Mike Brewer

Selling – One for All Apartment Professionals

May 14, 2012 By Mike Brewer Leave a Comment

Apartment friends and family, it is no secret that selling starts with the ability to love yourself. If you don’t love yourself then you haven’t the slightest chance of getting anyone to love you back. And, in my head, getting people to fall in love with you first and your content second is the master-key to riches when it comes to selling.

Master Key to Riches in Four Steps

1. Love your heart [Read: Stay away from those that would bring you down. And, get real close to those who amp you up].

2. Love your mind [Read: Think well enough of yourself to read literature that makes you think deeply. Talk to people who challenge your intellect and blow you away].

3. Love your body [Read: Eat well and exercise regularly].

4. Love your soul [Read: Find purpose. Find meaning. Find mindfulness. Find that deeper meaning that amps you. Find that deeper meaning that gives cause for you to wake without the aid of an alarm despite the early hour. Find that thing that keeps you on task and in motion despite any and all setbacks].

Bonus Step: Get clear on the definition of riches. Hint: It has nothing to do with money.

Your – in constant practice of the four steps – multifamily maniac,

Filed Under: #apartmentmarketing, Leasing, Marketing Tagged With: #apartmentmarketing, apartments, leasing, master-key, master-key to riches, napoleon hill, riches, Sales

Choosing Not To Do

March 14, 2012 By Mike Brewer 3 Comments

“The essence of strategy is choosing what not to do.” – Michael Porter

You may want to read and reread that last line a couple of times. [It's okay - I'll wait.....]

I think for many of us, me included, it’s usually more along the lines of what do we do next? What is the next thing to tweet? What is the next platform to try? What is the next marketing idea stone that needs to be turned over? How do we differentiate? How do we compete?

All good questions and likely good stimulates for conversation. But, what we leave out is equally if not more advantageous in forming an effective strategy.

What are you choosing not to do this year?

Pic Props: TSLBO

Filed Under: Operations, Strategy Tagged With: Apartment Operations, apartments, Leadership, michael porter, mike brewer, multifamily, multifamily operations, operations, strategy

What Apartment Marketing is Not

March 2, 2012 By Mike Brewer Leave a Comment

Apartment marketing is not thinking about every person as a renter or a renewal -

Apartment marketing is not about viewing people in the context of residing in your apartment communities -

Apartment marketing is not about getting people to celebrate you through a; Like, G+, Tweet, RT or the such -

Apartment marketing is not about broadcasting the right message at precisely the right to the right influencers -

What you’re saying in all of this is that people mean nothing to you. And, when they don’t respond you just don’t understand why….

Your thinking people-centric multifamily manic,

Filed Under: #apartmentmarketing, Marketing Tagged With: Apartment marketing, apartments, M, Marketing, Mills Properties, multifamily, People-Centric

Multifamily #Trust30: Tiger by the Tail

June 20, 2011 By Mike Brewer Leave a Comment

Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind. Absolve you to yourself, and you shall have the suffrage of the world. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

For today, trying asking yourself often, especially before you make a choice, “What do I know about this?”

(Author: Jen Louden)

It’s an attention economy and there are a plethora of messages competing for your interest every second of the day. Not only that marketers are getting more creative and more clever as it relates to sucking you in. Marry in some ADD or ADHD and you have the ingredients for never having to think for yourself again.

Multifamily Think

Anyone who has worked for or with me in the multifamily space knows that I expect you to think for yourself when it comes to running your business. Early in my career someone said, “I am handing you keys to a multi-million dollar business, I expect that you know how to tie your shoes.” Made a ton of sense to me then and it still does to this day.

Anymore whether it be a hiring agent or me personally, you better believe the homework will been done. That is to suggest the background has been explored, the questions have been asked and the references have been checked. And, while I don’t use FB or LinkedIn as a part of the hiring process, I do look you up.

The over-riding point here is that I expect to think for myself and I expect those that come to work for me to think for themselves. And, asking yourself what you know is just half the battle. The even more important part is believing the answer. Even on the tough stuff. I expect to fail fast. I expect people to fail fast. I expect to learn fast. And, I expect people to learn fast.

What I don’t expect is to light fires – if I have to do that then it’s time to move on.

Your always looking to catch a tiger by the tail contributor,

Filed Under: #Trust30 Tagged With: #Trust30, @mbrewer, apartments, Leadership, mbrewergroup, Mills Properties, Multifamily leadership, Ralph Waldo Emerson, STL

Multifamily #Trust30: Five Years

June 7, 2011 By Mike Brewer 2 Comments

Hey, nice to meet you!

#Trust30 – Day Five

Great questions coming out of the #Trust30 challenge. Today, the prompt is what would you say to the person you were five years ago? And, what would you say to the person you will be five years from now?

