DGS 354: Is Chaos Holding Your Property Management Business Back?

Is your property management business growing, but somehow becoming harder to run? 

In this episode of the #DoorGrowShow, Jason and Sarah Hull discuss the difference between the chaos property managers solve for their clients and the chaos happening inside their own businesses.

While handling the challenges of rental properties creates an opportunity to serve owners, internal chaos can leave business owners dealing with team conflict, unclear expectations, and constant frustration. 

Jason and Sarah explore why so many property management companies hit a wall as they grow, especially when their company culture hasn't been clearly defined. They talk about the importance of establishing core values, hiring people who align with those values, addressing gossip and conflict directly, and taking ownership of the standards you allow in your business. 

If your business feels more chaotic with every door you add, this conversation will help you understand where that chaos may be coming from and what needs to change before you grow further.

You’ll Learn

[00:38]  Why Chaos Requires Strong Leadership
[02:13]  External Chaos vs. Internal Business Chaos
[03:58]  How Unclear Culture Creates Team Problems
[06:08]  Office Politics, Gossip, and Employee Conflict
[07:12]  There Are No Bad Teams, Only Bad Leaders
[11:06]  Why Gossip Is Theft in Your Business
[11:53]  Defining the Culture and Values You Want
[14:10]  Your Company Culture Is the Real Product
[18:02]  Reducing Chaos and Building a Scalable Business

Quotables

“And chaos when there's chaos, what really needs to happen is leadership. And leadership provides clarity.” — Jason Hull 

“When we're not clear on what we want, it's really difficult to get what you want.” — Jason Hull 

“Culture is the foundation because culture is the actual foundation of the business.” — Jason Hull

Resources

DoorGrow and Scale Mastermind

DoorGrow Academy

DoorGrow on YouTube

DoorGrowClub

DoorGrowLive

Transcript

Jason Hull (00:01)

Five, four, three, two, one. Hey everybody. Welcome to the DoorGrow Show. I'm Jason Hull, the founder and CEO. This is Sarah, the COO of DoorGrow and co-owner. We are the owners of DoorGrow and we are the world's leading and most comprehensive coaching and consulting firm for long-term residential property management entrepreneurs. For 18, almost 18 years.

 

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. Okay. All right. So our topic today is chaos. Wow. Chaos.

 

Personified by Sarah. All right. Chaos. Injecting chaos. All right. So who doesn't like a little bit of chaos? I actually think chaos is kind of fun. But I do well in chaos. Some people do not thrive in chaos. But chaos to me is opportunity and it's a way to make money and it's a way to help people. And chaos when there's chaos, what really needs to happen is leadership. And leadership provides clarity.

 

And so when there's chaos, that is just an opportunity for you to help everybody get some clarity and to take leadership. See, see? See? Do you see? Wow. Well, you were loud enough screaming chaos. I'm sure they heard you. Now you can hear me. There you go. All right. I'm sure they heard you before anyway. All right. So chaos. All right. So yeah, like I was saying.

 

The it needs leadership. And w we see a lot of businesses, especially in the two to three hundred door range, they've got a lot of chaos going on. And they've got an entire team and there's difficulty. But if there is the greater the level of chaos, the more assuredly we will find a greater lack of leadership. And so taking ownership and and leading and setting rules and boundaries and guidelines is imperative. It's it it's

 

really, really critical. And this is what yeah, I was coaching a client on this today. This is what was lacking in the business. And when there's a lack of clarity of culture, there's going to be greater levels of chaos and yeah, and problems. So what should we talk about about chaos? Well, what would cause a severe amount of chaos that is not usually opportunity? Because what we mean by chaos is opportunity is when there's

 

Chaos externally. External chaos is usually opportunity. Internal chaos is not fun. I mean it's still an opportunity to improve or to grow. There is opportunity there. There's always opportunity when there's chaos. But it's not like wow, I have such a great opportunity in the market because my whole business is chaos and it's a disaster and everything is broken. Wow, what an amazing

 

Opportunity I've got here. Yeah. So there there's a great opportunity for cleanup. Sure. Then, but I j I just do want to make sure there's that distinction between internal chaos and external chaos. So external chaos, that's usually why property managers exist in the first place. It's because managing rentals and doing everything by yourself, dealing with tenants and maintenance and evictions and rent collection and

 

Showings and screenings and all the things, that can be chaos. Yeah. That is where property managers thrive. Is hey we just handle the chaos for you, so Yeah. You don't even have to think about it. We do the the the work. We do all of this so you don't have to think about it or worry about it. You don't have a headache. We do the work for you. Yay. But internal chaos in your business is different. So internal chaos in your business is is not

 

Such a a great place to be. Right. And that's that's kind of the the difference. So I don't want you to go, well, wow, my business is chaos. That's that's great. Jason said it was a an amazing opportunity to make money. It definitely means there's margin for improvement. So which is an opportunity to have more profit, to make more money, to have a better experience, right? To have more freedom as a business owner.

