17Tap to summarize

When you're trying to grow your property management business, perfection can feel like the standard… but what if chasing "perfect" is actually what's slowing you down? In this episode of the #DoorGrowShow, property management growth experts Jason and Sarah Hull unpack the hidden cost of perfectionism in business. They break down why striving for 100% accuracy in tools, systems, or team members leads to frustration, stalled growth, and constant "shiny object" switching. You'll learn how to evaluate mistakes the right way, when to keep a system versus scrap it, and why imperfect action often scales faster than polished hesitation. They also dive into the six core functions of a healthy business, the danger of over-optimizing the wrong areas, and how to free up your time so you can focus on what actually moves the needle. You'll Learn (00:00) Introduction to DoorGrow and Perfectionism (05:24) Optimizing Business Processes Without Perfection (11:07) Scaling Beyond Personal Limitations Quotables "Perfect businesses are out of business." "There is nothing in this world that is going to get 100% accuracy 100% of the time." "Perfectionism is usually born out of an insecurity and discomfort in ourself and we have to get comfortable with things not being perfect in order to scale a business." Resources DoorGrow and Scale Mastermind DoorGrow Academy DoorGrow on YouTube DoorGrowClub DoorGrowLive Transcript Jason Hull (00:01) All right, five, four, three, two, one. 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 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. All right. So what are we chatting about today, Sarah? Perfection. Perfection. So this is a big challenge in business is that especially for early stage entrepreneurs, they want everything to be perfect. They judge, we judge ourselves so harshly. We're so worried. We have imposter syndrome and where we feel like people are gonna figure out that we don't know everything and that we may not know something they know. There's all these early stage entrepreneur concerns that a lot of people go through. so they have this fear that I need to make sure everything is perfect. And perfectionism can cause some serious problems. And this is a temptation, I think, for most every entrepreneur that I've ever coached or dealt with. to some degree. So let's talk about this. All So the issue that had come up was just last week on a coaching call with a client and she was saying that, you know, hey, I have this tool that does a specific job and it's pretty good, but it's not 100%. Okay. And it was, she was frustrated that it wasn't 100 % perfect. All right. Right. And she said, because it's not like sometimes it will miss little things or I think it called a client or a tenant called a tenant by the wrong name. Right. So it might miss little things here and there. she said, you know, I I'm not doing it, but I'm having my team member just kind of watch over things. And so she said, and I'm looking for an alternative because I just don't feel like that's going to be the solution. It's just not where I want it to be yet. So I said, I totally understand where you're coming from with it. ⁓ My bet, my best advice on it is not to try to strive for perfection because truthfully, it really doesn't matter what it is. It doesn't matter if it's a tool. a system, a process, a software, a team member, or ourselves that's doing a particular thing, there is nothing on this world that is going to get 100 % accuracy 100 % of the time. So if that's what we're striving for, we're going to be let down at some point, and we're going to consistently feel frustrated. And then we're to jump from thing to thing or person to person looking. for this magic solution that does 100 % all the time. And it's just, it's not possible. If you ask yourself, have I ever made a Sure. Who hasn't? What technology hasn't messed up from time to time? What computer hasn't messed up from time to time? What even AI sometimes you'll ask it a question and it gives you answers that you know are not correct. And then you have to correct it. And then it goes, I'm so sorry. You're right. Here's now the correct information. first time it gave you incorrect information. Right? So if we're striving for, no, this thing in order for me to use it has to be perfect all of the time, otherwise it's not worth it. And now I have to go look for something else. That puts us in this loop of consistently we'll forever be searching. will forever be searching for something to be perfect. My rule is if, If you're using some sort of system, whether it's a tool or a software or AI, if it makes a mistake, and it will. So when it makes a mistake. If the same thing was done by a human, would this be an immediately fireable offense? Yeah. If a human made the same mistake that the system or tool or AI did, would you go, I immediately have to fire this person? Most times the answer is no. And if the answer is no, then why would you be looking to immediately be getting rid of that tool or stop using that AI or stop using that software? Right? So a lot of times what I've noticed is we have a lot of grace when it comes to humans and we have very little when it comes to technology, including AI. Yeah. We've almost none. We expect perfection all the time. You're a supercomputer. You should know everything all the time and never make a mistake. And that is fantastic in theory. But in practicality, it's probably just not realistic, even if it is a supercomputer and it's infinitely more intelligent, even than we are, it's still going to make mistakes sometimes. So if a human made this mistake, if you would look at that and go, yes, I immediately need to fire this person, then you're probably on the right track by getting rid of that tool or system. But if a... human made this same mistake and you would just chalk it up to, hey, they need more support or hey, they need more training or hey, you these things happen from time to time. It's not a great situation, but I'm not gonna fire them over it. Then I also don't feel like it's worth scrapping the tool for the same reason. Okay, yeah, I agree. So I think ⁓ perfectionism is a big challenge. So one of my mentors, Alex Sharfin, shout out to Alex. said, he used to say perfect businesses are out of business. And I think one of his mentors told him that. So the idea is when you are trying to make your business perfect, you aren't focused on a lot of times the right things. ⁓ One of the books he recommended to me, a great book, it's called The Goal by Elihu Goldratt. And in this book, it talks about how if you optimize each thing in the business, the business actually becomes less efficient. So he uses this story uses an example of like a factory and there's different stages in this process. Just like in any business, there's different stages. And if you over optimize one particular stage that leads into another, the challenge is it creates inventory or it creates like more work or it creates excess. And so everything needs to be moving in concert towards the goal. And anything that's not moving the entire business towards the main goal. can actually become a distraction. So it's very easy for operators in business to over optimize a piece or to spend too much time on something or to put too much attention on making the perfect onboarding process or the perfect system. And it actually makes you less money. It like brings you less client retention. It brings you more headaches and more problems. It makes you need more staff. And so we have to be really careful about optimizing or making everything perfect. Elon Musk talks about how one of the biggest mistakes made in business is optimizing for the wrong things. And so we need to make sure we're optimizing towards what the actual goals are. And a lot of times also clients get our clients that we coach, they get so focused on making sure their clients have such an amazing experience while neglecting the lead gen and the growth of their own business, which is the lifeblood. So it's like, I want to take care of everybody that is paying me, but I don't really care about taking care of myself and my family, and paying myself is what it kind of plays out to be. And so this is why we look at things through the lens of what I call the six core functions. Lead gen, nurture, conversion, delivery, lifetime value, and financials. And so these are like six little kids...

