Brainoblog to Broaden Content

Brainoblog will be taking a shift from focusing on the apartment industry to expanding to all things marketing related with a focus on Social Media, Internet marketing, Search Engine Optimization and anything else that catches my interest and attention.  My expertise is in the apartment industry, however, my new venture has launched me into residential real estate, mortgages, retail, insurance and more.  What I have learned is that my experience in apartments will serve me well in any industry or service.  The basic rules of Social Media and SEO apply no matter the product or service.  I am excited to broaden my horizons and look forward to working with new people, products and organizations as well as continuing to build on the knowledge and relationships garnered in the apartment industry.

For the record, apartment people are some of the hardest working people in the American workforce.  I’ve learned so much from so many of you!  Thank you for continuing to share in my personal growth and success.

Stay tuned for more details on my new venture, Mind Racing, a full-service marketing consulting firm.

A New Twist on Window Shopping

Macy’s has a man living in a storefront window in New York City right now, as I write this.  Macy’s has been decorating their storefront windows since before “A Miracle on 34th Street”.  I would imagine millions of people walk by them during the holiday season every year.  I really don’t know what this has to do with the apartment industry, but it does have a lot to do with putting a new spin on an old marketing and advertising tool.  It just makes you stop and think, “What can I do to resurrect and revive an old marketing strategy?  The advertising agency for Downy took it one step further and used an old marketing strategy from outside thier own industry.  They even put Facebook and Twitter links on the window itself, most likely anticipating that people would see this online and be able to find it pretty quickly.  This is brilliant and has really challenged me to look at traditional marketing with a non-traditional perspective.  The possibilities are endless.  Wait…. I already have an idea…. you’ll see it on the 16th Street Mall in Denver in a few weeks.

Gloom and Boom

It’s not a typo.  It’s not all gloom and doom unless you decide to get caught up in it.  I attended the Apartment Association of Metro Denver’s Economic Conference this morning and the economists who presented were painting as optimistic a picture as they possibly could.  The whole time I couldn’t help but think of this title because it seemed to be the exact picture they were painting.  Denver is slated to be one of the top markets in the nation in 2011.  Jobs are coming back.  Concessions are decreasing.  The gloom is where we are today and what we have all gone through up to this point.  Personally, many of us have experienced either job loss or income reduction.  Professionally, our companies have experienced layoffs, budget cuts and become reliant on concessions.   Jeff Riggs of Baron Properties put it well when he said, “there are challenges, but we have an opportunity to gain back what we lost… we have a different environment and have a chance to catch up.”  The boom comes in building confidence at the site level that generates excitement and enthusiasm rather than doubt and fear as you take away their concessions.  Occupancies start to go up, rents start to go up and we start to “catch up”.  I know catching up doesn’t exactly sound like a boom, but it’s all how you look at it.  We surely can’t get ahead until we catch up.

The Apartment Industry Arms Race

I’ve not blogged in a while, but this topic keeps coming up almost every day for me.  I see it in marketing, IT and operations on a regular basis.  Essentially, there is a race in our industry to be the first company that can be a one-stop-shop for owners and managers.  The more services a company can offer, the more weapons they have in their arsenal.  In meetings with credit reporting/background verification companies, they talk about their Craigslist posting service and web site design capabilites.  In meetings with property management software companies, they talk about their ability to do utility billing (RUBs) or lead tracking numbers.  In meetings with lead management and call tracking companies, they talk about their upcoming property management software package.  In a few years you will be able to go to the company that did your water billing five years ago to design your website, track your leads and manage your social media. 

There is an inherent problem to all of this, initially, but I think we’ll find it to be extremely successful in the long run.  The best way to illustrate this issue is using an industry that is very near and dear to me, the auto industry.  Growing up in Detroit, I watched the big dogs slowly lose market share to newcomers to the market.  Hyundai and Kia, for example, started to manufacture cars in South Korea.  Hyundai was originally a construction company.  Kia originally manufactured bicycle parts and metal tubing.  These two companies are now one large company and happen to be the fourth largest manufacturer of automobiles in the world.  A South Korean company.  Who would have thought?  Just like who would think today that a company that we use today to track our marketing leads might become our property management software provider in a few years?  It will happen and stranger things will also happen.  Here’s the issue I need to address:  Kia and Hyundai made crappy cars for a long time.  Cheap and crappy.  So crappy, they had to put 10 year warranties on them in order to compete.  These cars didn’t even last ten years.  The tires didn’t even last ten-thousand miles.  I’m exaggerating, but hopefully you get the point. 

