Property Management Growth with DoorGrow

DGS 336: A capital partner to enable your growth

In this episode, Jason sat down with Brian Seidensticker of Mount North Capital to unpack one of the biggest growth constraints property management business owners face: access to capital at the exact moment opportunity appears. In today's show of the #DoorGrowShow, property management growth expert Jason Hull and investor Brian Seidensticker discuss how strategic funding partnerships work, what makes an ideal market and operator, and how property managers can scale faster by combining capital, systems, and the right long-term investment mindset. You'll Learn (05:01) How Mount North Capital helps property management firms with funding: This is the heart of the episode: what they actually do and why it matters. (06:26) Partnership models for property managers and investors: Defines the structure of the opportunity, how both sides work together. (08:45) The win-win scenario for property managers and investors: The philosophy behind the model; why this isn't just financing, but alignment. (09:58) Ideal property management partners and market criteria: Who this is really for, and who it isn't. (11:19) Market selection and geographic focus for investments: Critical filter: where this strategy works in reality. (12:48) The importance of systems and scaling in property management: Without this, everything else breaks. This is the operational truth. (14:29) Overcoming growth ceilings with the right mindset and resources: The deeper constraint isn't capital, it's capability and mindset. (16:39) Evaluating deals in secondary and tertiary markets: Where the actual opportunity lives, beyond obvious markets. (19:17) Advice for property managers ready to grow: The moment where theory turns into direction. (21:46) Partnership requirements and collaboration with DoorGrow: The non-negotiables, this sets the bar for entry into the model. Quotables "The reality is most would never even if they knew what you were doing, most wouldn't even do it. Like most people don't implement. That's just reality in life." "The best scenario for property managers is to manage their own portfolio." "One of my requirements is we do want to scale on a significant level." Resources DoorGrow and Scale Mastermind [https://www.doorgrowacademy.com/courses/mastermind] DoorGrow Academy [https://www.doorgrowacademy.com/] DoorGrow on YouTube [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCC1mGYT2Sw0LOe32hO_QdNg/featured] DoorGrowClub [https://doorgrow.com/] DoorGrowLive [https://doorgrowlive.com/] Transcript Jason Hull (00:01) 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. 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 businesses, the business owners, and change their lives. 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 today's episode, our guest is Brian Seidensticker of Mount North Capital. We're going to talk about one of the biggest challenges property management entrepreneurs face having access to capital at the exact moment opportunity strikes. So If you've ever been presented with an incredible acquisition expansion opportunity or growth moment and you wish you had immediate access to funds to confidently move forward, we're going to unpack that today. And that's what we're going to chat about. So welcome to the show, Brian. Brian Seidensticker (01:18) Thanks Jason. Thanks for having me. Thanks having me back, right? Jason Hull (01:21) Yeah. Yes, it's good to have you. So cool. So let's get into let's get into this. So ⁓ let's give everybody a little bit of background first. And ⁓ what what you know, what do people need to know about Brian that have listened to this? This is the first episode first time. Brian Seidensticker (01:47) Well, think maybe a brief history of ⁓ how myself and we, which is ⁓ Mountain with Capital, came to be. I'm actually an engineer by trade and I'd say in a different life, Jason, I would be reaching out to you for help on how to figure out this business that I randomly went off and ⁓ created and then found myself eight years later going, man, this is outgrown my capabilities. What do I do? ⁓ I got a similar help in the form of a group that I joined called Entrepreneurs Organization. And it's been transforming, getting that help from somebody that knows how to take what you build to the next level. So. As part of that, really what we ended up doing is we went from a data software company that had reached a ceiling. We had a really unique data set and then we built a fund, is Mountain with Capital, around the ability or really the model of using that data and acquiring assets in certain markets where we felt with this analytics, we could buy properties that have really great discount, right? Using, you know, not only the platform, but then the style of auctions that we attend. But a key component of that was the partners that we worked with, right? And still work with today. And we were very successful in building partnerships with boots on the ground and folks that knew what to do with these properties. Because we, A, we had a great way of identifying and we had the capital available to acquire those assets, right? At the time, these are auctions that Jason Hull (03:28) . Brian Seidensticker (03:28) that required cash, right? And that's the hard part. And it worked out really well. We went from, you know, a million dollar, you know, proof of concept fund. Last month, we were about 58 million of assets under management. And so it's, it's been great, but it certainly has also uncovered other opportunities for us along the way. The typical partner that we work with is kind of a fix and flip strategy, right? But Jason Hull (03:47) Hmm. Yeah. Brian Seidensticker (03:55) we felt a lot of the opportunities that we were seeing is much more in the, I'll say fixed to buying rent, right? It was the long-term hold strategy where we had an excellent avenue of acquiring, right, and getting them there, right? But what we were looking for and lacked is really the property managers that we want to partner with in those areas. our I don't want to give away all of the special sauce or we can dive into the details, but that's really what's led us to where we're at today is we're kind of at this pivot point and we've built a couple relationships with great partners in a couple markets and now we're wanting to grow that, right, and find more partners in more markets. Jason Hull (04:40) Yeah, we want all the special sauce, Brian. Give it to us. I'm just kidding. So, I mean, the reality is most would never even if they knew what you were doing, most wouldn't even do it. Like most people don't implement. That's just reality in life. Right. Like a lot of people like what's how's door grow helping people grow? I'll tell you, I give away free videos that teach you like what we do. But until they join our program, they find it difficult or hard to figure stuff out on their own. They just they don't do it. So. So awesome. So Brian, obviously you believe in mentorship and coaching and you've gotten, you you have had resources that have helped you get to where you're at now. So let's get into the topic at hand. So let's unpack. How is Mountain North Capital helping property management business owners unlock strategic funding solutions that fuel growth, right? Like, how do we do this? Brian Seidensticker (05:37) Yeah, I think, you know, kind of thinking out loud here a little bit, right? But, you know, I'll, I'm a big fan of, you know, it sound cliche, like win-win, right? Is we're not sick. We're not a bank, right? It's like, Hey, I got a better rate than you do. And we're not in it, you know, purely for ourselves. And so everything we go into, we, we look at it as a partnership, right? But it also has to make sense for the folks that we're going to partner with. And so, you know, Really what we are looking for are, and the partnerships that we found to be very successful are scenarios where ⁓ if there's a property manager or I guess a property manager that will. maybe wants to get into the business, You know, an aspiring property manager, if you will. ⁓ And they have access to a, you know, either it's a deal or a market or a ⁓ portfolio, right? Where maybe they don't have the ability to take that down themselves, right? because I know full well, right? Why would you partner with somebody? you know, for the capital access, if you have the ability to buy it yourself, it always makes sense to buy it yourself, right? And so really what we're looking for are folks that maybe have, you know, scenarios or deals that come across, right, that would allow them to grow their portfolio that they're managing, right, grow their business, right? ⁓ Especially if they think of it as a business, ⁓ but maybe don't necessarily have the capital stack that allow them to to pursue that to its fullest, then we might be a partner, and it is a partner partnership, to help them grow that business really with a different tool in their belt than they maybe have ever had before. And that's really, know, when we were talking with, I'll say potential partners, you know, on this concept initially was, hey, we were only interested in the acquisition and the you know, get it ready for rent. then Mount Norris typical model was let's refinance or sell it out. Let's get it out. We get out of the fund as quickly as possible. And we had success in doing that. But a lot of times, you know, the partners that we're working with, we really, they wanted to build, do that, but they wanted to keep it in their portfolio, make it a rental, right? Hold it for the longterm. ⁓ And so it was like a partial solution for them. And we, I guess, went out on a limb and built a structure with a couple of them that Jason Hull (08:10) Thank Brian Seidensticker (08:11) that it took it beyond just that initial acquisition and they'll say fix and flip stage to a, okay, now we've got another tool that we can bring to the table from our end, a new fund that allows us to take on those assets for the long term. And so we can partner with you beyond just that acquisition and disposition. it's so far has been, you ⁓ I'll say immensely ⁓ rewarding, right? But it's still early, right? And we're definitely in the growth phase. And so it's an exciting adventure to embark on. Jason Hull (08:43) Yeah, I see it as this awesome win-win. There's three sort of challenges. One, there needs to be somebody with capital to deploy. There needs to be a really good property manager. But most property managers aren't good. Most suck. And then we need somebody maybe to help bring those together, door grow, and help those property managers be good. And so I'm excited to maybe find you some... Brian Seidensticker (08:59) you Exactly. Jason Hull (09:13) connect some of our potential clients, because this might be a way that our clients can grow their portfolios, maybe even have some ownership stake in some of these investments. And you bring your capital and stuff to the table, they're able to add value by making sure the properties are managed well. And then DoorGrow, we're able to help them be able to do that so that they are able to not be a sucky property management company and that they're able to continually grow out the other arm of their portfolio. with their direct third party owners, but the best properties for property managers to manage that make the most sense would be their own. It would be something they have some sort of ownership stake in. ⁓ We've got a client, we've got a client in our program and he basically uses his property management business as a honey potter, flight, flight trapper, whatever you want to call it to just like people look at it and go, ⁓ he offers property management and they reach out to him and he convinces them to. Brian Seidensticker (09:52) Exactly. Jason Hull (10:14) sell him their properties and then he manages those. So which is some most of the portfolio he has ownership stake in. He just works deals out, you know. And so a lot of property managers leave a lot of money on the table because they're not even focused on building their own portfolio. They're helping just manage other people's portfolios. Brian Seidensticker (10:33) Right. Right. And I think that's you're exactly right. I think the best scenario for property managers is to manage their own portfolio. Right. And I think what we can allow, you know, property managers, partners, right, to do is think of acquisitions, you know, maybe where they didn't feel like that was an opportunity before. And so, you know, one recent example was a property manager working with in Mississippi who had an amazing opportunity to buy a couple of large multifamily buildings. And ⁓ she is a fantastic property manager, but didn't necessarily have all of the requirements that the bank wanted to see in order to take down underperforming. ⁓ One needed a full remodel, but the end goal is going to be a fantastic ⁓ asset to work on and to manage in the long run. And so we were able to partner on that. so That's like the perfect scenario that we're looking for is when somebody that is familiar with their market and familiar with the portfolios that are out there for sale or familiar with that, we want to be looked at as a partner that can help them either A, keep assets they already have under management, maybe moving from an owner that wants to sell and keep them in house, right? it makes sense. Maybe acquire assets in a little larger Jason Hull (11:32) Yeah. Brian Seidensticker (11:56) size than maybe they would typically be qualified for, right? The single family home is very different than a 44 unit multifamily, right? But the management of those two isn't wildly different, right? It just, the bank doesn't see, you know, the sponsor, right? And all the requirements the bank requires is wildly different, right? As far as the equity that you need to bring to the table. And those are the scenarios where it truly, I think, can be that win-win. Jason Hull (12:07) Yeah. Brian Seidensticker (12:25) Um, and, you know, long story short, Jason, that's exactly what we're looking for. Jason Hull (12:31) Awesome. So I think a question for those listening, because, you know, I love the story of the example you gave. Excuse my voice. I love that example. You know, we see it all the time. Property managers get big portfolios from some investor or they get an opportunity to get into a property in this scenario. They don't have the money to do it. So they have a partner like you that has access to capital. But then the next step is they need systems. And a lot of times they don't have the systems to be able to handle that level of growth. taking on another hundred units, another 200 units, like this starts to break some things in the business. So they're like, man, I need systems for hiring. I need systems for planning. I need systems for processes. And so at DoorGrowth, if you're listening and you want to grow fast, like we built a program around that called the Super System. those three systems, people planning a process. And when we get those things really well built out, those businesses become what I call infinitely scalable. So then they can work with somebody like you and just go crazy. They could just add lots of business, lots of doors, build things out. And if they're, if they're building equity as they're doing this, if they're taking ownership stake in this, that's even better. And so they're bringing deals to the table. You're bringing money to the table. Now, sometimes you're bringing money and a deal. It sounds like, but you need a property manager. Brian Seidensticker (14:00) Yes, right. that's the yes, there are certainly scenarios where we have assets we'd like to move into this model. And so having those ready made, hey, you know, we're looking for the partner, right, to take that that portfolio to the next level, right or next phase. But we're not just looking for any property manager to your exact point. And I think maybe Jason Hull (14:01) Thank Brian Seidensticker (14:23) speaking to the wrong audience, because I think anybody listening to this is already