millsapartments
Apartment Search Twice as Efficient
What can you do to make searching for an apartment twice as efficient?
One Way
Give the people who do business with you twice the number of reasons to stay. Do that by making sure that you over serve the people who serve your organization. It’s called trickle down…
Second Way
Know that marketing is everything and everything is marketing – make it your mission to never settle for the idea of a middleman in your transaction. Throw out the idea that you should by ads or digital listings from people because they are nice. And, the bring you goodies around the holidays and throughout the year. Don’t get me wrong – I like most of those people too. I consider their value in the way of always keeping me on my toes. They help me understand the better, best and excellent ways to move people direct to Mills Properties instead of to their sites and then to my site.
Your always looking to make apartment search efficient for the people who need a place to live multifamily maniac,
M
pic props: Legends Web Design
#apartmentmarketing: Blog Format Question
Short and sweet today –
One of my favorite blogs, one I read everyday without fail, is Valeria Maltoni’s – Conversation Agent. First rate content always.
Apartment Blog Trunk
I gave up on RSS feed reading about a year ago as I spend more time in my inbox. Nearly every blog I read is done through Outlook now and as such I give more time and attention to the things I read. In other words, I generally do not skim the headline and move on.
About a month ago Valeria made the decision to truncate her email subscription delivery meaning we only see a portion of the message and are forced to click on a link to see the rest.
Result: I read fewer of Valeria’s material to the end. Sorry Valeria.
I understand the reasons for cited in her Saying it in 200 Characters post back on Aug 10, 2011.
My question – should apartment marketers truncate their blog post offerings? We are trying it a Mills [Shameless plug – the Mills Blogging Team is Putting a Dent in the #STL market place].
Would love to hear this communities thoughts? And, thank you in advance for taking the time.
Apartment Pics: Photosynth
Caught this story over at a Century 21 site. Photosynth is an iPhone app that allows you to take 360 photos and upload them right to the likes of Facebook and the such. It’s after dark now but I can’t wait to try this out tomorrow.
Get Them Involved
I can see this being a very cool app not only for our site teams but for residents and prospects alike. That is if they have an iPhone or iPad. With that note in mind, think of the possibilites;
Tour
1. 360 views of your apartment communities curb appeal
2. 360 views of your apartment business/leasing/clubhouse
3.360 views of your grounds and common areas
4. 360 views of any or all rooms in any given apartment
Maintenance
1. 360 view of move out walk for the purpose of returning paid deposits or charging for damages
Due Diligence
1. 360 view of personal property inventory
2. 360 view of apartment condition at time of purchase
What else?
1. Would be cool to have something like this integrate in to Yardi, Real Page, MRI or the such…
2. Pics for website property landing pages
Multifamily Leadership: Relentless Courage
We have all been there; sitting around the conference room table discussing the latest property management opportunity, issue or otherwise and you just know in your heart of hearts that no one including yourself is saying the tough stuff. Just this week I posted over at propertymanager.com about courageous conversations and moments of truth. In my head, it is the only way to grow an organization.
I love the way Hugh captures it visually over at gapingvoidgallery
The sting of unspoken words gives cause for what Hugh calls, complete agreement. On the backside we have; 1. That is the stupidest idea I have ever heard. 2. That will never work. 3. I am doing my own thing. Or, worse yet – 4. I’m not changing a thing.
Take away: Don’t be “That Guy” or “That Gal” Instead be – “Not Afraid”
Silence or compliance cheats the group out of being a better organization and you out of being a better leader.
Your ‘Not Afraid’ Contributor,
M
Multifamily Management: Release
“My motto is ‘release’ I have it written in my violin case. ‘Release’ , meaning, ‘Step back a little’. Those are the words of world renowned violin virtuoso Charlie Siem. It struck me as I was reading through the latest copy of Monocle magazine. So many times in life and in the multifamily business we get caught up in the detail of things. We major in the minors making huge mountains out of what should be considered but mere speed bumps in the path of progress.
Major in the Majors
Charlie goes on to say, “Because when you hone in on all the tiny details, it’s natural to tense up – and then nothing flows.” Suffice it to say that everything moves at the speed of light anymore. Not when you tense up and take time to focus on the minutia at a very granular level. It stalls flow, it mitigates advancement and it stifles trust.
Granted mistakes can be and always are traced to the details of things and more astutely to people. Causes are often found in flawed policy and or application of business practices by teams or individuals. It’s still, at least in my head, not cause for alarm but rather time to address the mess and move on; a teachable moment.
I rather think you pick a course, put your metrics [budget] in place, gear yourself up [get the right people on the bus] and run the marathon set before you. Understand that you will experience adversities along the way, just make sure you have plans in place to address them quickly. But overall, stick with the majors. Sticking with the majors as it relates to a marathon would be to pace yourself, keep yourself hydrated and feed yourself mentally and physically along the way. Do that and the rest falls into place.
In contrast, focus on the nagging toe nail pain, foot pain, side cramp or bleeding nipples caused from friction between your shirt and skin and all of a sudden you stall your pace. You forget to hydrate and your mental and physical faculties give way to fatigue. It’s just not worth it.
My word this week – ‘Release’
Your releasing contributer,
M
