I was surprised by the lack of marketing knowledge…and for that matter, the lack of creativity. I heard the same 3 “best practices” from a majority of the groups: Generic signs and balloons for drive by traffic, generic Craiglist ads and monetary resident referral incentives. I heard questions like: ”What do you say when you’re marketing to a business?” and “It’s ok to send thank you cards and gift baskets to businesses who refer someone to you?” Leasing agents and PMs who had no knowledge of free additional ILS marketing template tools like VFlyer and Postlets, who had never thought past posting a flyer with a resident referral rent credit in terms of using residents as a marketing tool, and those are just building blocks. It’s as if they were told that marketing is something only a rocket scientist can figure out.

First let me say I’m not exactly saying the 3 best practice items listed above are crap, I’m simply saying that they shouldn’t be IT.  Also, I’m in love with social media and believe it’s an insanely valuable tool, however 1. It was not my topic to discuss and 2. I also think that personal touch and those face to face human interactions through outreach marketing and resident appreciation events are valuable, and combining the 2 forms is fabulous! (Read Urbane Media’s QR Codes blog). But I’m not sure I believe you can be effective with social media if you don’t even know the basics of effective old school marketing tools. And if no one is teaching or motivating their team on the basics of marketing, then I doubt that there is any social media marketing in place anyway.

So I guess what I’d like to learn from this eye opening experience is: Am I way off base in believing that some old school marketing techniques are still a valuable tool in the industry? Is someone teaching your staff about marketing? Do you believe that one can effectively use social media tools without ever having learned/practiced old school marketing strategies?

Title courtesy of Melissa DeCicco

Photo credit bloggingoutloud

However, some sales calls I get super excited about.  Here is my advice to sales people – not only in multifamily.  Some of them happen to apply to our leasing associates as well!

11 Sales No No’s.

(FYI, all of these things have happened to me in the last week or so)

1. It’s about a relationship, stupid.  Please don’t be fake.
2. Do not cold call me with no knowledge of my company or what we do.  At minimum, please use Google.
3. I do not respond well to threats or super pushy marketing tactics like name dropping or insulting our current efforts.
4. If we, or I, determine your product isn’t right for us (now or even in the future), don’t bully me to change my mind – that really ends the possibility of a future relationship.
5. Don’t send pushy emails copying my superior, especially when I still don’t know why I should care about your product.
6. Don’t request me on LinkedIn before we have had a positive conversation/interaction or any at all.
7. Please be prepared.  I don’t want to wait on the phone for 2 minutes while you look for your earring back or listen to your uncomfortable pauses and sighs when you aren’t sure what to do next.
8. NEVER ask me what we pay your competition for their services.   If you don’t know what your product is worth, I do – $0.
9. Call a million times a day without saying why I should want to call you back, you will likely not get a call back if I have no clue why I am calling you.  Its super weird for me to call you and say “Hi this is Melissa, I have no idea why I am calling you but please, pretty please, sell me something.”
10. By the way, NOT COOL, when I finally begin to try to have a conversation with you (warranted or not), that you berate me for taking so long to call you.  Give me a reason first and I will respond more quickly!
11. This one is too hard to explain, so here is the actual email. Don’t do this, ever, and at least spell my name correctly!!!!!!!   I have never interacted with her (I think she left me some empty voicemails)…

“Haven’t given up Melisssa…

Certainly don’t want to be a  ”thorn in your side,” so I’ll try & make this as painless as possible.

Eager to know your level of interest in our training offerings. Please check an option, promise no hard feelings : )

___ YES, send me a FREE DVD  preview of  your latest & greatest training programs,  __customer  service __leadership

___ I prefer to preview online, set me up with a FREE demo with your web-based platform.

___ Training doesn’t fall under my umbrella, try contacting ___________________________.

___ My plate is more than full, better timing would be  ___later this year,  ___ early 2012,  ____ never darken my
doors again.”

The Best do these things.  Short and SIMPLE and it doesn’t waste my time or yours.

1. Interact with our company on our social media platforms in a meaningful way (not name dropping your company), we like that and builds trust.
2. Start conversations, not sales pitches.
3. Be an expert in your field and help us when possible – without our business at first.
4. Go the extra mile.
5. Help our company and teams increase efficiency.
6. Use email at first then move to the more personal phone call.  Refer to number 10 above.

Final Thought:

Above all else, do us all a favor, and LOVE what you do and what you are selling.  If you don’t, why should I?

Thank you for listening to my rant.  I really want to like sales people (I will always love ours though ), but for some reason only a limited few really get it.  Does your team?

I would love to hear that these things happen to other people, so please tell!

The biggest mistake we see companies make when they first hit Twitter is to think about it as a channel to push out information. – Tim O’Reilly & Sarah Milstein – The Twitter Book

For those veterans out there in the media space this seems like a no brain-er but in a world steeped in tradition, it seems like the right thing to do. Take a new medium, insert old practices and principles and voila, we experience success. Except that we don’t.

Apartment Twitter Marketing in Saint Louis

We have Amazing Apts...

