DGS 248: What is a Property Manager?
Description
Are you a property manager? Do you hire property managers? Can you answer the question: what is a property manager, and what do they do?
In today’s episode, property management growth experts Jason and Sarah Hull discuss what a property manager is and what they should be doing in a property management business.
You’ll Learn
[01:14 ] Million-dollar question: What does a property manager do?
[06:25 ] Siloing information to protect your business
[10:26 ] Hiring specialists instead of people who can “do it all”
[12:20 ] What should a property manager's role be?
[16:31 ] Property managers as client success experts
Tweetables
“There's a lot of confusion as to the definition of a property manager in the property management industry.”
“When your company grows, what we're going to hopefully have you do is shift into specialists, so that you won't have a property manager that just does everything.”
“Effectively cloning yourself or duplicating yourself in the business usually means getting 10 people, not one.”
“It's not hard to be exceptional in property management.”
Resources
Transcript
[00:00:00 ] Jason: Business owners, we need to stop trying to find people that can do everything. We need to find people that are really good specialists.
[00:00:08 ] Welcome DoorGrow property managers to the DoorGrow show. If you are a property management entrepreneur that wants to add doors, make a difference, increase revenue, help others, impact lives. And you are interested in growing in business and life. And you're open to doing things a bit differently, then you are a DoorGrow property manager.
[00:00:28 ] DoorGrow Property Managers love the opportunities, daily variety, unique challenges, and freedom that property management brings. Many in real estate think you're crazy for doing it. You think they're crazy for not because you realize that property management is the ultimate high trust gateway to real estate deals, relationships, and residual income. At DoorGrow, we are on a mission to transform property management business owners and their businesses.
[00:00:56 ] We want to transform the industry, eliminate the B. S. build awareness, change perception, expand the market and help the best property management entrepreneurs win. We're your hosts, property management, growth experts, Jason and Sarah Hull, the owners of DoorGrow. Now let's get into the show.
[00:01:13 ] All right. So one of the things that's come up, we just did a DoorGrow boardroom event.
[00:01:18 ] And one of our clients that was there was like, "I need to hire a property manager." And we're like, "okay." And what we noticed in talking there and going deeper and digging in deeper is that there's a lot of confusion as to the definition of a property manager in the property management industry.
[00:01:37 ] Sarah: Yeah, it's like a catch all.
[00:01:39 ] Jason: So the challenge is it can mean just about anything.
[00:01:42 ] Sarah: Yeah. The definition of property manager is: "do anything and everything that the company needs."
[00:01:49 ] Jason: And so I've noticed this for a while. we've had a lot of clients and they'll say, "Oh, I need another property manager," or "I need to hire a property manager."
[00:01:56 ] "I need to get a property manager." And it always means something different. So like some people think a property manager does everything, and this is the portfolio style property manager. They're like, "they need to go get business." And so they're a BDM, they need to handle and do some of the bookkeeping accounting stuff.
[00:02:17 ] They need to do maintenance coordination. They need to do the leasing. So they're trying to find somebody that's basically an entrepreneur. They can do everything that's probably going to run away and steal half their business. Right. Which happens. It's happened quite a bit. I've seen it. And that's, I think the wrong way to build a property management business, it's the wrong way to hire and build your team.
[00:02:36 ] So let's figure out. What is a property manager? What is it?
[00:02:41 ] Sarah: Love it.
[00:02:41 ] Jason: What are your thoughts?
[00:02:42 ] Sarah: Well, so I think that there's an important distinction, especially when it comes to the size of your company. So in the beginning, When it's just you do everything. It's all you, you, and then you some more.
[00:02:58 ] And I think this is why then when they go to hire a property manager, they're like, "Oh, well I did everything and I want to replace myself. So I need a property manager to replace myself and then they're going to do everything because I did everything." So in the beginning. When you are in the day to day and it's just you and you haven't built a team yet and you're functioning as the property manager because you're in the day to day and the tactical work, yes, you are technically a property manager.
[00:03:26 ] And then when your company grows, what we're going to hopefully have you do is shift into specialists. so that you won't have a property manager that just does everything. You'll have people who are really good at the one thing that they do and will be able to then segment the business and split that out into multiple roles instead of just having a property manager that does everything.
[00:03:56 ] Everything. Yeah. So I created a Facebook post, cause
[00:04:00 ] There was some heat on that post. Well, I like this. I don't know if you read the comments.
[00:04:03 ] Jason: I like to stir the pot a little bit. For those that are watching this on video, this is what it looks like, right? So join our Facebook group, go to doorgrowclub. com, get in there. So I said, if the property manager role on your team is not your maintenance coordinator, operator, bookkeeper, leasing agent, then what is their role? And so people are like "define operator, like what's an operator?" So then I was defining what an operator was, but Michelle Miller, shout out to Michelle, she commented. She said, "in other words, if they aren't doing everything, what are they doing?" Right. Brian Nelson said "delegator." And I like that. That's I think
[00:04:39 ] Sarah: I don't like
[00:04:40 ] Jason: that.
[00:04:40 ] I like the idea that they are not the person that's doing all this stuff. Maybe they're orchestrating, maybe that's what they're doing.
[00:04:47 ] They're maintaining the relationship with the owner. Sean Foster, he says "PM's number 1 job is to be the middleman between the owner and the tenant advising and the correct path of the most profitable investment."
[00:04:56 ] And "but that one responsibility branches off into another 20, doesn't it?"
[00:05:00 ] And then, "depends on the systems." There's a little dialogue going back and forth there. So if you do property management, you manage the property. And to manage the property, you're doing leasing, maintenance, inspections, all this stuff. But that doesn't mean that the property manager in your business is doing all this stuff or should be.
[00:05:17 ] Usually you don't want somebody that's a jack of all trades and a master of none trying to do stuff. And if they're actually good at everything, they'll probably just go start their own business. And I think that's the other challenges that we often mistakenly fall into this clone myth. And this was what was going on with our client at the DoorGrow boardroom event.
[00:05:35 ] He thought, he's like, well, "I was a property manager at another company for a while. Now, I have my own business and I'm doing all everything and I need to go hire a property manager and I was doing everything at that company. I'm doing everything in my own company. Now, I need to go find somebody else to do everything."
[00:05:50 ] And when we finally identified this. I call it the clone myth. We think, "I just need to go find somebody just like me. I need to clone myself." Effectively cloning yourself or duplicating yourself in the business usually means getting 10 people, not one. Like 10 different hats, 10 different specialists in the business.
[00:06:07 ] And so just want to address the clone myth real quick. So I think we want to find a way, I think in the industry, it might make sense to eliminate the term property manager. If they're not actually the one doing all of the little pieces, unless you're portfolio style. So what are your thoughts on that?
[00:06:25 ] Sarah: Well, I think the other thing too, that I want to bring up about him at the boardroom event is he's like, "I need a property manager and they're going to do everything. And I do everything. And I also did everything at my other company when I worked for them as a property manager. So I need one
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