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DGS 325: The Door Machine: Property Management Growth

Feb 1500:14:51Tap to summarize

When your property management business isn't growing, relying on cold digital leads or hiring a salesperson might seem like the obvious solution, but what if those are actually the biggest time and money sinks? In this episode of the #DoorGrowShow, property management growth expert Jason Hull breaks down why cold leads from digital marketers are "garbage," why most Business Development Manager (BDM) hires fail, and how he's seen a repeating pattern of busy owners having no time to execute growth strategies. He dives into the Door Machine, a game-changing new growth model designed to help property managers scale with warm, relationship-based leads and a Door Grow-trained salesperson, all with no upfront salary risk and a focus on guaranteed results. You'll Learn (00:00) Introduction to DoorGrow and Its Mission (06:50) The Door Machine: A New Solution for Growth (12:25) Understanding the Cost and Value of the Door Machine Quotables "When's the last time you actually worked on growing your business instead of just running it?" "The real path to growth isn't more cold leads. It's warm leads from relationships." "Without the foundation, a salesperson is wasted. With it, a salesperson becomes a weapon." Resources DoorGrow and Scale Mastermind DoorGrow Academy DoorGrow on YouTube DoorGrowClub DoorGrowLive Transcript Jason Hull (00:01) All right, five, four, three, two, one. All right, I'm Jason Hull, the founder and CEO of DoorGrow, the world's leading coaching and consulting firm for residential property management entrepreneurs. We've helped hundreds of property management business owners add doors, increase profit, add and build winning teams. Think of us as like bar rescue for property managers. We've cleaned up and rebranded over 300 businesses. At DoorGrowth, we believe 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. We're on a mission to help the best property management entrepreneurs win. Let's get into the show. So, hey, property management entrepreneurs, I've got a question for you. When's the last time you made a cold call to an investor? When is the last time you followed up with that realtor who said they'd send you referrals? When's the last time you actually worked on growing your business instead of just running it? If you're being honest with yourself, it's probably been a while. And look, I'm not judging you. I've been doing this for a while. I've been coaching property management managers for over 15 years. I've seen this pattern thousands of times. and you started this business to manage properties, not to be a salesperson, but somewhere along the way, you became your company's only source of new business. The problem is you don't have time for it, you don't enjoy it, and if you're really being honest, you avoid it. So today I'm gonna share with you something we've been working on that solves this problem entirely. It's called the door machine. And by the end of this episode, you're gonna want to know everything about it. Okay. So welcome to the DoorGrow show. I'm Jason Hull. And if you're a property management entrepreneur who wants to grow your business and your life, you're in the right place. Our mission at DoorGrow is to help property management business owners transform their businesses so they can have freedom and fulfillment. Today's episode is different. I'm not bringing on a guest. Instead, I'm going to pull back the curtain on something we've been developing that I believe is going to completely change the game for how property managers grow their doors. Let me paint a picture for you. Okay, it's Monday morning. You've got a list of investors. They are people you should be calling. And there's that realtor you've been meaning to reach out to. And you told yourself, like last week, that this would be the week you finally get serious about sales. Then a tenant calls, something comes up, you have a maintenance emergency. An owner is upset about a repair invoice. Your bookkeeper needs something. Someone on your team has a crisis. And suddenly it's 6 p.m. and you haven't made a single sales call. Again, sound familiar? Here's the thing. You're not lazy. You're not bad at sales. You're just spread too thin to give sales the attention that it deserves. You've got other fires to put out. Maybe you're running other businesses. A lot of you are, you're entrepreneurs. Maybe a family