Persistence

“There are no magic wands, no hidden tricks, and no secret handshakes that can bring you immediate success, but with time, energy, and determination you can get there.” – Darren Rowse, Founder Problogger

A ton of rhetoric has been penned about social media as it relates to apartment marketing, resident retention and the such. Some of it is really good and some of it is just fluff and fill. Some has merit and some has not the sense god gave a billy goat.

Apartment management brass tacks

Toss it all aside and get back to the brass tacks of good old fashion property management – what do you have? Boring, mundane, uncompelling and anti-dramatic and melodic methods of madness. Anyone who has been in the business for a very long bit of time would agree that property management is not rocket science. Just a couple days ago I was sitting diagonal from a finance quant who thought he hit the nail on the head when he made that very statement.

Personality

At the end of the day – it’s the culmination of personalities laced with wit, wisdom, humor, elevated emotion and a purpose larger than life itself that bring about the want to persist with the quest of managing property. And, those who do it well would admit that it’s what gives them life.

It’s the time that they love to spend.

It’s the energy that they love to exude.

It’s the determination of pursuing a worthy goal that keeps them coming back for more.

Admit it – There’s something about this business!

What is it for you? What keeps you coming back for more? I dare you to tell me in the comment section below! Double dog…
M

To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men, that is genius. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

What is burning deep inside of you? If you could spread your personal message RIGHT NOW to 1 million people, what would you say? (Author: Eric Handler)

It’s All About Choice

The message is something to this effect – the difference between that which you are and that which you want to be is the sliver of a  space between stimulus and response – you are what you ‘choose’ to be and you can be what you want to be by choosing differently.

How would you answer the question above?

Your lovin’ the #trust30 challenge contributor,

M

In brief of our policy is as follows:

1. Employees are paid for one-hour minimum – if they physically leave their home to complete a call

2. They are paid at time and a half

3. They are paid mileage from their legal residence

I am curious about other nuances our there; please drop us a comment as the community is interested.

And, I do hope that you have an amazing and over the top weekend.

A lot of renter’s in our communities are one life circumstance away from total financial ruin up to and including losing their apartment. It has given cause for desperate behaviors such as sacrificing their electricity, gas, phone, cable etc. in order to make the rent. In other cases they use creative means such as robbing electricity via extension cords run to your common area outlets in hallways and laundry rooms. It’s amazing what you see out there anymore.

Now one could argue that life choices predicated on fulfilling wants over needs or necessities has contributed to a lot of this and in the same respect I think there an equal amount of people out there that make all the right decisions and still get hit with the downside of adversity.

Our residents are not the only ones faced with making the rent. Many of our employees are waging the same battle month after month. And, sometimes it leads to desperate actions.

That leads me to the premise for my question – money orders left blank by the prospective resident and or current residents paying rent are so very tempting in a desperate time of need. Can you share some of your processes with me as it relates to keeping good people honest. What do you do to keep integrity in the system on your bigger sites where you have six, eight or even ten people working an office and handling money. Specifically, what do you do to make sure these blank money order gems are not used as float to get by to the next pay period? How do you make sure that once an application is taken that it is processed in your property management software asap?

While they are a necessary evil – I have to believe there is a system of handling that keeps theft to a minimum.

Thank you in advance for your considerations and feedback.

Your ready for some economic prosperity friend,
M

Please share the stories that come to mind from the video in the comment section below…

Business has been crazy as of late and the blog has been left to suffer. Not good for a number of reasons and in the same respect I appreciate the time to focus. That being said, thank you for the various emails some of you have sent questioning the next post. In some ways – it’s a good precursor to the quote I want to share.

“Until you value yourself, you won’t value your time. Until you value your time, you will not do anything with it.” -M. Scott Peck

Could I take that one step further in the way of being a leader in the Property Management Space?

Until you value your time you won’t value the time of others either.

Being on time is huge in the eyes of others – if you make the commitment – be there.

What are you doing with your time as it relates to others?

Property Management Company: Cause

I received an email not long ago asking a question along the lines of finding a cause for a firm – in an email exchange I penned the following:

I see a cause as being something bigger than self or team. To me – it’s audacious in nature. And, it has nothing to do with selling more stuff but everything to do with building individual and organizational character as a way of changing the world. I don’t use – changing the world – in jest. It is the only premise with which to build an organization. In my head organizations are built to serve the people that serve it – period. That is first and foremost. If built right all else will fall into place. An organization that focuses on building character will see that character exercised in the way of success on every level with every metric.

