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

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...