There is a fine line between training and application.  Take a trip back to your school years and reflect on the moments when you said to yourself or your teacher: “Why do I need to learn that?  I will never use it.”  As we made our way into the workplace, we should be able to see why advanced algebra, trigonometry, calculus, physics and other subject have served us well.  They developed our ability to think, reason, multitask, and progress in our career path.  It taught us the ability to emotionally handle challenges and to not just give up.

So this brings us to our current moments in life and how we view and apply our continuing education we receive at work.   How can it be possible to score 100% on a multifamily leasing course but only score 60% on a secret shop?  You can add as many thoughts as you want in the comments below.  Follow me on this analogy.  Last week I purchased some paper towel in one of those bulk packages.  I left it in the hallway to see if one of my children would take the initiative to put it away for me.  I left for Pittsburgh for a few days and returned to see that the package was still in the same place, which I then pointed this out to my children.  One of them decides to “put it away” for me and when I opened the cabinet this morning this is what I found.  Yep, the package was just “shoved” into the cabinet.  Now do my children know how to reorganize a cabinet? Yes.  Do my children know how to take the plastic wrapping off a package and stack the contents in a cabinet? Yes.  Do I have smart and intelligent kids?  Absolutely, they are both straight A students.  Do I love my kids?  Yes I do, and they are going to crack up when they read this.

So what’s my point, what was missing?  Education is only the beginning.  Application, drive, and initiative are everything.   How is this achieved?  It can be achieved on 2 levels.  Our clients are using our performance evaluation tool to measure the relationship between education and on the job application.  In other words it’s important to have a follow through program in order to ascertain if the learner is applying what they have been taught.  The other level comes down to individual drive.  When I had the pleasure of visiting Gerry Hunt and Tara Smiley from McKinley, this became part of our discussion.  Gerry pointed out how some leasing professionals can score perfect on their guest cards and yet not be able to close a lease like someone who has their own internal drive and can be basically “human” about the whole experience.   Mechelle Flowers the President of The Training Factor used the expression “Lease with a purpose”, which helped sparked some conversation on Multifamily Insiders.  My thoughts are more towards a less “canned” approach to our career.  In my former industry I had salespeople that could describe the beauty of the flowers over the phone so well, that had arrived at our market that morning that the client was sold without ever seeing them.  Does that occur for your telephone and internet leads?  Please don’t “shove” your leases.  This is your career; this should be your passion.  Achieve and aim high for yourself and for your company.  A future blog post will talk about the “canned” approach to our leasing style, but for now I would love your thoughts on what it takes to bridge the gap between education and application.

Written by Jonathan Saar

Not too long ago we talked about Twitter etiquette and now we have come to some thoughts on the practice of suggesting to friends to become a fan of a certain page.  Some balance really needs to be applied to how you go about building your fan base.  Lately I have been receiving repetitive requests to fan a page from the same individuals.  There seems to be almost no time span in between these requests.  I choose to ignore pages that I do not feel are something that would interest me and I wake up the next morning and the same request is there again from the same individuals and multifamily companies.  I know I am not the only one this has happened to since I see similar comments on the Facebook news feed regularly.

In my opinion it’s just bad business overall.  I personally see nothing wrong with suggesting to your friends when you have opened a new page.  I have done it myself with the four that I operate for The Training Factor.  After that though it is my responsibility to let people know about these channels by other means.  These other methods will help you grow your following in a respectable and organic way.  Here are some bullet points that I have used and would love to see some others posted in the comment section below.

1. Advertising that I have a Facebook page on our company newsletter.
2. Creating a Facebook badge for our website and our blog.
3. Tagging individuals or other Fan pages in our status updates.
4. Posting regular content so that our pages show up in search engines.
5. Including a link to our Facebook page in our email signatures.
6. Occasionally posting that we have a Facebook page on Twitter.
7. Asking clients who feel the page has value, to suggest the page to others.
8. Creating a temporary Facebook ad campaign that targets a specific audience.