in the right mindset because they are thinking about how to grow. their business and how to learn, right, and how to have the right mindset, right? But a lot of problem managers out there, quite frankly, don't have that right mindset. And, you when you and I were speaking offline, Jason, it was like so many light bulbs were going off. And, you know, this was such a perfect scenario where, you know, for somebody to grow, they need lots of things, right? Capital is one, right? And flexible partners, one, which we can bring. Jason Hull (14:38) Yeah. Brian Seidensticker (14:59) but they're going to inevitably like any business, they're going to inevitably hit a ceiling where they, you know, they, they're limited, right? A limited typically by time, right? And that time can be, you know, re gained right by, like you said, people systems and, Jason Hull (14:59) Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah, you buy time. Brian Seidensticker (15:17) Yeah, so it's a, how do you, but you need to, you need to be willing to implement those things in order to grow beyond that, you know, ceiling. And so it's having that right mindset. And I'd say most, if not everybody listening here already has what sounds like, you know, could be that mindset. ⁓ And that's where I thought I got really excited about how can we work more together with your, you your audience and your ⁓ really your members, the people that are implementing the systems that you have. That's the exact recipe that I feel like has such great potential for success. If you can't tell, I'm rather excited. Jason Hull (15:59) Yeah, I'm excited about it too because all of our clients want to build their portfolios. They all want to build equity. They want to build ownership stake. They want investments. They usually believe in the vehicle of investing. Otherwise, why would they be selling property management, which is selling that vehicle? so, ⁓ yeah, so I think it's a solid win-win-win for all three parties. And I'm excited to connect you with clients that I think would be good fit. How do you decide markets that make sense for you? So if property managers come to you and like, Brian, like, I want to get more doors. Like, let's get let's let's do some deals together. What markets would you say no to? You're like, this doesn't make sense. We aren't going to deploy capital into that state or that area. Brian Seidensticker (16:46) Yeah, it's probably easier to paint the picture of the hard nos, right? And then ⁓ maybe back into the areas because the hard nos are, I'd say in the general, very sought after, grade A rentals and markets where everyone wants to be is probably not exact fit for what we're looking for, right? Or the partnerships we're looking for. Jason Hull (16:55) Yes, let's do that. Brian Seidensticker (17:11) So where where do I mean? I would say that it breaks off most of California, most of New York, right? Most, you know, I'd say, you know, hot markets of even like where I'm from, ⁓ which is Western Montana. Unfortunately, this stone. Sorry, the show Yellowstone has totally ruined the market there as far as things at a rate that you could make a decent rental income. Jason Hull (17:14) an example. Really? Brian Seidensticker (17:37) from, right? And those are the areas where it just doesn't quite make sense. Right. And I'm looking at it from both our and right. The property manager's perspective. There's got to be enough meat on the bone for everybody. But if it's in a, I'll say a secondary tertiary market, right. So maybe not Austin directly downtown, but maybe around Austin, right. Where you can, you can, you can have at least 20 or more units up and running within a 12 month period, which is a pretty wide net. Right. Jason Hull (17:38) Yeah. And yeah. Brian Seidensticker (18:07) But then you can also have enough rent to say, loosely 1 % of the value of the property as a gross rental amount. And you can fit those two requirements as far as growth potential and rental income potential. And you have a need or an opportunity that can turn into an amazing ⁓ long-term hold scenario. Jason Hull (18:18) Yeah. Brian Seidensticker (18:36) I say that only because it doesn't have to be existing cash flow. can, that multifamily unit I talked about, right? ⁓ It's actually two buildings and one of the buildings is entirely empty, right? That's what, right? When it's done and stabilized, it will be an amazing opportunity to hold, right, in the long term. So anybody that's listening that says, man, I'm in the right market. Yeah, I can get the rate you're talking about. And I see those type of deals all day long, right? That's exactly who we want to talk to. Jason Hull (18:48) Okay. about, you know, there's areas like Florida right now where like the people cannot their rent rate is now dipped below mortgage rates in areas. You know, it doesn't make sense cash flow wise, but long term, it still may make sense. Brian Seidensticker (19:22) Yeah, think it really depends, right? Because we do some work in Florida, but the acquisition has to be ⁓ special, right? And so I can't say a hard no on all instances, but in most cases, it's going to be very, very difficult. And the cases where it makes a lot of sense is typically those scenarios where there's a lot of urgency to an acquisition because Jason Hull (19:31) Yeah. Thank Brian Seidensticker (19:46) The deal is here today, but it's not going to be there in two weeks. Right. And we can come to the table and say, okay, right. If, the numbers make a lot of sense, sure. We can close in two weeks. That's one of the things that we bring to the table is that flexibility from a capital standpoint. So it can work in Florida, but it's not going to work as well as it does in some other areas of like in Georgia, right. Or Ohio or Michigan or Indiana or Texas. Jason Hull (19:57) you Brian Seidensticker (20:14) Those are some areas that we've done a lot of partnerships in and want to do more. Jason Hull (20:19) Okay. So let's let's have you say a message to everybody that's listening because there's a lot of property managers that might hear this. My message to them is look, if your business stuff isn't tight, if you operationally right now, your capacity without having to hire a bunch of people or build out new systems, your capacity right now is 200 doors. You could add into the business in a short time period. That's healthy. If it's a hundred, then that's okay. If you say, we can handle another 50 units, that's bad. And that could happen very fast. If you, if you start growing, if we start helping you grow, if you get a BDM, anything, so you need to fix some things. assuming there's people listening that have a decent or a healthy capacity right now to grow their business. What would you, what would be your mess? What would be your message to them? Like, Hey, if your area is like this, then let's have a conversation. Brian Seidensticker (20:55) Mm-hmm. Jason Hull (21:19) Maybe go talk to Dorgo and get cleaned up, like, let's have a conversation. Maybe we can do some deals. Brian Seidensticker (21:25) Well, one of my requirements is we do want to scale on a significant level. And so one of the things that I'm asking everybody is almost a requirement. You need to be signed up through DoorGrow or something similar and not trying to solve all of those scale problems yourselves. And so if you're listening right now and you are already on board with DoorGrow, great, reach out to us directly. If you're listening right now and you aren't Jason Hull (21:31) Mm-hmm. Brian Seidensticker (21:52) signed up for DoorGrowl, right, or something similar, then I would request, right, that you do that, or at least be planning to do that, because that's going to be one of our requirements. Just, you know, trying to be straight with everybody out there right now. Jason Hull (22:07) OK, I I'm not going to complain about that. That sounds cool. So then your existing partners that you had before you met DoorGrow, some of them are probably going to start running into some scaling issues because you've got capital and you keep throwing property at them. So then maybe the idea is where DoorGrow is going to start helping them with some of that stuff then potentially. Brian Seidensticker (22:11) Hahaha! Oh, yeah, absolutely. And I'm not kidding where it's going to be a requirement where all of our property managers that we're working with are working with DoorGrow or something. don't even know if there's anything even remotely close to what DoorGrow provides, but they have to have some solution of enabling and helping them. The only one that comes to mind would be like a YPO, which is usually really large organizations or an EO, entrepreneurs organization that provide. Jason Hull (22:44) Yeah, I don't know either. Yeah. Brian Seidensticker (22:57) resources that help you get beyond. if you have none of that, you're going to, and I'm just speaking from experience, right? I didn't have that. Um, and that ceiling that stood there for almost four or five years felt impossible to break through unless you have those, those, um, those resources available to you. Um, and so it may sound, you know, like a weird requirement, but, uh, trust me, we're, we're both going to be a lot happier in that. Jason Hull (23:16) Yeah. Brian Seidensticker (23:25) partnership if you're willing to take that leap and make that a part of our joint plan going forward. Jason Hull (23:33) Yeah, I'm not the only property management coach out there. I think I'm biased, but I'm the best ⁓ and our company is the best. Sarah, my wife, also amazing. Like we're the best, I think, in the world. And you don't have to work with DoorGro, but you got to work with somebody. I agree. I was that guy that thought I knew everything in the beginning, trying to get my business to grow, struggling, struggling to pay team members, struggling to make cash flow. Like, you know, that's early stage entrepreneurism. And eventually I realized, ⁓ I could go a lot faster with a mentor in any money I spent on a decent mentor. I made back 10 times that usually. So it was like the eventually became the biggest no brainer ever. I'm like, let's spend six figures on coaches and mentors annually. Like, let's just, if we make a little bit of progress and it feeds my addiction to learning. you know, so I've always got multiple coaches and mentors going at any given time and. And yeah, I love learning, but it also allows me to be able to facilitate and turn around and benefit others, which I also just really love and enjoy doing. OK, so let's say you've got some people that are their business is ready to grow. They've got the things to scale ⁓ and they think their market has growth potential and income potential. Then ⁓ then those. That's the ideal. You want those people to reach out and everyone's going to start making some money together. Brian Seidensticker (25:05) Yes, exactly. Right. So if you're again, you know, if you're listening to this, you probably already have that right mindset. So you're partially already there. Right. If you've got a market that you feel meets those rough requirements that I laid out, if you already are planning to engage, you know, door grow or some similar organization that you've found on your own and you can check those three boxes, then ⁓ Yeah, you can check us out. can go to lastbestpartners.com, but reach out through that contact page and just mention, saw Brian on Jason's podcast. I'd like to talk to him more. That would be fantastic. Jason Hull (25:46) So let's make this crystal clear for those that maybe they're newer, that maybe they are just property managers. They're not super seasoned in investments. Explain just one more time, what are you looking for market wise? Brian Seidensticker (26:00) So there needs to be the potential, right, within 12 months of getting to 20 or more units, right? There's really no maximum. ⁓ In one market, we've got... Jason Hull (26:11) This is just like new construction builds is kind what you're talking about or. Brian Seidensticker (26:15) Well, we've done new construction in some markets, right? We've done full remodels and others, right? We've bought ⁓ existing cash flowing, know, multifamily distressed assets, right? Meaning that, you know, the seller was in a very distressed state. We've done all three of those. And so ⁓ you don't have to have a very specific model. are, you know, our requirements are the cash flow. peace, right? The, the mindset piece, right? And that ultimately when we leave the conversation, we both feel like it's going to be a win-win partnership because the, the hard, I it's not a requirement, right? But the hard thing to express here, right? Or say you're definitely in is it really comes down to, ⁓ we look at a partnership. It's just like a marriage, right? ⁓ you really need to both have a lot of comfort going into that because, ⁓ breaking up a partnership is as painful, if not more painful in some cases than a divorce, right? ⁓ And so we're definitely gonna be able to get to that conclusion right after we meet and talk through some stuff. ⁓ And so if you're listening right now and you're like, don't know if I like this guy, Brian, well, chances of us getting along the long run probably ⁓ minimal. But if you're, hey, I kinda like what Brian's listed, he sounds like a reasonable guy, I'm a reasonable person too. We should chat, right? Then that's exactly who we want to talk to. Jason Hull (27:45) Got it. So worst case scenario, if you're listening to this, you're a property management business owner. You would like to get a bunch of doors fed to you, but not just doors for you to manage. You'll get that and you'll be, you you're not managing for free. You're going to get man management, but you want to get investments. Like you want to build equity and, whatever. Then, ⁓ this may, it may be worth talking to Brian, having a conversation and, ⁓ and then. You know, if you're listening to this and you're struggling in your business, you like want to have capacity, you're getting your burnt out currently, you want systems, you want to figure out growth, which is not a hard problem to figure out and just getting some doors locally, third party or whatnot, then reach out to reach out to us at DoorGrowth. So how can they reach you, Brian? Brian Seidensticker (28:36) Well, the easiest thing is go to lastbestpartners.com. There's a contact link there. Reach out. It goes to me and my right-hand person. So you'll be speaking to one of the two people that you eventually talk to anyway. And that way, you'll get a reply as quick as possible. Jason Hull (28:57) Awesome. Cool. Anything else you wanted to add before we wrap up? Brian Seidensticker (29:01) No, I guess, you know, on the on the topic of what are we not looking for? So if you're if you're listening right now and you're like, you know, I might be able to use them, but I got I got capital. I don't need them. I am at five hundred units. You know, why would I want to then don't. Jason Hull (29:06) Yeah. Brian Seidensticker (29:19) It's fine, right? You've got the running solution. That's not the type of partnership that I think will be successful for both of us. And so kudos to those that have got to that point. ⁓ But I guess no need to reach out to us to try and find something that may not be there. Jason Hull (29:39) Got it, yeah, awesome. Cool, well anybody listening, if you've ever felt stuck or stagnant, you wanna take your business to next level, check us out at doorgrow.com. For a free training on how to get unlimited leads for free, text the word leads to 512-648-4608. Also join our free Facebook community just for property management business owners by going to doorgrowclub.com. And if you want tips, tricks, ideas, and to learn about our offers, subscribe to our newsletter by going to doorgrow.com slash subscribe. And if you found this even a little bit helpful, don't forget to subscribe on whatever channel you saw this on and leave us a review. We would really appreciate it. And until next time, remember the slowest path to growth is to do it alone. So let's grow together. Bye, everyone.

