DGS 350: Collaboration Over Competition in Property Management

What if some of the people you see as competitors could actually help you grow your property management business?

In this episode of the #DoorGrowShow, Jason and Sarah Hull talk about collaboration over competition and why a scarcity mindset can cause property management business owners to overlook opportunities sitting right in front of them.
They break down why clients aren't necessarily choosing a property manager because of a secret strategy, service, or sales pitch, and why trying to protect everything you do from your competitors may be doing more harm than good.

If you've been treating the property managers around you strictly as competition, this episode may change the way you look at them.

You’ll Learn

[00:00] Introduction and industry overview
[00:58] False scarcity and competition myths
[03:19] Clients choose you for your uniqueness, not secret sauce
[05:16] The industry benefits from collaboration, not isolation
[06:15] Debunking false assumptions about growth and scarcity
[08:39] Lead generation is easier than perceived
[09:06] The abundance of property management opportunities
[11:51] Overcoming fear and false evidence
[12:52] Collaboration over competition explained
[16:16] The neighbor strategy for referrals

Quotables

“They work with you because they like you. Because you're unique, because you are uniquely you.” — Sarah Hull 

“People don't want to buy property management. They want to buy you.” — Jason Hull

“Some of your neighbors could become one of your best friends and best assets.” — Jason Hull

Resources

DoorGrow and Scale Mastermind

DoorGrow Academy

DoorGrow on YouTube

DoorGrowClub

DoorGrowLive

Transcript

Jason Hull (00:00)

All right, five, four, three, two, one. Hey everybody, I'm Jason Hull, the founder and CEO of DoorGrow. This is Sarah Hull, owner of DoorGro and the COO. We are 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 we're going to be talking about collaboration over competition in the property management industry. And the reason for this is because a lot of you are dealing with a lot of false scarcity.

 

false competition and you're not leveraging some of the people that could be feeding you business, maybe even in your own neighborhood. And so let's get into this. All right, let's talk about it. So if you've ever thought, no, I don't want my competitors

 

registers to know about doorgrow. I don't want them to work with door grow. I only want to do this or I only want to have the best stuff or I only want to do, you know, the whatever strategy or you know, I want all the connections. And I think a lot of times that's really based in a a scarcity mindset and in a fear-based mindset. Yeah. If you find something that's good and then you go, I'm gonna keep this little secret to myself. I I don't want to tell anyone else about it.

 

I only want it for me. And maybe it's a website or maybe it's, you know, a special pricing tool, or maybe it's your sales process, or, you know, maybe it's a referral source. Maybe it's what do they call it at KFC? Like the the secret ingredients. Eleven secret eleven herbs and spices. Like I can't I can't let anybody else know what I do or how I do it or why. I don't want them to know anything about me. Then a lot of times I I know it feels like hey, I'm protecting

 

my assets and I'm protecting my my business and I'm making sure that you know not everyone can copy me. And what it usually boils down to though is A property management is just inherently not that different. Like what one property manager does is really similar to what another property manager does. Are there slight nuances and differences between two companies? Yes, of course there are. How they do things is different.

 

Of course. But the product itself, what you're actually doing, is not very different from company to company to company. So you're really not saving yourself what you think like what you think you're doing is, I'm not telling anybody. I'm keeping this to myself. I don't want anyone to copy me. It it's it's all the same product. And usually people don't decide to work with you because you have the secret sauce.

 

They work with you because they like you. Because you're unique, because you are uniquely you. So your competitor and you might do the exact same thing in the exact same area, in the exact same market, targeting the exact same properties and clients. You do everything the same. Your pricing might be the same, the website might look similar, your sales pitches often pretty similar. That's why when you call property management companies, you kind of have deja vu and you hear the same thing again and again and again and again.

 

Unless you talk with one of our clients and then the conversation sounds slightly different. But it's it's all it all boils down to the same thing. And people aren't working with you because you said the magic words like, they said this one thing and now I have to work with them because no other company does that. No other company is like that. That usually is not the case. Because the product and the service is what it is. It's it's the same. But you're different.

