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Apartment Leadership – Your Answer May Not be the Only Answer
I read a story today that held a lesson too important not to share. The overarching premise related to creative solutions for business problems. The key lesson being that just because you [leaders] don’t get the answer you are looking for does not mean the answer is not an acceptable solution for the problem.
Allow me to take you back to my childhood for a second to bring this point home. I grew up on a farm just South of a small town on the Eastern Plains of New Mexico. The summers, outside of crazy boring chores, were packed with a ton of down time. My only mode of transportation were two wheels straddled by a frame, two peddles and a seat. It was four miles along the highway to the edge of town and another four to my nearest friend. Needless to say, I was not jumping at the chance to make the trip very often.
Both of my parents worked so my sister and I were left to make the best of each day. Days that included a long list of chores to complete before they made it home. On one occasion that list included a request for me to pull an acre of weeds no less than four feet tall [exaggerated for emphasis]. A project that wold have taken the better part of two days to accomplish [no exaggeration on this point].
Now I don’t claim to be any more resourceful than the next guy or gal but I can say that if there is a more efficient way to do something, trust that I am going to find it. In this instance, I went next door and asked by neighbor if I could borrow a few of his healthiest farm animals to assist in my assignment. He agreed and it took them the better part of a half-day to complete the project. They mowed the weeds right down to the dirt and in many cases pulled them out by the root. Needless to say, I was very proud of my accomplishment and could not wait to share it with my step-father.
“What were you thinking? I asked you to PULL the weeds,” he thundered upon my sharing. I was shocked. Devastated. And, angry. Why was my solution any less effective than his alternative? The reason according to the story I read this morning was because it was not his desired solution.
Getting to the point, how many times in our property management careers have we been put off or put back by resourceful thinkers that get things done in a different or better fashion than you. Do you coach them as it relates to your desired solution? Did you coach out of an underlying premise of frustration or anger? Here are some things to think about if you are in this crowd of thinkers:
1. Are you stalling creativity?
2. Are you screening out innovation?
3. Are you killing a free thinking environment?
4. Are you killing moral?
5. Are you losing good people?
Photo Credit: conversations.nokia.com
Using Facebook to Rent More Apartments
A ton has been written on the topic of Facebook as it relates to renting apartments and I don’t intend to belabor the point.
Rather, I am curious to hear from our readers; What is/are your biggest struggle with it? What are your biggest successes? What would you tell someone who is thinking about starting a like page?
I appreciate any discussion we get going here – even the brief ones.
Property Management Company: Cause
It seems to me that Property Management Companies are in essence Professional Service Firms. The chief objectives are to maximize the physical and fiscal performance of a real estate asset for institutional and or private owners. But are they really called to be and do more?
Property Management Company: Cause
I received an email not long ago asking a question along the lines of finding a cause for a firm – in an email exchange I penned the following:
I see a cause as being something bigger than self or team. To me – it’s audacious in nature. And, it has nothing to do with selling more stuff but everything to do with building individual and organizational character as a way of changing the world. I don’t use – changing the world – in jest. It is the only premise with which to build an organization. In my head organizations are built to serve the people that serve it – period. That is first and foremost. If built right all else will fall into place. An organization that focuses on building character will see that character exercised in the way of success on every level with every metric.
I think Emerson said it best when he penned the following:
“To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children…to leave the world a better place…to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.”
Capture that in the way of a cause that lays over your companies mission, vision, strategy and goals that help to execute as much and you have something people can believe in. You will have found something that people can get out of bed in the morning for – you can change the lives of hundreds if not thousands and as a default – you will create wealth beyond your imagination and more important – the imaginations of those that are served by the organization. They will have lived what Emerson had in mind – all because you made a decision to offer up a worthy cause.
Do you have a cause? What is it? Why do you think it is important?
Apartment Marketers: Afraid to Blog?
Below is a link to a story that resonated with me relative to a conversation that was broached on Mike Whaling’s: Apartment Marketing Gone Digital’s last episode. I believe it was Eric Brown that made the point about the lack of conversation about blogs as it relates to apartment marketing at NAAs 2010 convention.
Apartment Blogging: Fear
I agree to some extent with Eric that there is a dearth of examples with apartment blogging in the Apartment Space as I think the offerings are growing everyday. For example – Mills Properties – is on the verge of launching seven regional blogs in addition to revamping the Mills employee-centric blog. In addition, JC Hart, Trillium, Paragon, Village Green and PCMG have ventured down the path of blogging and from my perspective are doing a good job of it. I applaud the fact that these firms have taken the endeavor on as an in-house marketing function.
With that, I feel it necessary to make the point that I am not an advocate of ILSs that offer blogging as a part of their advertising package. And, time should be of no excuse. I would rather hear the fear stuff like; I am afraid of what others might think of my choice of topic, my grammar, my spelling or what if I can’t think of anything to write about. Not that those things are not important but – time as an excuse – save it. This is something you make time for at the expense of other things.
Apartment Non-Blogging
To the topic at hand – the following post was offered up on the Conversation Agent Blog a couple weeks ago. In it Valeria Moltoni suggests alternatives to blogging that could and are effective in building your digital footprint. If you are not into creating original and or mashed up blog content – this read is for you. The premise is that participation is an equally compelling form of content creation. She offers some real practical applications using LinkedIn, Twitter and others. So – if you just can’t bring yourself to do it and you elect not to farm it out to a third party, try this method.
Enjoy and let us know your thoughts in the comments below –
Conversation Agent: Blogging at Work if You Don’t Have a Blog
I’ve said it before, but it bears repeating. Participation is content because it is what will activate your content in the context of the conversation. Remember when you worried about nobody coming to your blog? It’s the same with content in other places – you’ve got to interact to activate it.
Apartment Marketing: @earlybird a New Way to Use Twitter
Have you ever wondered what the most appropriate way to use Twitter to market your companies Apartment Living Experience is? Now I’m not to suggesting that any one way is better than another but I do think there are some ways that garnish more attention. My only piece of advice is avoid using old school push marketing tactics.
It looks like @earlybird is positioning itself as a socially acceptable way to broadcast your current promotion. Brian Solis puts it this way in On Twitter, The Early Bird Gets the Worm
If you can imaging the possibilities for @EarlyBird, it goes beyond just one-off deals and specials through a generic account [push marketing], it can be themed into opt-in channels for almost any area of interest, food, music, entertainment, events, etc. [relevancy] emphasis mine.
As it relates to apartment marketing, I can see the value in an opt-in channel for apartments as a good thing –
What do you think?
