Jason Hull explains why bad property managers destroy returns—and why smart investors start with the manager, not the property.

In this episode of RealDealChat, Jason Hull, founder of DoorGrow and host of The DoorGrow Show, breaks down one of the most overlooked truths in real estate investing: property management—not the property—is the key to true passive income.

We unpack why so many investors struggle with micromanagement, misaligned incentives, and emotional decision-making—and how most property managers end up trapped in what Jason calls the “cycle of suck.” Jason explains how elite investors flip the script by finding a great property manager first, paying them well, and letting them protect the asset.

This conversation also dives into off-market deal flow through property managers, why DIY management stalls growth, how bad properties create bad tenants, and what technology and AI will (and won’t) replace in property management.

If you want real passive income—not a second job—this episode is required listening.

🌐 Learn more about DoorGrow: 👉 https://doorgrow.com

🎙️ Jason’s Podcast: The DoorGrow Show

Call to Action: If this episode saved you from hiring the wrong property manager, share it with one investor friend—and learn more at https://realdealcrew.com

Keywords: property management, Jason Hull, DoorGrow, passive income real estate, real estate investing mistakes, hiring a property manager, off market real estate deals, rental property investing, property management systems, investor mindset, real estate operations, real estate automation, RealDealChat podcast

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the problem with interest not being aligned is that a lot of investors have really bad

mindset and a lot of property managers have really unhealthy businesses.

2

Most property managers suck and most investors probably also suck.

3

the best investors usually understand how advantageous a good property manager is.

4

instead of going and finding property first, the smarter move is to go find a property

manager that's good first, because that property manager knows the market better than

5

anybody.

6

the best investors understand this if I find the right property manager and I pay them

well enough they're gonna protect my interest my investments and my time and attention and

7

I don't have to think about the property.

8

but you gotta find good property managers.

9

And good property managers, you'll feel safe doing that with.

10

Well, we have Jason Hall here and you can find what his team can help you with by going to

door grow.com.

11

That's going to be a clickable link in the show notes.

12

Jason, you also have a podcast too,

13

I do.

14

It's called The DoorGrow Show.

15

It's a podcast for property management business owners.

16

Yeah, you should definitely check that out as well.

17

Really appreciate your time here, Jason.

18

Absolutely glad to be here, Jack.

19

Thanks for having me

20

Yeah, it's been a while.

21

And I hope we can shorten the next visit.

22

But we're going to be talking all things property management and probably go down a

various number of rabbit holes here.

23

But Jason, things have changed quite a bit in your business since the last time you've

been on.

24

What's going on now?

25

What's your primary focus?

26

Well, mean, our primary focus is still coaching property management business owners and

helping them grow and scale.

27

But we were really good at helping them add doors, but it would create a problem because

they had too many doors and then things start to fall apart.

28

then we started really getting dialed in on coaching them on hiring, process, operations,

and planning.

29

And so.

30

Now we're able to really create what I call infinitely scalable property management

companies.

31

Well, I don't know, based on what I've seen, this is definitely uh something that is

needed in the market.

32

I mean, it's one of those things that, you know, with real deal crew, I don't know if you

check that out yet, but I help real estate investors with operations and automations and a

33

few other things setting up the operations aspect of their of their business.

34

And

35

There's a lot of low hanging fruit there because it's it's surprising how many people

start companies.

36

And they don't take a second to just do do some basic documentation, put some basic things

in place to, to free up that time and to make better use of their time.

37

Yeah, yeah, we see that.

38

I think that's in every business.

39

So, yeah.

40

get so busy with the with the details.

41

It's hard to take a step back sometimes and put some processes in place.

42

Yeah, so usually if a property manager comes to me, usually ask them like what just

identify or triage them.

43

say, what would lower your stress more as a business owner more right now?

44

Would it be adding another 200 units to your portfolio?

45

Or would it be getting your team processes, systems and operations dialed in?

46

And so depending on how they answer, I know which program we need to put them in and how

we can best help them.

47

So.