DGS 335: Mission, Clarity, and Leadership Under Pressure

When building a business, have you ever felt like working harder should be the answer, but the more you push, the more exhausted, misaligned, or stuck you become? In this episode of the #DoorGrowShow, Jason Hull sits down with Sean Patton, former U.S. Army Special Forces Commander, executive coach, and leadership speaker, to unpack what entrepreneurs can learn from military leadership, self-leadership, and mission-driven culture. They discuss the dangers of hustle without recovery, why so many business owners never learn to lead themselves, and how clarity of mission, roles, and outcomes can transform the way a team operates. Jason and Sean also explore why the military is far more collaborative than most people assume, how strong leaders facilitate input without losing ownership, and why mission dictates culture in both combat and business. Along the way, they dive into personal purpose, team alignment, trust in sales, and the mindset shifts required to build a business that creates both impact and freedom instead of burnout. You'll Learn (00:00) Introduction and Guest Background (01:15) Sean Patton's Military and Entrepreneurial Journey (04:16) Leadership in Difficult Situations: Military vs. Business (08:29) Dispelling Myths About Military Leadership (10:35) Collaborative Decision-Making in Special Forces (12:56) The Role of Extreme Ownership in Leadership (16:08) Culture as a Mission-Driven Concept (19:16) Aligning Mission, Culture, and Outcomes (20:51) The Power of Mission and Vision in Business (25:41) The Why Behind Business Success (29:24) The Entrepreneurial Hierarchy of Needs (35:19) Applying Military Clarity to Business Operations (37:31) The Importance of Clear Roles and Responsibilities (41:37) Closing Remarks and Contact Information Quotables "Leadership isn't a title, it's a person you become." "Sometimes the loudest voice in the room isn't the smartest voice in the room." "Mission dictates culture." Resources DoorGrow and Scale Mastermind [https://www.doorgrowacademy.com/courses/mastermind] DoorGrow Academy [https://www.doorgrowacademy.com/] DoorGrow on YouTube [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCC1mGYT2Sw0LOe32hO_QdNg/featured] DoorGrowClub [https://doorgrow.com/] DoorGrowLive [https://doorgrowlive.com/] Transcript Jason Hull (00:01) Five, four, three, two, one. All right. Welcome everybody to the DoorGro show. I'm Jason Hull, the founder and CEO of DoorGro, 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 I have an awesome guest today. I'm hanging out here with Sean Patton. Welcome, Sean. I'm going to brag about you a little bit. Thanks for being here. Sean Patton (00:53) Yeah, alright, you go for it. Thanks for having me, man. Jason Hull (00:54) All right. All right. So Sean is a former U.S. Army Special Forces Commander, Meta Performance Executive Coach at Novus Global and a leadership keynote speaker. Sean helps leaders accomplish seemingly impossible and thrilling visions through transformation. This is your bio. As a former U.S. Army Special Forces Commander, Sean brings a rare combination of battlefield tested leadership, real world business ownership. and success back to human performance principles to every stage and coaching session. His work is grounded in one belief, leadership isn't a title, it's a person you become. As an ICF certified executive coach, host of the No Limit Leadership Podcast and author of A Warrior's Mindset, The Six Keys to Greatness. Awesome. Sean, so glad to have you here. Welcome to the show. Sean Patton (01:48) Thanks, man. I'm excited to be here. Jason Hull (01:50) Cool. So Sean, for those listening, I'd love for them to get a little bit of background on you. I gave a little bio, but tell them a little bit about how did you get into entrepreneurism? When did you wake up and go, hey, you know what? I'm an entrepreneur. Sean Patton (02:04) Well, it took a little bit. was maybe a little late to the game. I originally went from a small town in Kansas. I went to the United States Military Academy at West Point, graduated and then spent 10 years as an active duty officer in the army. So I was an infantry officer and then a special forces officer in the special forces group commanding two different Green Beret attachments. So it was a busy time. I feel like I crammed a lifetime of leadership lessons into those 14 years, right? Like West Point is most intense leadership training that our nation has. And then, you know, was a rifle platoon leader and sniper platoon leader in Iraq. Then I was an Afghanistan with my team. So I was doing really difficult things and complex things with elite performing teams. And, you know, despite all of that and 22 months in combat and 30 months to point overseas, I was never really the gun guy or the gear guy. Uh, it was all, it always about the people and the problems that we were solving. And so in 2015, a little before that, I decided that I was going to get out of the military in transition. And I just had this entrepreneurship itch that I wanted to scratch. Plus, you know, I want to check out with this freedom thing that I had been hearing about all these years was all about. And so I decided to try it and. Jason Hull (03:04) Yeah. Yeah. Sean Patton (03:31) It was a rocky start. I had a lot of, I think I had some strengths coming out of the military and those experiences, but also some real gaps. And one of them was a, I think my risk tolerance was so high from things I had been doing. then also Jason Hull (03:33) Yeah. Yeah. Sean Patton (03:59) The answer in the military so often, at least in the units I was in was when things got hard, right? When the, when the darkness came, when it seemed like the weight was unmanageable, the answer was just go harder. Like, you know, like the mission is going to end, you're going to redeploy, like you, know, the sun's going to come up, just keep going, keep going, keep going. And what I didn't appreciate was when you get into the entrepreneurship space is that in the military, even in those units, there was this like, Jason Hull (04:11) Okay, yeah. Yeah. Sean Patton (04:28) mechanism around us almost protecting us. Like they had honed us into this machine that could push ourselves to these extreme limits. But they told us when it was time to turn it off and when it was time to refit and when it was time to recover. And then I got in entrepreneur space and when things got difficult and you know, I made some really bad financial decisions which we can get into and all of that. I found myself with all of that weight with the only answer I had was just go harder. Jason Hull (04:52) Yeah. Yeah. Sean Patton (04:59) And so three years later, I was in the hospital ⁓ and I had stress hives and my appendix almost burst and all these health issues and going through my first bankruptcy or my only bankruptcy, but bankruptcy after three years. And so it was a rough start to the whole thing. I had to learn a lot of lessons about myself in that. Jason Hull (05:07) Wow. Yeah, yeah. And I think, you know, early stage entrepreneurism, there's some similar patterns I've noticed because, you know, I've talked to thousands of entrepreneurs. I've gone through this sort of journey. in the beginning, yeah, we do a lot of stupid stuff. Like we make mistakes and that's part of learning. You know, we believe weird things like I just like your first hire should be a clone of yourself. If I could just clone myself, I call it the clone myth. Like we believe like You know, we think we can do everything ourselves. it'd be cheaper if I just figure out how to do it myself. If I just read the right book, watch the right YouTube video. And so we do dumb stuff like we don't get support. We don't get help. We don't get mentors. like it. had to things had to get really hard before I started getting mentors, getting help, getting coaches, getting support. And I had to be humble, you know, before I was willing to do that. And. And yeah, and so I see, I see this, you know, a lot of people play out this journey and then early stage as an entrepreneur. Yeah. We're, we're, it's almost like the hustle's glamorized. And so we go through this process of like, I got a hustle. I got to work harder. That's what you do if you own a company, if you're a CEO, if you're a boss. And so you just burn yourself out. I remember I was at end of a sales call trying to wrap it up. I was in so much pain because I like I think I'd slipped some sort of disc or was bulging in my back. And I was like by the end of the call and doing this call, I was laying on the floor and I ended the call and I was like, and I was in so much pain. I wasn't able to work and had to lay down for like two weeks. Yeah. And then I realized because I hadn't been eating, I'd been just working. hadn't been sleeping. Sean Patton (07:04) my gosh. Jason Hull (07:11) very well, I'd been just working. I thought I just need to work harder, work faster. And I didn't realize that probably I was like probably operating at like 10 % of my effectiveness mentally. I was being stupid. And I thought, I just need to work harder, I gotta hustle. And I wasn't taking care of myself. And then that's when I realized, if I don't take care of my body, I don't have a vehicle to achieve stuff or to get results. And I'm not even really present. Sean Patton (07:23) Thank Jason Hull (07:40) when I'm there with people because I'm hungry and I'm tired and I'm I'm everywhere else and I haven't even produced the, or my brain hasn't had a chance to clean itself like it does every night. And I haven't gotten food to fuel my brain. I don't have all the chemicals my brain needs. I'm lacking dopamine and serotonin and GABA and like, I'm just, I'm an absolute mess, right? And I see people do this all the time, all the time. Sean Patton (08:05) It's so true. I, in my lens, how I look through that is through a leadership lens. And I learned in the military so many great things about leading others. And as I look back at it, what I had to learn in entrepreneurship, what you're kind of talking about is like, I never really had to master leading myself. Jason Hull (08:31) Yeah. Sean Patton (08:32) I never had to look at myself as like, how am going to lead myself? Cause the way you mentioned there, like I would never treat one of my soldiers or one of my employees or have an expectation of them the way I was, I was treating myself. And so it's like, how would you. Jason Hull (08:41) Yeah. Yeah, I wouldn't do I wouldn't I wouldn't push my spouse to be like this. I'd be like, hey, come on, clean more. Work harder. Do this. Right. Yeah. Then marriage would be over real fast. I wouldn't like I wouldn't do that to my kids. Come on, go. Yeah. But to ourselves, we can sometimes be a cruel leader. Right. Can you dispel a myth? Because, you know, I got I kind of got a sense of this. I've never been in the military. And God bless you. Thank you for your service. I appreciate that. Sean Patton (08:55) Yeah. Jason Hull (09:15) ⁓ but I've realized I've been listening to, ⁓ Chaka Willa, Willick and Leaf, whatever their, their book, ⁓ the dichotomy of leadership. And I had this belief that in the military, I think a lot of people maybe that haven't been involved in it have this perception. Military, just, you either give orders or you take orders. It's rigid. There's no thinking. You just were told what to do. And, ⁓ you know, I've kind of gotten a very different picture of that. that there's a lot of decisions and there's planning and know, this is lives are on the line and it's painted a very different picture. Can you just touch on that? Cause I think some people here, you've got this background in the military and to you, it's just, you know this stuff cause you had lived it. But for those that have never been in the military, what advantage did that give you in business and how is that different that maybe people perceive it? Sean Patton (10:09) It's a great question. I do think that there is this idea from either whether it's like movies about basic training or, you know, the, or, know, about like submarines. Yeah. You just shut up and go. Right. And, know, there is in basic training or when you're, I would say when you're being transformed from a free citizen to a soldier, there is a bit of a breaking down of Jason Hull (10:16) in movies. Yeah. You blindly follow and you're told what to do. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Sean Patton (10:39) some of that, that needs to come back. But then as you build that foundation of like, when it's time to go, I go ⁓ and I have some discipline and I can, can integrate with the unit, let's say. ⁓ Then you start getting more and more responsibility. And especially as you move up in the military, you become, I mean, it's not that long, like two or three years later, even the regular military, regular army, you're going to be a team leader. So you're going to be a leader. And a of those kids are like 20, 19, and they're in charge of three people. And so they're no longer just like, it would make no sense to have someone to stand here and like, what do I need to do? This is what need to do. ⁓ That's not, not, that wouldn't like, that doesn't work in a company and that wouldn't work in a unit. And so there needs to be input on each side. And then especially when you get into like the Navy SEALs, like Jaco was talking about, or in a special forces team. mean, the planning, I was a facilitator of mission plan. Jason Hull (11:11) Yeah. Yeah. Sean Patton (11:38) but I was by no means the smartest person in the room and it was a very collaborative experience. And so my job as the commander of a 12 man special forces ODA was to receive the mission that we had been given. And that mission doesn't come down and tell us this is how you're going to do it. It says, here's the effect we need to have in the area. Here's the questions we have. And then it was up for us to sit down and I had, you know, I have a warrant officer who's Jason Hull (11:43) Hmm. Sean Patton (12:08) trained in human intelligence to a level of a CIA operative. I have an intelligence officer or an intelligence sergeant who does the same work the NSA does. My average age on my team is 30 years old, people with multiple combat experiences. I remember one time I was in Lebanon and one of my younger soldiers, Greenbright, we were talking about why there was this conflict going on and how we were trying to influence it. And I said, well, you know, it's probably because of this rift between this Hezbollah and the Shia sect and the Sunni sect of Muslims in the area. And, you my 26 year old soldier is like, actually, sir, that's incorrect. This conflict in the Becca Valley actually goes back hundreds of years. It's actually over like water rights. mean, like that's the level of conversation we're having in the planning session. And it is very much a collaborative Jason Hull (13:00) Yeah. Sean Patton (13:07) ⁓ discussion and we come up with multiple courses of action, but here's, I will say where it kind of converges to, ⁓ the lesson that comes from the military and maybe an issue, this is where the people maybe have this misconception, but I think it's an important one for when it comes to the, company is that at the end of the day, kind of go back to Jaco's first bunk on book, honestly, extreme ownership, has to be someone in charge as the commander is my dis Jason Hull (13:11) Yeah. Sean Patton (13:35) was my decision. was like, okay, I've heard everyone's input. We're going with, this is how we're going to do that. And immediately, because everyone had given their input, even if we didn't pick what their choice was, it was, okay, Roger that. Now we're going to execute that as if it was our own. And so that level of ownership when it comes to planning and execution is where we turn and say, okay, now we're on the same page. the rich discussion and input that happens before that is an important job. And that's why I think whether it's in the military or in the civilian world, as a leader of an organization like that, you need to be a master facilitator. It's not your ideas. It's how can we be the composer of the group in front of us? And if someone is taking over, how do we calm them down? How do we... Jason Hull (14:20) Yes, yeah. Sean Patton (14:31) recognize when someone's voice is being stomped out and their valuable input isn't being contributed. You know, like how do you handle that and get the idea so that the best concept comes to the top and then get buy-in to execute. Jason Hull (14:37) Bye. I mean, what I'm hearing is like, you know, this picture you're painting is you've got this team of specialists. They each bring some value and some wisdom and some knowledge to the table. They're experts at this one particular craft. They see everything through a different lens and you're getting feedback from all these different lenses. And then as a leader, you have to decide which things are valid, which things do we incorporate? And, know, and it's up to each individual that's a specialist to really put some pressure on the leader to say, this is significant, this is important. And it's up to the leader to make sure that, you know, maybe that quieter voice, but to recognize what is significant if they're not making it present, because sometimes the loudest voice in the room isn't the smartest voice in the room. And so, yeah, so that's fascinating. And, business is a lot like that, but a lot of business owners, they don't even run their teams like that. They think it's a dictatorship. They mistakenly think that's how the military works. They're like, I'm the dictator and I have all the best ideas and I'm smarter than all of you. And they do, they end up as the emperor with no clothes. Cause everybody in the team were like, yes boss, we don't want to get fired. Sean Patton (15:56) Absolutely. And that's why I think that the, main job of, let's say that entrepreneur, that business owner, that even commander, right. Is your job is to craft the vision of what you're trying to create. And yes, the