Employee Morale

Employees are the key to your company's success. Let's think about this for a moment. You spend money advertising for a position. You spend days, weeks, even months looking for that perfect candidate. You interview, ask questions and finally settle on someone that you feel is the right fit. They meet with HR, do their new hire paperwork and start day one at their new job. Then What? Do you give them to another employee to "train"? If so do you check on them in a week or a month? You hire experienced people you say. I shouldn't need to check on them. I hired them to do a job. I'm not a babysitter! This may all be true however statistically employees want to work for a company with a positive company culture. This may be more important than rate of pay for some and just as important for others. A training program will create high morale from the beginning. Creating a team environment is another way to keep morale high. team projects and events will get your employees interacting with each other. People want to be part of a team. Not just sitting in front of a computer emailing each other. Email is necessary for some things but it should never take the place of face to face conversations. Weekly meetings with your staff is important. Go over ideas, problems, concerns and successes. This shows you care and you play a serious part in their careers. Meeting with employees does not mean reading them the riot act. It means opening up the floor to interaction. Going over both positive and negatives. Answering questions and listening. The less you see your employees the more time they have to wonder about the future of the company and their futures with the company. Quarterly lunches to celebrate great numbers or sales. Showing employees how much they are appreciated goes along way! Directly handling employees issues is also important. Don't group people together. If one person on the team is not performing. Talk directly one on one with them to resolve the problem. The bottom line is become invested in your employees and their success. If you are going out of your way to find A players to work for you. Go out of your way to keep them!

Happy New Residents!

Property Managers really should take a lesson from Realtors. Think about it. Realtors are proud of what they do. They're finding their clients the perfect home. Right? They plan for closing day. They have all of the paperwork completed a head of time. They do the walk through with the client the day before, sometimes a couple of days before closing. The day of closing, they show up to the house with a beautiful gift basket and keys. It's a happy occasion. They take a photo with their client and then one of their clients holding up their keys showing excitement for the anticipated day. They post the photos on the company Facebook page announcing that they have closed yet another sale with a happy client. So why doesn't that same thing go on in property management? Property manager's are also finding their clients the perfect home. Even though it is a rental, it is a building block toward buying or maybe it's the opposite. Maybe the client is retiring and prefers to rent. We should be following the same set of rules that Realtors follow during the purchase process and taking the same care. Not to mention take a photo! Offer the same beautiful gift basket! Make it a happy experience for our renters, residents and clients! Why should we offer any less??

Looking For Ways to Engage Your Residents?

Looking for ways to engage your residents? It seems to be harder and harder to get your residents to slow down and interact with the staff or each other. Everyone has a full schedule these days. With work and the kids going back to school, not to mention the holidays around the corner. There are some great ways to interact with your residents that really just takes a minute of their time as they're passing through to get their mail or pay their rent. Installing some interactive items near or around your clubhouse or play areas such as chalk boards for the kids so they can take a minute to draw or scribble away! What a great conversation piece. Have lots or colored chalk at the office handy for the kids.

Another great way to get your residents to stop for a moment is to have a photo booth set up year round. You can change the theme with the holidays or season. Selfies are very popular and fun for all ages. You can even offer to take the photo and post them on the community Facebook page (with permission of course) Both of these items are easily created by hand and many of the craft stores offer the supplies for minimal cost. So have fun with it and encourage your residents to take part!

The Infographic

Creating an Infographic can be a fun and creative way to add content to your website or social media. This gives your viewer step by step instructions on any subject that you think may be helpful and relates to what your company is offering. For example moving tips for new residents. Just like a QR code it's very easy to create an Infographic free of charge! Websites such as Venngage will walk you through the process. All you will need to do is find tips that you would like to pass on to your followers. If you have trouble coming up with ideas, ask your staff to help you. In the apartment industry Leasing Consultants are on the front line. They will know what questions residents and new move ins are asking. Questions that your customers need answers to would be a tremendous help on your website or even in your monthly newsletter that is included your email campaign. Infographics are not only informative but also eye catching with bright colors and graphics. This makes it simple and the customer will get a lot of information quickly! So try it out and see how helpful you can be to your many followers.

Email Marketing

Email marketing is still a very important part of our marketing plans. We have moved into an area of social media over load. We scroll and scroll and scroll through thousands of ads and videos etc. etc. Emailing can be much more personal. Next to actually calling or stopping by and face to face talking of course. It can be much more work however. You must begin by picking a company in which to do your email marketing with. You have several to choose from such as Mail Chimp and Constant Contact. Some are free and some have a small amount due each month. It will depend on how many contacts you will be sending emails to so your service amount may change as your contact list grows. I suggest trying out a few until you find the one that best fits your needs. I also suggest picking the one that is easiest for you to navigate so that you don't take up a lot of time trying to figure out the program. Saving time is crucial when you will need to come up with an email campaign ruffly once a week. Depending on your business your campaigns will be regarding a few different items. Here are some examples:

1. Newsletters with indusrty trends, news and tips
2. Birthdays and Anniversarys
3. Holidays
4. Referrals
5. Congratulations on new jobs, babies, marriage etc.
6. Events such as an open house or a sale
7. Coupons


Once you have created your campaigns you will need to work on your contact list. This can start with your SOI or "Sphere of Influence". SOI will include family, friends coworkers, and colleagues. Ask permission before adding them to your list. You may send out an email asking them if they would like to sign up for receive your newsletter or information weekly. Once you have done this you may add to your list. This can be done by creating a campaign on Facebook, Linked In or Twitter. Ask your friends to contact you if they would like to be added and share your posts to add their friends. Create a card that asks this on the back "Contact me at email address if you would like to receive my weekly newsletter"
Remember you don't want to be a nuisance. You want to be informative and most of all you want to create relationships. Find out what your contacts are interested in knowing and be there go to person. Make it fun and focus on the customer or client to gain lasting friendships and business partners!

Drones and Photography

We all work very hard to get the very best photographs of our communities and properties for advertising and marketing purposes. Well very soon photographers will begin using drones to get a view of our communities and Real Estate properties that we have never been able to capture before. This is not just for still shots but also video. Drones will play a very important part in giving our clients a view from a brand new perspective. So when looking for a photographer to take new photos for your marketing plan for the new year ask them what new technology they are using. Make sure to choose the photographer that is up to date and maybe even ahead of their time. Get the most for your money by getting the best possible photos from all angles!

Virtual Reality

Can you imagine showing your apartment home from any where?! Well we are now able to do just that. The 3D VR Headsets are on the market to give us that option. This is just one of many new technological items available to give us the freedom to show apartments, houses, commercial space and any other Real Estate from just about anywhere. What an exciting time. One day this will be the norm but until then it is considered cutting edge and any company that offers this will be the innovative group. This a time saving and fun experience for your clients!