There may be others you wish to include below.  The point of these pages is to create “fans” not to aggravate someone to the point they fan the page just to stop the suggestions from coming in.  It’s the same thing that parents go through with their children sometimes, if they are having a bad day.

Child: Can I have a cookie.

Parent: No dinner is almost ready.

Child: Can I have a cookie, I am hungry now.

Parent: No.  You can wait until dinner.

Child: I can’t wait ….. I want a cookie now!

Parent:  I have told you for the last time, you are not getting a cookie before dinner!!

Child:  But I am sooooo hungry!!

Parent: Argghhh Ok fine… here is your cookie.

Is that the kind of business relationship you are trying to start with me?  I certainly hope not.  Sending out daily page suggestions to all of your “friends” on Facebook is not a good business practice.  If I am wrong, please share your point of view below.  If I am correct, then go for it… please comment!

Ellen Thompson had some great insights to share as well on MFI, please check them out here.

Written by Jonathan Saar

You Know you have a Team When

1. At staff strategy meetings they do most of the talking
2. When you walk in the room there is no sudden “hush”
3. When a mistake is made, you are not the last to know
4. Appreciation and thanks are common sentiments
5. Projects seem to miraculously get done ahead of schedule sometimes
6. Average time of employment overall is much higher than 6 months
7. When everyone’s “cog” is spectacular
8. When you take one for the …..
9. When the words “we” and “us” are way more common than “you” and “I”
10. When extracurricular company functions are always well attended.

Bonus #11 –When no one ever feels like a scapegoat.

What is the general energy within your organization?  Can you add anything to these points above?  In team sports there is a common term used amongst them which is “unforced errors”.  This means that an error took place that could really have been avoided.  One of the biggest unforced errors within companies today is employee turnover.  Multifamily companies that do not create a solid company culture in order to maintain their staff spend thousands of dollars each year in rehiring, training, and orientation.  This post could go on forever on how this affects every part of a company’s process.  Yes the road to achieving that team spirit may be easier said than done.  I guess the appropriate question should be; do you see this as optional?  Your internal processes, training, career path goals, policies and procedures should all have a circular strategy to achieve a spirit that ultimately reaches every multifamily company’s main goal.

Even with clear documentation and policies on how your internal processes are carried out, they mean nothing if there is no leadership by example.  It all starts with us as individuals.  I posted this question last night on my Facebook account: If someone said to you, “I believe in you, I believe in what you can do, I believe in what you can bring to the table” how would that affect you?  Whether or not we actually say that to someone or just live it by our deeds, it should be our goal to empower and strengthen our team.

So can you add anything to the list above?  What are clear indicators to you that you have a team and not just employees?  FYI.. A couple of the points above came from our team at The Training Factor

Written by Jonathan Saar

March 23^rd and 24^th in Dallas Texas, Tami Siewruk will be hosting an event like none other.  The workshops that will take place will cover every social media topic you can imagine.  After reading through the profiles and topics that will be covered, to me this event will be the A-Z’s and 123’s of best practices with the new and growing tools and methods of reaching our communities within the multifamily industry.

If you have not yet scrolled through the list of workshop leaders that will be attending, you can check them out here.  Make sure you come back though.  After attending seminars regarding social media, did you ever say to yourself, “Ok.. Now what?”  If you are attending this event you will be given hands on training on the subjects you want the most assistance on.  If you have not registered yet for this event go ahead and click here.  This is your opportunity to empower yourself and your team to take 2010 by storm and stop wondering about how to use social media, but to start doing!

There is also an opportunity to win a free trip!  This conference is having a contest called, “Be the Face of Optimization”.  Now, how fun is that!  The deadline is March 1^st, so get your creative juices flowing!

A special thanks to Tami and to her team who have worked very hard to coordinate and bring in some of the industry’s best.  The education and training is something the multifamily industry will not want to miss.  So what you gonna do?  Go to the Optimization Summits.. It’s easy!!!

The Training Factor put together its own contest promo video.  Special thanks to Mechelle Flowers the owner of The Training Factor for authorizing this project and special thanks to Brian and Emily Fieg, two of our in house production team, who took a concept and a vision and brought it to life!

