DGS 282: How to Adapt When Things Don’t Go as Planned

Things don’t always go as planned in life and in business. It’s important for property management entrepreneurs to be able to roll with the punches.

In this episode of the #DoorGrowShow, property management experts Jason and Sarah Hull discuss a recent experience where they were forced to pivot and adapt over and over again.

You’ll Learn

[01:58] The Original Plan

[05:31] How a Winter Storm Distrupted a Business and Family Trip

[08:52] Moral of the Story: Be Prepared

[11:08] Your Plan is Not Always the Right Plan for You

Tweetables

“Moral of the story is be prepared.”

“This is how businesses work. Your best plan is sometimes going to fail and you’re going to have to come up with a new way of doing it and you’re going to have to adapt.”

“There may be a reason that things are not going the way that you wanted them to go right now.”

“ The only time that you won’t have your breakthrough is if you quit.”

Resources

DoorGrow and Scale Mastermind

DoorGrow Academy

DoorGrow on YouTube

DoorGrowClub

DoorGrowLive

TalkRoute Referral Link

Transcript

[00:00:00] Sarah: There is a bigger plan out there for you, and there may be a reason that things are not going the way that you wanted them to go right now.

[00:00:09] Sarah: There may be a reason that you’re not experiencing the results that you thought that you would at this stage in the game. 

[00:00:17] Jason: Welcome DoorGrow property managers to the #DoorGrowShow. 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.

[00:00:35] Jason: 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.

[00:00:54] Jason: 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. We’re your hosts, property management growth experts, Jason Hull and Sarah Hull. Now let’s get into the show. Alright.

[00:01:16] Jason: So, today we are recording this episode at, what time is it now? 

[00:01:22] Sarah: It is almost midnight. 

[00:01:23] Jason: It is late. On Monday. And this will go live or be streamed later. And so if you’re watching this, thanks for watching. And we’re not actually like real time live at this moment, but it’s because we had to change things up and make different plans. 

[00:01:42] Sarah: Live in the moment, we’re probably still in the car. 

[00:01:45] Jason: Yeah, so we will be driving tomorrow during our podcast episode. So we wanted to record this episode real quick so we can get one out. And in today’s topic, we’re just going to share a little bit of our adventure. And, you know, the moral of the story will be things don’t always go according to plan.

[00:02:03] Jason: So. 

[00:02:04] Sarah: Sure don’t. 

[00:02:05] Jason: Alright, so, where do we start? 

[00:02:08] Sarah: Alright, well, let’s do quick synopsis. Where are we right now? Ohio, I think? I’m pretty sure we’re in Ohio. 

[00:02:15] Jason: I think so. 

[00:02:16] Sarah: I think it’s Ohio is the right answer. So, we’ve been to, in the last few days, we left on Friday, we’ve been to Texas, we’ve been to two days in Tennessee, we accidentally went to Kentucky, now we’re in Ohio, tomorrow we’re going to Pennsylvania.

[00:02:30] Sarah: So, I think that’s five states. Five states in five days. It’s a great time. So, we’re driving from Texas to Pennsylvania. It’s supposed to be a straight shot, up like this. And it’s this crazy record breaking winter storm, and we’re driving through some of that. We’re missing the big part of it.

[00:02:51] Sarah: So we had to adjust our route. So our plan, this was our plan, was to leave on Friday. We’re going from Texas to Memphis, Tennessee. Then the next morning, we were going to go to Graceland. We did do that, and then we spent some time in Nashville that evening. And then from Nashville, we were going to go to Morganstown, West Virginia, and then from there, drive into Dallas, Pennsylvania.

[00:03:18] Sarah: So, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, we were supposed to get to Pennsylvania on Monday, which is tonight, we are not in Pennsylvania. We are, I’m pretty sure, somewhere in Ohio, past Akron. And where, what’s the name of this? 

[00:03:32] Jason: Youngstown. 