48

Usually people start with the challenge of growth and then they move on to the challenge

of operations.

49

Sure.

50

Well, know, a lot of people that are listening to this show, and I'm going to just speak

as an investor here now, I've definitely have found that it's really difficult to find a

51

property manager where our interests are aligned.

52

And could you talk a little bit to that?

53

Maybe help us, guide us through the process on picking a good project, a property manager.

54

Well, okay, so the problem with interest not being aligned is that a lot of investors have

really bad mindset and a lot of property managers have really unhealthy businesses.

55

Most property managers suck and most investors probably also suck.

56

And so the challenge is they both have different expectations and issues.

57

yeah, the best investors usually understand how advantageous a good property manager is.

58

So much so that instead of going and finding property first, the smarter move is to go

find a property manager that's good first, because that property manager knows the market

59

better than anybody.

60

They're actually in it constantly.

61

They're working in it.

62

They know what needs to be done to properties.

63

They know which areas in that city or town are places you could or want to invest instead

of a rental.

64

And so a lot of people don't start with property managers.

65

They don't have property managers you trust.

66

And then they're playing Russian roulette, hoping they could find one after they found a

property.

67

And then a lot of times real estate agents, they're not motivated to help you find the

best rental asset ever.

68

They're focused to sell whatever they can sell you so they can get their commission.

69

And so a lot of them are not really giving you great advice as an investor.

70

And so they're not the person to be talking to about an investment.

71

A property manager would be much better suited, especially if they know I'm going to have

to deal with this later.

72

I'm going to be more careful about giving you advice and letting you know whether a

property would be good or cashflow or run a pro forma on it for you.

73

And they know how to look at it through the lens of an investor because most property

managers started their business because they were an investor.

74

They couldn't find any property managers that were working well for them.

75

So they decided to start a business themselves.

76

That's almost the universal origin story of property management business owners.

77

You mean property managers don't just start off, you're just not born a property manager?

78

Yeah, there's not a lot of kids walking around saying I want to be a property manager when

I grow up.

79

So, no.

80

Yeah, it's one of those things that you end up doing some self property management.

81

But in the end, it's like investors were probably some of the worst when it comes to

actually wanting to deal with the tenants.

82

Because it's just one of those situations.

83

It becomes a big pain in the butt.

84

But

85

for as much as we would like to believe, we kind of step outside of the situation.

86

It's easy for us to get manipulated by the residents sometimes.

87

I think, well, maybe I'm speaking to my own situation.

88

No, I think that's accurate.

89

think with investors, the challenge is there's a lot more emotional involvement.

90

I mean, you have to remember like a property manager has heard every excuse for not for

people paying rent late or they've heard they've heard all the stories.

91

They're basically now immune to this stuff.

92

But if you're a property owner, you're and you're having to deal with your own tenant,

you're not insulated.

93

You're not protected.

94

and there's emotions connected to things.

95

And so it's difficult to make business decisions when there's a lot of emotion involved.

96

And, you know, it's easier to fall prey to their BS or to stories or to drama or to get

become part of the drama that they're involved in and have a bleeding heart and stuff like

97

this.

98

Like during the pandemic, lot of some of the investors I knew said they were down 50

percent in rent.

99

But I'm connected to a lot of property management business owners and they didn't have

issues getting rent during that time.

100

But it's because people came, oh, pandemic's hard, it's tough, like money, whatever.

101

And they're like, okay, I guess we gotta do stuff.

102

But property managers are like, well, you have to live, you still have to pay rent.

103

they just assumed you're gonna continue to do it.

104

Were there some bad actors that stopped paying rent or didn't do stuff or?

105

had some hardship, sure, but it was like really small.

106

It was surprisingly small.

107

In fact, the only property managers that really dealt with significant issues are the ones

that pre-framed the problem.

108

They emailed all their tenants, say, hey, if you're having problems with rent, let us

know, we'll work with you.

109

So they presupposed that there were gonna be problems and they created problems.

110

But the ones that didn't do anything like that and just acted like nothing was happening,

everybody was still paying rent.