Written by Jonathan Saar

Image credit to Optimization Summits Fan Page

On a regular basis I will check on my Twitter account to see updates of new followers I have.  Sometimes I pay attention to the actual numbers but not often.  By coincidence I was writing some content for one of our courses on Bots and their effect on the number of followers you will and will not have on any given day.  While I was writing that I was refreshing my Twitter site and saw that my own numbers went down by 3 within that 20 minute period.  Not that this was a real big deal to me but at the same time it left me wondering for a moment, was it something I said or was it the bots.  I don’t have any of those tools for tracking who unfollowed me so I really don’t know the answer.  But it got me thinking of some other comments I have heard from others from time to time on something similar that has happened to them.  I did some investigating on a couple of the accounts that unfollowed or even blocked fellow tweeters and this is what I found.

When I looked at their ratio of who they were following, versus their followers, there was a huge gap.  So imagine this scenario.  A Twitter user has 100 people that follow them and they only follow back 20 people.  Now in those 20 people you have maybe one or two regular tweeters.  What do you think the user’s Twitter stream is going to look like?  Of course it will be filled with those couple of tweeters who are active on Twitter which will then lend to their opinion that all they see on Twitter is them…hence perhaps this is the reason for the unfollow.

I believe this to be bad etiquette, but don’t get offended; the next couple of paragraphs are going to help.  Twitter is about community.  This tool will do little to help you in your daily process if you open an account, find a couple of friends who have accounts via the email suggestion tool and then stop there.  There are hundreds and hundreds of multifamily professionals who use Twitter every day.  So if you do not want your stream to look like only one person is posting something all the time, it’s time for you to reach out.

Twitter lists have helped solve this outreach for you.  I am going to post a couple here and then for the readers of this post if you have any lists you want to share, feel free to post below in the comments section.  These lists once you click through on them you will find endless multifamily users to help build your community.

Of course I will start with mine    http://twitter.com/trainingfactor/multifamily (383 listed)

The Ellipse group has a nice list as well  http://twitter.com/TheEllipseCow/multifamily (416 listed)

Charity Hisle list http://twitter.com/CharityHisle/multifamily (404 listed)

Turn Social list http://twitter.com/TurnSocial/multifamily (407 listed)

There are others as well but I will let them post in the comments section if they wish.

You will not regret building your community.  This industry does nothing but set the tone for what it means to help one another.  So don’t unfollow.  Don’t block.  Build!

Written by Jonathan Saar

How overwhelmed are you right now?  What is helping you to get through your daily process?  The speed technology is growing at is phenomenal.  Look back just a couple of years and remind yourself what kind of phone or laptop you had.  What do you have now?  Step back in that same period and ask if the words Twitter, blog, Smartphone, HD, terawatt, were words you used on a regular basis or even knew about.  Technology was designed to help streamline our daily process.  Do you find that to be the case in your daily routine?

From my observations discipline with our processes is so crucial right now.  Perhaps more than ever this is the case.  Here are some questions that may help our analysis.

1. Company Decisions: Is there a shorter period of time necessary to make decisions within the company or longer in comparison to a couple of years ago?
2. Do we have a few projects on the board that are accomplished in a few weeks or numerous projects that are stretched over numerous months?
3. Responding to correspondence:  Whether its correspondence via phone or email.  How quick were you able to respond a couple of years ago as opposed to the present?

Now I know these questions are very general and the reasons behind your answers will be as a result of numerous variables, but do you understand the gist of where we are presently?  Now we throw in social media and all of its platforms and questions about our processes become even bigger.  It seems like every day there is something new we need to learn just to stay ahead of the curve.  A couple of days a new social media platform was released which I will call “Moogle Fuzz”. (I don’t want to be accused of using a key word just to draw attention)  We know this trend will only continue to grow.  At the moment there does not seem to be a plateau in sight.

That circles back to the discipline part of this post.  How are we training ourselves and how are we training our staff to deal with this onslaught?  The multifamily industry is already a very fast paced environment whether its onsite or at the corporate office.  I am curious to get your take on this topic, so please comment below.