outcome and clarity of outcome, clarity of vision of why does this company, why do we exist and what impact are we trying to have in the world? And once people are bought into that and aligned on that. Jason Hull (16:09) The outcome, clarity of outcome. Okay. Sean Patton (16:26) then we can have a great and rich discussion on the how, the strategy. Jason Hull (16:30) Got it. that, you know, that's, so now we're talking about culture, right? Which is the foundation before we get into tactics, we have to have culture and the military, you have all kind of chosen into a particular culture. There's a set of beliefs and that's a foundation. It's kind of like, you might maybe even take it for granted, but the military has that and a lot of businesses don't. They don't have that set culture where it's defined. Sean Patton (16:57) So can I, what I will say is that this is true in the military and I'll give you some military examples just because they're maybe interesting to your audience and then we can talk business is that mission dictates culture. So, know, for example, you might have, you know, especially a lot of the movies, right? You see like the Marines, That's stereotypical. We'll be super stereotypical right now. Marines mission, their core mission is secure the beach to land ships. Jason Hull (17:04) Yeah, I love this. Yeah. Yeah, OK. Mm-hmm. Okay. Sean Patton (17:27) So if you notice, are a bit like, just go get in line, full frontal assault, you're getting off ships on an uncovered area and you're just massive violence of action. That's how you win that battle, okay? So they need to have a certain kind of mentality and I'm generous. Okay. A special forces team will operate by, with and through an indigenous force. So we're a US sponsored insurgent. we've got, I will go on target with. Jason Hull (17:42) Yes. Sean Patton (17:54) 10 Americans and 300 Afghani commandos. Like that dictates a certain mission, right? And so ⁓ the difference between the Marines and then maybe the Navy SEALs who are operating and their job is to take over a ship underway with 30 SEALs that all live together, work together. They know each other in their ear, like synchronize their precise, you know, cause you've got to be right. You're, you're firing weapons inside of a ship corridor. Like Jason Hull (17:57) Okay. Yeah. Sean Patton (18:23) You have to be so precise. I can't do that on the ground with 300 Afghanis running around. I'm just like guns pointed this way. You know, like we've got to you've to be much more flexible and and how you plan that and how you think about success and all that is a different animal than the Marines who are on you're trying to storm a beach together. A SEAL team is operating with 30 people who've worked closely together and then. where you've got 12 of us trying to work by with and through a different unit to do a different thing. Like the culture inside each one of those units would be completely different. In the Marines, you might have a bit more like go here, do that. Yes, sir. How, how jump high, jump faster. You know, you might need that because that's you need to storm a beach. You made, you need very precise, very black and white, right? And wrong, like precision to take down a ship with 30 people. you need to be very clear about larger intent and what is the big thing we're trying to operate here and how do we control sort of an uncontrollable mass and chaos to operate a Green Break team. If you took the culture of each one of those, if you gave that mission to a bunch of Marines who are just like, where do I go? Where do need to blow up? And you're trying to like do a sensitive political operation with 300 indigenous, it would be a disaster. Jason Hull (19:29) Yeah. Sean Patton (19:46) And if you tried to set the precision of, cause we tried to do this sometimes, like you would work with an indigenous force. If you tried to set the precision and standard of a US special operator, whether it's a SEAL or a Green Beret on this indigenous force, you drive yourself crazy. Like it's not going to happen. All right. And so all of those different units have different missions. And so they all have different cultures. And to your point on your company, if you're not clear on missions, If you're not clear on the vision and like why you exist and what you're trying to do, you will end up chasing your tail on culture because you'll just start grabbing like every other leadership book and culture. just like, what about this works here? This works here. This works here. Instead of saying, what are we trying to accomplish and what is the optimal culture for our mission set? Jason Hull (20:36) I love that. Yeah, one of our guiding documents at DoorGrow is our, we call it our client-centric mission statement. And it talks about who we want to serve in detail, how we will help them, what our goal is, our plan, and then what kind of the long-term sort of vision that maybe we'll never achieve, but it's the goal we're striving for. And this is what we coach our clients on getting defined because it creates culture. Then we have our how we do things. That's the company core values. And then we get into personal why statements for the business owner, business why statements. Creating all of this is, we call this the culture materials. There's like six key elements that I coach them on getting in place that help kind of make the culture visible to everybody on the team. And you're right, mission dictates culture. I love this idea because the mission of the business which most people mistakenly think is just to make money, is actually to provide some sort of value and to solve a real problem in the marketplace. And that mission, whether you're good at it or not, and the team are conscious of it or not, and you're focused on it or not, dictates whether or not you have good culture that actually achieves outcomes. That makes a lot of sense. Sean Patton (21:53) Yeah, absolutely. Cause yeah, I love that you have that structure and I love how you also tied that down to personal why statements because this is another leadership issue that I see with a lot of entrepreneurs. We're big companies, honestly too, is that there is this assumption that you've accepted this job description and here's what matters to the company and therefore what matters to maybe me as your leader or boss or the division or the company is also the most important thing to you as an individual or like the reason you're here is not really explored. So I think one of the most critical conversations you can have, and it sounds like you have a structured format for that, which is fantastic, is just sitting down with each member of your team, like, why are you here? What matters to you? Because often, right, I'm sure you've had this, I've had employees where you assume a salesperson, the most important thing is compensation, right? It's how much money you can make. And that's great. Maybe it is, but then it's actually like, well, yeah, that's important. And also, you know, my, my youngest is a senior in high school and this is the last baseball season we have with, and man, the games start at four and it's so hard for me to get to games at four because you have me work till five. And it's like, if I could just make those baseball games, that would be amazing. And then all of sudden, Once you know like what matters to them and why they're doing this, then you can adjust and say, cool, how do we align what matters to you? What your personal why statement as you mentioned it and the company why statement. And now you've got alignment. And when you align those two things where what matters most to them contributes to what matters most to the company, you just, create transformative effects. Jason Hull (23:36) Thank Yeah, the big challenge I've noticed, the biggest transformation I can get is to help the business owner get clear on their why. Because when the business owner isn't clear on why they do what they do, they end up doing the wrong things in the business. Because you're the business owner, you can do anything in the business. And so some business owners are like, well, I have to do the accounting. I'm the business owner. Do you really? If you hate accounting, you probably shouldn't be doing the accounting. You're not the right personality fit for that, which means you're actually probably not the best person to do that. So some business owners love sales. Some love accounting. Some hate it. Some love operations. Some are really bad at that. And so if we can get clear on their personal why, and then we can look at their role and see if their role is helping align with that, we can then reorganize the entire business. But most business owners, the first team they build is they transition from solopreneur to having a team. I find is a mess. The first team they have is built around the wrong person. And it's kind of like they're like, I'm this shape puzzle piece, but it's not really them. They're like, I'm doing accounting. I'm doing this and a little bit this. And then they're like, now I'm going to get team members. I'm going to puzzle pieces around this misshapen puzzle piece. And they fit that puzzle piece, but that's not even me. So I hate being in it. I'm uncomfortable in my own business. In property management, this is where they get to two to 400 doors. call it the second sand trap or the team sand trap. They've made it through that transition of finally having a team from being a solopreneur and they're the most miserable they've ever been in their business. And adding more doors makes their life personally worse, not better. Because adding more doors just means they're working harder. They're doing more work instead of getting the right support and the right team, because they didn't build the right team around the right person from the beginning. So if I get them clear on their why, They're like, my gosh, I'm a circle. I'm not a square. I need to build this whole different team around me. And then like when I got clarity on this many years ago, I think within a month I had fired like half my team. I changed everything. I changed the type of clients I was willing to work with. I changed my business model. Like I didn't want to tolerate certain things anymore because you know, I woke up one morning and I was like, I would rather stream Netflix and avoid growing my business. even though I need money, then deal with the clients I'm dealing with at that time. I'm like, why is this so, why am I so out of alignment? Then I saw Simon's the next start with why, like presentation on the golden circle, why, how, what? And I was like, what? And I'm like, ⁓ what's my why? And so I went to, I've like, I need to figure this out. And my personal why is to inspire others to love true principles. What that means is I love finding the better way to do things. I love learning what works. and sharing it with other people, I would do that for free for fun. If you're listening to this podcast, I'm doing it for free for fun right now. Like I love this. I love learning what's working for other people. And then I get to turn around and share that with clients and I get paid to do that. That's crazy. And that's the role I get to live in my business. And so my business, it feeds me my why. Sean Patton (26:47) Yeah, it's all true. Jason Hull (26:55) And so our why statement of door goes to transform property management, business owners and their businesses. So we get to create transformation. Everybody on my team buys into this vision. We all celebrate when our clients are winning. And so that's the culture we've created in the business. That's our mission, transformation. And we know if we transform the business owner, we transform the business. We transform the business, we transform the team. We transform the business and the team. We transform hundreds, maybe thousands of tenants and rental property owners lives. There's this ripple effect and that's exciting to me. We're having impact, right? And so the thing I can get on a sales call and confidently say to a property management business owner, here's why you should trust me because if I'm selfish in getting what I want out of life, my why, my business is going to give you what you need and you are going to win. And we can always trust motives. And so I call that the golden bridge. The golden bridge is find out the prospects why. Sean Patton (27:31) Yeah. Jason Hull (27:54) and you build a bridge to it, the bridge is the business. It's what gives you both what you want. That's where the deal happens. And there's my why, there's the prospect's why, the business why is what connects us. And that's the golden bridge. And if I can relate that formula verbally, all the objections drop by the wayside, because the only real objection is, I don't trust you. If they're like, what about these features? And what do you do with my property? And what do you do? How do you handle evictions? All they're saying is blah, blah, blah, I don't trust you yet. And so that's, I just teach my clients the golden bridge formula and that we have, and then they become great at selling because sales is about trust. That's it. Sean Patton (28:35) Yeah, I love that, ⁓ that framework. And also I want to call out an important mindset shift that I know I struggled with. And I think a lot of other owners struggle with it. You mentioned there, which is this belief that if we're not suffering, Jason Hull (28:57) ⁓ yeah. It's like suffering's a badge of honor in entrepreneurism. Sean Patton (29:02) Yeah, like if we had, if we're actually enjoying what we're doing, if we're having time off, if we're like, you mentioned, we're taking care of ourselves and we're like inspired and energetic and it doesn't feel that hard, we must be doing something wrong or being lazy or we're not doing enough. And so then we're like constantly pushing ourselves to this point of, uh, I need to be overwhelmed. I need to be, and when things are going well, we'll crash the plane. Jason Hull (29:11) ⁓ yeah. Yeah, yeah. Sean Patton (29:30) just so we can feel the pain again, so we feel like we're being productive. And so I love the fact that you, sounds like you sort of, we're running into that or identified that. And now the shift that it sounds like you've made around your mindset is like, what if this could be fun? Jason Hull (29:32) Yeah. Yeah. What if you actually love doing what you were doing in your business? I'll tell you what happens because I hope a lot of people do this. You make way more money when you focus on the money instead of the mission and you're not focused on your why you make way less money. But it's money is easy when you are focused on helping people get what they want. You're outward focus and it's you're being selfish enough to focus on your actual purpose. Money is not your purpose. If I say, do you want money? There's a whole level of depth beneath that. Right. And so, yeah, but you're right. Like we're struggling, we're suffering, and it's like a badge of honor. Look at my hustle culture. And I'm like, it's so hard. And then we start succeeding and we get, the world gives us feedback because the world isn't supportive of entrepreneurs. The world cares about safety and certainty more than freedom. Entrepreneurs care about freedom and fulfillment more. Sean Patton (30:24) Yes. Jason Hull (30:48) than safety and security. And that's why we start businesses. That's a risk. But as soon as we start winning, what do we hear from people? ⁓ it must be nice. Sean Patton (31:00) Yeah. Jason Hull (31:01) it must be nice that you have this. Jason got his cyber truck or he's in his million dollar house. It must be nice. ⁓ know, and so you hear things like this and you're like, did I do something wrong? maybe I need to be small because I'm making some people feel uncomfortable because, know, it's to be a struggle. I can't show that I'm having success because it's got to be hard. I didn't I didn't work hard enough to earn this. Maybe it's that feeling or, know, it has to Sean Patton (31:20) Yeah. Or enjoyment, yeah, it's gotta be. Yeah, I think there's a lot of that. I know my relationship as I've reflected back with, with money, um, with success is, know, I grew up with a, with a single mom and she was phenomenal. I mean, raised me, worked full time as a waitress and bar center to put herself through undergrad and grad school to be a school psychologist, to work with special needs kids so that she could impact the world and take care of me. But in that, yeah. Yeah. Jason Hull (31:31) Hard. Yeah. And love was working hard. That's what you saw. Like she was hustling. You knew she loved you. She was serving. Yeah. Sean Patton (32:02) Absolutely. And so I would say there's two sides of that coin. One, what I tell people all the time is like, when you see your mom do that or that's your leader, like mediocrity is no longer acceptable. That's one thing I took away from it. then the, but there was this idea when we say we drove through nice neighborhoods or we saw big houses or we saw people with money. was like, ⁓ those it's like those people. Like it was very much put into, I feel like subconsciously that Jason Hull (32:10) Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Sean Patton (32:31) I think that it was just a matter of like, ⁓ there's this idea of that good people or hardworking, working class folks like us, we're doing sort of this noble thing and these other people either just got lucky or they're just different or they were born into it or, it's this idea of like, we're not those people. Jason Hull (32:49) Or even worse, were unethical or hurt people to get there. Those rich people, those evil billionaires and those evil millionaires, and nobody should have that kind of money. They must have hurt people to get there and yeah, yeah, yeah. Sean Patton (32:54) 100 exactly. And so that was like a story, even a money story and success story that over the last 10 years as an entrepreneur with different businesses, and I was, and I was as a coach of leaders inside companies, ⁓ and, business owners that I've had to