[00:03:33] Sarah: Youngstown, near Youngstown. That’s where we are, right now. And so that was our plan. And then because of this crazy storm, we were leaving Nashville. We left Nashville. Roads were fine. Then all of a sudden, a little bit of rain. That was okay. Then, snow. And that was awful. And we were trying to get from Nashville, Tennessee up to Morgantown, West Virginia. Did not happen. Not even close. So we were going to stop in Lexington, Kentucky for lunch around like 3 o’clock or [3:30]. That was not the plan. We ended up staying in Kentucky because it took us so long to get to Kentucky because of the crazy storm that we then had to stay overnight in Lexington and then reroute. So we were going this way and now we’re going that way. 

[00:04:31] Jason: So do you want to share why we’re doing a road trip?

[00:04:34] Jason: Which is crazy to do. 

[00:04:36] Sarah: It’s crazy to do. I know, right? I could have flown there in a day. So we’re driving my car that I’ve owned for a couple years now. I’m driving to Pennsylvania, and I’m giving the car to my mom as a gift. She has absolutely no idea. 

[00:04:52] Jason: It’s a surprise. 

[00:04:53] Sarah: That this is happening.

[00:04:54] Sarah: I don’t think she watches the podcast. 

[00:04:56] Jason: No. Probably not. 

[00:04:56] Sarah: Hopefully it’s safe. But I’m gifting the car to my mom. I want her to have a nice car, and a reliable car, and not have to worry about things. So, I’m gifting her the car. She has absolutely no idea. Coincidentally, it’s also in a couple of days, my brother Jason’s birthday.

[00:05:14] Sarah: So, shout out to Jason. Happy early birthday. We love you. And we’re going to do this little trip. We’re going to see my family for a little bit. We’re going to go out to dinner for my brother Jason’s birthday. Give my mom a car, and then fly back home and we are running an event. So that’s why we’re doing all of this in the first place.

[00:05:31] Sarah: The whole crazy part of the story here is when we left Nashville, we were trying to get to Morganstown. It was insane on the road. Just wildly insane. Like snow, ice, there was a mix, there was sleet. We were going like 40 miles an hour. I was just happy to be moving. We saw multiple cars that had run off the road.

[00:05:58] Sarah: We saw a couple of tractor trailers that we’re in accidents. We saw a few accidents. We were almost in a few accidents ourselves. And this trip is not at all going as planned. We had to move our flight, and then move our flight again, and then move our flight a third time. So then we, last night we almost gave up on this whole thing.

[00:06:18] Sarah: I was going to quit and just leave my car in Cincinnati, fly home. back to Texas and then come back and finish the second leg of this trip a second time. Jason woke up this morning and he said, “I think we can do it, babe. I think we can do it.” So here we are, but this is not… 

[00:06:35] Jason: We were not prepared for this storm.

[00:06:37] Jason: This car had pretty bald tires, which was… we were not ready. 

[00:06:43] Sarah: No. 

[00:06:43] Jason: Yeah. So after sliding off the road a little bit, twice, yeah, on a freeway. 

[00:06:50] Sarah: On a freeway. 

[00:06:51] Jason: On a highway. Yeah. 

[00:06:52] Sarah: And car is supposed to be heading in this direction, and then it turned in. 

[00:06:57] Jason: And we were just off to the side, so we were able to get back on the road safely both times.

[00:07:02] Jason: Thank goodness. Yeah. And not get hit by a tractor trailer. 

[00:07:05] Sarah: Yeah, we didn’t get hit by anything. The car didn’t get damaged. We are safe. And to that I can only thank God. The whole time I was praying, our fathers, I was saying Hail Mary’s, our fathers, the whole time. I was just praying to God and God took care of us made sure that we were safe made sure the car is safe, made sure that we got where we were going, made sure we didn’t get stranded in the car because we saw a couple people stranded. 

[00:07:30] Jason: Yeah. 