Mark Juleen and Duncan Alney will be driving deeper into using technology platforms from an integration perspective at Optimization Summits this March.  The education from this event will certainly be phenomenal.  As you will see from the video below, they will be providing education on how to use these tools effectively and have them work for you.

Written by Jonathan Saar

1. Clean, repair or replace the kitchen garburator.
2. Replace carpet that has been continually used as a toilet by pets or children.
3. Remove or clean out a clogged pea trap.
4. Get in the attic in the middle of the summer to repair HVAC equipment.
5. Respond to an emergency stove problem on their only day off with their family.
6. Pick up garbage that fell out of the bin that is full of 2 day maggots all for the sake of great curb appeal.
7. Shimmy under the creepy crawl space that is full of spiders, rats and centipedes to try and find out why some random electrical or plumbing issue is present.
8. Cleaning out an apartment after nasty eviction proceedings are complete.
9. Replacing a toilet flange.
10. Finding a dead body in the apartment and reporting to the authorities.

If you have others, please feel free to share.  Most of us were intrigued with “Undercover Boss” the other night.  What a perspective that brought to the table.  Sometimes we forget what our maintenance folks really go through.  I made a couple of site visits in Winston Salem, NC and LaGrange GA.  Both communities I was able to meet some of the multifamily maintenance staff.  What impressed me was their demeanor.  They greeted me with a smile and I could tell that they were happy with their job and where they worked.  I know that had a lot to do with how the overall team worked together.  So if you haven’t thought about your maintenance team in a while, maybe my top 10 list will serve as a good reminder of what they go through each day.

Written by Jonathan Saar

I know this is such a cliché title and perhaps the die hard Trekkie fans may only understand it.  Here are the two key words to explain it, Borg and the Federation.  The Borg were determined to make change on their terms no matter what got in their way and the Federation resisted this and hence the common expression the Borg would make is : Resistance is Futile.

We approach each day where words like change, shift, new, revolution, generation seem common in daily conversation, blogs, news etc.  There is no doubt that change is here and that a major shift in how daily business operations are accomplished is necessary due to the impact of things like social media and new generations of incoming employees and residents.  In general most of us by nature resist change and the main reason behind that is the delivery method.  If the Borg approach is used and change is forced on us, we automatically resist.  If change is delivered in a palatable way, with gradual implementation and education that is conducive to our personal way of adapting, then the transition is much easier.  My experience at the IREM Georgia Social Media workshop will illustrate this.

At one of the roundtable workgroups I was with, one of the ladies asked me a point blank question.  She asked, “Should I go and purchase the XYZ for Dummies book to help me learn this?” My response to her was an automatic one purely based on my personal way of educating myself.  I told her to go to this site and this blog and search here….but then she stopped me halfway in my comments and said : “You don’t understand, I need to have a book in front of me, so I can read along and then apply it on my computer.  I like to underline key points and make notes in the margins…..”  My internal tune changed immediately and I told her : “Maam, that is a great way to learn and by all means go and buy the book and go to town!”  This wonderful lady was not resistant to change but was resistant to my suggested way of achieving it.  Once she could see approval and validation, there was a smile and she was able to learn many new things that day.

So there it is folks.  That little experience reminded me of the human element when educating change.  There are those who are taking a strong and active lead in broadcasting and educating the multifamily industry in the changes and shifts that are taking place and this is fantastic.  As we individually make steps forward in educating our teams what do you think is the best way to deliver this kind of education?

Written by Jonathan Saar

It’s amazing the history behind the Microsoft Office Suite.  1992 was the year that Microsoft released its first version.  Since then numerous versions have been released all with upgrades of one magnitude or another.  Do you remember the days when WordPerfect was the be-all and the end-all?  Microsoft office seems to be the standard and most widely used office software to enable us to accomplish various tasks in a given day.

When Office 2007 was released it came with a significantly different look and feel.  There is a “ribbon” instead of a tabbed toolbar.  All of the applications and tools you were used to in 2003 are now in a different location or organized differently.  2007 has a new file extension in which its documents are saved in even though you can save documents in older versions.  Those are some basic differences, but the individual differences in Excel, Word, Outlook, etc are quite significant.