 

And they like you. And that's why someone will work with you. And guess what? Your competitors probably unless unless you're maybe really mean to them, your competitors probably like you too as a person. They, you know, there's probably maybe some friendly competition there. But they probably like you too. And if you got to know them, you might find that you like them as well. And I think that

 

looking at this as a collaboration instead of no, it's it's all me, it has to be me, I'm the only one, I'm the best one, and nobody else in this market, everybody else is like this or like that. I'm the only one. Well, all right. I I just don't know how that really serves the industry. I don't know how that really serves the community. Well let's take a step back because I think a lot of business owners

 

And until your own basic needs are met, you don't care about the community. Let's be real. Like if you're you and your family are hungry and starving, you need money, you need to pay rent, you need to pay your bills, you you want to get your business going. You don't care about the community. You don't care about the industry. You care about yourself, which is fine. So let me help you see how you by being selfish and looking at yourself, you have probably some false assumptions that are causing you to not grow. And that's why you're in this that that

 

That camp and why you're struggling. So, first of all, like Sarah said, you may have this false scarcity mindset. So, first of all, there is, let's let's kill some assumptions. First, why do you have the assumption that there's a it's hard to grow your business? Or the assumption that there's there's only a small amount of business to go around, or the false assumption that maybe it's difficult to grow your property management business.

 

What if none of this was even true? These are all false assumptions you have based on bad data and bad information because you've had bad ideas or bad strategy. So, first of all, most property management companies suck in most markets. Why do they suck? Because they're stuck in a lot of this bad mindset stuff. They didn't wake up in the morning saying, I want to start a bad business today. And if you're struggling and customer service is kind of, you know, falling apart, or you've got clients leaving, or people are frustrated.

 

Or you're super stressed out and you're not loving your business, you didn't wake up in the morning one day and say, This is, I want to start a crappy business today. But that's the default of where you end up when you make certain decisions with certain assumptions because you have blind spots. So let's see if we can destroy a few blind spots for you right now. First, is property management, does everybody sell the same thing? Like Sarah said, no, because why? Property management isn't even the product that people want to buy from you.

 

They're the right owners that you want. So they're looking for a property management business owner they can partner with that they trust to take over their property. They're not just looking for the cheapest person. But when you commoditize yourself, so by having the wrong offer, you turn yourself into a commodity. You're now and because you're selling the wrong product. And if you're selling the wrong product to the wrong audience, you have the wrong offer that's optimized for the wrong people.

 

And so then you have the wrong clients, and then your business is really operationally expensive. Your operational costs are really high, really difficult clients to deal with because you have bad channels, the wrong channels, wrong product, wrong offer, wrong clients, right? So we, if we want to counter this and get out of the cycle of suck, one, you have to start firing bad clients. You have to start filtering the cloud clients that you bring on. You need better channels of opportunity that feed you.

 

Healthier business, healthier property owners, healthier clients, people that trust you, people that are not going to try to micromanage you. The operational costs are lower. They're healthier investors. And then you can sell the right product to them. And then you can have the right offer that's attractive to that type of buyer. And so then everything gets a lot easier. The other thing is Legion is hard. Let's let's attack that. Legion is not hard.

 

At least half of all rental properties out there are being managed by somebody that doesn't enjoy doing it or that sucks at doing it. Maybe most of them are managed by somebody that doesn't enjoy doing it because a lot of your the lot of half are probably professionally managed or less. And a lot of them are miserable or aren't even good at it. That might be you listening to this right now. And we could help you with that. But most property management companies suck. Most people.

 

though are not using property manager. So there's a lot of self managing people. They don't enjoy doing it. And rarely have you ever run into a vessor that says, Yeah, I'm gonna I'm doing it myself and I love it. It's my favorite thing. I love managing property. I love showing the property. I love doing inspections and leasing and maintenance coordination. They don't th it's not a hard sell.

 

Right. So I don't think it's hard to sell property management. I don't think it's hard to get leads. There's tons of available business out there. When scarcity happens is when your channels suck. So if you're focused on SEO, pay-per-click, like Google Ads, pay per lead, like all property management.com, social media marketing, content marketing. Here's where there's a lot of scarcity because there's very little internet or search volume.