 

There's lots of opportunity if you've you have chaos in your business. So you can look at it at the glass half empty or half full, either way. So So what are some of the things that cause chaos internally in in business? I mean, one of the biggest is just a lack of clarity in the business. So the biggest lack of clarity that we'll see the most chaos I think created by is a lack of clarity around culture.

 

So if culture isn't clear and culture isn't defined, then we bring in team members that don't fit the culture, which means you as a business owner won't feel comfortable with them. They'll be doing things that or getting away with stuff that is making you uncomfortable. And you maybe you feel like you you're you're trying to be nice to people on the team. And but you know, I was talking with a business owner today and he's got a team member that is

 

He thinks going to be his salesperson or BDM, but this person also has their own property management company on the side. And I was like, Well, isn't that a conflict of interest? And he was like, Well, yeah, I was thinking that too. And I was like, Yeah, my it sounds like it. So, yeah. And so that's the challenge when we don't when we're not clear on what we want, it's really difficult to get what you want. And that's not his ideal scenario. That's not what he wants. But

 

I think that a lot of times we just don't have clarity. And when we culture is defined, I think, by having clarity of the company values so that you can make sure that you have team members that match those values. Because it's really difficult to look at team members and go, Do they fit in here? Are they a good fit? When you don't have culture defined. And it's really difficult for your team members to know what the culture is if you don't have it defined and to protect that culture. Cause at DorGro, if we bring in a new team member,

 

And they're injecting chaos. It's a bad thing. And they're causing harm or damage or it's against our company core values. It's against our client centric the, you know, mission statement and the outcomes that we want to create with clients. Everybody on the team is going to probably bring it up to us. They're going to say, This is a problem. I'm noticing this. So the team protect the culture once culture is clear and it's defined. And so culture gets protected. But when you don't have clarity of culture, what you will notice is the side effects of a lack of culture.

 

Which he's noticing. What you're going to start to notice is politics. Office politics. You're going to start noticing gossip. You're going to start noticing backstabbing and complaints. Like this gentleman has a team member that was like, she was unwilling to come to Daily Huddle if this other team member shows up because they're they've got a little tiff or some sort. And so I'm like, that's a problem. There's like this needs to be nipped in the bud. This needs to be healed or fixed. There's a cultural problem in the business. And

 

If the culture if culture's a problem, then there's a lack of leadership. Because leadership creates the culture of the business. there's a great book. we've listened to the audio. It's it's called Extreme Ownership. And their subsequent book is really good as well. Yeah, Jocko Willock and and Leaf something. But the their subsequent book I think is even better because it really clarifies it.

 

The dichotomy of leadership of leadership, yeah. And so that's the the challenge is if there's a lack of culture, there's a lack of leadership. And one of the principles they teach that they talk about with the I guess the Navy SIELS or the Marines is that there's no bad teams, there's only bad leaders. And you might think, well, that's not true. There's bad team members. Yeah, but you pick them, you're the business owner, you allowed them to be around. You set the standard. So

 

Yeah, and so they're your team. So yeah, there really is there's no bad teams, there's just bad leaders is the principle, which means you have to take ownership of the team. And if somebody's bad, you either make sure they're good or they're out. And so, yeah.

 

So we've not

 

Yeah. I mean I

 

two and he's like I it it's really hard because she's been part of the team for so long. Mm-hmm.

 

with people or maybe to have to let someone go who's really been part of our team for so long. Yeah, you're right. It's not it's not fun and it's not always easy. And that's why the entrepreneur has the hardest job. Yeah. Yeah, if you're s as an entrepreneur, I think inherently we are willing to do things that most people are not willing to do. We're willing to do we're willing to take risks that other people would never even

 

dream of taking. We're willing to make hard decisions. We're willing to make sacrifices. We're, you know, we just do things a little bit differently. And that's why we are entrepreneurs. We are wired differently than people who are not business owners and entrepreneurial. And that that's okay. It's not that one is better than another. It's just that we're we're different. And that is why being the entrepreneur and the business owner, it really is.

 

Hardest job in the entire business. And this is part of it. Yeah. It also means that you get to build things the way that you want to. And you're ultimately the one who gets to decide what kind of business you have. That's great. Because in a job, if you go work for someone else, you don't get to control that. You don't get to control who works here. You don't get to control who's part of the team. You don't get to control how things are done.