The companies that are in this race in the apartment industry are essentially designing a vehicle for property owners and managers to drive their business.  The problem is some of them have crappy transmissions and some of them have to demand a recall because the gas tanks explode on impact.  To put it in terms of our business, some of them have crappy craigslist posting tools and some of them have not quite figured out how to make sure there isn’t a break in the code when a resident tries to reserve an apartment online.  This means we have to have spare parts lying around to compensate for the shortcomings of the “one-stop-shop” concept until it is perfected.  This could get pretty costly, but in the long run we may simply have to sacrifice in order to support this initiative.  Also, there will be a-la-carte options offered as well, I’m sure, but this too will more likely cost more than the one-stop-shop solution.  

I don’t know who the winners will be and I sure don’t know how long it will take for the first company to get there, but the bottom line is, this is a great thing for our industry.  Kia and Hyundai make some pretty nice cars today and are winning awards for quality and design.  I hope the companies that are competing in this race to be all things to all people in the apartment industry figure this out soon.  It’s exciting to watch as the quality of products and services in our industy continue to improve.

We Are in the People Business

I was in a brainstorming meeting when the owner of multiple properties said these words and they just stuck with me.  I’ve heard this before, but I think it’s often forgotten, especially the further removed from the front lines you become.  This owner just happens to check in on his communities quite frequently, so he understands the magnitude of his words.

We are in the people business and apartments are simply a way to attract people.  When all else is equal, we attract prospects and get them to become customers because of the people we have on our teams.  We attract the people we have on our teams by having good people in leadership positions.  We attract good people for our leadership positions because we have strong, supportive executives.  It is a chain of executives (people) serving leaders, (people) serving teams (people) serving customers (people).

The most successful leaders I know in this industry are the leaders who have not lost sight of this.  They are the ones who are out at their communities frequently inspecting the product, staff and level of customer service provided to their residents.  They also inspect the level of customer service they provide to their own teams.  They are leaders who understand that they work for their employees just as much as their employees work for them.

As a leader or supervisor, I like to ask my teams what I can do for them.  That sets an example for them to ask their teams the same and of course ask their residents the same.  When you operate with this mentality, your organizational chart should end up looking more like a wheel with spokes rather than a pyramid.  The center of that wheel will be your residents.  Ever try hauling a heavy load with pyramid shaped tires?

Complaining Is Contagious

I went to dinner last night in Denver with some good friends of mine and we were all enjoying great conversation and the perfect weather on the patio.  As the evening went on, something started to change.  First of all the service absolutely sucked.  It was one of those restaurants where two or three people bring you your food and drinks.  The problem was not one of those three people had a clue about customer service.  I tried to make a joke about something and one of the servers just responded by complaining about what a long day it was.  That triggered a slow chain reaction throughout the course of the evening.  I complained about the service.  One of my friends complained about their meal.  I, of course, complained a little more about the service and by the time the bill came we were all ready to just get the hell out of there.

Does this ever happen in your leasing office?  Of course it does.  Does it ever happen in your leasing office when residents or prospects are there?  Let’s hope it doesn’t, but also recognize that the lingering effects of this chain reaction may still be present.

So what can you do about it?  One of my former employers tackled it head on and actually poked fun at it.  They started a “No Whining Zone” campaign company wide and actually made buttons that employees were given to wear to remind each other that it wasn’t a productive trait.  As a supervisor, you can simply lead by example and not complain yourself.

Complaints can also be productive and lead to improvements so you need to create an environment where people can speak their mind without it hindering morale.  In meetings you can have people phrase their complaints or concerns in a positive manner and also come up with solutions to their own complaint.  This maintains morale and a strong team dynamic, but also relieves the team of any distractions.

Why Leasing Apartments Is Like Stand Up Comedy

I have a new appreciation for stand up comedy after watching this guy get crushed when his first joke absolutely bombed on Americas got talent. The beauty of it though is he never gave up. He responded to his audience and turned it around. Ever been on a tour like this?  Your prospect has their arms folded, they don’t say a word and you have to win them over? You might start out with your scripted routine but If you don’t tailor it to your audience you will bomb and not make it to the next round; but If you think quickly on your feet and read your audience you just might win them over.