 

looking for property management. And so there's a lot more scarcity there. And there are people winning at this game. But this is kind of like there's there are people winning in Vegas when they're gambling. There are winners. And you see these winners and you're like, they're winning. The lottery. They're like number one on Google. They've been there for a decade. Yeah, they're winning. And everybody else, like second place on Google, gets like a dramatically less traffic, less leads, less business. And that's

 

It's a hard game to play. So if you're going after Goliath and you are David, but you tr decide to do the same things, you're making really bad moves. So we've got to get you focused on better, more effective lead gen strategies where you're not do focus on digital marketing and you're able to reach these investors and owners that would love your help. They're just not looking for a property manager actively. That doesn't mean they wouldn't buy it. That doesn't mean they don't need it. That doesn't mean they would they would

 

like give up all that extra freedom and time that they would love to have that you could give to them. You can sell them on this. This is not hard to sell. They don't even like doing it. And you can take it off their plate. And it might even be free for them if they haven't raised rent in the last two years. You just like they might be 10% below market rate on rent. They might be dealing with mol like lots of vacancy.

 

If you can decrease their vacancy significantly over the course of a year, you probably could pay for your management services just by doing that. So here we are we want to destroy all these false assumptions because fear, they say that is an acronym that stands for false evidence appearing real. So if you're you're in the state of fear or in the state of false scarcity or you have the scarcity mindset.

 

Every decision you make from that place, from that mindset, is going to be not true or is going to be false or is going to be skewed or is going to be ineffective. And so a lot of you are making decisions from a place of scarcity, which isn't even accurate. There's tons of business out there. Tons of business. There's lots of different growth engines, lots of different strategies and vehicles you could implement on how to grow your business. If you get on a sales call with us, our team will

 

Give you those strategies for free. So you will be convinced we could help you and you'll know how we could help you and what we could coach you on. So reach out and set up a call with DoorGrow. We are great at this. We've been doing this for almost 18 years. So that's what I would say about that, to destroy some of those false assumptions. And so we believe in a doorgrow. We teach our clients. We believe in collaboration over competition. Right? What does that mean?

 

That means instead of going, I can't let my competitors know what I'm doing. I don't want to talk to my competitors. I don't want them to know what I'm doing. I would love if I knew what they were doing, but I don't want them to know what I'm doing. I don't wanna talk with them. I don't wanna work with them. I don't wanna look at them. I don't wanna have a relationship with them. I don't wanna put my pricing on my website because then they'll see it and then they'll copy me and they'll they'll do the same thing that I'm doing and they'll have the same thing because

 

We're the same, you know, we're doing the same thing. Yeah. And and it's that it's that fear. It's that fear and it's that scarcity and it's that well no. Yeah. There's only there's maybe two big companies or three big companies in your market and you're going, Well, I need to be one of them. So I'm I'm I'm gonna just distance myself from my competitors. And if you look at things through the lens of, hey, this is my competitor. Mm-hmm.

 

then it's really hard for you to want to work with or have a relationship with someone who's your competitor. So you need to be able to look at things different and realize, yeah, you might be in the same market. Yeah, you might do the same thing. Yeah, you might serve the same audience and you might have the same target and you really might have similar goals. But that doesn't necessarily mean that you can't collaborate. Yeah.

 

And the thing is, people don't want to buy property management. They want to buy you. And you're different than all of your competitors. You have a different philosophy. And hopefully you have a healthy mindset because really what they're buying from you as a partner partially is your mindset. It is your belief system. And if you are coming from a place of scarcity, you also are not going to be very attractive to the healthiest clients. You're not going to be attractive to the best investors. And if you're walking around going, why are all the owners in my market are cheap? You know what that tells me about you?

 

Yeah, we talk about this in our pricing secrets training and how to figure that out. Like you might be a cheap owner or a cheap O, as I call it, a cheap investor or cheap mindset person, right? So we gotta shift your mindset and that then you start attracting people like you, healthier people. All right, let's do a quick word from our sponsor. We'll get back into this. So our sponsor is second nature. We're talking about collaboration. Yeah.