111

And so that's the challenge is when you allow, you get what you tolerate basically, and

you get what you allow.

112

And it's difficult.

113

And that's why property managers exist because the three most complained about things on

the planet just might be landlords, tenants, and rental properties.

114

And a good property manager is this magical superhero.

115

If they're good, that makes all three behave better.

116

And they're in the middle.

117

And so it's not an easy job.

118

But if they have good systems, if they have good boundaries, if they have a healthy

mindset, like they can make this work really well.

119

And it's a really great systemizable business.

120

Yeah.

121

But most property managers suck.

122

Like, let's be real.

123

So, and there's reason, I don't know if I mentioned this when we last were together, like

five years ago, wow.

124

but there's this cycle suck that kind of property managers fall into where they take on

any client.

125

and then they have crappy clients by default.

126

And so in any business, you have to filter what you take on.

127

Just like an investor can't take on every property.

128

Not every property would be a good investment.

129

Not every owner is good for a property manager to manage.

130

And not every property is good.

131

So if the owners are bad, then the properties are bad.

132

And then the tenants become bad because now they're, you know, the owner's pushing back on

things, being difficult.

133

And so the tenants now frustrated.

134

even if they did all the tenant screening in the world and they had A grade credit, if the

owner's a cheapo and the owner's difficult on things and the owner's like trying to get

135

you to, you know, it takes two weeks to get the water heater replaced because they've got

to have like four different guys give bids and you know, property managers know how to

136

keep things moving and they know how to find that balance because they're negotiating for

all parties but their primary interest is to protect the owner.

137

That's their client.

138

And so,

139

But if they have bad owners, bad properties, bad tenants, that leads to a bad reputation.

140

And that then attracts bad reviews and then that attracts more bad clients.

141

And so they end up in this spiraling, downward spiral I call the cycle of suck.

142

And that sums up the whole industry in aggregate.

143

That's the majority of property managers.

144

They feel kind of desperate.

145

They're trying to do digital marketing stuff to grow their business.

146

They're wasting a lot of that money.

147

then they're attracting usually the crappiest clients that are at end of the sales cycle

that are looking just, they view property management as a commodity and think they're all

148

the same.

149

So they're just looking for the cheapest one.

150

And those are the cheapest owners and they have the highest operational costs for a

manager to deal with.

151

a bad owner and a bad property for a property manager could be 10 times, even a hundred

times more operational expense for them or cost or time than a good owner and a good

152

property.

153

And this is where property managers fail is they aren't filtering enough.

154

And so if they take on any owner, any property, and then you're an investor and you go to

a property manager, you might be one of the good ones.

155

You might have a good property, you might be a good owner, you want to the property

maintained well, you have a long-term vision for this property as an asset, but your

156

property manager is using your revenue from your property that he's making.

157

to subsidize all the crappy ones that are in his portfolio that he's losing money on.

158

And a lot of property managers are losing money on owners and losing money on units that

they're managing, but because it's all kind of lumped into one pile, they don't even see

159

it.

160

So this is some of the stuff like we work with clients on at DoorGrow to help them clean

it up.

161

Like I had a client come to me once with 600 units and they were making zero dollars in

their property management business.

162

Can you imagine?

163

And they had a...

164

the team that was twice as big as it needed to be.

165

After I coached him, he fired 250 units from his business and half of his team.

166

And he had way more margin because it's kind of the 80-20 rule in the negative.

167

Like 80 % of their problems and operational challenges and phone calls and tenant issues

and stuff were caused by 20 % of the owners and properties, right?

168

Mm-hmm.

169

And so this is some of the challenges that property management companies deal with, which

is why there's a lot of bad ones.

170

So there's milestones though of development that I've identified over time.

171

Different stages, different problems they deal with, and it can be a really great business

if they do it right.

172

Well, you brought up a couple things there that I kind of want to dive into for a second.

173

One of them is that I really, you you talked about spiraling out of control.

174

And I think that the bigger lesson there, and I've brought it up in previous episodes is

the fact that what we focus on grows.

