How to say ‘no’ to a potential owner-client

hello my fellow property managers MarkCunningham at Grace Management have youever been talking to a prospective ownerclient and you're you're trying toconvince them why they should hire youto manage their property and at somepoint in time something changes andyou're like oh wait a minute wait aminuteI don't think I want to work with themnow that I know them a little bit moreor now that I've seen the property andthe bad condition it's in so how do youback out of that like how do you sayyeah I changed my mind so let me talkabout that and offer you some somethoughts around that but before I do Iwant to let you know that we have justannounced a new offering a newopportunity for property managers tocome visit me we've done events in thepast we've done coaching we've donetraining I speak a lot of events this isgoing to be something totally differentthis is property managers coming to myoffice to spend two days with me and myteam to see exactly how we do things soif you have any interest in that jump onour pmbuild.com website go over to theevents tab we're calling it visit Gracevisit great with Grace we have a coupledifferent dates on there you'll find allthe information love to have you outthere it's only going to be 10 people 10people per event that come out there sowe can do one-on-one small groupintimate conversations send you awaywith everything we have help you fix anyproblems you're having so jump on thewebsite there okay so we've just passedValentine's Day in honor of Valentine'sDay you may have remembered this oldlove poem I guessit is better to have loved and lostthan never to have loved at all oh it'sbeautiful isn't it it's beautifulbecause sometimes we think in theromantics and The Poets things I wouldrather love someone and get burned bythem than to have never loved them atall because the love outweighs the burnand the pain that preceded that cameafter that yeahso what about the property managementindustry see I don't think this is trueat allis it better to have worked with anowner client and had a great little runonly to have lost that love and then itgets ugly I don't think so I don't thinkso I think a more apt poemin honor of Valentine's Day for ourowner clients when we're consideringthis type of thing would be this one ofmy favorite poems Hell hath no furylike a property owner scorned if youhave worked with a property owner andsomething goes wrong you screw up theyget crazy something goes really reallywrong and they get scorned oh that getsreally bad really fast doesn't it someof the wisest decisions we have madeover the course of years in business issaying no to prospective owner clientswho may want to work with us when wedetermine it's not going to be a goodfit and it could be for a variety ofreasons maybe it's just a bad propertymaybe they have unrealistic expectationsso how do we avoid that don't you wishwith some of your owner clients you'reworking with now you're like I shouldhave said no to them a long time ago nowI feel myself trapped because I have towork with them so let me offer you acouple thoughts working through thisprocess number one is this we want tolook for the initial signs and red flagsin talking to prospective owners we'vetalked a lot about that on other videosyou can go back and watch that the redflags the red signs the red signs surered signs as you're talking to aprospective owner client that oh thismight not be a good fit theirexpectations aren't accurate they're notwilling to trust me they don't view meas the expert they're just difficult towork with so we have to pay attention tothat what are those red flags so let'spretend you're in that conversationyou're selling yourself and yeah we cando a great job for you and oh yeah I'mI'm this and I'm that I can help youwith this and then something suddenlyover over the course of a few thingsyou're thinking oh gosh II changed my mind but I've been sellingmyself how do I flip from please chooseme choose me to yeah I don't think thisis gonna work well let me offer you acouple specific suggestionsfirst of all be a professional be aprofessional what that means is youdon't want to just ghost them okay youand I see too many property managersdoing this we're like I I don't want toI don't want to be mean so I'll just Ijust won't return their call or I'lltell them I'll get back with them and Ijust won't don't do that that looks sounprofessional that's not the right wayto say no is just to go crawl in a holeand hope that they will call you twicethree four times and if you just don'treturn their call enough times they'lljust go away because maybe they willjust go away but they're going to thinkyou're a flake be a professional okayyou are a professional so that we haveto remember that as part of this sohere's a coupleoptions of things you could say to themto maybe ease out of the situation howabout this I don't believe we would be agood fit for what you're looking forit's kind of the it's not you it's meright I don't think we're going to beable to provide the level of serviceYou're Expecting Mr owner so so you cansay this this is a professional thing tosay you're not telling them you don'tlike them or you don't like theirattitude or you don't like theirproperty You're simply saying that Idon't believe we would be a good fit forwhat you're looking for because they'retelling you I want you to call me forall maintenance I want you to make sureyou don't spend a dime on anythingbefore you check with me you better notplace a tenant in here before I can seetheir credit report and you're like ohred flag red flag red flag you know whatI don't think we'd be a good fit forwhat you're looking for that's that's anoption here's another one oh wait beforeI say the other one I want to thank thesponsor for this video Enterprise Bankand Trustone of the best decisions we ever madewas switching from our little localCommunity Bankto Enterprise Bank and Trust they've gotearnings credit they are experts in thePM industry they know trust accountinginside and out if you're worried aboutyour banking these are the experts likethis is who I highly highly highlyrecommend you use we use them we've usedthem for Years love them love them lovethem if you're not familiar with themjump on their website reach out toAllison DeSaro she can set you up tomake sure your trust accounting isproper and protected within your companyI promise you you will thank me if youmove your trust accounting over to themand you're welcome okay next one howabout this you know I would not want tobegin working together only to have youupset or disappointed in how we operatethis is a similar take on what I saidearlier again it's not you you're notbad I don't want to disappoint you Iwouldn't want us to begin workingtogether so when they say well I wantyou to do this and I want you to do thatyou know I wouldn't want us to beginworking because that's really not how weoperate so I wouldn't want us to beginworking together only to have us not dothat thing that you're asking us to dothat's kind of outside our normal scopeof services and then you're disappointedin us that's not how we operate Iwouldn't want you to be upset down theroad so it's probably bestif you just go find a different propertymanager who can manage the property inthe way that you are envisioning I thinkthat's pretty soft isn't it that'spretty soft okay here's another onenow this is a little bit harsher rightthis they're like not taking no for ananswer no no no I just want you tochange the way you're doing it and stillmanage my property you know honestly ourbusiness is really designed for ownerclients who want to be fully hands offthat's a really good one if you'retrying to just draw a hard cut becauseno very few owner clients are going tobe like yes I want to be fully hands offif they're the kind of people that youknow we're talking about here this isgoing to be the one that they're like ohyeah well I do want to be more involvedI understand that our process ourbusiness is really designed for ownerclients who want to be fully hands offso I don't think we'd be a good fit foreach other that way so hopefully thatwill give you a few suggestions a fewideas because my friends it is much muchbetter to say no on the front end evenif you're uncomfortable doing it ratherthey get bullied into managing aproperty for an owner that you're onlygoing to come to regret and it's goingto cause you headaches and hassles downthe road because rememberremember the poem that's right get getit tattooed on your arm Hell hath nofury like a property man property ownerscored okay so just as a reminder wouldlove to have you come visit our companycome visit me in Denver jump onrpmbuild.com if you want to visit us allsorts of resources on pmbuild.com youcan look at our forms packages oursystems our coaching our video whatwhatever whatever you want to seeyou in two weeks until then I wish yousuccess my friends