Just this week, I followed up some new #STL Twitter handles [new apartment deliveries in the city proper]. I will admit, I was very encouraged to see their use of the medium included push marketing. Special after special, floor plan after floor plan, us – us – us & look at me copy – it all makes me smile inside.

It makes me smile because I don’t think it’s what those who use the space expect or even want to see. In other words, it’s a big turn off and at best it’s ignored and left to rot in a digital dump-ground way off over there in the dark ‘Cloud.’

Not that we at Mills Properties have it all figured out and are knocking it out of the park as a result. That being said, we do seem to experience a ton of participation from the people that work with and for us, the people that they serve in our some fifty properties in the Saint Louis Apartment Market and our coaches and mentors in the multifamily industry. All by using just the opposite approach and all for which we are immensely thankful. We keep experimenting, failing, learning, tweaking, experimenting & thanking those who give us feedback along the way.

Push Marketing on Twitter

Back to the point at hand; is there a time and place where this works? Have we reached that point or are we approaching a time where the masses that frequent Twitter, Facebook and the like expect, heck even desire to see some push marketing for goods and services? 

When thinking about your marketing spends in 2012 think in terms of what will bring value to your ideal resident in lieu of what your absolute spends will be on print, internet, social media and the like.

Loss to Lease

There is a question floating around our office along the lines of, “What do you book in loss to lease line of your budget?” Also, “On a percentage basis, where do you like to see that number trend?” With that question comes a number of schools of thought but no real definitive answer. And, that being said, I am not sure there is a right way or a wrong way to look at it. In the end, it all shakes out in the Rental Income line. That said, there is value in tracking the discount from new vs. renewals and even budgeted rental increases that drive the loss to lease margins.

Our current practice is to book both discounts from new sales and renewals to a single loss to lease line. And, we try keep the loss to lease number at two to three percent of the the gross potential or top line – if you will.

Here are a couple of schools of thought to throw out there:

What gets booked in loss to lease?

1. The only thing that gets booked in the loss to lease line is discounts from market on new leases only. Renewals that maintain any discount from the top line should be booked as a concession.

2. Any discount from market gets booked as an upfront or recurring concession – be it a new lease or a renewal that transacts at a rate lower than the top line.

Where should loss to lease trend as it relates to the top line?

1. The number should be maintain between two to three percent of your top line

2. The number will trend at nearly ten percent of your top line

Is there real value in tracking loss to lease as a line item?

If it all shakes out in the rental income number – is there any real value [up market or down market] to tracking this number?

I’m curious to hear your thoughts. I am really curious to hear from those of you that are utilizing LRO as I think you have done away with the concept of loss to lease – correct?

Technorati Tags: @mbrewer, mbrewer, mike brewer, apartment operations, loss to lease, gain loss,

Get Them Involved

I can see this being a very cool app not only for our site teams but for residents and prospects alike. That is if they have an iPhone or iPad. With that note in mind, think of the possibilites;

Tour

1. 360 views of your apartment communities curb appeal

2. 360 views of your apartment business/leasing/clubhouse

3.360 views of your grounds and common areas

4. 360 views of any or all rooms in any given apartment

Maintenance

1. 360 view of move out walk for the purpose of returning paid deposits or charging for damages

Due Diligence

1. 360 view of personal property inventory

2. 360 view of apartment condition at time of purchase

What else? 

1. Would be cool to have something like this integrate in to Yardi, Real Page, MRI or the such…

2. Pics for website property landing pages

So much flying around out there in the way of experts, guru’s, master’s of the universe and the such.

My new default gauge for validation; can I talk to a client that used your service prior to social media taking front and center? And, if that answer suffices; then you can show me your social media results and pass along another client testimonial or two.

Here is my take -

He who controleth the algorithm’s to Page Rank is the one for all of thee…

Short answer – yes

That is not to mention, I predict 9/10 of the work is already done via their Places platform

Ignore at your Rank’s risk…

 I read somewhere that if you are blogging or doing social media without the intent of selling more stuff, you are a hobbyist. I call bunk on that thought. 

I’ve been blogging for nearly seven years now. And, I can tell you I don’t do it to sell more things. Moreover, I can tell you I don’t do it for a hobby. The work ethic alone in terms of keeping it up makes it much more than a hobby. I do it to be enchanted, to be enlightened, to be better at what I do.

That is not to suggest that there are some diary writers out there that are cataloging their life for no other purpose but to just do it.

I look at it like this – blogging has been a gateway to some very amazing relationships, educational opportunities and otherwise. For me, it’s value comes not in the way of consulting gigs, widget sales or other offerings but rather in the relationships I get to partake in. Now one could argue that all that leads to sales. Maybe so. But it’s not the premise for every blog and neither is every blog a hobby. Even some of the corporate types.

I would even go out on a limb to say that those who don’t set the premise as a sales oriented one but rather one of – exposure to some cool people I can learn from – end up selling more stuff.

Thoughts?

Question: Do we need to hire, train and promote subject matter experts in order to reach the ever segmenting audience?

Pic: Courtesy of Everything Technology Blogging