175

And we can see that as a positive.

176

And we see that a lot of people talk about that in the positive.

177

But we can also see that in the negative.

178

m Yeah.

179

if we get focused on putting on Band-Aids to fix a problem or we're in a situation where

it's just a negative mindset and we start to constantly focus on the negative, more

180

negative stuff is going to happen.

181

in this example you gave where the 80-20 rule, we're just scrambling and we're trying to

fix something.

182

And sometimes, in a way, we kind of create more problems instead of taking that needed

step back and focusing on the positive side of the business, if I'm making sense there.

183

Yeah, I think a lot of times it's easy as business owners to optimize for the wrong thing.

184

We get too caught up in the drama or in the problems and we start trying to optimize.

185

Like one mistake property managers make is instead of determining whether calls should be

happening at all, like tenants calling them, owners should be calling them, instead of

186

doing that, they try to optimize for being able to take every call from every tenant and

every owner all the time.

187

And that becomes basically for a property manager, that's like writing a blank check that

they give to every tenant and owner that says, steal all of my profits, call me anytime

188

you want to.

189

And that's not profitable because people are expensive and having team members are

expensive.

190

And so it's very easy if you write that blank check as a property manager to not have a

healthy business.

191

And so it really is about setting boundaries and really the smartest investors.

192

find property managers they can trust and they let the manager manage it.

193

I know that's wild but they actually let the manager do the management which means you're

not calling them you're not checking on them you're not micromanaging your manager to

194

manage your property.

195

And the best investors understand this they understand if I find the right property

manager and I pay them well enough they're gonna protect my interest my investments and my

196

time and attention and I don't have to think about the property.

197

but you gotta find good property managers.

198

And good property managers, you'll feel safe doing that with.

199

Yeah.

200

And just to remind everybody we're talking to Jason Hall at door grow you can find more

information there at door grow.com that's going to be a clickable link in the show notes.

201

You know, this show only grows if you share it with an investor friend so please consider

doing that and if you're watching us on YouTube, give us a like and subscribe.

202

One of the things that I'm going to point a finger back at the investors is it goes to the

old adage of buying the property right at the beginning, because I have a feeling that

203

some of this pain and micromanaging that you're pointing out is coming from the fact that

we're watching every penny because we didn't buy the property at the right price.

204

Is that what you're saying?

205

We're trying to band-aid again.

206

it's not the right price or it's just not a property they should have invested in at all.

207

Or they bid off more than they can chew financially.

208

Because, I mean, what happens if the HVAC goes out and you have to spend 11 grand?

209

Do you have resources available to take care of the property?

210

So good property managers will ask questions like this and they say, if you don't, you

should sell this now.

211

Like you should get out of it.

212

Because one of these things happen, you'll be upside down, you'll be in a difficult

situation.

213

So, know, good property managers will help you assess your position as an investor to

figure out, are you in a good position?

214

If not, then maybe you need to get out of that property and get into something that makes

more sense for what your goals are.

215

But that's where, you know, finding a good property manager first is better than finding a

property first, for sure.

216

I think the biggest mistake investors make is to not

217

get a property manager.

218

It's probably one of the biggest mistakes because they want to have a turnkey investment.

219

They want to make money passively, passive real estate income, but it's not passive if

you're a manager, if you're doing it yourself.

220

I don't know if I saw it on your website or it might have been in the email that was sent

over, but you made the statement that, you know, why property management is the real path

221

to passive income in real estate.

222

Is that what you're referring to there with that line?

223

Yeah, because if you have somebody that you trust as a partner to take care of the asset

and make sure that it's cash flowing and make sure that people are paying rent and make

224

sure that maintenance being done and make sure it's getting leased and marketed and all

this stuff, and you're not having to do all of that, then yeah, if you have a good

225

partner, then it becomes a passive investment.

226

But otherwise, you have to do all that stuff.

227

It's not passive at all.

228

It's very active.

229

A lot of investors, once they hit four units, they realize they have a new part-time job.

