John went from closing 3 doors a month to closing 30 in just 2 months as a result of getting property management coaching. Hear John discuss how he got results by working with Jason, on everything other than business, first. Remember, the thing that’s holding you back from growing your business, often has nothing to do with business. A coach can help you see that.
Show Notes
- “You made my husband a better man” [01:16]
- Zero Years of Property Management Experience? [02:26]
- How He Discovered Jason for Coaching & Learned About the [02:57]
- Why Jon Started Coaching [04:14]
- What is coaching? [05:01]
- Jon’s Mindblowing Realization – It’s Not All About Business [05:56]
- The Frustrating First Month of Coaching – Health & Marriage? [06:09]
- Body Being Balance Business – But What About Business [07:52]
- Big Scary Goal of Adding 20 New Doors in 90 Days [08:11]
- Hit 19 Doors in First 30 Days! [09:10]
- The Game Changer of Mindset, Confidence, & Sales Trainings [09:43]
- Jon’s New Problem: Too Much Growth [10:32]
- Now Firing Doors & Focusing on Revenue [10:53]
- Would Coaching Make Sense For Others? Who’s a Fit? [11:20]
- Not Just Property Management: Meditating, Green Drinks, & Marriage? [12:17]
- Try Coaching for 30 Days – “My thing is…What if it works?” [14:42]
Tweetable Insights
Resources
Westrom Group Property Management
Original Video Interview & Post
Transcript
Jason: Welcome. If this is your first time listening, then thanks for coming. The #DoorGrowShow is a podcast for residential property management entrepreneurs that are interested in growing their business and life. If that is you, be sure to subscribe and rate us in iTunes and join your fellow #DoorGrowHackers online at doorgrowclub.com, our free community for property management entrepreneurs. I’m your host Jason Hull, the founder of OpenPotion, GatherKudos, and of course DoorGrow. Now, let’s get into the show.
I can’t believe I’m doing this. This is the first ever episode of the DoorGrowShow and I’m Jason Hull, your host, and I’m going to be showcasing an interview that I did with Jon Westrom of Westrom Group. Jon was a coaching client of mine for a short time and he got some really great result. A little anecdotal story, his wife came up to me at the NARPM® Broker/Owner Conference, wanted to meet me, she gave me a hug and she said, “You made my husband a better man.” That was just awesome, that was really awesome. It felt really good; it’s great to get results, it’s what I’m all about. I love to win and I win by helping my customers win. Let’s get into this interview and hear about Jon’s results as a result of coaching.
I’ve got Jon Westrom hanging out here with me. Jon, I’ve taught you to live by the code. Here’s your challenge, it’s just to be real, raw, relevant, and let’s talk about results. Jon, tell everybody that might be watching this later on about yourself and your business.
Jon: I have a property management company here in DFW, Dallas/Fort Worth area. I have about 250 to 300 doors, 98% single-family houses, nice houses. I’ve been doing it for about 20 years.
Jason: That’s a good amount of time, I’m guessing you’ve learned some things. Guess how many years I’ve been doing property management, Jon?
Jon: I have no idea.
Jason: Zero, I’m not a property manager.
Jon: I’m so confused. How’s this guy going to teach me anything?
Jason: Jon, how did you hear about me? Jon’s been a coaching client for how long now?
Jon: Three or four months.
Jason: Jon has been working with me for a little bit. Jon, you’re doing well, right? You’re a badass property manager, things are going pretty well. How did you first hear about me?
Jon: I fell into some coaching funnel trap that you had on LinkedIn and started watching videos. I was actually really pissed off one day and I was going to wait for the New Year to start over. I actually was like, “I know there’s this guy on LinkedIn.” I was actually going to look for somebody else. Couldn’t find him. Property management, I saw your video and started watching it.
Jason: What do you remember about the videos? What resonated with you?
Jon: It was just real information that is really going on in my ahead about all the lies that are going on in property management, in our companies, and it’s just so honest. I was like, “Oh my gosh, I got to just creep on this guy some more and figure out what’s going on. Who is he?”
Jason: Cool, you watched videos and probably filled out a form and then we started having some conversations. Jon, when we first got started, what was your goal? What did you want? What were you hoping to get out of working with me as a coach?
Jon: I really wanted to get my business just a lot better. I wanted to improve upon it. I wanted to be around people who could take me to a new level and do some more and just push it and constantly get some more doors and just have someone to kind of bounce some stuff off of. I kind of get some ADD ideas and I can trash my company at any one time. I was thinking I needed to get some advice and I want it to be from the best. That’s what I was hoping to get out of it.
Jason: What’s your experience been like so far? A lot of people don’t have an idea of what coaching is. They’re like, “What’s coaching?”
Jon: Okay, what is coaching? Basically, for me, it’s I needed someone to just keep an eye on me and make sure my ideas and what I’m trying to implement is in line with best practices of the industry, but also just really what I found is that that’s actually the easy part. The whole property management aspect of things and the improvements and things you provided me so far have been great. But really what ended up happening is you broke it down into four areas. You weren’t going to allow me to grow my business because you knew I was capable of doing that. I already kind of know a lot of the stuff that you shared but I just don’t do it. I just found out that really what was holding me back had nothing to do with business and I was just like, “What?”
Jason: Mind blowing, huh?
Jon: Yes, it really had nothing to do with property management. For the first month, we just spent time on me as a person and where I’m at, what I wanted, why do I do this business, my marriage, and just having some balance. And then I believed, you said, “You can have it all.” But I had to get all these other areas working first, or in conjunction. I didn’t like you a lot, but I really just wanted to see tangible…
Jason: You didn’t like me that first month, I don’t think?