There will be an agreement in whatever variety of actions, so they be each honest and natural in their hour. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Growing up Multifamily

I’m entering year seventeen in the multifamily business and I think it goes without saying that I have met some amazing people and learned a ton about our business. Five years ago marks a point of significance in my life that really defined some things for me. I had become so consumed by my work that I lost touch with those that mattered most to me.

What would I say to that person? It’s time to grow up.

What would I say to the person I will be five years from now? You have a long way to go; take care of your health and welfare so you can take care of those you care about. Keep family front and center to all decisions you make and trust that honesty and forthrightness are your friends even when they feel like they are not.

What about you – what would you say to these respective persons?

Your thinking these questions are not getting any easier contributor,

Filed Under: #Trust30 Tagged With: #Trust30, @mbrewer, apartments, Leadership, mbrewergroup, mike brewer, Mills Apartments, Multifamily leadership, St. Louis Apartments

Multifamily #Trust30: Build More Lego Apartment Buildings

June 5, 2011 By Mike Brewer 2 Comments

Mindful Living

Day three of the #trust30 hits us with the NOW…

Life wastes itself while we are preparing to live. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

If you had one week left to live, would you still be doing what you’re doing now?….(Author: Jonathan Mead)

Live More Mindfully

I think the otherwise simple answer to this question is; I would spend more meaningful time with my family. I would play more monopoly with them, I would build more lego apartment buildings with my son, play more ‘Ken and Barbie find their first Apartment’ with my daughter and I would go out on far more date nights with my girl. It’s somewhat tongue-in-cheek with the point that being mindfully present with the ones you love and the ones that love you back is where the real wealth of life extends itself.

Your short and to the point contributor,

Filed Under: #Trust30 Tagged With: #Trust30, @mbrewer, apartments, Leadership, mbrewergroup, mikebrewer, multifamily, Multifamily leadership, Ralph Waldo Emerson

Property Management: You Think You’ve Seen it All. And, then….

April 27, 2011 By Mike Brewer 1 Comment

Car thieves are now using tow trucks to tow vehicles that have expired tabs or look otherwise derelict. And, apartment community parking lots and garages seem to be hotbeds for the action. Apparently they move them straight crushing facilities where they sell them for scrape metal prices. Brilliantly awful!

This serves as one of those; if that person(s) would just use that kind of thought process in a productive the world would be a better place.

What else is going on out there? Any weird new twists on crime in your portfolios?

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: @mbrewer, apartments, city living, crime, mbrewergroup, multifamily, saint louis, st. louis, STL, tow trucks

2009 A Year of Opportunity

December 25, 2008 By Mike Brewer 3 Comments

I came across the following quote on the blog Customer Experience Matters today. The quote originally came from the Harvard Business Publishing site where they were showcasing a book called “The Forever War”

“One day near Kandahar I came across a minefield, which was hardly
extraordinary in itself, and next to it a man named Juma Khan Gulalai.
The field was bright and green. Gulalai was a butcher and he’d set up
his table there, his apron and knives at the ready. Every day, Gulalai
explained, a goat would wander into the green grassy field to graze for
its meal and step on a land mine and blow apart. Gulalai would walk
into the field and retrieve the carcass–braving the mines himself as he
did–throw the old goat up on the table and carve up its meat for sale.”

What will it take to grow revenue in 2009

I tend to think about things from 30,000 feet and many times miss or overestimate the logistics of ripping off a cool new idea. In that respect I tend to do better at visualizing things as opposed to hammering out the details. I say all that to say this. 2009 will be the year of innovation in the multifamily space. I think we will see a number of new and exciting technologies come to fruition one of which will be that our various property management systems will finally talk to each other. Hats off to the MITS initiative. Moreover and really where I am looking to stoke up some conversation is innovation around the various social technologies we employ today and how we can use them to add value and subsequently more revenue.

As it stands each of us are trying to find our way with social technologies. Some of us are doing better than others while many are still sitting on the sidelines waiting for the right time to participate. I applaud those who have at very least put their toe in the water. Conversation is really the premise of our uses today. We are looking to engage our residents, prospects and vendors in conversations that add value to their experiences and more importantly their lives.

What will tomorrow bring

How do you see the use of social technologies bending the way we lease apartments, serve residents and stay in touch with vendors? I am looking for ideas beyond the conversation. What will each of the aforementioned parties add to the multifamily space or your community specifically? Innovation will be key and it will be collaborative by the nature of the technology we employee. So, what will it yield? Will each of our communities have its’ own specific rating structure built into its social mediums? Will we each have our own [communityname] rating link built right in? Will it be video driven and text supported? Will we see instant interaction with the raters? I think the possibilites are endless.

