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Multifamily #trust30: Courage
Day 20 in the #trust30 challenge –
Men imagine that they communicate their virtue or vice only by overt actions, and do not see that virtue or vice emit a breath every moment. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
Who is one person that you’ve been dying to connect with, but just haven’t had the courage to reach out to? First, reflect on why you want to get in touch with them. Then, reach out and set up a meeting.
(Author: David Spinks)
Multifamily NAA – In the spirit of #NAAeduconf
The year was 1996 and the NAA conference was being hosted in Las Vegas at the Las Vegas Hilton just off the strip. I was fresh into the multifamily industry and right out of residential sales. And, I was excited. It was that kind of excitement where you wanted to read everything, try everything, meet everybody and learn all that one could about the industry and what made it tick.
I’ve told this story a couple times outside of this blog and it seems appropriate to memorialize it in light of today’s prompt. Lisa Trosien was an industry hero of mine and I just so happened to run into her in the hotel gift shop. I recall standing in the aisle looking for something I did not need just waiting for the moment to say – “hey, I think you are great.” At that time, I was star struck as I had a great deal of admiration for what she was doing for the industry. And, I felt like a clumsy child trying to navigate a new found task.
It took awhile but I worked up the courage to talk to her. My icebreaker? Michael Jordan [Also, a person I would love to meet]. Lisa was picking off every magazine that had Michael Jordan on the cover. I started by asking if she was a Michael fan, she replied that her husband was a huge fan. I shot back with some remarks about how great I thought her afternoon session was and she took the time to prod me on what I was going to take back and apply. And, that was that. I had conquered the courage dragon and she made it worth the work up.
People are people and they want to connect
Fast forward a to the year of social media – I recall asking Lisa a question on her blog and three minutes later my phone rang. And, it was Lisa. Ha! I was speechless.
The fact is that everyone in the world wants to connect. And, more times that not with just a bit of wherewithal and mild assertiveness; you can talk to anyone. And, they will talk back.
Your encouraging you to reach out to your hero contributor,
M
Multifamily #Trust30: Tiger by the Tail
Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind. Absolve you to yourself, and you shall have the suffrage of the world. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
For today, trying asking yourself often, especially before you make a choice, “What do I know about this?”
(Author: Jen Louden)
It’s an attention economy and there are a plethora of messages competing for your interest every second of the day. Not only that marketers are getting more creative and more clever as it relates to sucking you in. Marry in some ADD or ADHD and you have the ingredients for never having to think for yourself again.
Multifamily Think
Anyone who has worked for or with me in the multifamily space knows that I expect you to think for yourself when it comes to running your business. Early in my career someone said, “I am handing you keys to a multi-million dollar business, I expect that you know how to tie your shoes.” Made a ton of sense to me then and it still does to this day.
Anymore whether it be a hiring agent or me personally, you better believe the homework will been done. That is to suggest the background has been explored, the questions have been asked and the references have been checked. And, while I don’t use FB or LinkedIn as a part of the hiring process, I do look you up.
The over-riding point here is that I expect to think for myself and I expect those that come to work for me to think for themselves. And, asking yourself what you know is just half the battle. The even more important part is believing the answer. Even on the tough stuff. I expect to fail fast. I expect people to fail fast. I expect to learn fast. And, I expect people to learn fast. 
What I don’t expect is to light fires – if I have to do that then it’s time to move on.
Your always looking to catch a tiger by the tail contributor,
M
Multifamily #Trust30: One Sentence
Day 17 to the #Trust30 challenge –
Your genuine action will explain itself, and will explain your other genuine actions. Your conformity explains nothing. The force of character is cumulative. – Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance
…How would you describe today using only one sentence? Tell today’s sentence to one other person. Repeat each day.
(Author: Liz Danzico)
Multifamily Sentence
Fail forward fast, learn, grow and press for excellence in all that you do.
Your taking it from the gut today contributor,
M
Multifamily #Trust30: Greatness
Moving past the halfway point with day 16 of the #trust30 challenge –
Greatness appeals to the future. If I can be firm enough to-day to do right, and scorn eyes, I must have done so much right before as to defend me now. Be it how it will, do right now. Always scorn appearances, and you always may. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
Trusting intuition and making decisions based on it is the most important activity of the creative artist and entrepreneur. If you are facing (and fearing) a difficult life decision, ask yourself these three questions:
1) “What are the costs of inaction?”….
