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

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...

DGS 325: The Door Machine: Property Management Growth