Even though these items are new, it should not have to mean frustration.  These new features when educated upon can make your office day move along quite smoothly.  They can also decrease your efficiency as a result of the huge interface transition from 2003 to 2007.  That move us to ask the question; how many extra minutes or hours do we have in a week?  We all know the answer.

The Training Factor is happy to release its Microsoft Office courses in Excel, Word and Outlook.  These courses follow suit in our usual way of delivering education.  It comes to you in an interactive, visual and step by step approach to ensure that you are being engaged and that you will be able to retain the maximum amount of information in the shortest period of time.  Is that not what it is all about?  Do we not all need to save time in our busy schedules?  Stop and calculate how much time you unwillingly waste in a given week as a result of not fully understanding the Office software you use?  This can end now.  The Training Factor is completely dedicated to providing education in the multifamily industry.  We work hard every day to provide education that optimizes your efficiency and targets your bottom line.

We know that the continued releases of new Microsoft products will never end.  However there is a definitely a huge leap between its latest version and its predecessor.  Take an honest evaluation of how many combined hours are being wasted by your staff as a result of not being proficient with the tools they need to use each day.  Think forward on how that can be rectified by some innovative training tools.

Written by Jonathan Saar

Last June my wife and I had the privilege of attending NAA in Las Vegas.  We stayed at the Luxor and decided on one of our evenings to take a walk to the famous Bellagio.  We had heard so much about it.  It is known for its beauty inside and out.  There was so much positive feedback about this place coming from friends and coworkers, that we purposely put it in our plans to make the trip.  The destination was wonderful but the path to get there was not.  The entire time we walked we were bombarded with people flicking their little cards trying to set us up with escorts.  I was completely mortified and I am sure the expression on my face was the same.  I was completely uncomfortable until I reached the destination I intended to see in the first place.  The Bellagio had invited me on many levels and I responded.

Some recent discussions have inspired the following analogy.  I have been too many trade shows over my career, but NAA was my first national event for the multifamily industry.  I did not know anyone!  The looks on many folks faces was priceless.  It was the look of, who are you, what are you trying to sell me, give me your 1 minute speech so I can get my free pen and tote bag.  I really felt for them.  After my trip down the Vegas strip I wondered if these individuals felt the same way I did.  My focus was on the Bellagio.  Their focus was on perhaps a handful of key booths that they planned in advance to visit.  They knew about the company, heard good reviews and wanted to make a connection and experience.  They had been personally invited and were looking forward to their discussion.  They just needed to wade through the all of us card flickers (in their opinion) to reach their destination.

The same goes for cold calling folks.  There was a plethora of individuals flicking their cards.  Some of the people in front of me at first ignored the cards, but eventually after the consistent harassment they broke down and took a card.  Where did it end up next?…on the ground.  Did the card flickers feel they got their foot in the door?? Perhaps.  They got their job done.  They got those cards out, which is what they were paid to do.  In the end though what really was the relationship between the card flickers and the people walking the strip?  Be honest with me cold callers.  After you have made your 50 calls to one person and they finally pick up the phone to talk, what kind of relationship do you really have?

Whether its trade shows or it’s making phone calls and emails, in order to make that positive connection a relationship has to be formed!  Turn yourself into the Bellagio.  Get people talking about you, give them something to talk about, talk to them, give them a reason to pick up the phone and stop by your booth.  Your company image should be important to you.  Your professional image should be important to you.  Stop the card flicking.

Written by Jonathan Saar

Off and on this particular topic has come up a few times on Multifamilyinsiders Discussions .  Something happened today to me that inspired this post.  I was sent an email from Vendor X asking me if I would trade leads with him.  The message itself was nice and there was a courteous thank you on their part and an appreciative thought on receiving feedback from me.  This practice I realize is nothing new and maybe it is still seen as an acceptable way of doing business.  Here is where I get bold.  I do not believe that emailing someone to trade leads is acceptable.  Feel free to tell me I am out of line.