 

He's been steamrolling me all day today. okay. Are we segueing into this? Go ahead. Do you want to do it? No, no, you take it. Go ahead. You just you do it. Well go ahead. To be fair, I pointed at it. I know. I didn't think she was gonna lead into it. Okay. Good. Speaking of collaboration and how to partner with someone who's really great so that there's a less of this

 

You know, scarcity and fear set. mind this fear-based mindset and how to focus on collaboration. Sometimes the people you want to partner with are also in your industry, but they're not direct competitors. Like Second Nature. So let's talk about second nature and then i after this I'm gonna tell you about the neighbor strategy, how you can y actually get neighboring property managers.

 

To give you business instead of thinking they're taking it from you. Okay. All right, second nature. So the resident experience is broken and it starts with the lease. Leases are getting longer and attention spans are getting shorter. The result is that residents don't read the lease, and PMs know all too well that just it's just a ticking time bomb. Second nature believes it doesn't have to be this way. Introducing resident onboarding.

 

So, Second Nature's new onboarding guide offers transparency, choice, and convenience to residents all while taking the work off your plate. Lease responsibilities and expectations are made clear and unskippable in a simplified digital signing flow. Residents can customize their living experience, whether they're selecting insurance coverage, upgrading their air filters, or choosing more expense or more extensive pest control coverage, and with group rate internet.

 

They get gig speed service right in their lease. Best of all, it's fully managed by Second Nature. So there's no extra work for you. This could help. It's kind of like a sounds like an onboarding wizard that they go through to bring them into a better experience. Visit secondnature.com slash affiliate dash doorgrow. So affiliate is A double F I one L I A T E dash Dorgrow.

 

To start revolutionizing your resident experience. Okay. Cool.

 

Would you like to explain the neighbor strategy? in two minutes, yes. Cool. So back when I did property management, this was one of the things that I actually really enjoyed doing. I like staying in my lane and not trying to expand into properties, areas and territories that I really wasn't interested in covering, but that I could cover because the right opportunity comes up. We all know how that goes. So

 

I was actually introduced to a property manager that was a neighboring property manager and I did not cover her area and she did not cover my area. But a lot of times we would talk with investors, both of us would talk with investors to go, hey, do you do this area? And I would go, Absolutely not, I won't touch that with a 10 foot pole. But I have someone who's great to talk with her and she will take good care of you. And she would do the same for me. And we would be able to send each other leads back and forth.

 

So that I could just cover the area that I was really great at covering and that I wanted to cover and she could do the same thing. And instead of then going, nope, don't cover that area, see you later, bye. Then I would go, well, I don't, but I know someone that can help you. And she's great. Let me get you connected with her. And that became a lead for her. And I got a lot of business from her. And I would send her a lot of business and it was really great. because some people would look at that and go, no, I have no time for that.

 

And it was a really great relationship that we were able to maintain and grow our businesses together collaboratively. Awesome. So if you you could be a vendor in this industry, you could be a property manager in this industry. If you think that your competitors are your enemies and you think that there's no way to collaborate with them, maybe you're not looking hard enough. And there are some big opportunities for deals to be had, for relationships to be created. And just like Sarah talked about the neighbor strategy.

 

There's we've had clients with short-term rental companies in the exact same city as long term rental company clients working with each other, feeding each other business. There might be a way to work out. maybe there's different types of properties, whatever, but some of your neighbors could become one of your best friends and best assets. All right. So if you've ever felt stuck or stagnant, you want to take your property management business to the next level. You're dealing with some difficulties and growing, you're you're dealing with difficulties with your mindset, whatever.

 

Reach out to us at doorgrow.com. Let's help you change things and start making a lot more money. And for a free training on how to get unlimited leads for free, text the word leads to 512-648-4608. Also join our free community online just for property management business owners by going to doorgrowclub.com. And if you want tips, tricks, and ideas 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. 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. Wait a few so it doesn't off at the end. Five, four, three, two, one. Okay, bye.