that actually deserves your attention is waiting for you in the living room. The last thing you wanna do at the end of a long day is cold call investors or go schmooze at some networking events. So what happens? Growth stalls. You hit a plateau and you stay stuck. Not because you don't know how to grow, but because you don't have the time or energy to do what it takes. And I've talked to hundreds, maybe thousands of property managers who are in exactly this situation. They know they should be doing more sales. They just never get to it. Okay, now at this point, some of you are thinking, Jason, I don't need to do sales myself. I just need more leads. So you call up a digital marketing agency. They promise you SEO, Google ads, Facebook leads. They show you fancy dashboards and talk about cost per lead. You write a check every month and wait for the phone to ring and here's what those marketers don't tell you. Not all leads are equal. Digital marketing leads are cold leads. These are strangers who clicked an ad. They're price shopping. They're talking to five other companies. They convert it maybe 10 % if you're lucky. Here's the bigger problem. There just aren't that many people searching the internet for property management. You can prove this on Google Trends. It's not like HVAC repair where people Google in a panic. Property owners aren't searching. 60 % of them are self-managing and don't even know they need you yet. So you end up paying 200, 300, sometimes $500 per lead for tire kickers who ghost you after one call or ghost you after you send your proposal to them. Meanwhile, the marketing agency keeps cashing your checks and showing you impressions and click through rates. that don't translate the doors. The math doesn't work. The leads are garbage and you're still stuck. The real path to growth isn't more cold leads. It's warm leads from relationships. This is even going to be more pressing and more present in the future with AI. Human interaction is going to matter even more. There's AI Slop. So what are warm leads? What are these relationships? They're referrals, they're strategic partners, direct outreach to investors who don't know they need you yet, but that takes time and effort you don't have. So at some point, most property managers realize they need help. They try to hire a salesperson, a BDM, business development manager, to take sales off their plate. You post a job listing, you sift through hundreds of bad applicants, finally hire someone, who seems promising, pay four to $6,000 per month in salary, train them, wait, hope, six weeks later the salesperson quits or they get fired because they just don't produce. Meanwhile, you've burned 10 to $15,000 with nothing to show for it. Ask me how I know. I've watched this play out over and over again with clients. Here's what nobody tells you. The problem isn't just hiring. The problem is that most property management companies don't have the foundations that make a salesperson successful. Without the right positioning, reviews, website, pricing, pitch, systems, accountability, and lead flow, even a talented salesperson will fail. And even if you do have all these things, who's gonna train them, manage them, hold them accountable? You? Mr. Busy Person or Mrs. Busy Person or Miss Busy Person? You barely have time to do sales yourself. let alone manage somebody else doing it. Okay, so I'm gonna take a quick break and then we're gonna get into the solution, but this, I'm gonna tell you about our sponsor for this episode. If you're dealing with maintenance stuff, you may wanna check them out. This episode is sponsored by Vendero. Many of you tell me that maintenance is probably the least enjoyable part of being a property manager and definitely the most time consuming. But what if you could cut that workload by up to 85 %? That's exactly what Vendero has achieved. They've leveraged cutting edge AI technology to handle nearly all your maintenance tasks from initiating work orders and troubleshooting to coordinating with vendors and reporting. This AI doesn't just automate, it becomes your ideal employee, learning your preferences and executing tasks flawlessly, never needing a day off and never quitting. This frees up you to focus on the critical tasks that really move the needle for your business, whether that's refining operations, expanding your portfolio or even just taking a well-deserved break. Don't let maintenance drag you down. Step up your property management game wit...