2) “What kind of person do I want to be?”
3) “In the event of failure, could I generate an alternative positive outcome?”
Multifamily greatness
We recently purchased a property from a lending institution who had in turn taken it back from a previous ownership interest. When completing the due
diligence phase of our process we discovered roughly 40 units in various stages of disrepair. Units we classify as down. Down to mean not habitable absent some major rehab.
It spoke loudly to the point of the first question – inaction. Banks are not property managers. And, in lieu of spending $25 to $30k to replace the roofs, they left them alone. Result of that inaction? Several hundred thousands of value wiped away.
Greatness starts with forecasting the consequence of in-actions. In this case, it would suffice to say that some back of the napkin math would have yielded an ROI that would have driven a decision to replace the roofs.
What kind of company do we want to be
At Mills Properties, we ask that question a lot. As of late it has been in the area of branding, marketing, digital footprint and the such. We have been slow in moving toward what we want to achieve part and parcel because of near 50% growth in community and unit count over the past four years. And, in part not having a real plan.
Fast forward to today. We have taken the time to craft a 40+ page branding/marketing plan that includes everything from font types and size for all thing forward facing to big ticket strategies to dominate the St. Louis Apartments on and off-line space. It lays it all out and captures how everything from curb appeal to lease contract signing ladders up into an overarching message for the neighborhoods and communities we serve. And, in advance our striving to make a splash nationally at some point.
It all starts with asking the right questions.
Multifamily failure
I think the best way to overcome failure is understand that it going to happen from time to time. In fact, I like what Tom Peters has to say about it, “reward
failure.” If you are not failing, you are not trying, you are not learning and thus you are not growing. Equity Residential cements this in their 10 ways to be a winner – one being ‘take educated risks.’ The expectation is that you gather every piece of information you can to include the counsel of others before you pull the trigger. And, if you fail, you simply have a group postmortem where you examine the facts and the various action points to see what could have been done better.
Off for a float trip
It’s Saturday, it’s raining and we are headed out for camping and a float trip. Should be loads of fun. I say that with lots of hope in mind.
Your hoping you have an amazing weekend contributor,
M
Multifamily #Trust30: Character
Day 14 of the #Trust30 challenge – Trust
…Decide what you want the future to be and make it happen. Because you can. Write about your future now.
(Author: Cindy Gallop)
It’s an elegant way of saying Trust thyself. There is no way of really telling how many times a year we have brilliant ideas cross our mind only to be lost in the same instance. And, no way to tell just how many times that dismissal is a direct result of our innate lack of trust in our own wherewithal. Or, back to that ever persistent dream killer – fear.
What do I want people to say about me when I die
A number of years ago I took the time to write a personal creed for myself. The soul-searching was prompted by a book I was reading at the time; don’t quote me but I do believe it was Steven Covey’s 8th Habit. The methodology included thinking about your very own funeral. I know, morbid huh?
You are at the back of the room as you watch four people take the stage to speak about you: a family member, a co-worker, a coach, mentor, friend or otherwise and a civic/church member. In the exercise you wrote about all the things you would want those individuals to say about you. In doing so you would discern the things that meant the most to you in the way you would want to live life. In a word: character.
Once you defined the character traits, the next step consisted of writing your creed. And, once the creed was written it was time to pen your goals and strategies with which you went about achieving them, predicated on the creed. Or, what you were going to do to build your character.
Character leads the way
Every year in early Jan, I sit and pen my goals for the coming calendar year along with five years and ten years down the road. All predicated on my creed. All in an effort to work on character first, accomplishment second and gathering of things third. In my head if I work on character, accomplishments will come followed closely by money and the things that money can buy.
Over time I will post the creed and the goals that go along with it as one of the last steps in the methodology is to share openly with those that would hold you accountable to living up to what you penned. But, not yet.
What about you; what methodology do you use to create the future for yourself?
Your working on 2011 goals predicated on creed and aiming for good character contributor,
M
