As property managers, you know how important communication is. Building solid relationships and creating trust is crucial in the industry, especially when trying to bring on new clients and doors.

In this episode of the Property Management Growth Show, property management growth expert Jason Hull sits down with Sam Wakefield from Close it Now to talk about how you can level up your sales game to close more deals at a higher price point.

You’ll Learn

[00:54 ] Vendor and Property Manager Relationships

[09:43 ] Why You Attract Cheapo Clients

[15:33 ] Building Trust in Sales

[21:14 ] Shifting Perception: It’s Not A, It’s B

[27:43 ] Learning to Improve Your Sales at DoorGrow Live 2025

Quotables

“Truly all that sells is just communication.”

“The second you start to develop a trend in your life, look internally because you are attracting exactly who you are.”

“If we don't build the right culture, it's on us as a business owner.”

“As business owners, we want to not give up big chunks of our life for just money. We want to be able to have something scalable.”

Resources

DoorGrow and Scale Mastermind

DoorGrow Academy

DoorGrow on YouTube

DoorGrowClub

DoorGrowLive

Transcript

[00:00:00 ] Sam: A lot of times property management companies think all the companies are the same, so they're looking for maybe cheaper, whoever's cheapest, a cheaper price.

[00:00:07 ] Sam: But then what they get is a company that doesn't communicate and doesn't show up when they say they're going to, and it's really the old adage, you get what you pay for. 

[00:00:14 ] Jason: All right. I am trying a new platform today. This is Jason Hull and I am a property management growth expert. If you're not familiar with me, I help grow and scale property management companies and I am really good at that. And so our company's DoorGrow and we are the world leaders of growing and scaling property management businesses.

[00:00:35 ] Jason: I've helped thousands of property managers do that. And today my guest is Sam Wakefield. Hanging out here with Sam. Sam, welcome to the show. 

[00:00:44 ] Sam: Thanks for having me on, man. I'm glad to be here. 

[00:00:46 ] Jason: Hey, good to have you. So, I'm really excited to get into this. We had some really nice dialogue back and forth. You coach.

[00:00:54 ] Jason: Well, I'll let you tell. What group, category of people do you coach and you help with them with sales and closing more deals, so. 

[00:01:01 ] Sam: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So we do sales training and basically sales systems, whole operation systems within companies, but mostly sales focused for home services. So everything from HVAC, plumbing, electrical, and then even outside of that. Garage doors, or you name it. If someone improves a home, then we help the communication side of all of those companies. 

[00:01:27 ] Jason: Got it. So in my industry, property management people would call those vendors. That's usually what they call them. They're like, "these are the vendors." And so we thought it was fun. I went on your podcast, we had this really fun dialogue.

[00:01:39 ] Jason: I highly recommend you go check out Sam's episode with Jason Hull and go check that out. We were going back and forth because we had done a survey each to our audiences, like what's frustrating about HVAC companies and what's frustrating about property management companies. Right. And just seeing the disconnect that existed there.

[00:01:56 ] Jason: Which was interesting. So, before we get into this, I want to read a quick message from our sponsor. This episode's sponsored by KRS SmartBooks. Do you have properties manage, and zero time for bookkeeping headaches? KRS SmartBooks is your secret weapon. They specialize in finances for busy property managers like you, with 15 plus years of real estate knowhow and skills in AppFolio, Yardi, and more imagine monthly reports magically appearing, and zero accounting stress. Sound good? Head to krsbooks.com to book your free discovery call, integrity, quality, and a dash of bookkeeping brilliance, that's KRS SmartBooks, and that's K as in Kansas, R as in Rogers, S as in Sam. Sam. All right, so cool. Now let's get into this.

[00:02:45 ] Jason: So we're going to talk about closing deals, but why don't you give us my audience a little bit of background. How did you get into sales and then starting your own company, helping people with sales, and like, how'd you how did Close it Now come to be? 

[00:03:00 ] Sam: Yeah, for sure. Thanks for that question. So, I've spent almost 20 years now in home services.

[00:03:05 ] Sam: Most of my time has been in HVAC. I've done solar. I've done a lot of different trades over the years and, you know, so I launched the Close it Now company in 2019 because I really just recognized a place where there was not a lot of modern training because truly all that sells is just communication.

[00:03:26 ] Sam: You know, it's how do we communicate clearer and in a way where we can educate so somebody can understand, one, what we're talking about, and two, why they should care and how it's going to make a difference in their life. So at the essence of that, so I was looking for some more modern training for my people at my company that I had at the time, and I didn't find anything out there.

[00:03:48 ] Sam: So I just said, well, now we have a space for, you know, I have communication skills. I can train people. So that's when I launched the company in 2019 and so much of my career built up to that point of, and specifically how it affects here and why I'm here today. You know, I've worked with so many property management companies and individuals across 20 years of doing this. Yeah. So I've definitely learned a lot of best practices and a lot of the things not to do, you know? Got it. I all own my mistakes as well as, you know, coming across maybe property managers that I wouldn't work with again. Right. Yeah. So from all of that experience, you know, I started the training company, so I work with those home service companies to communicate better.

[00:04:33 ] Sam: You know, a lot of it is, you know, of course, working directly with homeowners. But also there's a huge portion of all of those companies that, you know, rely on it and need property management companies to, you know, really help them stay in business and in turn they can turn around and, you know, help those property management companies to efficiently take care of properties.

[00:04:58 ] Sam: But there's always seems to be this kind of struggle of, you know, that back and forth. So that's obviously why we're here today is a big part of that. But that's some of my history. I've been doing it 20 years. I started Close it Now six years or in, coming up on... yeah, April this year, next month is six years anniversary.

[00:05:16 ] Sam: Nice. Of the company. And it's been a fun ride and we've definitely helped lots and lots of organizations to you know, to grow in a way. 

[00:05:24 ] Jason: You're helping them close it now. All right. Yeah. Got it. All right. So you're just, you're helping these vendors close more deals, right?

[00:05:31 ] Jason: So, property managers, I think would love to hear. You're on the other side of this relationship between property managers and vendors. What have you seen and what's the general feedback that you're noticing of the property management industry? What's kind of the vendor's perspective?

[00:05:46 ] Jason: Because I know property managers, they get frustrated with vendors, right? They're like, "oh, the vendors like say you need something when you don't and like they don't like, it's difficult to reach them or this or whatever." Right. What are some of the complaints and gripes about property management companies?

[00:06:03 ] Sam: Yeah. Complaints and gripes about property management companies. One of the big ones is, a lot of it is kind of the same thing is lack of communication. Okay. That's always one of the biggest complaints that comes up is, you know, we will get, you know, say someone, a property manager will call in for us to go evaluate a property.

[00:06:21 ] Sam: We'll take an air conditioning issue or something like that, so we'll show up and then we're trying to call ahead. There's no clear information was given on who to call ahead to. Then we show up to the appointment, maybe the tenant's there, maybe not. A lot of times they're not there.

[00:06:36 ] Sam: Okay. Then we can get ahold of the property manager to even get in the place. So now we're like dancing around in the circle of, okay, who do we contact? You get frustrated, move on to the next call, then the property manager calls and "Well, why'd you leave? Somebody was there."

[00:06:50 ] Sam: Well, nobody was there. And so all of this just seems to happen very often.

[00:06:55 ] Sam: Too often. Yeah. So it creates a stereotype. When the stereotype is created, that means of course there's a reason for it. Yeah. And so this is one of the b