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DGS 324: The Marriage of Private Equity and Property Management

Feb 1400:27:23Tap to summarize

Jason Hull, the founder and CEO of DoorGrow, discusses with Ashton Thomas the concept of marrying private equity with property management operations. Ashton Thomas is a third-generation real estate broker in Central Florida, she got her real estate license right after graduating high school and, in February 2019, opened her own brokerage. She decided to start her own brokerage and grew to about 25 agents, but she realized she preferred property management and did not like dealing with realtors and their recurring issues, and shifted her focus after property management "fell into her lap" when employees from a failing company approached her You'll Learn (00:45) Introduction and Ashton Thomas's Background (03:46) The Audacity to Start a Brokerage at 23 (07:16) The Marriage of Private Equity and Property Management (07:42) Benjamin Hardy's "Science of Scaling" (12:31) Understanding Private Equity and the Roll Up Strategy (17:58) The Advantage of Property Managers in Roll Ups (19:10) Advice for Getting into Private Equity (22:29) Raising Capital and How to Connect with Ashton Thomas Quotables "I've been thinking too small. That's why it's been so hard." "That's like entrepreneurs worst nightmare is to be feeling stuck and feeling like I'm not moving and I'm not getting traction and I'm not accomplishing anything." "The slowest, absolute slowest path to growth is to do it alone." Resources DoorGrow and Scale Mastermind DoorGrow Academy DoorGrow on YouTube DoorGrowClub DoorGrowLive Transcript Jason Hull (00:00) All right, five, four, three, two, one. Hello everybody, I'm Jason Hull, the founder and CEO 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've brought innovative strategies and optimization to the property management industry. 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. All right, so my guest today is Ashton Thomas. Welcome, Ashton. Ashton (00:43) Thank you for having me. Jason Hull (00:45) So Ashton is a client of ours, but she also is a badass. And so Ashen, I would love for people to get to know you a little bit, share a little bit of your background. How did you get into real estate and property management and all of this? Ashton (01:02) Yeah, absolutely. So I'm actually a third generation real estate broker in central Florida. My granddad started in Orlando like way back in the 60s. ⁓ Both my dad and my granddad, a lot of my uncles, they're all builders. So just kind of grew up in that real estate world. I was on a job site from when I was very little. ⁓ And so I always just had a love for homes, real estate, just the whole nine years. When I was wrapping up high school about to go to college, my parents suggested, I always had like an entrepreneurial spirit, and my parents suggested that I get my real estate license. And I was like, you know what, it can't hurt to have that. So I went ahead and took the class, got the licensing as soon as I graduated high school. So I was actually a licensed realtor already working before I started my freshman year of college. ⁓ Real estate has been so fascinating because I've been able to see so many changes over the last 12 years since I got into the industry. I started with new home sales construction, actually working for my parents, ⁓ really learned about what it took to run a sales center. And then I switched to traditional real estate, like what you think of a realtor doing now. ⁓ From there, I ended up opening my own brokerage. Jason Hull (02:03) Wow. Ashton (02:28) ⁓ in February of 2019. And then property management really just fell into my lap. There was a company that was going out of business because the owner was embezzling funds. And their employees actually came to me and said, you know, we would like to work with you. We'd like to work for you. And we're bringing these clients. So I had never written a lease, seen, really even put my eyes or hands on a lease, never. This was two years ago, roughly. ⁓ And like just didn't have any property management experience at all. Figured out that we needed to get some systems in place right out of the gate. And I really took the next year, year and a half. Jason Hull (02:59) how long ago. Okay. Ashton (03:22) to develop those. And Jason, you've been so instrumental in helping us succeed in those systems. You helped us identify the holes in our business and really figure out what we needed to do. ⁓ So at the time that I had brought on the property management side, and when I say property management for us, we do both long-term property management and short-term vacation rental. So I two separate sister companies that operate. Jason Hull (03:51) Yeah. Ashton (03:51) So ⁓ at the time I had roughly about 25 realtors that worked for me under the brokerage. I had really developed that, grown that. We were one of the largest Zillow Premier agent teams in central Florida at that time. Jason Hull (04:13) Wait, can I ask you question about that? Not very many agents start their own brokerage. What? mean, how, do you mind me asking age here? How old were you you started your brokerage and what gave you the audacity to decide to do this big thing? Ashton (04:19) Mm-hmm. I was 23 when I started my brokerage and the funny part was is I actually wanted to buy a brokerage first and I had this is a wild story you'll love this so you know you look back and you say what was I thinking like I had some guts and one of those stories Jason Hull (04:33) Okay, go ahead. Okay. Okay. Yeah Ashton (04:55) So I had initially gone to this guy's office, he had four branches, local real estate agent, or a local real estate brokerage. I'd ⁓ developed his brokerage over like 50 years, had over 200 agents working for him. And I walk in and I asked to speak with the broker. He was there, they put me in the conference room. He thought that I wanted to become an agent working for him. Yeah. And I said, no, sir, I want to buy your company. Jason Hull (05:19) That's the default. my god. Ashton (05:25) And like, this was a total cold call. Like I had never talked with him before, never met him before. I ended up negotiating a price for the company ended up getting securing SBA financing. Everything had lined up so perfectly. And then a couple of weeks before we were actually going to be making it official. He decided that he wanted to, to sell his brokerage to a family member and not go through with me. And so. Jason Hull (05:53) Wow. Ashton (05:55) Honestly, in hindsight, that was the best thing that could have happened. I had no business running that large of a brokerage at 23 years old with no experience. ⁓ Over 200. Yeah. And I had secured a price for 2.4 million for the company. So with an earn out and it was just, it was going to be an insane deal if I could have like actually done that. But ⁓ I was Jason Hull (06:05) How large was it? How many Asians? Okay, yeah, I mean massive, yeah. Ashton (06:24) You know, everything happens for a reason. coming off of like the adrenaline rush from that not happening, I was like, you know what? I'm just going to start my own. Why not? So that's how I started when I was 23. Jason Hull (06:26) Yeah. Yeah. I mean, starting your own brokerage at 23 doesn't sound as crazy if you were already trying to buy 200 agent brokerage. Like, I'll just, you know, step it back a little bit. Ashton (06:49) Mm-hmm. Yes, let's like crawl before we run. Oh, so that was originally what I wanted to do was just build up a massive, brokerage with lots of agents. And I thought that in my head was the dream. No, for me, it was not. I had grown to about 25 agents, like roughly like steadily and kept that number for a while. I realized that I </p...