 

You just kind of show up and you're given your job and you're told what to do and how to do it. And you might be able to, you know, inject your two cents in every once in a while. But when you own the business, you that's all up to you. It's all on our shoulders. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And, you know, you'll have team members that complain, that gripe about things, that complain about other team members. and that causes, you know, that's gossip. It causes problems in the business. It's basically putting problems and weight on other people's shoulders that can't solve or resolve the problem. So

 

know, if this particular team member has a problem with another team member, she either needs to take it to that team member and resolve it or go to the business owner or whoever the supervisor or superior is and say, I'm having this issue until it's resolved. But I don't think it's appropriate to say, I'm just not gonna come to meetings or I'm just not gonna be around this person. So I and I think that it could very well be done, maybe she means it well.

 

Right. Maybe she means by it. Like, hey, I I I don't I don't like how things are being done by this team member or I don't agree with certain things, you know, this this team member is doing. And I think that's that's probably good. I like I ask my team, you know, let us let us know what you're seeing and what you're experiencing. They're doing part you know, tasks and roles that we aren't part of anymore. So I do want to hear that.

 

What I don't want though is them to say, Hey, there's a problem, not tell me about it, not do anything to address it, and just try to avoid it. Yeah. Go, well, I'm not gonna fix it. I'm also not going to tell anyone about it who can fix it. I'm just not gonna talk to that person. Well, that isn't really an option. Yeah.

 

If they just go and complain, they're just causing waste in the company because then they're putting problems on the shoulders of people that can't solve the problem. And they're eating up mental resources and stressing about a problem that they have no ability to resolve. That's what gossip is. It's theft. So I think either way, if you have two team members that aren't getting along, most likely there's a lack of leadership or a lack of clarity in culture. And one of them is misaligned.

 

Towards the values is most likely the case. And now if the values are defined, then we it's easy for the team to all point out or to realize hey, this is out of alignment with the company values. This is not how we do things. But if values aren't clear, then everybody feels like, well, I think it should be done this way, and this person thinks I think it should be done this way, and they disagree, then there's a conflict. And there's no real way of settling that, especially if the leader doesn't step in and

 

And make sure that they get them together and figure out the problem. So it starts by first defining the culture in the business. If just like any religion, you can't have a religion without beliefs. There has to be some sort of written-down, you know, articles of faith or determination of what the rules are or how this works or what our beliefs are. And your business needs this as well. We need an agreed upon set of guidelines, rules.

 

values, goals, and people either choose into that or they don't. And this needs to be determined by the business owner. This is not something we abdicate to the team because ultimately the team and the business should be built around the person that owns it. Your job in life is not to try and build a team and a business that make you stressed out that you have to try and please all the time. You are who you are.

 

God made you a certain way. And if it's your business and you're running it, you need to build the right team and the right values and the right systems around you. So you have more and more freedom and feel more and more comfortable. That's going to allow you to have team members that also feel more and more comfortable and more and more free and feel like they're part of something bigger that they believe in. But it's really difficult to believe in a starving king, for example, and the king has to eat first or queen.

 

has to be first because nobody wants follow a starving queen, right? You you need to make make sure that you figure out what you want first. And that's the business and the team that you build around you. And a lot of business owners are trying to build the business around their team members or build their their day to day around what the business wants out of them. And then your business ends up I sometimes joke, your business sometimes is a high chair tyrant flinging food in your face.

 

Anybody that's been a parent knows that that's not the that's not the ideal parenting situation where the kids in charge and flinging food in your face saying, I don't like this. I don't I want I want it different. Give me cake, you know, or whatever. Somebody has to be somebody has to be the parent. Somebody has to be daddy and somebody has to be mommy. Somebody has to like set the rules. And if you it's your business, you need to be displaying that leadership.

 

And that starts by defining the culture. It's super important. It's the the I would argue that the culture you define in your business is your actual product. The actual product you're selling is your your unique set of skills, ideas, values, beliefs. This is the product. And a lot of you are trying to sell property management, which is the outcome of what you do, but people don't buy what you do. They buy why you do it.

 

And then by how you do it. And why you do what you do is related to you personally and your values. And how you go about doing it as a team is related to the company core values, is how they go about doing everything. Because you you can do property management in lots of different ways. And this outcomes could, on the surface, seem somewhat similar. Like, hey, we both do maintenance coordination, we both do leasing, but hey, this one's shady and doesn't have values.

 

And this one has integrity. Or this one hires X Cons. This one hires X Cons. They can wrench on some things. We'll send we'll send them into some vacant units. What could good what could possibly go wrong? Yeah. So that was random. Chaos. Chaos. Thanks. All right. Excons. What what? So yeah. Anyway, so that's the idea. Is we want we want to make sure that we get really strong cultural clarity and

 

Now a lot of I've seen lot of businesses, maybe under 200, maybe even under 400 doors, they think culture is fluffy, woo-woo, BS. They don't see the value of it. They think, well, this sounds like kumbaya, blah, blah, blah. I just need work done. And here's the thing that having seen, I've seen more than probably anyone listening to this podcast. I probably have. Sarah's probably seen inside more businesses than a lot of you. And she's been how long have you been with DoorGrow?