In closing I think 2009 will be an absolute amazing year to be alive and involved in the multifamily space. I look forward to participating with each and every one you. And, like Juma Khan Gulalai, let’s find the opportunity in an otherwise bleak circumstance.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: 2009, apartments, multifamily, multifamily space

ForRent.com Dominates Social Media in the Multifamily Housing Industry

November 22, 2008 By Mike Brewer 23 Comments

A big note of congrats to the insanely great team over at ForRent.com The Magazine….You gals/guys ROCK! M

NORFOLK, Va.—(November 19,
2008)—No other Internet listing service
in the multi-housing industry has engaged its audience through social media
quite like ForRent.com.
According to Vitrue, Inc., a social media marketing company, ForRent.com is
dominating the multi-housing sector’s social share of voice. As a product of For
Rent Media Solutions^™, a division of Dominion Enterprises,
ForRent.com, utilizes tools such as Twitter, MySpace^®, Facebook and
YouTube^™, to achieve this accomplishment.

ForRent.com’s ranking was
determined by Vitrue’s Social
Media Index™ (SMI), the recently launched free tool that measures a brand’s
online conversations. Based on patent-pending technology, scores are comprised
of various online conversations ranging from text-dense micro-blogs to
multi-dimensional video sites.

“We are thrilled with the results
found by Vitrue’s Social Media Index,” said Brock MacLean, vice president of
national sales and development, For Rent Media Solutions. “Social media is a
very effective way to communicate with our core demographic of 18-34 year old
adults. For Rent Media Solutions’ involvement in social networking sites like MySpace, Facebook, Twitter and
video sharing sites like YouTube allows us to
participate in a true dialogue with consumers, giving us more insight into our
audience and their needs. We plan on expanding our social media efforts in the
future. The Social Media Index will help us gauge the success of our efforts and
how we are resonating with our consumers.”

Generating more than 83 percent of social media
activity, video sharing makes up the largest portion of ForRent.com’s SMI score.
Apartment property video commercials seen on ForRent.com, called Community
Theater^™, are distributed to an extensive network of channels
including major
search engines like Google^™ and Yahoo!^®, social networking
sites such as MySpace, and video sharing sites including YouTube. During October
alone these videos were viewed more than 17,000 times a day.

Generating more than 12 percent of the SMI score,
communication through social networking makes up the second largest method of
social activity for ForRent.com. MySpace has played a significant role in the
success of For Rent Media Solution’s social networking efforts. More than 40
profile pages have been set up, representing more than 40 markets where the
company’s anchor publication, For Rent
Magazine, can be found. Through these efforts, For Rent Media Solutions
communicates with more than 5,300 consumers.

The remainder of the score is comprised of blogging and
micro-blogging. This number includes activity from blogs, such as the ForRent.com blog, and key influencers who
chat and push content through micro-blogs, such as Twitter. Twitter is a service that
allows its users to send updates to their “followers” while trailing other
individuals as well. For more details, please
view the full Social Media Index
report.

“The Vitrue Social Media Index provides invaluable
insight for marketers to understand how they are stacking up in the social media
space,” said Reggie Bradford, chief executive officer of Vitrue, Inc. “Brands
are being talked about in social settings and we are providing the ability to
proactively track these conversations. We firmly believe understanding and
measuring your performance in these environments is key.”

ForRent.com The Magazine, Multifmaily Marketing, Apartment Marketing

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Apartment Marketing Executives, apartments, multifamily, Multifamily Executives

Apartment Executives: Are you ready for the conversation?

November 22, 2008 By Mike Brewer 2 Comments

Not to speak for Eric Brown over at Urbane Apartments but I think he and I agree that it is time for the conversation to start. Let me back up…the conversation has begun and we wonder when the big players will join in. You look around the landscape and missing from the conversation are the likes of Equity Residential, Riverstone Residential, UDR and AIMCO just to name a few.

I know I would enjoy engaging in conversation with some of the leading apartment executives in our industry. And, I am very certain your resident base would enjoy the conversation as well. I mean, imagine unlocking the potential marketing force of two-hundred thousand plus residents? Imagine converting just one percent of that number into evangelists for your brand. Imagine letting the apartment searcher tell you, in public, what makes for a better search experience. Imagine giving them a forum where they give you unadulterated and real time feedback. Imagine being able to respond rather than react to the issues concerns and success stories they would share. Resident portals are a great first step but blogging in the open for all to see is much more authentic and transparent.

For those that have no idea how to get started let me point you to Debbie Weil – She wrote a great book on the subjects called The Corporate Blogging Book: Absolutely Everything You Need to Know to Get It Right.

In a spirit of competitiveness I look forward seeing who has it in them to be ‘first.’ Let me pre-applaud you for your foresight and courage.

Multifamily Executives, Apartment Marketing Executives, Apartments, Multifamily