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DGS 323: Team Member Departure: Lessons on Hiring

Feb 1300:19:45Tap to summarize

Jason Hull, the founder and CEO of Door Grow, and Sarah Hull, the COO, discuss the professional lessons learned from the departure of a long-term team member. They describe the experience as bittersweet, acknowledging the torn feeling between being happy for a departing employee who has a great new opportunity and not wanting to lose a valuable team member. You'll Learn (00:00) Bittersweet Departure: Empathy in Leadership (01:03) Maddie's Journey and Role Development at Door Grow (06:33) Security Through Documented Processes (11:08) Confidence in the Door Grow Hiring System (12:44) The "Super System" and Scalability (15:56) The Value of Structure and Culture Quotables "I think that's the first thing about being a leader is not only wanting what's best for you and the business, but truly wanting what's best for your team." "Having processes documented has always given me a sense of security." "The slowest path to growth is to do it alone. So let's grow together." Resources DoorGrow and Scale Mastermind DoorGrow Academy DoorGrow on YouTube DoorGrowClub DoorGrowLive Transcript Jason Hull (00:02) Hello everybody, I'm Jason Hall. This is Sarah Hall, the founder and CEO and the COO 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 we run the leading property management mastermind in the industry with more video testimonials and reviews than any other coach or consultant in the industry. So let's get into the show. All right. So we got some news this past what week from my daughter. I need to get rid of that. OK. We got some news this past week from my daughter, Maddie, that she is leaving. DoorGrow, she got another job offer. And so my oldest daughter has been working for DoorGrow for five years now. Which is wild. And so I remember she called me up from college and she couldn't find a job there. And she later told me the last thing she wanted was to ask me for a job or to work for me at the time. I guess she was just humbled enough that she had to come to me and ask for a job because she's like nobody was hiring around her campus because it was just a college town. Everybody had taken all the jobs and so she asked if she could do some work for me and ⁓ she started doing some graphic design stuff and she was working on her marketing degree and ⁓ she ended up working for us and she's handled all sorts of things. My social media, DoorGrowth social media. graphic design stuff, video editing, podcast editing, ⁓ lots of stuff. Client support. And then we moved her into client success. And so then she was managing client success on our team, helping to retain clients and make sure they're supported. that's, yeah, so she's had quite the journey of growth here at DoorGrow. And she was really nervous to tell us that she was leaving. She was like very concerned about this. And I told her, it's okay, I just want you to be happy. So excited to see her move on to the next thing that she's gonna do. This is like her first job outside of DoorGrow, as far as I know. And so I'm excited for her. ⁓ So we were just thinking like, what are some lessons that we are getting from this experience? And ⁓ yeah, so we thought we'd talk about a few of those things. The first thing is that moment where you go, I'm losing a team member. And you're kind of torn and you're stuck in between, I'm so happy for them and I want this great opportunity for them and I want what's best for them. And also, man, I didn't want to lose them. That happens a lot. And I would say to anyone out there that has experienced something like that, we had a client. Jay Shaw that had an amazing person in his business and this person got their dream job opportunity and came to him and said, hey, I don't know what to do with this. And he did exactly what we said. You have to take it. If you want to take it, want you to take it. I want you to do what you think you need to do and what's going to make you happy and what's going to give you opportunity to learn and grow and challenge yourself and experience different things. Right. So I think that's the first thing about being a leader is not only wanting what's best for you and the business, but truly wanting what's best for your team. Yeah. So that's what, you know, she's my daughter. So of course I want whatever's best for her. Um, one of the things that I realized, one of the things that I've always been particularly good at is identifying personalities. One of the things we wanted to recommend to all of you is that it's really important to understand your team members and their personality. Meaning, like getting to really know what their natural inclination is towards, not what they're skilled at, not what they're already trained at, but where would they naturally gravitate towards if they had had other opportunities. so Maddie's personality type, she's extroverted. naturally. I saw this in her growing up. ⁓ She's very much a feeler. She's ⁓ organized and ⁓ so yeah, so was very clear. Ladybug okay good. I think I on your foot So totally live. All right. So, ⁓ yeah. So what was I talking about? You were talking about ladybug finding, finding the right personality. ⁓ right. Okay. So Maddie and Myers-Briggs would be probably an ENFJ, right? ⁓ they're great at community. They're great at connecting with others. And she was going to school and eventually graduated while working at Door Girl. for like graphic design, marketing related stuff, advertising, and she thought, I'm gonna be a graphic designer. Well, I was like, Maddie, are, like, this is, you're naturally great with people. I'm thinking you should move into client success. We had a team member leave. She started taking over client success and doing the social media and graphic design stuff and things like that and podcast editing. And then, We knew we were gonna scale and so we said, and she knew and she said, well, if I have to pick one role or the other, I think I'll pick client success. And so it's awesome to be able to have that as a father, I think it's super important to understand your kids and to not try to push them into being what you are if you're an entrepreneur, not trying to push them into a certain job or career path in school, but to. move them towards what their natural personality would be inclined to succeed and win at that they would love to do. And so that's what I've done as much as I can with all of my kids. so Maddie, I thought, let's move her into client success for sure. And when we put her into that, eventually she chose that. She really recognized that she had a skill at that and she was really, really great at it. And that allowed her to grow and develop new skills besides just graphic design. ⁓ But yeah, she's learned a lot of different skills at DoorGro. She didn't know how to do video editing. She was very much into graphics and then she started editing our videos for us and figuring it out. And so over the years, she's just developed a whole bunch of skills. She's invaluable, super smart, learns lots of stuff. The other, I think, important lesson that is important, you talked about team members, when they leave and how you freak out. Well, we're not really freaking out. And why? Why are we not freaking out? we're sad to see her go. Sad, happy, bittersweet. A little bit of bittersweet feeling there. we're prepared for any and all of our team members at all times just in case anything happens. And that's one of the things is if they do decide to, for whatever reason, exit their role at your company. we have all of our processes already documented for each of our team members. So now that she's stepping out of that role, it's not like we're back here scrambling going, we have to hurry up and figure out how she's doing things and have her write it down and have her train somebody else and get everything out of her head. All of that already exists, which means that when we hire someone to step into that role, it will be infinitely easier for them because everything that Maddie is doing is already documented. What she does and the steps and the systems and the tools that she uses and how she's doing each thing, it's documented in our system. So that in case a team member or sometimes you have several leave at a time, didn't you have a guy that won the lottery and his whole team left? Somebody called me once. So they lost their whole team because they had an office betting pool with the lottery and they won and everybody quit their jobs. So now you have no team. Yeah. So yeah, very suddenly not likely to happen too often, but no, it is nice. as a, as an entrepreneur, as a founder, as a CEO, having process...

