4 Tablespoons Curb Appeal

1 Quart of Apartment Training

½ Cup of Welcoming Office Environment

¼ Cup of Targeted Marketing

1 Pint of Community Reputation

2 Cups of Answering the Phone

2 Cups of Returning Prospect Emails

3 Cups of Welcoming Prospects at the Front Door

2 Cups of Follow Up

1 Smile from Ear to Ear

1 Heart that Wants to Help Someone Find a Home

1 Handshake with a pinch of determination

Blend all these ingredients well.  Cook at 350 degrees of Passion.  Don’t ever let it cool.  Decorate the lease with resident retention rosebuds.  Make your presentation and make that resident drool with anticipation.  Repeat this process daily.  Don’t be wowed by any add water and stir recipes that are out there.  Stick to the fundamentals and you will bake something special every day.  Did I miss any ingredients?  Let me know in the comments below.

Written by Jonathan Saar  If you wish to subscribe to regular posts, please subscribe here.

It is only a couple of weeks away!  It really snuck up on us for sure.  This is definitely going to be a week to remember.  This year we decided to set up a booth for Brainstorming, so we look forward to chatting with a whole bunch of great multifamily folks who are interested in education.  Come and see us at B-26.  The focus on this post is the overall apartment education we will all receive by attending both conferences.

It will be hard to list all the wonderful seminars that are up and coming, but I am going to highlight a few since they impacted me at the last Optimization Summits and Brainstorming, and their impact did not end there!  They are people who I have continued to collaborate with and will be at the conference this next month.   There are also some first timers that I plan on attending since the topics look very interesting and from their history it appears likely that they practice what they preach so that gives those two thumbs up for me.  So here we go!

Brainstorming

Geno Church from Brains on Fire is the keynote speaker on Wednesday.  I have not been able to get out of my head this phenomenal expression: “People are the killer app”.  He discussed that in depth earlier this year and I look forward to hearing it again at Brainstorming.  Brains on Fire recently came out with a book which I look forward to purchasing for myself soon.

Duncan Alney with Firebelly Marketing will be speaking on crisis communication which I have always found to be an interesting topic.  It takes very little for an onsite or corporate incident to spread like wildfire.  Duncan impressed me earlier this year with his thoughtful approach to making sure we as people and our companies are involved in the conversation and topics that are residents and customers are talking about.

Patty Morgan-Seager and Steve Matre will be chatting about time management.  This is an ongoing problem on all levels for all of us workaholics.  Patty and Steve always make me smile so I know that this seminar will do the same.

Kim Cory and Dan Oltersdorf will be speaking on student housing.  They both have proven themselves to be true veterans and pioneers of the student housing market.  Whenever I speak to them about their communities and ideas they have used and implemented, it completely blows my mind.  They made a cool Facebook page called “House Rules” which is dedicated to student housing topics.  This dynamic duo I know will bring some great info to the table.

Jay Ehret will speak about building an awesome brand by design.  Hearing Jay earlier this year, having numerous conversations with him since and hearing from multifamily professionals who have enlisted his services, it is quite apparent to me that he practices what he preaches and that it is effective.  Make sure you pencil this session in, if your brand identity is a topic for your company.

Those are just a smidge of topics that will be presented at Brainstorming.  I have the privilege of being on the idea panel on Friday with a bunch of very cool multifamily folks.  Coming up with those ideas was no easy task, so it will be interesting to see what a bunch of nerds in one room will have put together. Make sure you take the time to plan ahead for what you really need for education and don’t miss out on anything.

Optimization Summits

Brian Solis in many ways has been the pioneer for social media.  He will be speaking about the conversation prism which is one of my favorite visuals and topics.  Beyond the technical aspects of social media, there is much more to consider in social media which is why I look forward to attending his session.

Mack Collier’s session last time had standing room only and I know for sure that will take place again.  His concept of thinking like a rock star allows those brain juices to flow strong.  Since that session I have personally watched Mack engage his audience via his blog, twitter chat and regular online conversations.  What he teaches works! I hope there is a seat available for me.

Chris Penn from Blue Sky Factory will provide data about email marketing that just cannot be ignored.  If you are interested in saving money and delivering campaigns that have a broader and more effective reach, then this is the seminar to be at.