overcome. And I have found myself to your point, sort of sabotaging or questioning when I do have certain levels of success or impact and downplaying it almost because I have this. Jason Hull (33:17) Yeah. Sean Patton (33:34) subconscious belief that like, wait a if I make this amount of money or if I get to do these things is like, am I, as you said, am I deserving of that? Or is that even like an ethical thing to be able to do? I need to suffer more and drive myself back to the suffering conversation. Jason Hull (33:40) Yeah. Yeah, I mean, the feedback we get from the world as entrepreneurs. So one of my frameworks is the four, I call it the four reasons for starting a business. The first reason is fulfillment in life. That should be primary. We should be getting fulfillment in life, living our why, living our purpose. Number two, it should be more and more freedom. The business should give us more and more freedom. Now, we initially as entrepreneurs, when we start our journey, we make more and more money. And the reason we want more money is we think it will give us more fulfillment and more freedom. But the default is, I've seen this over and over again, I live this, is we make more and more money and we have less fulfillment and freedom in our business initially. Until we get clear on this, because we're aiming for the wrong goal, we're aiming for money, not the four reasons. Once we have fulfillment and freedom though, once we figure that out, we're like, why am I doing this? I need to shift things. And we get alignment there, then we want to benefit others. That's contribution. And that's actually why businesses exist. Businesses exist to contribute to the marketplace something of value, solve real problems. Otherwise, they're just snake oil and they're stealing people's money. And so true entrepreneurs, like they might start with just the motive of money, which maybe isn't the highest motive. But if they're going to be successful, eventually they graduate usually to contribution. because that's the only thing that actually works in the marketplace. The marketplace is brutal to anything else. So it's almost like God tricks us into becoming good people by getting us to start businesses, you know? And so the fourth reason, once we have contribution, we have fulfillment, freedom, we get to, we're living a life where we feel like we're benefiting others, making a difference. And we love, we can't have those first three without the fourth, which is support. There's no, Sean Patton (35:22) Yeah, yeah. Jason Hull (35:41) business owner that I know of that enjoys doing every hat, wearing every hat in their own business. And so we have to have a good team. We have to have a good support. Just like you were talking about in the, in the military, like if you're going on a mission, you need some specialists that have expertise in different areas to make this work. Not everybody has the same personality, the same skills, the same intellectual abilities. And so we need other people if we want to stay in those first three. We can't have fulfillment, freedom and contribution if we're doing stuff we don't enjoy. That's the opposite. And so we have to have team members. And that's why we build the vehicle of a business instead of just be a freelancer and do it all on our own. And that's the, so those are my four reasons. Now there is the fifth reason. The fifth reason is what everybody else wants. And we want this too as entrepreneurs, but the fifth reason is safety and security. This is what makes us different. Everybody else on the planet wants all five of these things. But most people on the planet play safety and security first. They're like, forget your freedom. We saw this during the pandemic. It's like, fuck your freedom. Like, we don't care about your freedom. I want to feel safe. Make everyone feel safe. Force it on everybody. Make everybody feel safe first. And then freedom would be a really nice afterthought. And then entrepreneurial people were like, this what crazy planet am I on? Sean Patton (37:04) Mm-hmm. Jason Hull (37:08) Am I hanging out with aliens? Like, I don't understand. I thought we were in the land of the free home of the brave here in the US and like, what's going on? And we have all these different basic hierarchy of needs, but the hierarchy is different for entrepreneurs versus everybody else. And there's nothing wrong with that. Like I need people on my team that don't want to be the business owner. Sean Patton (37:21) Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah Jason Hull (37:32) You know, I need them to be with me and enjoy it, right? And they need somebody that like me, that's crazy, that's willing to take some of the risks. They just don't realize they're working for a crazy person, right? So that values freedom more than safety. So yeah, but look, I love safety and security too. That's why I process documentation. I have systems that makes me feel safe. If I lose somebody, right? So we need all of these things. So I love, I love that you were pointing that out. ⁓ Where should we go from here? Sean Patton (37:42) Hahaha Yeah. Jason Hull (38:01) Like we're almost at the time and I love hearing the ⁓ how the military works because the military works its life or death. It's it's ⁓ and there's clear objectives and I feel like in business things get so fuzzy and there's so much BS. And when we hear it in terms of military, we're like, ⁓ duh, this would translate. I should do my business this way. Sean Patton (38:04) Yeah. Yeah, I think it's a good way to wrap in last couple of minutes is like, what are some key points there? think that what the military does, because not everything in the military is from personal experience translates perfectly over, right? But that there's certain things. Yeah, it's all the same. There are some similarities. I think that if there's an overarching word of why, and it's just true, Jason Hull (38:43) Sure, it's not all exactly the same, yeah. Sean Patton (38:58) military, good military units are able to accomplish the seemingly impossible tasks ⁓ is clarity, like extreme clarity and no nonsense around no clarity. And so whether that's clarity of mission, clarity of roles and responsibilities, who's doing what when and what are they committing to? There's so much... ⁓ Jason Hull (39:05) Yeah. Hmm. Sean Patton (39:26) sort of expectation or unsaid agreements that happen inside business, where we make assumptions about what we think other people understand or what they think success is or roles is. Instead of saying here's our clear mission, here's our outcomes, here's my role and responsibility, here's what I'm gonna own. I mean, the amount of times I work with a company or entrepreneur and we go in and they say, yeah, here are like the 12 things that are important before the next meeting, but there's no one's name next to it with a date. Jason Hull (39:28) Hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Like who? Who's responsible? Who's accountable? Yeah. Sean Patton (39:55) It's like, Hey, what'd we talk about last meeting? Who's doing that? Yeah. Who's taking, who's accountable. So I think they're very clear about like what role and responsibility do you have so that you can lean into that. So clarity around roles, responsibilities, clarity around mission, then clarity around, you know, end state. Like what does success look like for this? Those are. Jason Hull (40:14) What's the definition of done on this? How do we know this is accomplished? I love it. Sean Patton (40:19) Mm-hmm. And so I think if companies could really take that approach of clarity in those three areas, it could be transformative. Jason Hull (40:29) Totally agree. One of my mentors that really taught me operational stuff was a mentor named Alex Sharpen. And Alex would talk about outcome transparency and accountability. He was like a three-legged stool. And he said, there has to be a clear outcome. Like, who's responsible ⁓ is also, right? that's like outcome transparency, accountability. Accountability is who? What are we trying to accomplish is the outcome. And then what's the scoreboard? How do we measure success? How do we know if it's done? And he said he would watch billionaires and follow them around and they go into a meeting. They didn't know what was going on, what was being discussed, but there was a problem. He would just walk in and he would ask three questions and the problems were solved. Cool. What are we trying to accomplish? Okay. Who's responsible for this? Awesome. How do we know if it's done or not? And it was that simple. And then you walk out of the room, everyone's like, man, he's magic. So glad we have him. What a great leader. And I love it. Clarity is massive. one of the things, like a lot of businesses don't even have the clear role or job descriptions defined for their existing team members. If I went to, anyone listen to this, I went to your team member, ask yourself this question. And I asked them, what are you responsible to achieve on a weekly, monthly basis? What is your job? Sean Patton (41:27) Yeah. Jason Hull (41:52) What are your roles? What are you supposed to do? And then I went to the business owner. I went to you listening and said, what is their responsibility? What are these? I usually get two very different set of directions. But if you come to my team or hopefully some of my clients that I'm coaching and you ask that question, they would say, cool, let me pull up my document that is super clear that we review regularly. This is it. We've agreed on this. We're literally on the same page. And it's that simple. And so they know what outcomes they're responsible for. And the outcomes are more important than the responsibilities. So on our job descriptions, we have results. What results or expected accomplishments are there? so little things like that. One of the things I love saying lately is, this is one of my little phrases, is any action we take without clarity is a little bit wrong. Sometimes a lot, a lot wrong. Sean Patton (42:21) Yes. Mmm, I love that. I love that. Jason Hull (42:51) Yeah, and so that's dangerous. like the last thing you want to do in on the battlefield is just rush out with a lot of gusto guns a blazing with no plan and a lack of clarity. But in business, sometimes that's how we operate for shooting from the hip. We're like, Woo, yeah. Sean Patton (43:08) Yeah, it is. That's the thing is because of the mission that the military has, the culture demands extreme clarity. And because of the mission of businesses, people can get away with leakage and mistakes because, you know, it's not life or death. But if you treat your business like that, that's how you get to the next level of performance. Jason Hull (43:18) you Love it. Cool. Sean, awesome having you on. Always fun to chat with you. We have some good conversations. ⁓ This is really interesting to me. I love hearing how ⁓ this all works and the contrast with military and whatnot. You brought up some really great points that really made me think. How can people get in touch with you? Tell them what you do real quick and all that. Sean Patton (43:40) Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. So you wanna, my personal site is SeanPatton.me. Super easy to find. I'm very active on LinkedIn. And I am a part of a larger firm called Novus Global, where we focus on creating meta performance leaders. A lot of the transformation we're talking about today. So yeah, LinkedIn and my website, easiest ways to get me. also the host of the No Limit Leadership Podcast. Please check that out and. Jason, you have a scheduled day. I'm excited to have you on that podcast in the future. Jason Hull (44:29) Yeah, I'm excited to be on that. That'll be great. It's been great having you. Cool. Thanks for being here. All right. Yeah, absolutely. So for those of you that are property management business owners and you felt maybe stuck, stagnant, you want to take your property management business to the next level, reach out to us at doorgrow.com for free training on how to get unlimited free leads. Text the word leads to 512-648-4608. Sean Patton (44:35) Thanks, Jason. Appreciate the opportunity. Jason Hull (44:57) Also join our free Facebook community just for property management business owners at doorgrowclub.com. And if you want tips, tricks, ideas, and to learn about our offers, subscribe to our newsletter by going to doorgrow.com slash subscribe. And if you found this even a little bit helpful, don't forget to subscribe and leave us a review on wherever you saw this. We'd really appreciate it. And until next time, remember the slowest path to growth is to do it alone. So let's grow together. Bye everyone. All right, and we are out in five, four, three, two, one. Sean Patton (45:33) Thanks brother.

DGS 333: Unlocking New Thinking for Business Growth

When trying to grow your property management business, have you ever thought to yourself, "Man, it would be great if I just had more leads?" In this episode of the #DoorGrowShow, property management growth experts Jason and Sarah Hull discuss the Leads Myth and how "just having more leads" will not actually help you grow your business. We talk about the importance of exposing yourself to something unique and different to escape your current rut of thinking. You'll Learn (00:00) Exploring Meow Wolf: An Immersive Experience (02:34) The Importance of Thinking Differently (05:36) Discovery and Exploration in Business (08:18) Unlocking Hidden Opportunities (09:59) The Joy of Problem-Solving in Business Quotables "Sometimes we just need to put ourselves in an environment in which we're going to be exposed to something unique, different, in order to get us out of our current rut of our current level of thinking." "Our current level of thinking is what's causing us to stay stuck or to stay trapped." "Business should be a problem that we enjoy working on, because I think that's the secret to happiness is to have a problem that's fun." Resources DoorGrow and Scale Mastermind [https://www.doorgrowacademy.com/courses/mastermind] DoorGrow Academy [https://www.doorgrowacademy.com/] DoorGrow on YouTube [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCC1mGYT2Sw0LOe32hO_QdNg/featured] DoorGrowClub [https://doorgrow.com/] DoorGrowLive [https://doorgrowlive.com/] Transcript Jason & Sarah Hull (00:00) All right, welcome everybody to the DoorGrow show. So we're going to skip all the lengthy intro, just know DoorGrow is awesome and you should be working with us and we've helped hundreds of property managers grow their business. So we're going to do a quick episode today. So Sarah and I just got back from Las Vegas and one of the cool things we got to do, got to do a lot of cool things over there, go see some shows. But one of the cool things we went and did is Meow Wolf. So what is Meow Wolf? God only knows. I don't know how to explain this at all. It's a combination of like a museum, an art gallery installation, I don't know, an art exhibit maybe. ⁓ Sort of like an escape room. of. It's not like you're locked in there. you're out puzzles and Yeah, there's like puzzles along the way to figure out. And also there's a story. Yeah. So it's not, you you go through like an art exhibit and you just look at things. This is interactive, this is immersive. You are meant to touch things and interact with them. ⁓ And there's a whole story that you're trying to figure out and solve the mystery if you want to. If you don't want to do that part, then you don't have to do it. You can just walk through and go, wow, that's cool looking. So it's that. So Meow Wolf is- How would you explain it? I don't, I don't know. That's pretty good. That's why you make me explain it? Yeah. Okay. I just like watching you struggle. don't know. that's okay. That was on camera, ladies and gentlemen. Recorded. right. So- my evidence. No, she actually described it really well. So Meow Wolf, ⁓ I think they have like maybe five locations that like we've been to. This was our third one that we went This is our third. And each one is designed on the surface like something normal that we're used to, right? Like the one in Vegas is designed as a grocery store. Another one was a radio station and another one was a house, like a family's home. But as you dig into it, you can like open up things you didn't think you should be able to open that become better doors into secret areas. It gets really weird once you get past the surface level. and things get even stranger. And it's just, it's really kind of a magical place where you really get to focus on discovery and exploration. And it really gets you to think differently. And so we're like, what should we talk about on today's podcast? I was like, let's talk about Meow Wolf and how important it is to think differently or to expose ourselves to something new or different from what we've been doing. Cause this is what we do with our coaching clients. A lot of our stuff is very contrary to what they've been told or what they've been taught or ⁓ what they think they should be doing. And so we focus and get into, you know, different ideas, different ideas of how to do pricing from what everybody else is doing, different ideas of how to do growth and build these growth engines than everybody else is doing. And sometimes we just need to put ourselves in an environment in which we're going to be exposed to something unique, different. in order to get us out of our current rut of our current level of thinking. Because our current level of thinking is what's causing us to stay stuck or to stay trapped. And this is why I value a lot getting coaches, getting mentors, joining masterminds, joining programs, because it exposes us to new ideas and new things and gets us to think differently. And it challenges our current thinking, allows others to challenge our current thinking. And they can see things that we can't see because we're too close to the fire sometimes to see it. And I can tell you how many times I've had one of my coaches give me some advice or point out something should have been super