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DGS 322: The Three Key Ingredients for BDM Success

Feb 1200:17:32Tap to summarize

When your property management business isn't growing, hiring a salesperson might seem like the obvious solution, but what if that's actually where most owners go wrong… In this episode of the #DoorGrowShow, property management growth experts Jason and Sarah Hull break down why most BDM hires fail, the critical mistakes owners make with commission-only roles, and the exact systems required to make a salesperson successful. They dive into DoorGrow's Three Fits framework, the three non-negotiable ingredients for BDM success, and tease a game-changing new growth model designed to help property managers scale without burnout, bad leads, or broken systems. You'll Learn (00:00) Introduction: The Three Fits for Hiring (01:16) The Challenges of Hiring a Business Development Manager (BDM) (02:42) The Three Key Ingredients for BDM Success (04:40) Mistakes in BDM Compensation: The Commission-Only Pitfall (05:40) The Three Roles of a BDM and the Problem with Buying Leads (09:54) The "Door Machine" Teaser: The Easy Button for Growth (14:39) Advanced Community, AI, and Final Thoughts Quotables "A BDM has zero chance of success if you hire the wrong person." "If they're not all three, they will fail. Or you'll fire them. Or they will leave you because they're not making enough money." "If you do not have the right system to plug a BDM or a salesperson into, you can hire as many of them as you want, and they will still not work." Resources DoorGrow and Scale Mastermind DoorGrow Academy DoorGrow on YouTube DoorGrowClub DoorGrowLive Transcript Jason Hull (00:01) All right, five, four, three, two, one. All right, we are Jason and Sarah Hull, the owners of DoorGrow, the world's leading and most comprehensive coaching company for long-term residential property management entrepreneurs. For over a decade and a half, we 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 at doors. improve pricing, increase profits, simplify operations, and we run the leading property management mastermind with more video testimonials and reviews than any other coach or consultant in the industry. We're the best. 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. 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. All right. So today, we're going to be chatting a little bit about the challenges of getting a business development manager, a BDM, or a salesperson for your property management business that we've seen. Yes. So a lot of times people think, hey, I need to grow my business. and they either don't wanna do it, they don't have the time to do it, or they just want help doing it. And then their go-to is, well, I'll just hire someone to do it, right? What could go wrong? Yeah, and that's where they make their first mistakes. Hiring is tough. Hiring is tough. And so, a BDM has zero chance of success if you hire the wrong person. And so, we... started solving this challenge for our clients by building out a hiring system. We call it door for a hiring. And we focus on what we call the three fits. They gotta be the right culture fit, which means they actually share your values. You can trust them. Because if they don't, aren't a culture fit, they'll steal from you or they'll do something off. And if culture's off, generally everything else goes south. It doesn't work. They have to be the right personality fit, which means they have to have the right personality to be willing and love and be able to do sales. And they have the right skill fit, which means they have to be intellectually capable of developing the skill or they have to have the sales skill already. If they're not all three, they will fail. Or you'll fire them, which is basically because they're failing. Or they will leave you because they're not making enough money. Okay, then once you hire them, assuming you get the right person, there's three key ingredients we found that are critical for BDM success and it's really difficult to get all three of these dialed in. It's even difficult for our clients who we coach to do these three things and so generally we see a lot of other BDM coaching companies they probably do a good job of maybe hiring the right people. My guess is they know how to read disk assessments and they use other tools and they can find good salespeople. but I hear a lot of them fail. Like my brother hired two salespeople from one of these BDM placement coaching companies and he fired both of them. And it probably was my brother's fault. I don't know. Sorry, Brian. But it might've been he just didn't have these three key ingredients in place. They might've been able to have a chance. So these three key ingredients are one, training. And. Basically they have the right strategies and training in order to succeed. Second, they have to have the right accountability. A lot of business owners just are like, here, here's what you do, or they rely on the BDM coaching company to just make it work. And sometimes they just get bad strategy. I don't think anybody has as good a strategy or clever or unique as I do as Dorgo does. We were very innovative on that. I think then ⁓ the third piece is we've got training, we've got then accountability, there has to be transparency, visibility, metrics, things like this. they're being, you you can see where the gaps are, where the problems are. And third, compensation. And so the compensation has to be right. If the compensation structure is off, compensation is incentive. And if the incentive structure is off, either they won't be making enough money, and they'll quit or you'll be paying them maybe too much money in the wrong way and then they get lazy and they're not incentivized to continue because they're making enough money or they're not getting motivated enough to get the results that you need so you'll fire them. There's so many ways compensation gets messed up. A lot of you think, I could just pay them commission only. Then I don't have to pay them anything unless they make money and then they're not motivated or they're not doing the leading actions. and then they fail. So we've just seen a lot of mistakes made there. And I think one of the biggest ones is the idea, well, I'll just pay them commission only. And that's a really nice thought, but in practical application, it's just not a way to set things up to be successful. And the reason is, I know everybody's going, that's what I want. Yes, we can want these things, but... In reality, the problem is that unless someone can start working in your business today and have the ability to close deals this week, then a commission only structure is just not going to work. And what I mean by that is not just, ⁓ no, they can, they can close a deal. They could close a deal right away. Great. do you have a few thousand leads for them to call today? So if they get hired today and they get trained today and then tomorrow they start making calls, do you have a whole list of people that they can call and then close deals as early as like four days later, three days later? Because if the answer to that is no, No, Sarah, I don't have an entire list. If I had an entire list, I would just call them myself and I would just work that list myself. Great. So then what you're doing is you're bringing someone in who can only make money if they close a deal and somehow expecting them, you're expecting them to close a deal, but not providing them with leads to work. So it's essentially saying, all right, I... We'll pay you if you close deals. You can get started today. I don't have a list, a long list. Don't give them 10 people. 10 leads is not good enough. I don't have many leads for you to work. I have some, but I don't have a whole list of leads ready for you to just start working that are already in the system. ⁓ You need to go find the leads and create the connections and the relationships. to get the leads and then you need to build a relationship with them and take them through the entire sales process and then you can close them and that might take two weeks, three weeks, four weeks, two months, three months. So what usually ends up happening on a commission only structure is the BDM, the first month makes zero dollars. So imagine if you did work for an entire month and you made nothing. Would you want to be in that situation? Probably not. But then we're expecting other people to want to be in that situ...

