leasing
Selling – One for All Apartment Professionals
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,
M
Selling Apartments: The Six Must Haves
Selling
Selling apartments is an art and it is not for everyone. If you think about it, most sales people hear no, we will get back to you, we were just checking the price, we are not ready to commit, we – we – we – we…
The fail rate in selling is off the charts so it takes someone with a thick skin and a constant willing to go after it which brings me to a quick story before we list the six must haves. One of my real estate mentors told me that early in his selling career, he would go door to door trying to get people to buy his service. He would knock, give the pitch, communicate the features and benefits and wait for the answer. And, if the answer was no – he walked the end of the driveway – jumped in the air and when he landed – he would give a simultaneous fist pump and ‘yes’ shout.
Yes – he was excited that his attempt at selling failed in a sense. When I asked him for the punch line – he looked at me steely eyed and said, “Mike, for every no I heard, I knew I was that much closer to a yes.” I am certain that at the tender age of 23 – I exerted one of the smarty pants – really!? remarks. But, he was dead serious. And, I know that it worked for him as he was the hands down, award laden, captain master of the real estate sales world. At least in our small town. When I think of the six must haves I can’t help but to think Bob was the master of all them.
Solution
Start with the end in mind. You are selling a solution to a problem that someone has when they email, tweet, comment in the way of, text, call you on the phone or walk in your front door. Discern their interest and desires and marry up your best solution.
Success
You must ooze success. Get your attitude right. Get the behavior right that back up that attitude. Dress the part. Talk the part. And, guess what you will experience success. Reason: people feel you as much as they hear you. Even the most analytical amongst us. They feel the frauds and they move on. Be the real deal, be the difference and people will buy you all day long.
Experience
Selling apartments should be an experience that gets talked about. From curb to commode you are an artist actor playing out a part in an award-winning real-time documentary. Your apartment selling is the feature of the film. Everything from curb to commode is the stage where you play out the acts of your selling. Make it a compelling one.
Dream Come True
Be the dream come true for the audience you are acting (Read: Real Deal) out for. When the time comes for the credits to role – expect a standing ovation for the fine work you have just demonstrated. Bask in the fact that you have just given the performance of a life time and the audience has no choice but to shower you with a – yes – yes – yes and one more yes for good measure.
Love
Love is what you are after. Love is what you get when you are part of the solutions for other people. I am not suggesting that love should be tied to task – but, it should be tied to a genuine need to help others without expecting anything in return. If you do what you do because you love it that screams loud and clear in your being and your actions. And, it makes others want to love you back through their actions. In this case – signing leases and moving in.
Dramatic Difference
One could posit that apartments are a commodity and selling them is just a ho-hum part of the routine. And, that might be right. But, not for you. In the end, you are the dramatic difference. You are the one that brings compelling to the table. You are the one that ‘brings the thunder’ as they say. You are the difference that makes a difference when it comes time for someone to say – yes.
My charge to you today – Go for the oscar every time you get a lead…
Your, promoting the six this week, multifamily manic
M
Love: Be the Difference that Makes a Difference
You will always be the second best anyone else. – Leo Buscaglia
Leo, in his book titled: Love, tells an amazing story as it relates to having love for oneself. I intend to give you the very much paraphrased version. He takes you on a visual journey back to grade school. He has you remember the anticipation you held in your little heart and mind over the art teacher coming around to your classroom. It was that time where you got to put down the lead and pick up the oily Crayola. It was time to put method, pragmatism, social order and conformity to rest so as to wake up the wild and the crazy. It was time to do the thing you love. Or, so you thought….
I Don’t Love Your Tree
His story picks up in description of the art teacher drawing a simple tree on the chalk board and instructing the class to follow suit by replicating it on the blank sheet of paper in front of them. Two lines mirrored just inches apart and headed for the top of the page. Lines that lend themselves to branches. And, a line that mimics a camel hump repeated in a circular motion starting on the right and finding itself up and around nearing the top of the page and back down to a point where it intersects with the vertical line on the left. Boom – it’s a tree. Yes – you did it. You and everyone else except for Junior.
You quite presumably know where this is going. Yes – Leo inserts ‘that guy/gal’ into the story. He calls him Junior. And, Junior produces a tree with the love and care that Michael Angelo gave in creating some of the finest art the world has ever seen. The love that a kid gives to choosing his yellow, green, orange and magenta with overtones of red and shades of grey, black and just enough brown. The love that creates the freakiest most awesome and over the top tree that art teacher, the class and the world at large has ever seen. That love that gets shunned, booed, kicked and yeah butted right out of the room. The love that gets you remarks like – I don’t love your tree…
Please Conform
Conformity kicks the teeth right out of love. It asks a maintenance technician to master electricity when plumbing is his first love. It’s asks our best maintenance supervisor to lead the troops to the top of the mountain and into war when tinkering and solving mechanical problems is his first love. It asks our best leasing people to master accounting when servicing people is his/her first love. It’s telling someone who the best way to do something is the way that you do it. Or the way the company does it. Or the way your dad used to do it. It’s the continued ripping of life right out of people the same way it was ripped out of Junior.
Punch Line
Starting today – Don’t give up your tree…
Have a non-conforming weekend,
Your, never giving up my tree, multifamily manic,
M
Apartment Marketing: Get Simple
Read a great post over Brains of Fire Blog titled: Creating Problems (Instead of Solving Them). In the post Eric Dodds speaks the point of reinventing for the sake of the exercise. And, all under the guise of presenting the perception that we, as providers of service; be it branding, marketing, financial or otherwise, are creating value for our constituents. The otherwise obvious point for me is that simple stuff works. Simple stuff gets results. Simple gets participation. And, simple is simply a process of filtering out the noise.
In this excerpt, Eric sites a very cool example of an agency filtering out the noise in the way of building the right website for a brewery in the amazing state of Oregon:
What did they want? What all beer-lovers want. To know where they can find good beer.
This hit me right between the eyes this morning as I grappled with our new media strategies and overall apartment marketing and branding efforts.
Righting My View of the Apartment Marketing World
Many times I am guilty of viewing our strategies based on what I want to see happen, what I want to participate in, what I want our Mills Properties participants to see, what I want them to do and experience. When the simple reality is that It is and has always been about getting heads on beds under a sharp curb to commode premise. Under the premise of people’s needs. And, people want simple things done in simple ways for simple results.
How To Create Simple
1. Create a culture that is conducive to very good but simple customer service. Say please, thank you and how can I help – always!
2. Create great partcipatory sales routines. Invite people to tell you their view of the world. Ask how you can make things simple.
3. Be relentless about follow up and follow through. Simple phone call. Simple thank you card. Simple thank you.
It’s that simple.
Major on the majors that get you to simple and guess what – You’ll ROCK!
Your getting simple contributer,
M