obvious to me. And I thought that's exactly what I would have told the client to do. And I'm just like, just kind of kicking myself. And but it's good medicine and it's really helpful. like, yeah, that makes sense. Let's do that. So, um, yeah, we'll feel like you might open up the refrigerator in the house and find out it is actually a hallway that leads into a whole different area. Um, if you're in the grocery store, you might open up one of the, the refrigerator freezer door sections and the whole thing opens, including what you see in the glass door. And then you can walk into a whole different area. And so, It's just, there's multiple floors in each of the ones we've been in. there's like stairways and elevators and it's just pretty wild. And the deeper you get into it, the weirder it all gets. And it gets really, really weird. And so it's totally outside of your current normal reality. In fact, that's kind of the idea between all the three we've been to is you're kind of stepping into, there's always this theme of alternate realities. and multiple realities and sometimes weird alternate life forms and non-human creatures and things are just really strange. it's really fun to get into because you don't know what to expect. so what I thought is brilliant is it puts you into a state that we usually only experience as children, which is this state of discovery and this joy of exploration and of discovery. And I feel like that's where we should be as business owners, but business gets hard. and we learn through pain and we have a lot of trauma as business owners. And so we start avoiding, we start avoiding like new things and discovery and getting excited about making changes. And this is something I think we've been really good at at DoorGrow is bringing this newness, almost like they're starting their business fresh with a new lens and a new set of, you know, ideas to... look at their business and it's like starting a business, which is over again, which is the exciting part. And so that's my challenge to everybody listening is make sure to expose yourself to new ideas. It doesn't have to be us. It doesn't have to be door grow. I think we're the best in the industry at doing this. We're very different, very unique, ⁓ but get something, get something ⁓ that's going to inject some new ideas and some new life into what you're doing. So yeah, so that was my that was kind of my thought or take on it. I think one of the cool things about Meow Wolf is as you're kind of walking through it, there's these seemingly normal items or objects that don't function as you would think they would. They're actually a portal or a secret door or there's more to it than you would think. For example, the first one we went to in the house, you're walking through and you see the laundry room. And there's normal items that would be in a laundry room, like a washer and a dryer. And I think they had a sink and some detergent and things like that. And if you didn't ever stop to look or really stop to explore, you would have looked at it for surface value and went, OK, washer and dryer. Yeah, cool. Laundry room, whatever. Let's move on to the next thing because I don't know why we're supposed to be in here. if you actually stopped to explore it and you opened the washer and the dryer, they were both actually this way, it was one was a slide and one was like this tunnel that you had to like crawl through. You remember like when McDonald's used to be fun as a kid and you'd have all the like nets and the tubes and slides and all, it's that. It's not that extensive, but so one was a slide and one was like this tunnel that you crawl through and then it takes you to a whole. different area and a whole different room and that's kind of their alternate universe is back through that way and that's one of the many ways that you can reach that alternate. But if you don't actually stop to explore it and really check it out instead of just looking at it and thinking ⁓ this is useless okay why is there a washer and dryer here and that's stupid well then you would miss the whole other part. that you would only find if you explore it. So really, it's like this whole secret world back there and this portal that can transport you to somewhere else. And I think there's a lot of things in life that are like that. How many times have we looked at something, I do this all the time because I'm a J and Myers-Briggs, I look at something and I go, useless, stupid, not worth my time. This is an important, I don't need this. I don't need to worry about this. We all do it in different ways and in business, it's one of them. Right? How many times did you hear an idea or research a tool or you know think about something, doing something a different way and then go, yeah I'm not gonna do that because on the surface all you were seeing was washer and dryer and perhaps you failed to see what was deeper is yeah it's a washer and dryer but there's so much more that you didn't even check out, you didn't even get to learn about because you immediately brushed it off. You know, I realized that ⁓ I think that's what DoorGrow is for a lot of clients. Like we look like the normal thing on the surface. People are like, yeah, they focus on growth. They probably do some sort of lead gen service or marketing or something. But when they start asking questions or talking to us, they start going, hey, this is pretty unique. This is different. They're telling me like they're explaining to me why what everybody else is telling me to do doesn't actually work or should be different. And when people join our program and get into it, they're always like surprised. There's so much available, so many new ideas, so many things they can fix or tweak in their business, ways that could work less ways they could generate more revenue. And, ⁓ and they're always surprised because they've been to all the conferences. They've learned all the stuff that is generally out there, they think. And so, yeah, we give them that. Aladdin experience, all new. Right. Maybe I'm not. No, it's time to end. A whole new world. All right. So, yeah. So, yeah. So that's kind of, you know, like there's this state of wonder learning and that's what business I think should be. Business should be a problem that we enjoy working on, because I think that's the secret to happiness is to have a problem where that's fun. It's a challenge going through and figuring out all the spaces and how to reach all the areas and me. It's a challenge, but it's fun. Yeah, it's really enjoyable. And now I want to go visit all the other ones that we haven't seen yet. So we might plan trips just to go see these because it's just so interesting and unique. Yeah. Cool. So that's that's our message today. And so we'll go ahead and wrap up. But if you are struggling to think differently or get new ideas, you feel like you know it all, maybe reach out to DoorGro and let us blow your mind a little bit. You can check us out at door.com.

DGS 334: Be Willing to Suck: The Key to Rapid Improvement

When starting something new in business (sales, leadership, outreach, or growth strategies), have you ever caught yourself thinking, "I need to figure everything out before I try this" or "I don't want to look bad if I'm not good at it yet" In this episode of the #DoorGrowShow, property management growth experts Jason and Sarah Hull explore why every entrepreneur begins at what they call "Level Suck." They discuss why many business owners resist feedback, avoid practicing in front of others, and stay stuck repeating the same actions instead of improving through experimentation. Jason and Sarah break down how humility, rapid testing, and consistent feedback are the real drivers of mastery, and why the fastest way to grow is to be willing to start imperfectly and get better through iteration. You'll Learn (02:05) Practicing New Skills and Getting Feedback (06:10) Ego, Humility, and Why Growth Requires Both (10:30) Sales Mastery: Volume, Testing, and Iteration (15:10) What Entrepreneurs Can Learn From Children Quotables "Anything new that you start with, you're not going to be amazing at it right away." "This is the worst that you're ever going to be." "It doesn't mean that you're bad. It just means that the test failed." Resources DoorGrow and Scale Mastermind [https://www.doorgrowacademy.com/courses/mastermind] DoorGrow Academy [https://www.doorgrowacademy.com/] DoorGrow on YouTube [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCC1mGYT2Sw0LOe32hO_QdNg/featured] DoorGrowClub [https://doorgrow.com/] DoorGrowLive [https://doorgrowlive.com/] Transcript Jason & Sarah Hull (00:01) Five, four, three, two, one. All right. I am Jason Hull. This is 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. Today's episode, what we're going to be talking about, our topic is, we all start at level suck. All right. Where do we start? We'll get rid of this. level suck. I'm sucking right now, I guess. Here's a good example. Okay, we all start at level suck. Anything new that you start with, you're not going to be amazing at it right away. And a lot of times we don't even want to start because we want to figure everything out first. want to figure out how to be amazing already because we don't want to fail or look bad or not know what we're doing. And so most people are unwilling to fail. And one thing I've noticed about children is children just try stuff. They just do shit. They just want like they'll just play and it's experimentation and it's fun and they learn incredibly fast what works and what doesn't work. so a lot of a lot of people don't don't act like children in that way. And so we've this is one of the things we coach clients on is be willing to suck. So that's the topic today. So we've been teaching BDM. So what are we noticing? Well, today was the first time that they actually got to practice. and role play. they weren't that bad, actually. It's not like they started at suck. The first time they looked at the script. Yeah. But for the first time ever saying it out loud and practicing it in a semi real mock situation. Yeah. You know, it's not like they were so horrible. And then we went, wow, this is to take you a really long time. figured that out. No, they weren't. I mean, they were not amazing at it. But for their very first time ever trying it, and I was throwing a couple curveballs at them. Yeah. They were they were doing they were doing well. They were handling themselves decently well. And it wasn't amazing. But I said to them, this is the worst that this year ever going to be. Yeah. That's great news. This is the first time that you're doing it and this is as bad as you are ever going to be at this. Yeah, they were willing. They're willing to do it. And yeah, you can see the trepidation or that it was a little awkward at first to step into that and get started. So. But we've all felt that we've all I felt awkward for them. I'm like, ⁓ let's see how this goes, right? And they did fine, right? The first time, like you said, this is the worst you're ever going to be. is what you told them. So that's the good news. You're going to get better at this. And ⁓ they did OK. And then we can give them feedback. our goal initially, my goal was to encourage them, because you don't want to be like, you're the worst. I can't believe. No. So we want to be encouraging and point out the good they did, and then offer some constructive ways they can take things to the next level or step up. And that's the other piece to this is. You have to make sure that you are willing to suck in order to in front of others in order to be able to get the feedback you need in order to improve consistently. so a lot of a lot of people we coach initially, they don't want to. Look like they don't know something, even though they're here to learn. They don't want to look bad in front of others. They don't want to give us a call recording of their sales call. They don't want to, know, and really what you're saying is I don't want to improve. I want to improve if I can figure out myself, but I was already trying to figure it out myself before I came to you. So I'm not going to be able to figure it out. And, and I've learned that one of my most valuable ways to get as much out of a coach or a mentor as possible is to say, Here's honestly where I'm at. Here's what I'm dealing with currently. Here's the challenges I'm experiencing. What feedback do you have for me? And sometimes if you're opening yourself up to feedback, it can feel pretty uncomfortable. It can, but that's, think, really how we grow is, all right, don't sugarcoat it for me. Don't tell me I'm amazing if I'm not because I won't be able to improve. If I already think, ⁓ I am so good at this. I'm so amazing. This is going to be awesome. it doesn't leave any room for improvement at all. If you already think, hey, I'm amazing at this. And if you actually are amazing at it, great. Then you'll get the results that you want. But if you think you're already amazing and the results are telling you a different story, but you still think, I'm so good at this. Then there's a disconnect. And if you're not leaving any room for growth or improvement, then that's how we get stuck. And then I almost feel like it snowballs because a lot of times I think when people, don't, I don't know why, but I feel like so many of us have been trained to try to not look stupid. in front of other people. They're like, I don't want to look dumb. I don't want to seem like I don't know something. I don't want people to think that I'm not great. I don't want to be raw and vulnerable in that way. I want everyone to think that I'm amazing. Even if I don't think I'm actually amazing, I want other people to think that I'm amazing. And I understand that. really do. But there does have to be a part of you that is able to separate your ego enough. You don't have to completely kill it, but separate the ego enough to say, where can I get better at this? Because no matter how good or how bad you are at something, there's still room for improvement. You never really get to the top and you're like, well, right, I'm on the top of this mountain and there's nowhere else to go. You can be amazing at something and still have a lot of room for improvement. you can still get better. Yeah. So there's a scripture that says pride cometh before the fall or something like this, this truism. And so, you know, a lot of times we in business, we fall prey to our own blind spots. And that's where we learn some really strong lessons. I've experienced that. Many of you listening probably have. And so The secret to really making progress, to really learning, to being able to grow is humility, which is the opposite. And humility isn't debasing yourself. It isn't putting yourself down. Humility is just recognizing honestly where you're at in relation to maybe others or in relation to the goal, or it's just having a more accurate view. That's humility. I think also humility, we create that naturally by recognizing others' hand. in our accomplishments and what we're trying to do and in our own success. Because the opposite of humility is like, man, look at everything I did. I did this all by myself. The opposite of that would be, hey, look, God definitely had a hand in me doing all of this. know, Sarah's had a huge impact in helping me with these results. You know, my different team members have, you know, so I can, others hand in what we're accomplishing. That's how you create humility. And really humility then is just reality. It's just actually getting connected to reality and saying, I'm so great. I did all this stuff. ⁓ And so that means if we are humble, then we're also open to being able to get feedback. We're willing to be able to get feedback from others. If we're not willing to absorb or take feedback, which can be uncomfortable, it means you might feel a little bracing for impact. Like, hey, can you give me feedback on this? And yeah, it's uncomfortable, but it's good medicine. And then you have actionable ways to improve. And some feedback that you get from some people is not useful, right? Somebody says, well, you're really, you're a jerk. You always do this thing. And you're like, I never do that thing. So they don't know me. Maybe they don't know you. So the feedback's not valid. you got to be careful who you're taking feedback from. Generally, the rule is you take feedback from those that you're paying. like your mentors, your coaches, or from those that are paying you. They get you paid. And so those are two great sources for feedback. And then family, they're the people close to you. And so the wisdom comes from knowing, being able to take feedback and being able to analyze it and figure out, is there some truth to this? Where could I improve? How can I change this? And the worst thing you can do, for example, is a BDM. is that you're just doing outreach. You're making calls week after week, month after month, and it's not working. And it's not that what you're doing can't work. It's that you're not good enough yet. It's not working for you. If it's working, if it can work for anybody else, it should be able to work for you too. But you're doing something that isn't working. And so you're stuck. So you need to get feedback rather than just continually doing something that's not working. wasting weeks, wasting months without significant progress. You could be making progress every day. You could be getting feedback every day. Feedback on your calls. can leverage AI to get feedback. You can use coaches, get feedback. You can role play and work with others and learn and get feedback and just learning and seeing others that are experts to do something well also is a sort of feedback for you to recognize gaps between how you would do it. Like, oh, well, that was different. I would have said this, that was very cool. I could see how that'd be useful. And it felt very natural. It didn't feel awkward or pushy. So this is the process of just doing the work. A lot of times is its own feedback mechanism. And so sometimes just doing the work is what makes