[00:07:31] Sarah: It was scary.

[00:07:31] Sarah: It was really scary. 

[00:07:32] Jason: We eventually pulled off and went and found a tire store 

[00:07:36] Sarah: Yeah, we were going to continue out there for a while. 

[00:07:38] Jason: Got new tires. 

[00:07:39] Sarah: And something told me it might have been God telling me like “go, you need tires. Go get tires.” So I said to Jason, I said, “Can you find…?” 

[00:07:47] Sarah: Can you find? No. 

[00:07:49] Jason: I wanted to get some better tires on that car, for sure.

[00:07:51] Sarah: So, I said, “is there a tire place that’s like, nearby, that’s open right now, that we can go to right now?” So we did. Took a little pit stop detour, but it was very well worth it. I just don’t think we would have made the rest of the trip in one piece. 

[00:08:06] Jason: The first tire store we went to was closed. 

[00:08:08] Sarah: Yeah. Like it wasn’t even plowed to get to it. They were closed. The third one was a tread. So we got new tires. That’s good. The guy at the tire store, what did he tell you? The tread level was like a four. It’s real, it’s really bad. 

[00:08:21] Jason: Yeah. 

[00:08:21] Sarah: It was real bad. Yeah. So, that was fun. 

[00:08:23] Jason: So We got fresh tires. Then the car drove really well.

[00:08:27] Jason: Plus we had pretty much made it through the worst of the weather, which we had planned. Because there were two ways we could go. The northern route had less weather, so. 

[00:08:39] Sarah: Yep. That’s why we’re in Ohio. 

[00:08:41] Jason: So. 

[00:08:41] Sarah: And not through West Virginia. 

[00:08:43] Jason: Yeah, we’d probably be in a very terrible spot if we had gone the wrong way.

[00:08:47] Jason: So. 

[00:08:47] Sarah: Yeah. We’d be off on the side of the road frozen like popsicles. Oh gosh. You guys would never hear from us again. 

[00:08:52] Jason: So moral of the story is be prepared. Make sure you’re prepared. Have a plan. And so we’ve done lots of plans and changing of plans and so this is part of life. And this is how businesses work. Your best plan is sometimes going to fail and you’re going to have to come up with a new way of doing it and you’re going to have to adapt. And so one thing entrepreneurs, we are good at is adaptability. We figure it out cause we have to, and we adapt. And so we’ve adapted a lot today.

[00:09:23] Jason: And yesterday. The last couple days. Yeah, the last couple days. 

[00:09:25] Sarah: We had a plan, we changed a plan, we changed that plan, we changed a plan again. We just keep changing it. 

[00:09:30] Jason: And that causes us. We’re just rolling with the punches. That causes us to have to adapt in business. So here we are recording a podcast.

[00:09:36] Jason: Here we are. 

[00:09:36] Sarah: At midnight. 

[00:09:37] Jason: In a hotel room. 

[00:09:37] Sarah: Which Jason did not want to do. 

[00:09:39] Jason: No. No. I was like, we don’t have to do anything that we don’t want to do. We don’t have to do this. 

[00:09:44] Sarah: No. And I said, we are not recording a podcast live from the car because we might die. No. 

[00:09:49] Jason: We’re not going to do that. 

[00:09:49] Sarah: We might die live on camera.

[00:09:51] Sarah: Yeah, that would be… 

[00:09:52] Jason: All right. So hopefully some of you got some value from this. If you do not have a good plan for your business, then that’s something that we can help you with here at DoorGrow, help you come up with a plan, and help you adapt to some of the things that are getting thrown at your way.

[00:10:09] Jason: This is why we mapped out the DoorGrow code, our roadmap, for some of the most common challenges and problems. So if you would like a copy of the DoorGrow code, just reach out to us. We’d be happy to give you one and tell you a little bit about how we might be able to help you and hear about your challenges.