230

I would imagine too that I don't and I think this is really under looked is the fact that

a good partnership with a property manager could also generate some of your best leads for

231

acquiring additional properties.

232

Yeah, so property managers have direct access to off-market deals.

233

This is one of the great secrets.

234

Like if you are an investor and you want to get access to the best off-market deals, you

might want to consider if you're already managing a decent sized portfolio, you basically

235

already have a management company that you've built.

236

And you may want to start doing a third party because it's going to feed you a lot of

deals.

237

So I'll give you an example.

238

I've got a client right now.

239

He has, I think, somewhere around 300 units.

240

but he owns all of them.

241

Now he advertises that he does third party management, but when people come to him for

management, he basically has conversations with them about the long term, about them

242

cashing out eventually and the tax implications connected to that.

243

And then he says, well, what if there was a way you could avoid the tax implications?

244

And he convinces them to do seller financing deals with them.

245

And so he uses his property management business as third party, as a honeypot to just get

more ownership of property.

246

And so there's creative opportunities like that.

247

There's, know, property managers can put together syndication deals sometimes.

248

You know, we've got a GallinR program that's working on a multimillion dollar fund in

Florida and getting investors, you know.

249

And so property managers have access to a lot of off-market deals.

250

And if they have an owner that's selling a property, it's totally in their best interest

to get one of their other owners to buy that property.

251

And so if they have a deal that's there's like, yeah, I want to cash out of this, no

problem.

252

They're going to put it out to their list, their audience.

253

And some property managers, especially if they've been listening to me, there's systems

for this that get you access to a network of property management companies with these off

254

market deals because the property manager listed on these networks because they want to

keep the property management, even if the owners change hands.

255

m Yeah.

256

so yeah, there's an opportunity.

257

So if you're one of those investors and you're connected to the network through your

property manager, then yeah, you get access to off market deals.

258

Those are the best deals.

259

Sure.

260

But you know, I would imagine, like, I'd like to cover a couple things.

261

One of them is the economy right now.

262

You know, with, we do some house flipping, and, uh you know, the market is soft for that

type of thing.

263

Are you seeing the inverse when it comes to rental properties right now?

264

are you seeing a lot of activity there?

265

Like, tell me what the economy impacts.

266

I mean, just in the last couple of weeks, I've been hearing, this is very anecdotal, but

I'm hearing from a lot of clients and property management business owners that they're

267

having trouble getting things rented lately.

268

That, you know, people are just, and this is probably partially just because of the

season, you know, we're going into the fall a little bit, but it seems to be a bit more

269

dramatic than normal.

270

People are noticing property sit on the market longer.

271

people are maybe tightening their belts, I don't know.

272

Then you've got markets like Florida where some properties are just, it's really difficult

for them to cash flow because rent amounts have either dropped or they're just, yeah,

273

they're just, there's so much inventory.

274

And, but for the investors, the conversations that my property management business owner

clients are having with these investors is even if you're not cash flowing,

275

for a little while on your property or maybe even for several years, in the long run, it's

still a good investment.

276

It still is going to make you money.

277

Real estate's a pretty stable bet.

278

But some people don't want to be floating a little bit of cash flow each month.

279

But it's worse if it's vacant.

280

so sometimes the owner's like, I'm not going to drop rent down.

281

I want cash flow.

282

But sometimes you have to be willing to take that hit to win in the long run in some

markets right now.

283

Yeah, this was a number of years ago, but I was even seeing, you know, people a few years

ago, making all kinds of incentives, you know, TVs and what have you to get people into

284

into these into apartments.

285

It just goes, it just goes against the whole housing crisis situation that we keep hearing

about.

286

When you're saying that there's there's not a lot of movement there.

287

Yeah, mean, yeah, I think it's just difficult.

288

think that you've got these big organizations like BlackRock that own massive amounts of

properties that are not even on the market to be rented.

289

They're just sitting on them in some instances.

290

the whole market can be a bit crazy.