Follow me on this line of reasoning.  First of all, I have never even heard of Vendor X.  I have never met them at a trade show; they have never given me a call, nothing.  My question is simply why would I even think of wanting to trade leads with you?  I do not believe in leads lists nor will I ever.  I have had salespeople quite often offer them to sell them to me and I simply say no thank you.  My method is simple.  It means getting involved in my community on every level possible and wherever the leaves fall from that method of doing business, to me it’s meant to be.  So if I were simply to give in and comply with the request and trade leads, how would that make me look to my professional peers and clients and friends?  In my opinion I would be a hypocrite.  I don’t ever like being treated like I am a “sale” item, so why would I do that to others or allow someone else do that to people I know.

To the vendor X’s of the world, our potential client base that is out there should never be treated like baseball cards that are traded amongst children.  These are people we are dealing with and the stigma of bad vendor etiquette needs to end.  Please take this as professional advice and not as a slap.  Vendor X this is what you should have done differently.  Find out who I am.  Get to know me and my company.  Get involved in the groups, forums and discussions that I am involved in.  Give me time to see what kind of company you are and what type of person you are.  Guess what will happen.  If I become aware of someone I know who legitimately could use your products and services, I will definitely call you and let you know.  You could be confident of this because I do it all the time.  I RT on twitter, I tag on Facebook, I highlight in my blogs and when the opportunity presents itself I mention their names when I meet with my clients.  The beauty of it all, they did not even have to ask me.  They practice what they preach.  They do not talk about social media, engagement, and branding and then not apply it to their business practices.

It’s a whole new world for how we interact in the multifamily industry.  The old methods do not work.  Multifamily professionals are working hard to connect with their residents with the level they expect.  No more banners, no more pitches, no more empty opening lines.  Our residents do not want it.  Property Management executives do not want it.  We do not want it.  All marketing and social trends clearly tell us that we need to change.  Show chivalry. Show etiquette.  Be Human.

Written by Jonathan Saar

Just for fun..listen to one of Bon Jovi’s old tunes and fill in the word “love” with “vendors”.  That’s how I roll.

State the Problem- Why am I using social media?  How will I use it?  What benefits will it bring my company and community?  The purpose of social media is to reach a broader audience and connect with key people that are using these platforms

Form a Hypothesis- I predict that if I research this properly and use surveys to ascertain where and how my audience is using social media, I will then be able to reach certain marketing and retention goals.

Experiment- I will make a Facebook page for my community.  I know how many people in my community use Facebook, so I will reach out to them and invite them to become fans of my page.  I also know that local businesses use Facebook, so I will also reach out to them.  I will daily try different content on my page and use a recording method to track my results.  I am interested in statistics such as how many new fans I have, who are they and why are they fans, how many interactions did I have on my page, did my page result in clicks to my community website?  I will use Google and Facebook analytics to help track my progress.

Analysis- When experimenting with different content and posts, it had an impact on the interactions.  When content was not regular, this seemed to affect website traffic.  Reaching out to local businesses that have become fans has built up interactions on the page.  New fans are not all residents but potentially could be.  When mentioning good news about a resident on the Facebook page, this also increased interactions.

Conclusion- By being thorough in my initial research, I was able to reach the people that would mean the most to my community.  This experiment has contributed to reaching marketing and retention goals as part of a collective effort from my business plan.  Ascertaining what platforms my residents and my local community are using did enable me to connect with them and contributed to the initial and continued success of my Facebook page.

My son and I were going over his biology papers and I could not help but apply a traditional and aged method of analyzing a process to what we face each day.  Is this how you approach your social media strategy?

Written by Jonathan Saar

Welcome to our new blog site! There may be a few odds and ends that I need to have worked on, but I am super excited and thankful to Mechelle Flowers the President of The Training Factor for putting so much hard work into this herself.  Thanks for stopping by and our goal is to keep you, our readers and audience, happy!

I may be dating myself with today’s blog title, but do you remember the time in school when the ruler was the effective teacher tool to get you to comply?  I was born a leftie, but when I started school this was still considered not “educationally” acceptable.  Hence, I received the rap on my knuckles every time I tried to use my left hand.  We now know this is unacceptable and in reality all teachers who did this realize they were hampering the creativity in their students.