 

Now. Six years? Yeah, long time. A lot like probably talked to hundreds. Yeah. And so what we've seen inside businesses, I've seen inside thousands of companies. What we've seen is we've seen the pattern that it's almost impossible, I think, to break five hundred units with bad culture. It just doesn't really happen. And if you do, I've seen it once where a client had six hundred doors, but he was making zero dollars of profit. And there wasn't great culture.

 

Right. He eventually fired 250 units. He fired half his team. Then he was making money. And that was because of coaching. But yeah, we need to make sure we have culture defined. Culture is what determines the type of team members you have. Culture is what determines or attracts or like scares off, you know, good or bad team members. Culture is what helps you get good or bad clients. It determines whether or not you are a doormat that is just bleeding profitability.

 

Or you have a highly profitable business that's hitting 50% profit margin, like some of our clients. So a lot of people are just hemorrhaging money and they don't see culture as a problem. But then they start hitting this weird wall. And if you look at our door grow code roadmap, it's almost like they're trying to grow, they're trying to get to the next level in the door grow code, they're trying to move forward. There's this weird tether, this rubber band. And the further they get towards 500 doors.

 

The more pressure there is to be pulled back and the more chaos comes in and the more their team starts screwing up and they think they need more processes. But the thing holding them back is the one box on our Dorgo code that's several stages earlier that says you need to get culture defined. And if they get that defined, that rubber band is snipped and they can just keep on growing and scaling because they're able to attract good people. They have a good product, they have a good team.

 

Culture is the foundation because culture is the actual foundation of the business. It is the product. It is what you're selling to people. It is what your team members are buying into and trading their time for in order to get a paycheck. So if you would like less chaos, there's two things that you can do. One is make sure that you have

 

Defined. If you don't know how to do that, you might want to reach out. We're pretty good at helping people with this. The second thing that you can do to reduce chaos is figure out how to deal with all that pesky maintenance. Heck, here's an idea. If you're working with us, you know that you're growing doors, and that means that you're going to have to keep figuring out how to keep up with all that maintenance. Instead of doing that, we recommend using Venderoo to have maintenance figured out for you. With AI, a vendoroo.

 

Brings the best practices, workflows, and AI intelligence. They've developed across hundreds of property management operations and they put it to work in your business. It's an AI that answers the phone, troubleshoots with residents, coordinates with vendors, follows up, and drives the work order all the way to completion. So as you add doors, you don't have to keep reinventing maintenance. Yay, let Vendoroo build your maintenance for you. Like so many of our DoorGrow community members have already done. You focus on growing the doors.

 

And then build an AI first maintenance department that will scale with you forever. Isn't that nice? Use Venderoo. All right. Little word. Is it doorgrow.com slash Vendaroo? Or is it Venderoo.com slash doorgrow? It's one of those. I don't know. There's a little word from our sponsor. So all right. So get culture defined. It's gonna dramatically transform your business. If you would like some help getting this defined in a way that is gonna help you make more money.

 

Get clarity, reach out to us and learn about our rapid revamp where we clean up your business. We help you clean up your front end, we help improve your pricing, improve your branding, improve your website, improve your sales pitch, improve your culture stuff, get all of this stuff dialed in so that you have less leaks. If you're missing out on one door annually and you make maybe two grand a year off of a door, and you could keep that door on for maybe five years, that means that door is worth 10 grand.

 

In future ROI or lifetime value, you are missing out on maybe 10 of these situations every month. That's hundreds of thousands of dollars for some of you that you're missing out on every month because you don't have all these leaks short up in your pipeline. And meanwhile, you're like, I need more leaks, and you're just spending money on marketing and doing stuff to try and grow this. And you're basically turning on the hose more, but the hose has six major holes in it.

 

Get the hose dialed in and the leaks short up first. Stop the bleeding first before you just start throwing more at it. And we can help you with that. We can help you save you hundreds of thousands of dollars in opportunity cost. And our program is an absolute steal. It's maybe worth like only would cost you one door that you're missing out on. And we can help you stop losing out on 10 of them every month, right? So take a look at that. Check us out. Talk to us about the rapid revamp. We'll help you get your culture dialed in. We'll help you get

 

All this, it's kind of like we're bar rescue for property managers. We'll help you get all of your business dialed in. We've been doing this for a long time. We're the best in the world at this. We've probably rebranded over, I think, 400 companies. So if you've ever felt stuck or stagnant, you want to take things to the next level, reach out to us at DoorGrow. if you'd like 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 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.