291

And when the real estate market shifts,

292

Property management generally is always stable because people still need help, but it may

be time to sell and get rid of some assets and then reinvest later.

293

And a good property manager can help you kind of assess that and figure out, does this

make sense to keep this now or should I finally get this thing sold?

294

And you might be in a position like in some areas where...

295

the market's not really favorable for selling, you may have to hold on to that asset for a

while and you may have to take less rent than you want to get.

296

And that's part of the gamble of doing investing.

297

yeah.

298

And it's been good for a lot of years.

299

Like there's a lot of people that were doing really well for a while.

300

So.

301

Technology has really been advancing rapidly just in general.

302

What have you been seeing over the past few years, or what do you see on the horizon

regarding tools and operations?

303

Well, all right.

304

So we're in the middle of this AI revolution right now.

305

And, um, it's pretty dramatic.

306

And just for perspective, like Google was in an antitrust lawsuit with the government, the

government dropped it because of chat GPT.

307

Like this is how significantly disruptive this is.

308

Like we've all come to like trust and rely on Google, but more people are searching and

asking questions on chat GPT now for a lot of things.

309

And so.

310

Everything's changing very rapidly.

311

Everything's speeding up.

312

The people that are at the forefront of this are making a lot of money.

313

The savvy property management business owners are, there's a lot of AI tools and leverage

that's coming out.

314

know, like one of the sponsors of our pod, one of my podcast episodes was Vendaroo.

315

They do AI maintenance coordination.

316

And you know, you have to feed in.

317

a lot of data into it, but it's a property management maintenance coordinator that never

forgets and works 24 hours a day.

318

And it is consistent and it learns.

319

And so for those that are savvy, they're leveraging these tools, but the horizon looks a

little scary.

320

I've done a lot of AI stuff.

321

I've been really studying it.

322

I've been going to AI trainings.

323

I can see very quickly with the agent to gay I and some of the stuff that's coming out

that a lot of people are going to be losing jobs like massively.

324

I like you can already replace a lot of roles.

325

People just don't know how to do it yet or they're just not aware that it's possible.

326

But there's a lot of people that have no idea but their jobs already on it's already on

the chopping block and there's some big companies that are already rolling stuff out like

327

they're just replacing entire sales teams with AI callers.

328

They're like

329

crazy stuff.

330

so, yeah.

331

So it's gonna be interesting.

332

I think there's gonna be a lot of people making a lot of money initially and there's

probably gonna be a big bubble burst.

333

maybe bigger than the dot com.

334

Yeah, it has been kind of interesting to watch.

335

I've unfortunately have seen that AI is kind of the hammer and everything's a nail right

now.

336

We're just shoving it and everything and hoping something sticks.

337

Yeah, Yeah, and I think human interaction is going to be a premium thing.

338

It's going to be valued even more.

339

Reality is going to be valued even more because there's so much fake now.

340

Like, I don't know if you've seen all these Sora videos that are just flooding Facebook

right now.

341

They're absolutely ridiculous.

342

It's like we just amplified garbage videos like 100x, you know, and but it's it's this is

the worst it'll ever be.

343

and it's just gonna get better.

344

this lends more credence to the fake internet theory where they say like half of all

traffic is just bots.

345

It's probably way higher now that there's AI.

346

And so we're living in this world where I think in-person interaction is going to be way

more valued and we're actually gonna start shifting towards valuing human connection more.

347

Leaning into you, you mentioned there's going to be a bubble that bursts here.

348

One of them I just don't think people like the general public understands is the fact that

the amount of compute and electricity and power, you know, we give CHAT GPT $20 a month.

349

They're losing on that at this point.

350

There's no way that they're making enough to pay for the just the compute for some of

that.

351

Yeah, there's a race right now for nuclear power.

352

And like I was just at an event and the CTO of a company called Allo that's here in

Austin, they're making like micro nuclear power plants that are pre-built that they can

353

deploy and ship that can power data centers or power things.

354

the biggest, and then I met, I was hanging out with a entrepreneur who runs a company that

he's very connected to.

