Leadership
Commitment
Spell them out. And, work is painful.
Creed
To live and act in a way that are in concert with the things that I value: family, health, abundance, wealth, character, courage, action, knowledge, truth, joy for life, love, relationship and a purpose larger than me.
Know your Ideals
Roughly twelve years ago I sat down and worked through a series of questions that helped me discern the things that I valued most. The creed above is in part what I accomplished through that exercise. I have read that sentence along with several others nearly every morning since as a part of getting my day rolling.
Commitment
Awesome – right? Big hairy audacious goals/aspirations. But, if I were called to task today and asked to report out on my progress with any one of the points above, I would be compelled to tell you that I have fallen short on every single point. In some cases, I really mucked it up.
Why? Commitment.
Someone once told me that all the good intentions in the world are worth nothing unless followed through with. And, I promptly followed the beat of my own drum. And, you know what I learned? That commitment is hard work. But, it is work worth doing. It took me a long bit of time to get it but I get it and so can you.
Do the Work
Commitment is hard damn work no matter how you slice it. And, to the extent that you put it off – it only becomes harder. And, at some point you give up or you give in.
Not today my good fellows – today is a great day to lay it down. Hear the noise and ignore it. Focus. Feel the pain and do it anyway. Rob procrastination and negative emotions of their power. Get a creed – read it everyday and most important – Act.
Pick one thing and do it today then come back and tell us about it.
Your lovin’ commitment multifamily manic,
M
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How’s My Service?
JHerzog · · 3 Comments
We’ve all seen one of one of those How’s My Driving stickers on the back of a truck.
They seem to care but do they really?
My boyfriend recently ordered my birthday present online from a popular home and garden store. I won’t disclose the name, but let’s just say it rhymes with Shmowe’s. Anyway, he ordered it through their In-Store Pick-Up service so that he could pick it up from a store near me while he was visiting for my birthday, but when he went to pick it up, it wasn’t there. He was told that someone was supposed to be in charge of calling him to let him know it hadn’t arrived yet, but apparently they forgot, and they would have to call him back Monday. When they didn’t call, he called them, only to continue to get the run around. Almost a week later, the item showed up at his home (in a completely different state than where he had requested to pick it up). The only solution customer service would offer was for him to return it to the nearest store (40 minutes from his house) and have me re-buy it from the store where it was originally supposed to go. Only when he went to the store to return it, they couldn’t access his order in their system and refused to give him his money back. After spending almost an hour in the store dealing with several different store associates and managers, and becoming infuriated, he was given his money back. Needless to say, after their complete lack of help and horrible customer service in dealing with his issue, he would not be re-buying anything from any other ‘Schmowes’ store.
No matter how bad his issue became, not one person was willing to become solely responsible to insure he received call backs and verify that the matter was corrected and the customer was satisfied. Instead, he was given different answers from several different people and given the run around to the point where it ended up losing them two customers (both him and myself), and potentially more because apparently he was not the only person in their customer service line who had issues with their online in-store pick-up program (and of course all of you reading this who don’t want to take the chance of this happening to you).
The point of all this is that I work for Mills, a fairly large company that relies mostly on our site teams to handle property specific customer service issues. However, we recently added a resident relations position to our portfolio for those times when an issue reaches the level that the above mentioned story reached. This person is specifically responsible for getting to the bottom of such issues and working directly with the resident until the issue is resolved. This has become a great asset to our company and I believe that no matter how big or small the company, there should be some type of position similar to this available for customers.
Do you have a program in place to insure that customer issues never get out of control? Any tips on what has been most effective?
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Multifamily Monday: Enthusiasm Energy Authenticity
Mike Brewer · · 1 Comment
As temperatures start to rise around the country and the leasing activity in all of your offices takes off – it is paramount that your teams are pumped and ready to capitalize. Unless you are in the student housing business you no doubt understand the multifamily seasonal demand curve. For most of us in the Midwest leasing dies down around late October or early November and does not pick back up until late Feb early March. Knowing that, it is key to capture as many new leases as you can during this time. Equally, if not more important it is key to keep as many in-place leases as you can. Enthusiasm, Energy and Authenticity can help you with that.