I think Emerson said it best when he penned the following:

“To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children…to leave the world a better place…to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.”

Capture that in the way of a cause that lays over your companies mission, vision, strategy and goals that help to execute as much and you have something people can believe in. You will have found something that people can get out of bed in the morning for – you can change the lives of hundreds if not thousands and as a default – you will create wealth beyond your imagination and more important – the imaginations of those that are served by the organization. They will have lived what Emerson had in mind – all because you made a decision to offer up a worthy cause.

Do you have a cause? What is it? Why do you think it is important?

Bronx Landlord Jailed for Continued Housing Violations – Bronx Housing Court last week ordered Sam Suzuki to be held behind bars until he corrects the nearly 700 open housing violations | Katy’s Exposure

Apartment Education – The Heat of the Moment

It’s summer time and many – if not all- of us are heavily involved in turning apartments and fielding A/C calls. It’s a busy time of the year and as a result education and safety meetings have the propensity to get put off. The idea of that brings to mind a scene from the movie Crimson Tide where Denzel Washington’s character questions Gene Hackman’s character on a decision to run a missile readiness drill all the while there was a fire going on in the galley. Hackman’s response was along the lines of – war does not stop for fire’s in the galley and Hackman’s character suggest that is the best time to run a drill.

As it relates to our own operations: I am a big believer in repetition when it comes to education and this coming week, despite the busyness, might be a good week to dust off your mold remediation policies, procedures and brief your teams. The story linked above might be a nice supplement to the training. Siting the article as a example of the use of social media to draw attention to the story might be a good preface on the power of ignorance.

Have a smashing week – and feel free to sound off in the comment section below -

A design and technology consultancy dedicated to helping organizations make their brands and technology relevant, usable and beautiful. We are trouble making, data pillaging idealists obsessed with usability and design that works.

I like troublemakers! Anyone who is willing to put it out there like that is worthy of some press in my opinion! I do wonder what a data pillaging idealist is. A swag realist? Seems not to go together – sounds cool though.

I’ve never heard of Engrain and only ran across them because of a Google Alert I have set up for terms related to multifamily. So this in not an endorsement of any sort, neither is it an invitation for Engrain to solicit business – I just love the gumption and could not help but to say as much.

Does anyone have experience with the group?

One item of note: I tried to follow them on Twitter but got the protected tweets message – kind of a #fail but maybe there is good reason. And, the post I made to their Facebook wall letting them know I wanted to follow them on Twitter but could not was removed – kind of a uber #fail. Maybe that has to do with that data pillaging idealist thing – swag it in the spirit of perfection. It is – after all – all about appearances.

That aside – I love the spirit of this organization and look forward to tracking their successes. Check out their website – they show off some pretty cool stuff related to our space.

Your safeguarding ignoblist [Read: tongue in cheek]

The following quote from his post struck me most…

Here’s the twist that makes this event so interesting to me; The 15 customers Dell will meet on the 15th are customers that have issues with Dell, and want to voice those issues to the company.  The 15 customers Dell will meet on the 17th are evangelists of the company.  So over the course of 2 days, Dell will be meeting with 30 of its most passionate customers, from both ends of the spectrum.  I think this event is also an example of the next evolution of social media for companies.

Invite thirty and learn the dirty

The dirty little chatter that could work to make the your apartment living experience [read: offering] one that escapes the hand-cuffs of commodity. More times that not we as operators gather our troops in our conference rooms across this great land and decide on the next best thing for employees, prospects and residents alike. Imagine if we brought the thirty in like Dell is doing? That is once we have taken the time to understand who they really are.

Being a part of something bigger than yourself

Play along with me on this for a second – remember the last time you felt compelled – really compelled as a result of something you participated in something bigger than you? Remember how you felt leading up to, during and after the event? Do you still talk about it to this day? Did it shape your view of the world? Do you feel compelled to share not only the event but the organizer or organization that put on the event?

There is, innate in all of us, an underlying need to belong, to feel appreciate, to feel heard, wanted and important. As marketers – it’s not our job to exploit that but rather harness it and use it for a greater good.

Is it possible in our business? You bet it is. The questions is – are we willing to get those people in a room where there is no monitor to hide behind – where canned corporate speak is left to improv at the risk of authenticity and transparency? The second half of the thirty could be fun – it’s the first half I would be anxious about.

We have done our fair share of surveys and focus groups over the years but never did we go after the downside hardliners. Mack and Dell have me thinking hard about the obvious value of doing so…what do you think?

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