New Year! Fresh Start!

It's that time of year again. Time to look at the accomplishments of the previous year and the failures or the things that we can improve upon. Just as you will be creating a personal list of New Years resolutions you should be looking at goals for your business as well. Here are a few tips to make your goal setting successful.

1. Pull your staff together for an end of year or beginning of year meeting. Hand out paper and pens. Make this an interactive meeting. Ask each team member to jot down their personal goals or resolutions and a few things that they would like to see happen at your community. This can be for the over all property or specific to their department. Allowing them to add their thoughts and opinions will help you to make your final business goals for your community. This will also help them want to be involved in making sure everyone commits and sticks to them all year!
2. Pull reports. Look at your numbers. The numbers never lie. This will give you a very clear picture of where you need to spend your community's budget.
3. Pull employee reviews and community reviews. Take a look at your customer service and employee satisfaction.
4. Once you have analyzed all aspects of your business you may begin to put them in order by priority.
5. Decide how many goals you would like to focus on. I would pick three. One from each department or one main goal and a couple smaller goals.
6. Create realistic goals and an action plan.
7. Request approval from corporate and come up with a bonus system or an agreed upon reward.
8. Place your goals in an area where all staff will see them daily.
9. Go over the goals at your monthly or quarterly meetings. If the goals are being met respond by congratulating staff and even rewarding them with a lunch or bonuses etc. If they are not find out why and adjust.
10. Take time to enjoy the process. Make it fun! Take pictures. Create a goal board. Show off the accomplishments through out the year.

Good luck and have a successful 2016!!!

Logo Ornaments

The holidays are a great time to get out and market your community. Traffic usually slows down and gift giving is appropriate this time of year. Take this opportunity to pull together some fliers, business cards and any other marketing materials you have available. Put them in a gift bag with some holiday candy or cookies, maybe even ornaments with your logo on them. What a fun way to celebrate the holidays and promote your community at the same time! Dress in festive wear with Santa Hats and holiday colors. Spread holiday cheer and make your meetings memorable. They will never forget your smiling face and upbeat approach. Invite local business owners to your residents holiday functions or just invite them to tour your community and enjoy some hot chocolate and treats. Don’t miss out on this once a year marketing opportunity.

Share A Memory

A wonderful way to get residents to come together during the holiday season is to create an event that includes the entire community. One way to do this is to ask each resident to share their favorite Holiday memory. Make a party of it and invite residents to the clubhouse where you can offer refreshments and snacks as well as pens and paper. Make sure to ask that each resident add their name to their story. Once the residents have written down their favorite memory you will compile them into a book. You can type them yourself and make copies at Kinkos or you can have your printing company print the books up for you. Be sure to add a cover page and a page of thank you to all that participated. Give these away as Holiday gifts at your community holiday party!

Pictures With Santa

During the holiday season a great way to get new traffic is to advertise FREE pictures with Santa! Purchase a Santa suite and pick a day that you can set up in your clubhouse. Offer treats like cookies or hot chocolate and hand out brochures or fliers with each photo that you give out free. Advertise in the local newspaper or in publications that has a family demographic. Have a maintenance tech dress up and a leasing agent help out with giving out hot chocolate or small gifts. Make it fun! Put out a flier to each resident so that they may invite family and friends. Set the mood by lighting the fireplace and have holiday music playing. Reach out even further to pet owners by offering a day to do pet pictures with Santa. Promote this by advertising in Pet Scene Magazine and by posting fliers at dog parks. This can be a huge success if promoted properly. You will be able to reach tons of new traffic and make lots of people happy!

Fourth Quarter Blues

The holidays are usually the slowest time of year. As we all know the fourth quarter is the worst and we must always step up our marketing efforts. This time of year gives us the time to spend on the current residents and on creative ways to attract future residents. Host a Gift wrapping party. Hold the party inside one of your models if you have a floor plan big enough. If not it can be held in your clubhouse but be available to show your model. Invite all of your residents and ask them to bring a friend, coworker or family member! Make this a FREE event and provide the gift wrap and tools they need to wrap beautiful gifts. You can get tons of gift wrapping supplies at the 99 cent store. Offer refreshments such as hot chocolate and cider. For every resident that brings a guest, give them a raffle ticket and raffle off a gift basket. Again you can make a spectacular looking gift basket with items from the 99 cent store. Set your brochures and fliers near the refreshments so that each guest can take a brochure or flier with them. Serve the refreshments in coffee cups with your logo on them. Each person that came as a guest can take a coffee cup home with them! This will be a fun time for your current residents and a great way to bring in new guests who may be looking for a new home and will get to see what a wonderful sense of community your apartment homes have

Internet Halloween Contest

Halloween is one of the most popular holidays. This is a great way to get your business name out there or promote your apartment community. Use the internet as a tool and reach even more traffic by having a contest. There are a couple ways you can do this. If you have a facebook page, have a costume contest. Post pictures of the contestants and the costume with the most likes wins. This can be humans or pets. Another fun way to gain attention is to change up your website to a scary home page. Change up your logo to have a scary image or if you don’t want to be scary, change it to a pumpkin or a happy ghost. Have a promotion on your homepage giving away a free gift related to Halloween. They will receive this gift if they tour your community or try your product. The gift can be something like a pumpkin or a face painting kit or even a candy collecting bag with your logo on it. If you are on twitter have a hashtag contest. Post twitters rules on hashtags to be safe but this can be a great way to get people involved! Have a Utube contest for the scariest story or the most creative recipe or Halloween dish. Make sure that all of these items have your community name or business name in the titles. Be creative and have fun!

Halloween a Marketing Opportunity?

Halloween can be a great marketing opportunity! You will have lots of kids and parents coming to your home for candy that night. Use this time to let the neighborhood know about your apartment community/business. Create labels to put on each piece of candy that you will be handing out or tape your business card to it. If you can set up a table or tent in your front yard with a banner or a sign and talk to the parents as they come up to trick or treat! Dress up and decorate! Give out candy to the kids and hand out your business card to the parents with a little gift for them. Get creative and use this time to spread the word about your apartment community/business!