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DGS 281: What's Coming Next in 2025 for Property Management and DoorGrow?

Jan 30, 2025Tap to summarize

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 no...

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DGS 277: Unlocking Team Potential: The Keys to Engagement, Resilience, and High Performance

Dec 18, 202400:32:21Tap to summarize

These days, you aren’t limited to the area your business is located when looking for great team members. In this episode of the #DoorGrowShow, property management growth expert Jason Hull sits down with Laith Masarweh from Assistantly to talk about how hiring VAs can help you scale your business. You’ll Learn [01:34] Creating an Offshore Talent Acquisition Company [09:38] Importance of a People Process [16:11] Virtual Executive Assistants and Operators [24:57] Finding Your Unicorn Tweetables ” Having community and good compensation definitely is going to allow you to attract and have the best people.” “ If you are operating your business, you are not growing your business.” “ When you have good people, they help other good people grow.” “ The bottleneck is you.” Resources DoorGrow and Scale Mastermind DoorGrow Academy DoorGrow on YouTube DoorGrowClub DoorGrowLive TalkRoute Referral Link Transcript [00:00:00] Laith: When you have good people, they help other good people grow. [00:00:03] 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. [00:00:23] 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. I'm your host, property management, growth expert, Jason Hull, the founder and CEO of DoorGrow. [00:01:04] Now let's get into the show. [00:01:07] All right. So my guest today is Laith. Laith, tell me how to say your last name. So I don't butcher it. [00:01:13] Laith: It's all good, man. It's Masarweh. [00:01:15] Jason: Masarweh. All right. Laith Masarweh. And awesome to have you here on the show. So in this episode, we're going to dive into the power of offshore talent, explore how businesses from startups to fortune 500s can unlock exponential growth. [00:01:31] And you run a company called Assistantly. Which I've heard great things about. You came highly recommended by one of my mentors, Sharran Srivatsa a, who runs a multi billion dollar real estate company called Real. And so tell me like a little bit about your background. [00:01:48] How'd you get into this? How did you get into entrepreneurism? [00:01:51] Yeah. [00:01:54] Laith: I mean, I think I always had the entrepreneur inspiration since I was a kid. My dad always had like a small business that he was running and, you know, it made me want to be an entrepreneur from a young age. [00:02:03] He used to have me working in the grocery store shop since I was eight years old and it was cool to kind of develop, I guess, my like interpersonal and just learning more about the business at a, you know, such a young age and, you know, I knew I wanted to start my own business. I didn't know what I wanted to start it in. [00:02:18] Of course, you know, I attended Chapman University. I went to the business school. I thought I was into like virtual reality and tech. Didn't really know what my fit was. Got into corporate after college. I knew that wasn't a fit, even though I tried it. Didn't really work very well and then I started a real estate marketing company here in Orange County, California where we help agents, brokers whether you're residential, commercial, property management you know, we just have done what's like real estate marketing needs and during the pandemic, we got extremely busy and You know, we couldn't, there's too much demand and our team was super small and somebody was like, Hey, you should hire a virtual assistant. [00:02:53] And I thought that was like an AI robot and I didn't understand what that was. And I never learned about offshoring in college or any of that kind of stuff. And I got introduced to somebody thought she was local. She ended up being in the Philippines. I was like blown out of my mind because I've actually been working with her for years thinking she was in Irvine, California, but she was actually in the Philippines the entire time. [00:03:12] Our time I had, you could not tell any difference. And then I kind of got the spark in my head and I go, man, I work with so many real estate professionals, you know, and they're always asking me for help, whether it's administrative or operations or marketing. And I, you know, when I asked this girl, Hey, how many people are highly skilled, great communication skills, you know, looking for employment, like you? And she goes, I don't know, maybe like hundreds of thousands. And I said, hundreds of thousands, there's hundreds of thousands of talented people like you? And she goes, Oh yeah. And it kind of just clicked in my head. I'm like, Oh, People need this and it can't just be me. [00:03:45] And I