you good. For example, at sales, you just do it and you feel the pain of things not working. And then you make changes and you adjust. And the real skill is how quick can you adapt? Yeah, it's always testing. I feel like sales really comes down to two things and it's volume is one of them and it's A-B testing. Yeah. the other. So any sales issues that you're having can be solved with those two things. And the whole thing is a process. Yeah. And really when you break it down, you can A-B test just about everything that you do in the sales process. So... What day am I calling people? What time am I calling people? Who am I calling? What am I saying in the first few seconds? What am I trying to lead with? What script am I using? What's the close or the ask that I have? How am I presenting that? How am I pitching the offer? Am I offering value? Am I saying this word or that word? Am I flipping things around? Maybe the order. Every single little thing can be tested. And it's all about trying and seeing what is working and what isn't working. And both are really good data to have because when you know what isn't working, then it points a finger at where you need to focus. ⁓ So a lot of times people will go, oh, this isn't working. I should just quit. I mean, you could, but then you're not going to get the results that you probably were looking for if you just quit, right? Yeah. So if you start driving a car and you're like, wow, that was way harder than I thought it was going to be. I ended up going 70 through my neighborhood. That was bad. All right. Well, that doesn't mean you need to never drive. It just means you learn how to do that differently. So it's all just... tweaking and testing and tweaking and testing. And in that process, you're going to find, that really, that was bad. didn't work. That was not a good thing. And that's okay. It doesn't mean that you're bad. It just means that that test failed. It doesn't mean that you need to own the failure because if you look at it more objectively, you're just testing data points. Yeah. The idea is rapid iteration. And if you want to collapse time on doing all the experimentation yourself and you find other people that have already been doing this quite a bit, that have already figured out from hundreds of guinea pigs that have tried different things and heard and listened and figured out what is and isn't working like at DoorGrowth, we've generated over $10 million in sales revenue and ⁓ I've probably, maybe we'd have to crunch the numbers. I've probably done at least half of that personally myself. Yeah. And so conservatively. so I would, I would say, ⁓ and I wasn't a natural salesperson. I just needed to take care of my family and I wanted to take care of clients. And I was just trying to figure it all out. And so I had lots of experiments, but I also. I studied stuff, I read stuff, I figured out which things were good. I experimented. If you want to collapse time on the experimentation, you listen to somebody that's done a lot of sales, especially if it's related to the industry that you're in and you're going to collapse time significantly. You don't have to do every experiment. We can give you this works, this strategy works, this works. And then it's just a question then of, I good at that strategy? Where am I falling short of what they're teaching? and getting that feedback. then you're, then it's like a rocket ship. You're going way faster. So we'll share a quick analogy and then maybe wrap up, but analogy I like to share, there was this, this test that they did and they would take these teams and the goal was to have them compete and figure out how they could build a structure to put a marshmallow up at the top of this structure. And whoever could build the highest structure quickest that stood and didn't fall apart was the winner. And one of the highest performers, people were really surprised to find out, were children. It was just kids. They had these sticks, they had marshmallows, they had tape, they had whatever to build. And they would just try stuff right from the beginning. And it was failing and they kept doing it. And then they would build something eventually that worked much faster in the time allotted than usually college students were the one of the worst performers because they would sit there and think about it. and analyze it and talk about what and theorize and plan and draw it out and argue with each other. And by the end, they didn't actually know what worked and whatever they tried would fail. Entrepreneurs were consistently pretty decent performers. They were. And so entrepreneurs tended like try stuff and experiment. But children, one of the top performers, the absolute top were structural engineers. Unfair advantage, right? Like, you know, That's there. That's if they do poorly at that, they probably should not be helping us build anything. Right. Right. So please don't build anything if you can't do that. Right. But children, right. Children. And why children? Because children don't aren't caught up in in looking. They don't care about looking bad. They just like, let's try it. Let's do this. Let's try this. And it doesn't work. They're not like, man, I'm a failure. Look at me. I did something that didn't work. They just move on. They're like, let's try the next thing. And so there's a lot you can learn by watching how children kind of go about doing things. There's a reason why children learn so rapidly and their brain is so, you know, able to absorb information so quickly because they don't have a lot of stuff in the way. And ⁓ as adults, we have a lot of stuff in the way a lot of times. So be a little bit like a child, not childish, but be a little bit like a child in that you're open, you're willing to explore, you're willing to try things, you're willing to experiment and be smart. Like if a child listened to a structural engineer, they would probably go way faster. Because they'd be like, yeah, I'll try this. Whereas you might get some college student with an ego, and this guy says he knows what he's doing, but I don't know. Let's draw this out, because that doesn't make sense to me. And maybe they don't listen. Everybody's tried teaching somebody something that has a lot of ego and resistance, and that's really annoying. So don't be that person. Cool. Anything else we should share? No. I think if you're looking, though, if you're looking for a BDM, we have something really exciting. If any of you follow us on social media, you may have seen that we've been dropping some little hints about it. We've talked about it a little bit on the podcast and it is in the background in the works right now. ⁓ We'll tell you it's called The Door Machine and we're going to be taking all of the pain, all of the friction, all of the annoyance, all of the hard parts, all of the challenges, all of the I'm s- ducks and I don't know what to do's, we're taking all of that out of sales. And it's going to be incredible. really do think it's going to change the property management industry as a whole, which is great because I want our clients to take over the entire industry period. And I also think that any bad landlords, and you know who you are if you're out there, the ones that don't care about taking care of the properties, they don't care about maintaining things, they don't care about doing things maybe the right way or the legal way, and they're willing to do things a little bit shady. I've had a couple of those. Let me be clear, there is no place for you in this industry, and our clients are going to simply eradicate you. So I'm really excited about that. If you're on the good side of property management, as many of you are that listen to this podcast, I don't think there's anybody that I just alluded to. don't think they're listening to this podcast. everybody who doesn't fall into the bad bucket, who's probably listening right now, ⁓ you guys, that's who we want to win. We want the good property managers to win and what we're going to be launching with the BDMs. is going to allow you guys to do that much, much faster and much, much easier. And it's really exciting because this is week one for us of making it happen. it will be live soon. It is coming. If you're slightly interested in getting more information or learning about it or going, well, what is she talking about? That kind of sounds like something I might want. I would like to dominate my whole market. Cool. Then go to doorgrow.com, talk to one of our sales team members, and ask them about the door machine. You cannot buy it yet. I have people that are really mad that they can't buy it yet, but it's not even live yet. We're still doing the foundational work that we need to do in order to get you what ⁓ results you're looking for. However, you can join the wait list. So if you're interested in doing that, talk with our team and then it will be, when we're ready to launch it, the ones on the wait list, you will get priority access. Yeah. All right. Well, I think we already have people that are trying to figure out what it is because I have people texting me and they won't tell me who they are. like, what's the door machine? Give me the details. So that's interesting to me. So. I like I don't know if I want it, but I think that I might. Can you tell me what it is? mean, real simply, most people are paying for leads or they're paying for exclusive leads or they're paying for maybe somebody to try and do sales for them. We are going to handle that whole front end and give you deals. That's the idea. We're going to build out your property management business. Yeah, we basically will be partnering. for you, not done with you, not coach you to do it, not show you how, not give you the things. No, just... Do it. Yeah, we're building a win-win-win sort of partnership idea. So it's going to be awesome. All right. So to wrap up, if you've ever felt stuck or stagnant, you want to take your property management business to the next level, reach out to us at dorgor.com. We can help for free training on how to get unlimited leads for free because you probably think that's your bottleneck because everybody does. I call it the leads myth. Cool. I'll show you how you can get unlimited of those and you'll realize that's probably not the issue. Just text the word leads to 512. 648-4608. Also join our free community for Facebook, just for property management business owners by going to doorgrohclub.com. And if you want tips, tricks, ideas to learn about our offers, subscribe to our newsletter by going to doorgroh.com slash subscribe. And if you found this even a little bit helpful, don't forget to subscribe and leave us a review on YouTube. Click the bell. We'd really appreciate it. Until next time, remember the slowest path to growth is to do it alone. So let's grow together. Bye everyone. All right, five, four, three, two, one, we're out.

DGS 332: The Mindset Shift That Multiplies Returns

When trying to manage properties, have you ever thought to yourself, "Man, it would be great if I just had fewer emergencies? In this episode of the #DoorGrowShow, Jason Hull, founder and CEO of DoorGrow, and Ryan Cadwell, managing partner at Resolute RDM, discuss how property managers can stop operating reactively and start thinking like true asset managers. The discussion includes the difference between market value and investment value, why understanding that gap is key to long-term wealth, how to structure smarter deals to increase returns, and the leadership habits that drive sustainable business growth. You'll Learn [02:06] The Myth of Needing More Leads [11:39] Leaks in Your Sales Pipeline [22:41] The Future of SEO with AI Quotables "Why do we call it the leads myth? Well, the myth is this lie that we believe that you just need more leads. And the assumption in that is that all leads are the same." "The more clarity you have, the less wrong stuff you're going to be doing." "Not all clients are equal, right? Which means not all leads you get are equal. You need to qualify them." Resources DoorGrow and Scale Mastermind [https://www.doorgrowacademy.com/courses/mastermind] DoorGrow Academy [https://www.doorgrowacademy.com/] DoorGrow on YouTube [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCC1mGYT2Sw0LOe32hO_QdNg/featured] DoorGrowClub [https://doorgrow.com/] DoorGrowLive [https://doorgrowlive.com/] Transcript Jason Hull (00:01) All right, five, four, three, two, one. Welcome 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 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 episode, I'm hanging out with Ryan Cadwell, managing partner at Resolute RDM. And we're gonna dive deep into how property managers can stop operating reactively and start thinking like true asset managers. So Ryan, welcome to the show. Ryan Cadwell, CPM (00:57) Thanks Jason for having us, we're glad to be here. Jason Hull (01:00) Awesome. So Ryan's going to break down. This is our notes, right? So Ryan's going to break down the critical difference between market value and investment value and why understanding that gap is the key to building long term wealth. And he's going to share why so many investors overpay, how to structure smarter deals that actually increase returns and the leadership habits that drive sustainable business growth. All right. Cool. So let's get into that. So, Ryan, I'd love people to get a little bit of background. on you, how you got into entrepreneurism and how you got into developing this business and maybe how this connects to property management and then we'll get into everything. Ryan Cadwell, CPM (01:40) Sure, background is we've been in the game for 18 years. ⁓ Wife and I started it and we started the overall ⁓ idea of it in 08. ⁓ Actually it was 06 when we were kicking it around and perfect time to get into all this, 08 right during the financial crisis. ⁓ Third generation entrepreneur, ⁓ both my dad and my grandfather on his side. were entrepreneurs. that's, mean, that's how it got drawn into that world. Originally was going to be just an investor. ⁓ but my dad had apartments with another business that he ran and I, I grew up around it. ⁓ I was cutting grass and I was around tenants, ⁓ that whole time. when, we were in the investment world and wanting to grow that, you know, in the ⁓ eight through Jason Hull (02:09) Yeah. Ryan Cadwell, CPM (02:36) 2012 market, I started looking for property managers. did some interviews, ultimately. mean, property management has come a long way since then. I know it's been a thing for a while, 30 or 40 years, but I think in the SFR space, it was kind of the Wild West for a while, at least in our market it was. ⁓ And we had done some... ⁓ Jason Hull (03:00) Yeah, it still might be, yeah, in most markets. Ryan Cadwell, CPM (03:06) And so when we had done some interviews with some property managers, turned out, I think, like, we were like, why don't we just build it? Like, we have enough experience. I grew up doing it. So that's what drew us into the property management world. And then it gradually grew, turned into a few hundred doors. And then we fluctuate. We fluctuate with market times. We're a boutique firm, and we really focus on adding investor value ⁓ and then we're adding additional components with ⁓ understanding market trends, understanding what overpayment is ⁓ and trying to help investors get ahead of that. we're not always helping investors that are in a reactive position try to. Weighed out time so that they're, know, the amount they paid for it can then finally start cash flowing in those kinds of positions. We try to come at it with a, with an eyes wide open, you know, if you buy it here, you're in negative leverage and what that means and how that's going to translate as far as cash flows. I mean, some investment perspectives, that's what they want. They don't necessarily mind the time. ⁓ If they've got cash flow from other things, that might be how they're going to get in. But, Yeah, that's how we got to where we are in the entrepreneurial world and then in owning and operating a real estate services firm. Jason Hull (04:38) Yeah, and you said we, meaning. Ryan Cadwell, CPM (04:41) We so I mean, I treat anything we do well is it's a team. It's our four brokers. It's our two managers. It's our, you know, contractors. It's all the guys that have helped us get and it's even some of my other partners on development deals. So there's always a we piece. I'd be remiss if I stood up here and acted like, you know, this was me. Yeah. Jason Hull (05:06) It's all Ryan, yeah. So, but this started as like kind of you're in the family business of entrepreneurism, it sounds like, so. Ryan Cadwell, CPM (05:14) Yeah, and we could talk about that too, how to work with your family. How to work with your family and how to get ahead of that too ⁓ so that you don't damage the relationships and those kinds of things. Jason Hull (05:18) Yeah, that could be a challenge. Cool. let's chat about this because property managers, they are a lot of times reactive. They're just reacting to everything. They feel like they're not going to react to everything that every tenant calls them, every owner calls them. They're just managing, putting out fires all the time. how do we start getting to think like true asset managers and get them out of this? Ryan Cadwell, CPM (05:38) Mm-hmm. It's a reactive business. I think the goal is to be an asset manager because at that point you're planning decisions ahead of time. Property management is always going to have a reactive piece to it. You're always going to have emergencies. You're always going to have things that need to be done day of. The real answer to that is a lot of those things don't need to be reactive. They could have been planned, proper expectations could have been set. ⁓ Having conversations like the way you onboard, the way you train, you educate and how you communicate in the time, know, the times that they're gonna receive statements or anything you get on a repeat basis, it just needs to be kind of be walked through. Now, if you haven't started your clients out in that, I