These are opportunities that make us better at what we do.  If everyone signed a lease no questions asked, most of us probably wouldn’t be in this industry for too long.  At one point in this clip, Sharon Osborne says that the tough crowd brought out the best in him and raised the level of his performance.  We all feel great when we step it up to overcome a tough customer.  Also, if you notice, he tried to stay on script and the audience became louder and louder to shut him down.  The moment he diverted from his routine he started to win them back.  There is a tremendous lesson in that for us.  People want to hear about what they want to hear about, not what you want them to hear about.  While Doogie didn’t exactly have an opportunity to ask the crowd what they wanted, he was patient, felt them out and gave them exactly what he felt they wanted; a fight.

I Don’t Even Know How to Title This

So I am in Washington, D.C. this week touring communities and on my way back to the hotel this evening I drove past the baseball park and decided I would go to the game tonight.  So I get back to my hotel, quickly change and catch the train from Bethesda, MD to Nationals Park.  The Royals were in town for an inter-league game.  I have no clue what way to go from the transfer so I asked a couple which way to go.  They asked me if I had a ticket and I said I was going to get one at the game.  They told me that they just were talking to some young girls that had a free ticket and pointed them out to me.  I got on the train and told them I heard they had an extra ticket.  They didn’t even hesitate and gave it to me.  Score!

So I started to talk to them and as it turns out they all just graduated from college and they happen to spend the entire day apartment hunting.  Score!  I had just been talking about conducting a focus group earlier today and guess what I did on the train and at the game?  I conducted a focus group with them and the information I got from them was tremendous.  They talked about how important first impressions were and that the leasing agent was part of the first impression.  They described the leasing agent they dealt with at one community and how her bra strap was falling off her shoulder and how sloppy she looked and that was a major turn off.  ”Unprofessional” was used at some point.  They said that the exterior condition of the building was much less important than the condition of their actual apartment.  The cleanliness was very important and they didn’t want to be reminded that someone else had lived there before.  Bathroom and kitchen were evaluated most for cleanliness.  They talked about how important the smell of the apartment was and that bad smells were a turn off.  The smell of new carpet was a plus and the smell of cleaner was good too.  They believed it meant the apartment was definitely sanitary.

I asked about how important a model was to look at and they felt models were “cheesy” and didn’t represent their taste.  They wanted to see a “blank canvas” to picture their own furniture and decor and that the models were too perfect and they felt like a model was deceptive.  They would prefer to see pictures of a model and tour a vacant apartment, specifically the apartment they were going to be renting.

I also found out how they made their decision and how they searched for their apartments and what their process of elimination was after they had toured.  That info I’ll keep under my hat.

It was a great conversation.  The most interesting thing I noticed was that one of the young ladies used the word complex several times during the conversation.  I told her I just wrote a blog about how we have tried to eliminate that word from our vocabulary.  She said she felt like a “complex” was safer than a stand alone apartment building or a “Mom n Pop”.  In her mind a complex was a safer community.  Interesting.  Much of what they said was interesting and has reinforced my desire to conduct focus groups.  We think we know more than we really do.  Trust me.

Complex Isn’t a 4-letter Word Anymore

If you jumped on the bandwagon of banning the word complex from your marketing materials years ago, you might want to jump off!  Over the last few weeks I have heard the term apartment complex used at least a dozen times by non-industry friends and acquaintances of mine.  I’ve also heard it from residents at the communities I was visiting.  More importantly, while reviewing Google analytics I realized that our prospects still use the term, even though we’ve tried so hard to reprogram their vocabulary.

Guess what?  It didn’t work! If you want another example go ask Chevy… or is it Chevrolet.

Get a Push

Every now and then we all need a push in the right direction, even towards something you are already passionate about. Passion fades sometimes and we need a spark, some gentle or even some blunt force encouragement to rekindle the passion inside.  Complacency in the workplace and feeling separated from the bigger picture can take your eyes of the prize.

It’s no secret and we all know inside when it’s happening.  If you find yourself saying, “I just don’t have time” or “I’ll get to it later”, it’s happening.  The key is not only to recognize it, but find someone in your life to give you a push.  A mentor, a friend, a co-worker or even your own boss.  Ask someone in your life to hold you accountable to be your best self.  This is a form of self-awareness that will put you on a higher level than those around you who haven’t asked someone to hold them accountable.

I have someone in my life that pushes me to be better every day.  It’s not on accident either.  If you want to become successful in this business or even in your personal life, surround yourself with people who will hold you accountable for the things that make you great.

If you aren’t comfortable having a mentor who works at your company or you don’t have a peer in the industry, Multifamily Pro has a tremendous mentoring program available for you.  Consider yourself officially pushed.