Jon: No.
Jason: You were a little bit pissed off. I was pushing you, right? To talk about things that you didn’t really want to talk about. You were like, “Hey, I want more leads.”
Jon: Yeah.
Jason: We ended up talking about… What did we end up talking about that first month?
Jon: Basically, we ended up talking about my health and my marriage. Finding out that the way my marriage and things were set up was the channel for me to get everything I want. I had to go and really take care of some things at home. When I do that, I can do whatever, I can have it all, I can do whatever I want. That’s what happened in the first 30 days, was just a lot of conversations with the wife, and a lot of skills, training, running, eating, and drinking weird stuff.
Jason: Okay, we focused on body, being, balance in your relationships and business, right? Let’s talk about business because everybody watching this, they don’t get this yet. You didn’t get it. You didn’t get this either. All they care about is their business, right? Let’s talk about your business. We set some goals from the beginning, right? What was one of your goals that you set for your business?
Jon: I had some 90 days goals. I wanted to add 20 new doors which is about 10% growth. I was about 220 doors when we started coaching. I know that for a fact because I had to fire my first manager right when we started. I had 220 doors. Today, I just checked before I walked in here, and I’m at 250 doors. I think we’re coming up on 90 days of coaching. I was like, “Oh my gosh, my goal was to have 20 doors in 90 days.” We’re at the 26th door or something now.
Jason: We set the 90-day goal towards the end of the first month, right? I was preparing you and I think you hit within just 30 days of setting your 90-day goal. I think you had mentioned you hit like 19.
Jon: I ended up getting… I was close to 19 doors in 30 days. We really didn’t set the goal for about three weeks in, four weeks in, and then about a month after that, I was kind of like, “I’m done.” I thought I was going to get the next month off.
Jason: We’ve got a few minutes here left, what made that happen? What was the game changer?
Jon: The game changer, I think, was the mindset that you got to me and maybe some confidence to really go in and be in charge and take control of my owners, take control of my business. Some of the sales training that you gave me and the sales language that I get to use with the clients, the prospects, and when a lead comes in. Just a completely different way to respond and how to tackle it and really not care. Just letting them know how I’m going to run. When I took control of the lead and the call, it just was completely different. People responded completely differently, I just wasn’t needy. I got scared, Jason, to be honest with you. I’m trying not to take on much more because it started to cause problems in the company, the growth. It really did.
Jason: Which is a good problem to have. Most property managers want your problem, too much growth.
Jon: Correct. Now, what we do, I’m looking to re-write all my owners and you told me how to do all that. And then now I’m just like who I’m going to fire and drop off. I just started firing people because I got doors that I’m making so much more on per month and I’m looking at my other doors going no, you got to go. We’re trying not to grow so much in units, but grow in our gross income, have better-producing doors.
Jason: Awesome, love it. For people that are feeling a little bit stuck in their property management business, maybe they’ve hit a limit in growth, what would you say would be next for them? If they’re feeling stuck, will coaching make sense for these people?
Jon: One thing that you told me is that it’s not for everybody, you got to be committed. My thing is I said, “Okay, I’m going to try this for 30 days. I’m going to commit all in for 30 days and see what happens.” I was giddy, really, where this was going to go. I blow money on a bunch of dumb stuff, computers and stuff like that. I realized if I get one deal out of just this, it’s paid for itself. I just can’t believe the value, and not even in that. I took you into other areas and other business ventures I had to solve some problems. My marriage, our construction company; the property management, yes, it was all over, but it all goes together for me.
Jason: Let’s talk about other results. You’ve gotten a bunch of more doors on, your business is rocking. What other results though, let’s talk about the other areas; body, being, and balance.
Jon: I’ll tell you what. It sounds crazy but I meditate every day, it’s just insane. I don’t know what it even is but you set me up with the meditation thing, it was really, really cool. The green drinks, I’ve been doing them for 60 days, my wife loves them. She thinks they make you tanner, and it’s winter. She loves this and now she’s drinking it with me. It’s really good. We’ve got these green smoothies that we’re drinking everyday, real simple.
Jason: The biggest thing for you at the time was probably the marriage though, right?
Jon: There’s no doubt. We’re public, this is viral. You don’t want to put all that out there with everybody but yeah, there’s no doubt. I couldn’t even commit to doing it, coaching, without my wife’s blessing. We worked through some of that but now she’s just like, “This is great.” She’s really happy, she didn’t believe it.
Jason: She’s seeing results and she’s on board now, huh?
Jon: She’s on board. We just went on vacation last week and she was just like, “Man, you know where we were at five months ago? Can you imagine the last time that we were at this vacation spot what we were at?” I was like, “I didn’t think any of it was wrong.”
Jason: We’re a little bit oblivious sometimes as men.
Jon: Yeah. She’s really happy and the results are good. I’ve got lots of to-dos and things to implement but you helped me prioritize those and don’t try to do it all at once. Just keep knocking things off week by week.
Jason: Cool. Alright, Jon, I love it. Appreciate you taking a little time out to share your results with people. Love it, and we’re going to be skyrocketing things.
Jon: My thing is we did it for 30 days, what if it works? If it works, it works great. This worked for me. If it doesn’t work, it’s okay. Great stuff, Jason, I appreciate you.
Jason: Alright, thanks, Jon.
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