mean, we're. We've learned that the hard way we've had to kind of modify some of some of the things when we onboard. So we've got, you know, we have clients that, that were raised in our old ways that we've had to kind of push out educational pieces, marketing pieces that are here's how we operate. Here's what we do and, send out reminders. Hey, you know, this is when stuff's happening. So to get proactive, you've got to start looking at all the things that you do, all the things that. Jason Hull (07:11) Yeah. Ryan Cadwell, CPM (07:21) they need and then start educating them ahead of time. And you educate them ahead of time, knowing that they're not going to read everything. They're not going to pay attention. ⁓ And then you just have a gentle reminder. the, and you know, our, ops staff is way better at this even than I am. I, I was way more reactive and figuring it out on the fly and Jason Hull (07:33) Yeah, people generally don't. Ryan Cadwell, CPM (07:48) And they were always like, there's no reason this is this stressful. How do we get ahead of this? How do we start educating? ⁓ Your statements will come out on this day. Your payments come out on this day. ⁓ Here's the way that our system works. If you've got an emergency, here's what to expect. and by the way, here's what qualifies as an emergency. That's another thing too. ⁓ But no matter what, it's still a people business. Jason Hull (08:11) Mm. Ryan Cadwell, CPM (08:16) It's still, you're still going to have people that aren't going to necessarily follow all of your patterns. And sometimes, sometimes you got to decide whether or not that means they stay as a client or, you know, you work on that relationship. See if you can't kind of get them in line. Other times you're going to part ways with that client just because it, it's going to be better for both of you to do that. Jason Hull (08:40) Yeah, so some of the things I'm hearing is like, you know, there's things that could have been planned. having good planning, setting expectations, having good onboarding, defining what emergencies are, setting boundaries. Right. And if they're not willing to play ball, then firing some clients for sure. Cool. So tell me about that. What's the difference between market value and investment value? For those listening, I'm doing air quotes. So. Ryan Cadwell, CPM (08:52) Go. Market value and investment value, think is the difference in those two terms is where money is made and lost every single time. The buyer wants to buy on investment value and then they want to sell on market value. That gap is truly where a lot of money can be made. Truly, Jason Hull (09:16) Okay. Ryan Cadwell, CPM (09:34) Investment value is different for every investor. have to know what your opportunity cost is. If you didn't put your money into here, where else, how much more can you make? And then evaluate whether or not this deal works for your portfolio. Everybody's money is different. Everybody's opportunities are different. So if you don't know those numbers, you typically just default to market value because Jason Hull (10:02) Hmm. Ryan Cadwell, CPM (10:03) Because appraisers, I mean, appraisers walk in and it's income approach, it's cost approach, and then it's comp approach, right? That's the most common three ways that they value it. And then brokers are gonna tell you what, if they're selling for the seller's agent, they're gonna tell you usually market value. This is what market is. Even on the bigger stuff, the multifamily stuff, they're always gonna be pushing whatever is gonna. generate the most value for their client. For you, you have to know in your underwriting, what can you financially absorb? One of the biggest things going on right now is if you're getting into the market right now, everybody's financial projections are this is gonna be long-term place. Like the fast money that we just came out of, that's most likely not gonna be in the next five years, the next five, 10, 15 years. Jason Hull (10:35) Right. Ryan Cadwell, CPM (11:02) You can't say always, because there will be some stuff that'll pop. There'll be a few home runs. Most of what's going to happen is going to be fundamentals. It's going to be operational, which means underwriting investment value is going to be key. Because if you're not doing that, you're most likely going to default to, well, if I want to put my money to work in this, I'm going to have to... I'm gonna have to overpay a little bit. And by overpay, I even mean in a negative leverage position where your desk costing you more than you're getting on your return. And if that's the case, you've got to have enough cash to weather the storm. And there are some people that are doing that. And that's their investment strategy and thesis. But if you don't... Jason Hull (11:47) Sure. Like you mean maybe like in the short term, it's not cash flowing, but as an asset or an investment in long term, it's a great play. Ryan Cadwell, CPM (12:01) Yeah, as long as you're in a position to be able to absorb that. I mean, we've run into some owners. We've, we've had, and I think this is the reason why I've come out more and started talking about this is, is a lot of the relationships where we were, where they're strained with our clients is usually when we're brought in after they bought it, we don't know how they underwrote it. They bring it to us and somebody else told them what it's going to rent for. We take it to market. It doesn't rent for that. They're in a negative cashflow position and they planned on being positive and having money for reserves. And now they're pulling money out of their paycheck to make sure everything gets paid. Jason Hull (12:34) Right. Right, because they were operating from the beginning with false assumptions or incorrect assumptions. And so the expectations are off and then you have to be the bearer bad news, but also you're the person that's finally giving them the truth and you know. Yeah. Ryan Cadwell, CPM (13:01) And that's hard to be in because it's like spent cost fallacy. It's where they spent the money on this. They bought into whatever the underwriting was and they were super excited. There was the emotional attachment. And then they get to where, no. And then with us. Jason Hull (13:24) Yeah, Spend cost analysis sums up, think, the whole state of California and how they spend money. So they're like, we bought this. They buy, they're like, they invest all this stuff into metros and buses and whatever. And everybody wants to drive cars. And yeah, like, but we put so much money into this. Yeah. Ryan Cadwell, CPM (13:31) You Right. Yep. Yep. And because we put money into it, therefore it's valid. Yeah. Jason Hull (13:50) Right. Yeah. Got it. So, ⁓ So. ⁓ So we need to understand the difference between market value and investment value. ⁓ Understand that gap is how we understand long term wealth, because if the gap's off, it's either profit or loss. That's what the gap is. So it could go either way. And so we want to make sure there's there's profitability there. And even if it's in the short term. Ryan Cadwell, CPM (14:09) And that's Jason Hull (14:19) Maybe it's loss. The long-term, it still could be profitable. Maybe it can make sense. okay, so a lot of investors, they're overpaying. You want to structure smarter deals to increase the returns. ⁓ And we're also going to chat about the leadership habits that drive sustainable business growth. So where do we go from here, you think? Ryan Cadwell, CPM (14:45) I mean, I love talking about habits because habits are what good habits and sound habits create sound fundamentals. And it helps avoid a lot of the, ⁓ the, well, it helps expose a lot more of the, of the mistakes that we can get into. ⁓ it helps maintain discipline. It helps, ⁓ it helps expose us. Like if you're, mean, if you're getting emotional about a deal, I'm in an investor group and Jason Hull (15:03) Yeah. Ryan Cadwell, CPM (15:14) And it's funny when, you know, one of the guys pitches the group a deal. We all kind of have this joke. it, if it feels emotional to the person, we always poke at that. We always bring that up. Are you emotionally attached to this deal? Like, are you okay walking away? ⁓ because you don't want to get your, like money is very emotional thing. And if you're not honest about it, when you're evaluating, ⁓ it's a good way to get. Jason Hull (15:30) Hmm. Ryan Cadwell, CPM (15:43) you know, to get into that. Jason Hull (15:44) So, so Ryan, what I'm hearing is like when you talk about habits, it sounds like you've got like some rules, some guidelines that you sort of have learned to follow when it comes to these to make sure this works. And one of these is, you know, reason over emotion is like, like making sure you're not making this, you know, taking a step back and questioning yourself. Am I emotionally too attached to this and why and. Ryan Cadwell, CPM (15:55) Mm-hmm. Jason Hull (16:12) I I think at the end of the day, every decision we make at some point connects to something that connects to emotion, right? Like why do you have investment properties? Well, I want to take care of my family. Cool. Well, you want to take care of family because I want to feel like a good provider. OK. And what is that? Why is it important to be a good provider? Because I want to feel like I'm doing good in the world, like I'm doing the right thing. So you want to feel good, you know? Ryan Cadwell, CPM (16:20) Right. Agreed. Yep. Yep. Jason Hull (16:40) So ultimately it always boils down to this feeling. We just got to make sure that we recognize the feeling because sometimes there's a totally different path to get to that feeling than having that rental property, for example. Ryan Cadwell, CPM (16:51) 100%. And I think that right there is probably the number one thing to always remember. It doesn't have to be a rental property to accomplish the same goal. ⁓ Jason Hull (17:01) Okay. Right. Yeah. So maybe just working it backwards to figure out, why do I think I want these investments? Well, I want to invest. Why do I want to invest? I want more money. Why do you think this is the best vehicle? So if we just question our assumptions all the way down, we'll eventually probably connect to some sort of feeling. Can I get this feeling another way? Can I invest another way? Is this the best vehicle for me to get what I'm trying to achieve? And sometimes it might be yes. Sometimes it might be no. Ryan Cadwell, CPM (17:33) And there's ways to diversify your portfolio with REIT stocks. Those are attached to the real estate market. have those diversify your portfolio too. Now I'm not licensed to sell those. So I'm not giving advice. I'm just saying there are. Jason Hull (17:48) Explain for newbie investors what restocks are. Ryan Cadwell, CPM (17:52) REIT stocks are ⁓ a REIT is a real estate investment trust. it is REIT stocks. Yeah. R-E-I-T. REIT stocks. Nope. Just REIT stocks. Just a different way for you to invest. It's more cash cash in and out because it's a stock you can Jason Hull (17:58) you said re-stocks. Okay. Okay. I thought you were making something totally new called re-stocks, like re-stocking a shelf. So was like, ⁓ well tell me about this. Ryan Cadwell, CPM (18:20) If the market's open, you can trade it, put your money in, get your money back out. It's not like sitting on a rental house or a rental apartment complex and you've got to wait on the market to show up. And then if you've got to sell fast, you got to take a bath. ⁓ All that happens within the entity, but yeah. Jason Hull (18:23) Yeah. you Mm-hmm. Got it. What are some other habits or rules you think are important in these scenarios to follow? Ryan Cadwell, CPM (18:49) ⁓ I think it's truly understand like starting from a place of really understanding your financial position. I mean, how much, what's your, you know, what's your tax percentage? I've, I've, I've asked some people, they don't, they don't actually know. If you don't know how much, if you don't, you know, how much you're paying annually in taxes, then it makes it harder to plan if you're going to sell and whether to do a 10 31 exchange for instance, or. Jason Hull (19:17) Yeah. Ryan Cadwell, CPM (19:18) whether to take the, you know, take the gain. Everybody would normally say, oh, you don't, you never want to pay the government. That's not always true. You got to run the numbers. Sometimes, sometimes if you sell, like for instance, when the market was super hot and 22, I would have told you, probably need to really reconsider at 1031, cause you might be buying peak of the market and you're going to lose way more money than you're, what you would have paid in a, in a game. Jason Hull (19:43) and you can make. Yeah. Ryan Cadwell, CPM (19:47) So if you don't know your true financial position, like what is your opportunity cost? If you were to take the same cash you're going to put down and you're going to put it into, whether it's savings, bonds, other investment vehicles, what is your average return on that money? And knowing those numbers, just in knowing them, and then when you look at your next investment, it starts to change the way you think about it because now it's... Jason Hull (20:03) Yeah. Ryan Cadwell, CPM (20:17) Not necessarily am I getting into real estate, you know, am I getting into real estate for the right reason to accomplish the right goal? Because at the end of the day, I think everybody wants real estate for the same reason, and that's to create the biggest pile of money. Jason Hull (20:33) Do you think, so you got to understand your financial position. Sometimes people see somebody else doing something investment wise, their friends doing it. They're like, maybe I should do it. But what makes sense for them might not make sense for you because your tax situation is different. Your tax liabilities are different. Your like the cash on hand is different. Your long-term goals might be different, right? Maybe they're at a completely different place than where you're at financially. and you're trying to play like the big boy, but maybe you're not there yet, right? And ⁓ there's also the factor, though, of you're talking about all these different investments. What do you think about the phrase people say, invest in what you know? Ryan Cadwell, CPM (21:16) I mean, I preach that all the time. If you don't know it, the only real way to get into it is to partner with somebody who does, ⁓ who knows it really well. ⁓ that usually means they've lost money in it in some way. ⁓ Jason Hull (21:37) Yeah, they've made some mistakes so you don't have to. Okay. Ryan Cadwell, CPM (21:47) So partner with somebody who does or I mean, the easiest example for me has always been something like Apple. Like, I think Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger taught the same thing. Like if you, if you already like something, you're going to naturally know, you're probably going to naturally know market cycles without realizing it. I mean, Apple's easy for me because they have their thing in September, they launch and sell all their new products in October and then As long as all that goes well, they usually have a price increase December, January. So if you want to go in and out of Apple, that's typically a pretty good up and down. Everything in real estate is very similar. If you like houses and you want to flip or you like hospitality and houses, that's Airbnb. There are things that are going to be where you're not. working as much or things you're naturally retaining information about the market. There's a lot of advantages right now for investors that know their local market and know where there's value. Cause some of the big boys are getting out of stuff that they can't run spreadsheets on from New York, California, Florida, wherever they're based. And you're sitting there in the local market. You see what's going on. There's advantages to Jason Hull (22:56) Mm-hmm. Ryan Cadwell, CPM (23:13) to pull in the trigger on stuff because you're in that market. that is a big thing right now for investors to see value that other people can't because a lot of the value that was clearly visible, it gets bought up by the people with cheaper money. I mean, to be honest. Jason Hull (23:36) Got it. Okay. Well, Ryan, sounds like you've made a few mistakes yourself over the years. You've learned some things. You have a lot of knowledge regarding this. you coming and sharing here on the DoorGrowth show. How can people maybe get in touch with you if they're curious or want to learn a little more? maybe you could tell everyone just a little bit about your business. Ryan Cadwell, CPM (23:43) Yeah, yeah Sure, check us out online, resoluteRDM.com or look me up on LinkedIn. We're also on Facebook, TikTok. ⁓ We put out videos all the time trying to help everybody. So look us up there. ⁓ And then if you're interested in different ⁓ investment types, different products, you can reach out to us too. We have developments going on. do have... ⁓ We do have a big duplex development happening right now that people can get involved into. Jason Hull (24:36) Cool, awesome. Ryan, thanks for coming and hanging out with us here on the DoorGrowth show. Ryan Cadwell, CPM (24:41) Thank you, Jason, for having me. Jason Hull (24:43) Awesome. OK, so for those of you that maybe you're struggling in your property management business, you know, reach out to us. You can check us out at door grow dot com and for free training on how to get unlimited leads for free text the words the word leads to five one two six four eight four six zero eight. Also be sure to join our free Facebook community just for property management business owners. by going to door grow club dot com. And if you want tips, tricks, ideas to learn about our offers or any of that about door, go subscribe to our newsletter by going to door grow dot com slash subscribe. And if you found this episode even a little bit helpful, don't forget to subscribe and leave us a review. We'd really appreciate it. Until next time. Remember, the slowest path to growth is to do it alone. So let's grow together. Bye, everyone.