pretty much started Assistantly 45 minutes after learning what offshoring was didn't know anything about it. And I'm just like, let me go, you know, I'll send it and kind of see kind of test it out, pilot it with a couple of my, you know, people in my network. And four years later, here we are. [00:03:58] And we started this obviously real estate, property management, law, tech, healthcare, finance, a little bit of everything. [00:04:04] Jason: Yeah. All right. Awesome. So, so let's get into this. I mean, there's a lot of challenges that people have with this and everybody's had, I mean, a lot of property managers have tested the waters of working with, you know, VAs in the Philippines or maybe Mexico and there's kind of mixed feelings about how that's gone. If you've done this at all, you've had some bad experiences and maybe some good ones. And so it can be really difficult. And so you're kind of at the mercy, if you're using a company like yours or some third party company, you're kind of at the mercy of their hiring process to some degree. [00:04:43] And some of these vendors that provide VAs have better hiring processes than others. Some of them, you know, they all claim, Hey, we've got amazing talent or they all might sound American, you know, but then you end up kind of getting somebody that has a heavy accent. They aren't showing up, you know, on time or they just disappear and ghost you because they're non confrontational sometimes in the Philippines or some of these sort of issues, and I'm sure you see, you see some of this, right. [00:05:13] How do you kind of do things you think maybe differently at Assistantly versus some of these other players in the marketplace [00:05:22] Laith: Yes, it's a great question, you know, obviously I started off, you know, really when I got into the industry I started hiring these people on my own whether they're from like people going to the upworks or the fivers of the world or like job boards and to like Interview a whole bunch of candidates to understand where they're located in the Philippines. [00:05:38] Like what type of equipment do they have? You Internet connection speeds. Do they really have that much experience? You know, because people obviously, whether you're US, Philippines, anywhere, they will always oversell on an interview or a resume. There's a lot of things that we do on like on our end. [00:05:52] So like, number one you taught me this and I think we had a conversation when we were, when I met you in Franklin about like that job description is so important when sourcing somebody, right? You know, everybody obviously wants a job, but you want to essentially attract people that are like, you know, that's their zone of genius, and they're passionate about it. [00:06:10] That's why we actually follow the four R's that Jason taught us a long time ago. And it's something that we actually, it's really important. The first step is crafting the job description to compel to candidates. So they're actually passionate and interested about it. So that's number one, filling that top of the funnel. [00:06:25] Number two, there's, you know, there's obviously a series of interviews. You can't just have one interview. We did multiple interviews. But like, I think obviously experience matters, of course. Like I want people that are mid to senior level that know what they're doing. If they're in property management, you know, I want, you know, helping with like property admin stuff, tenant communication daily operations through Appfolio. [00:06:42] Like I look for those types ...

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All episodes

DGS 329: The Power of Impossible Goals

DGS 328: Why Property Managers Miss Millions in Syndication Deals

DGS 327: AI, Survival & Property Management's Future

DGS 326: The Three Key Ingredients for BDM Success

DGS 325: The Door Machine: Property Management Growth

DGS 324: The Marriage of Private Equity and Property Management

DGS 323: Team Member Departure: Lessons on Hiring

DGS 322: The Three Key Ingredients for BDM Success

DGS 281: What's Coming Next in 2025 for Property Management and DoorGrow?

DGS 277: Unlocking Team Potential: The Keys to Engagement, Resilience, and High Performance

Property Management Growth with DoorGrow

All episodes

DGS 329: The Power of Impossible Goals

DGS 328: Why Property Managers Miss Millions in Syndication Deals

DGS 327: AI, Survival & Property Management's Future

DGS 326: The Three Key Ingredients for BDM Success

DGS 325: The Door Machine: Property Management Growth

DGS 324: The Marriage of Private Equity and Property Management

DGS 323: Team Member Departure: Lessons on Hiring

DGS 322: The Three Key Ingredients for BDM Success

DGS 281: What's Coming Next in 2025 for Property Management and DoorGrow?

DGS 277: Unlocking Team Potential: The Keys to Engagement, Resilience, and High Performance