The modern multifamily application model may need some molding as well.  One of the common issues we face is employee turnover.  Numbers may vary from one area to another, but the bottom line is that it is extremely expensive to have unnecessary turnover.  What can be done to create a healthier and more enjoyable working environment?  Topics such as training, conflict resolution, office atmosphere, and overall company culture are super important.  But on all levels of administration what are you doing to tap into and empower the creativity in your on site staff?  Do they even know or are they encouraged to tap into what they have inside themselves in order to better the company and themselves?

I found this extremely interesting right brain left brain quiz from the Art Institute of Vancouver.  I encourage everyone who reads this post to take 20 minutes and complete the quiz and analyze your results.  As a fun diversion for the team you oversee, encourage them to take the test and share the results with each other.  I think you all will be amazed at the results.  When we know and understand ourselves it serves as an inspirational tool to motivate us to achieve more.  Is that not what we want from our team?  Would you not agree that creativity and motivation are two key elements necessary in every team member if we are going to continue to move forward in this changing market?

2010 is going to manifest itself as a year of self expression.  Dictator type policies and procedures will only cool the enthusiasm your team has and may sway them towards other opportunities where they can express themselves and receive creative fulfillment for the effort they put forth.

What have you done today to bring out the best in someone else?

Written by Jonathan Saar

Tell us your thoughts…

It’s not too late to sign up for today’s Webinar that is being hosted by Multifamilyinsiders and sponsored by AppFolio.  We are all looking forward to 2010 with great anticipation.  As of yesterday there was close to 600 who signed up for this presentation.  Click here to sign up for today’s presentation at 1pm EST.

There is not one of us who have not realized the immense challenges that still lie in front of us.  The time for old school and narrow minded approaches to marketing our multifamily communities needs to stop.  Lisa Trosien is an award winning multifamily speaker and educator.  I have enjoyed numerous sessions she has conducted.  Please click through to join today’s session.  This is one you are not allowed to miss.

Written by Jonathan Saar- The Training Factor

Content Content Content.  What does it take to keep your blog fresh and up to date?  The worst thing in the world is to plagiarize.  The search spiders do not like this and if you are working on your SEO then this is not the way to go.  How hard is it to blog for your multifamily community?  That is the million dollar question.  I guess it all depends on your perspective.  Does your community have a story within itself?  When you are walking through your community, what is running through your mind besides the fundamentals of making the day successful from a curb appeal, Fair Housing, leasing perspective?  What about the people?

Every resident has a story.  Do you know what it is?  It will be quite challenging for you to have a social community blog when you have no connection with the people that make your community alive….  with the people who give your community a name.

So now you are approaching 2010 and you want to add a community blog and a Facebook page.  You are wondering what the best approach would be, who is going to do it and what kind of content will reach your audience.  Your first question should be: How do my residents view me and the staff or our community?  Are you viewed only as the rent collectors and the curb appeal enforcers.  If you want your outreach efforts to have a name, then you need to reach out to the residents with the names.  Who is your Betty the baker, Joe the DJ, Eileen the retail manager, and Bob the county inspector?

If you want your blog and other outreach programs to have a name, reach out to the people who already have one.  The rest will take on a life of its own.

Written by Jonathan Saar –The Training Factor

Is that something you even fathomed when you started out in this industry?  Can you imagine what our future multifamily professionals will bring to the table?  This is what the Peggy Waskom Career Leadership Fund is all about.  This is why Brian Sutherlin and Julie Doran founded this.  This is why they and all committee members have been working so hard to promote the Peggy Waskom Super Bowl on February 9th 2010.  This is a brand new event that has the backing of the Georgia Apartment Industry Education Foundation (GAIEF)  We need your help to spread the word and to give us your support.  Please check out our kickoff video below and follow the links for further information on how you can show your support for this important event.


Peggy Waskom Facebook Page


Please email us at bowl4peggy@yahoo.com