[00:10:24] Jason: So reach out to us. You can check us out at doorgrow.Com or go to our website or join our free Facebook group by going to doorgrowclub.Com. Make sure to answer the questions. We reject 60 to 70 percent of the applicants that try to join that group. So it’s only for property management business owners.

[00:10:44] Jason: So if you own a property management business or seriously planning on starting one, then you can request access to that group. Make sure to answer the questions. We would love to have you inside. And that’s it. 

[00:10:55] Sarah: No, that’s not it. No. 

[00:10:56] Jason: Oh, there’s more. 

[00:10:57] Sarah: That wasn’t it. I said, what are we going to talk about this episode?

[00:11:00] Sarah: I told you what we’re going to talk about, then we just… So. 

[00:11:03] Sarah: It’s not the end of the episode. Surprise! A little bit more. But wait, there’s more!

[00:11:07] Jason: But wait, there’s more. 

[00:11:08] Sarah: So for those of you that do have a plan, and you’re like, “yeah, no, I definitely have a plan. This is not applicable to me,” we had a plan going into this as well.

[00:11:17] Sarah: So, when you have a plan and life does not work out the way that you planned, and things don’t work out the way that you thought that they would, and you’re going through things and you’re trying to figure out, you know, “what am I doing wrong? And why isn’t this working? And like, why is this so hard? I don’t understand why it’s not happening the way that I wanted it to happen,” and why it’s just maybe not happening at all…

[00:11:40] Sarah: or maybe it’s happening, but it’s just so slow, and it’s so hard, then you just need to know that sometimes there’s a bigger plan in place for you somewhere. And if you’re religious, you might believe that God, or the universe, or fate, or whatever you might want to call it. There is a bigger plan out there for you, and there may be a reason that things are not going the way that you wanted them to go right now.

[00:12:07] Sarah: There may be a reason that you’re not experiencing the results that you thought that you would at this stage in the game. Just like when we thought we would go to West Virginia. Had we actually gotten to West Virginia, we’d be stranded there for sure, because they are getting hammered with snow right now.

[00:12:22] Sarah: So the whole, like, West Virginia, D. C. area Hammered with snow, and that was our plan. So I’m grateful, although it’s a little crazy, I’m grateful that we didn’t end up going that way. I’m grateful that there was a bigger plan in place for us. So just trust that you do have support when you reach out to people like your mentors, and if you’re in the DoorGrow Mastermind, there are so many resources for you, including property managers who are in the exact same spot that you are in.

[00:12:56] Sarah: They’ve been there. They’ve done that. They’ve experienced everything. So leverage the resources that you have available to you. Know that there’s support and know that everything is unfolding exactly the way it’s supposed to for you in this exact moment. And you will have your breakthrough. The only time that you won’t have your breakthrough is if you quit.

[00:13:14] Sarah: See, and now we’re done. 

[00:13:15] Jason: Good words. Good stuff, Sarah. All right. 

[00:13:18] Sarah: All right. We’re going to go to bed now. 

[00:13:20] Jason: Yeah. Get some sleep. 

[00:13:22] Sarah: Yep. 

[00:13:22] Jason: So until next time, to our mutual growth. Hope you all crush it. Bye, everyone.

[00:13:27] Jason: you just listened to the #DoorGrowShow. We are building a community of the savviest property management entrepreneurs on the planet in the DoorGrowClub. Join your fellow DoorGrow Hackers at doorgrowclub.com. Listen, everyone is doing the same stuff. SEO, PPC, pay-per-lead content, social direct mail, and they still struggle to grow! 

[00:13:54] Jason: At DoorGrow, we solve your biggest challenge: getting deals and growing your business. Find out more at doorgrow.com. Find any show notes or links from today’s episode on our blog doorgrow.com, and to get notified of future events and news subscribe to our newsletter at doorgrow.com/subscribe. Until next time, take what you learn and start DoorGrow Hacking your business and your life.