355

all the data centers, he's, they do all the testing of all the equipment and maintaining

all the equipment in data centers.

356

And he says, anytime a data center pops up, there's already 200 plus companies in a

waiting list.

357

Like it's just that want access to it.

358

There's not enough data centers.

359

And the biggest constraint for data centers is power.

360

There's just not enough power.

361

And so I think we'll see somebody's going to crack this code because there's so much money

to be made and so many people focus on it.

362

But

363

it's probably gonna have to be something big like nuclear power to supply a lot of power

with not a lot of space.

364

And we just don't have the ability here in the US to deploy large nuclear power plants.

365

We've done it so rarely, there isn't an infrastructure for it.

366

So that's gonna be pretty wild to see who cracks the power code, because this is the

biggest constraint.

367

Yeah.

368

So, you know, and I know this is kind of an odd uh question to ask towards the end here,

but for those people that are managing their own properties, do you have any low hanging

369

fruits for them to make things a little easier other than hiring a project and property

manager?

370

I mean, that would be the obvious thing, because no matter how good you get at it how many

tools you think you can afford with your little portfolio, a property manager can beat

371

you, especially if they have a much larger portfolio.

372

They have easier access to tools.

373

They have much more leverage.

374

They know landlord-tenant law probably way better than you.

375

I mean, they're going to eviction courts when necessary.

376

Like, they understand how this all works.

377

And so by not leveraging that, I think people are making

378

a very risky mistake, a lot of times legally.

379

But if you're wanting, there's plenty of tools out there that you could leverage to help

facilitate your investments, but you're basically starting a property management business.

380

You're doing it yourself.

381

There's nothing wrong with the DIY route.

382

You know, if you want to get a property management business started, then you're going to

need to find a really good system, a good system for collecting rent online, a good system

383

for giving tenants a portal to go to.

384

you know, good system for, you know, manage maintenance coordination and there's plenty of

systems and tools out there.

385

It's just difficult to leverage those when you have like less than 50 units, for example.

386

And if you already have 100 units and you're managing and it makes sense for you to get

some of this leverage, some of these tools, you might as well start doing it third party

387

and get access to deals.

388

Like if you really want to expand, this is going to bring in more revenue.

389

give you the ability to get more tools and more leverage and hire people to do this so you

don't have to.

390

And so if you get, if you hit that situation as an investor, reach out to DoorGrow, we'll

help you get your business going and help you get to market, you know, to third party if

391

you want to do that.

392

But, so that'd be, that'd be my advice to, to investors is there's plenty of tech and

tools, but this is a people business and it's going to be difficult.

393

Maybe with AI you can create a little bit more leverage than you used to, but

394

there's still a lot of negotiation and conversation that has to happen in property

management.

395

And I don't know that that's gonna go away anytime soon.

396

Well, Jason, this has been a fantastic conversation.

397

Again, remind everybody check out door grow.com for more information there.

398

Check out the podcast.

399

And uh before we jump into the rapid fire, is there anything else we should have tried to

hit on here today?

400

No, I mean you mentioned you're closely connected with processes and so I'll share a quick

tip that we share with our clients about processes.

401

You know, I saw this pattern in my own business.

402

We identified there's three levels of process systems in a business and the first level,

level one is just documentation.

403

Problem with documentation though, nobody looks at it.

404

It's like the owner's manual in the glove box of your car, right?

405

And so over time processes actually devolve away from the actual what's in the manual.

406

And the level two we started then is I call checklist.

407

This is where you something like process street or a sauna or Monday or some sort of

system where people have to do the process and mark that they've done it.

408

And so I call that checklist.

409

Level three is visual workflow.

410

And so this is where you have flow charts.

411

You're actually working through a process.

412

The challenge with checklists is that checklists are linear and

413

most processes in property management are not actually step one, step two.

414

It's like a decision.

415

Do they have pets?

416

Do they have this?

417

Like in property management especially.

418

And there's concurrent things that are happening at the same time.

419

And so this is where being able to build out your process in a flow chart and leverage

that.