Enthusiasm
Enthusiasm is hard work. Enthusiasm doesn’t scream out once your alarm clock goes off in the morning. It doesn’t just happen the second you put your feet on the floor. It doesn’t happen with the first cup of coffee or the first splash of water from the warm shower you hop into.
Not unlike most things, you have to get yourself pumped each day. How do you do that? Some read the bible or other inspirational literature, some listen to music and some meditate. I like to read Tom Peter’s or James Allen to get my day going. Whatever the case – find what it is that gets you pumped in the morning. And, promise me this – you are not getting amp’d because you can’t wait to get to work in the morning but rather because you want to be the best possible you in light of serving others. As nothing gives charge to enthusiasm as much as helping the next guy/gal get charged up.
Energy
Energy is born out of activity. I think we get this one backwards sometimes. I see energy as being manufactured out of activities such as exercise. It comes from motion. It takes energy to get out of bed in the morning. It takes energy to walk down stairs to make the coffee. It takes energy to get the dog fed. It takes energy to get your running shoes on. And, it takes energy to pound out a couple of miles before breakfast. But you know what happens when you are disciplined enough to do this daily – you are gifted more energy. You have to spend it to make it.
Authenticity
I really think that authenticity is born out of enthusiasm and energy. When you exude enthusiasm in what you do – no matter the art – you are perceived as being passionate, full of life and authentic. Now you could debate the merits of real enthusiasm and faked or forced enthusiasm but for the purpose of this discussion, let us assume we are talking about the real stuff. And, once you have enthusiasm, energy has no choice but to tag along. You getting pumped about your art and the energy to get it done will follow. And, with these two things working in tandem – your authenticity can’t be contained.
What do you do to get yourself fired up on a Monday morning after a crazy fun off the charts weekend?
Your – going for enthusiasm, energy and authenticity – multifamily maniac,
M
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Authentic Apartment Marketing
Think of apartment seekers as consumers and your communication with them will be perceived as not authentic – think of them as people and you have a shot at creating conversation that speaks to fundamental human need(s), want(s) and desire(s). Think food, water and shelter. And, how do you become authentic as it relates to apartment marketing? You get an understanding.
Understand People and Their Behavior
Why would you want to understand people and their behaviors? The only way you change how people feel, think and behave is to understand them in a very authentic way? Only then will they respond to the power of your creative apartment marketing. Or, conversation and content marketing.
What can you do to understand people and their behaviors? First, you create an authentic and ceaseless urge to know more. You make it your daily quest to always know more about people. Always take notes. Take pictures. Record thoughts. Write a blog post or two or three to flesh out your thoughts. Make it your mission to understand what they think. What they prefer. What they dream. What they desire. And, what they need.
One item on note on understanding – what makes people people is always changing. And, if you are not leading that change in an authentic way then someone else will.
Your, highly interested in anthropology, multifamily maniac,
M
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Multifamily Monday: 1 = 1
We have all heard it before: K.I.S.S – The keep is simple saying that rings out in/across every boardroom, clubroom, round, square and oblong table around the world. Nothing novel here but that is the point of our Multifamily Monday blog post. We get right to the point of oft remembered but oft not practiced truths.
Get to The Point
When communicating information, we often think that backdrop or off topic analogies are going to really bring our point home. Not so much. Especially in an attention deficit economy. Few listen/hear anymore and often draw conclusions well before you have reached your second sentence. So start with the punch line and follow with the build up. Hit the crescendo and follow with the introduction.
Tell Them What You are About to Tell Them
There is a truism in public speaking that makes sense here; it goes something like this, tell them what you are about to tell them, tell them and then tell them what you just told them. It’s a frame of reference so that the audience knows what they are about to learn. It helps them track the broad topic as the stories unfold. The key being that they know what the punch line is well before it is communicated in length.
Take away: Keeping it simple starts with giving away the punch line…
Your, practicing brevity and clarity, multifamily maniac,
M
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