420

And so there's tools like Flusos, F-L-U-S-S-O-S I believe, and stuff like that.

421

that we use at DoorGro to manage our processes that makes it easy for our team to

understand the process visually, even if it's really complex, and it makes it easy for

422

them to edit it.

423

So I don't have to be the resident nerd building logic in something like Process Street

where it's hiding and showing steps and then people skip steps on checklists.

424

And so that's a little tip I'll give on process and systemization.

425

I appreciate that way.

426

Great way to end out that episode.

427

Again.

428

uh Well, if you're ready, Jason, we'll jump into the rapid fire and close out this

episode.

429

Let's go, Jack.

430

What lie do real estate investors often tell themselves?

431

Ooh, I will save money by doing it myself.

432

I think the slowest path to growth in business and life is to do it alone.

433

If you could go back in time and give your younger self a piece of advice, what would it

be?

434

There is so much I would love to tell my younger self, so much.

435

One big piece of advice, yeah, I think it would be to focus on investing in myself.

436

and stop trying to please everybody else so much.

437

Do you have a book recommendation, or what are you reading right now?

438

I am always reading many books, but I think a really great book that would be beneficial

for anybody is Learning to Be Better at Sales.

439

And I think one of the best books I've read about sales maybe ever, I don't think it's

even a well-written book, but the things it teaches is really good.

440

And it's The New Model of Selling by Jeremy Minor.

441

And I believe since the pandemic.

442

and everything that's gone on politically, we're in what a lot of people are calling the

post trust era and people trust is at an all time low and sales and deals happen at the

443

speed of trust.

444

I often say and people don't trust salespeople.

445

People don't trust pushy manipulation.

446

All the old sales tactics I think are now out the window and there's this new model of

selling that's question based that's empathetic that allows the person to figure out what

447

they need and what they want by you asking really good questions.

448

And Jeremy Minor, think, is at the forefront of this with his NEPQ model and his book

gives away a lot of really great info and it shows the difference between old model ways

449

of doing things and the new model way of doing things.

450

So it makes it really obvious and clear.

451

Yeah, when you mentioned that, was like, I've seen that somewhere.

452

I think I keep getting Facebook ads for that book.

453

He's not that book.

454

That book's on Amazon.

455

You can go get it.

456

He's always pushing his NEPQ book or whatever.

457

Yeah, but yeah, it's yeah, that book's really good.

458

I like flipping it open, reading the scripts from time to time and coaching my sales team

on it.

459

So.

460

And then finally, what single process or tool have you implemented that has had the

biggest time-saving impact?

461

Ooh, biggest time saving impact.

462

I use a lot of tools, so that's difficult.

463

I think the easy answer everybody should be saying right now is like AI.

464

So my favorite tool right now in AI is actually called Poppy.

465

I think the website's getpoppy.ai or something like this, but Poppy.

466

The challenge with AI, if you're feeding lots of input, it becomes difficult to manage and

know what's being fed into it and trying to get the right output.

467

So Poppy is like a whiteboard that you can drag and drop visually objects into, like text

documents and YouTube videos.

468

And then you can drag and connect little lines of chats, almost like a flow chart to a

chat box.

469

And you can then pick which AI model, like Claude.

470

I love working with Claude, for example.

471

or chat GPT or whatever.

472

You can pick the model and then you can interact with that.

473

And so I've used that to write books, I've used that to write playbooks for clients, and

I'm just dragging and dropping in videos of trainings I've done, stuff that I've created,

474

and I'm able to then leverage it very quickly.

475

And so it allows...

476

That's the challenge I think is that when everything is just text, it becomes very

difficult mentally to manage, especially if there's a lot of pieces going into something.

477

so Poppy, the Poppy AI tool is pretty, pretty nice.

478

I really like it.

479

Well, Jason, this has been fantastic.

480

One more time, you can learn more at door grow.com.

481

That's going to be a clickable link in the show notes, but hope you'll be back sooner than

five years this time.

482

Yeah, absolutely.