Mike Whaling had in some in depth Facebook sessions earlier this year and they have been brought back for very good reason.  Every single person I spoke to about his sessions could only express how impressed they were with the education.  This session once again I am sure will be all about “doing”.

Lauren Fernandez from Radian6 will be speaking about using social media too bridge the generational gap.  I do not know Lauren real well except for a few tweets here and there, but the subject is intriguing to me so I look forward to the education.

So that is a basic list for me to help with my overall educational objectives.  I could go on and on about the educational sessions that Tami Siewruk and her team have put together.  The point is you just need to be there! Check out Tami’s Brainstorming and Optimization Summits sites and make your educational decisions ahead of time.  Planning is important.  If you have any sessions that you plan on attending please mention them below in the comments section and tell me why.  I look forward to seeing everyone there.

Written by Jonathan Saar

For a quick throw back to earlier this year, check out our Why You Need To Be at Optimization Summits Video below.

Coming up on three quarters of this year, Indatus and The Training Factor have been working hard to bolster our impact on the combination of tracking calls and using the data from that to initiate training.  This post is more of an update to our original partnership announcement that occurred early this year.  As many of you know Indatus has gone through a complete makeover this year to more accurately represent the products and services they offer.  You can learn more about their transformation story here.

Both of our marketing departments felt it necessary to update everyone on the overall specifics of what the services are and how they work together for you.  The other reason for this post is to answer any questions that you may have about this alliance or the services themselves.  Many of our clients on both sides are very happy with the results that this partnership has brought for them.  Below are a few highlights of what is available.

Call Tracker

Call Tracker is a powerful solution for measuring the effectiveness of your marketing efforts by tracking phone data. It accurately identifies how much phone traffic each ad generates.  It also allows you to measure the quality of your employee phone interaction.

Scoring Feature within Call Tracker

As a result of our partnership, we not only use recorded calls as tracking but a teaching mechanism. We not only show you the problem but we help you solve it! While using the scoring feature as an option, a predetermined number of calls per community will be evaluated and scored with our customizable evaluation card and appropriate training will be administered based on a predetermined score baseline. Just watch as your leasing professional’s skills and your closing ratios improve.  Really the scoring turns into teaching!

ROI

You spend a significant amount of marketing dollars attracting potential residents why not get the most of the money by utilizing both Call Tracker and the Call Scoring teacher to increase your closing ratio and your bottom line.

Call Tracker:

- Inserts a unique national toll-free or local telephone number into any ad (or series of ads).

- Instantly routes each call to any business phone of your choosing.

- Every call to that unique number is tracked, stored, and associated with the ad.

- While your business is engaged with the prospect, the software captures caller information and records the phone conversation.

- Once completed, Call Tracker compiles the call information and saves it.  At any time, you can go into your online Management Tools and generate reports.  A few of which are:

– Cost per lead

– Caller profile

– Time-of-day

– Geographic details

– Missed calls

Call Scoring Teacher:

Listens to and evaluated a random sampling of a communities leasing calls

Imports evaluated scored calls into a Learning Management System and notifies employees of their evaluations

Initiates training based on a predetermined baseline score

Notifies supervisors if training is not achieved in given time line

At any time, you can go into your online Reporting tool and generate grouped reports

We can’t tell you enough how happy we are with this program thus far.  Turning data into information that can help out the team’s onsite is priceless.  Information and knowledge only serve to help companies and their member’s progress and do a better job for our residents.  Like I said earlier in this post, we want to hear from you.  If you have questions about these services that are available we are happy to address them.  Feel free to pose your questions and thoughts in the comment section below.  On behalf of The Training Factor, I want to express a big thank you to everyone who reads these posts.  We know budgets are a big concern at the moment and as Eric Brown pointed out to me this morning on Twitter: “Companies are just devising ways to do more with less. That is the new economy.”  One of the main goals of this alliance was to help property management companies do just that…do more with less.

Written by Jonathan Saar

Mack Collier wrote a post the other day that coincided with research I have been doing for the past few weeks for a presentation that Tamela Coval from RentWiki and I will be handling for the Atlanta Apartment Association.  He wrote a great piece called “Here’s why you shouldn’t treat social media as being ‘free’” Please take a moment to read it!  Mack knows his stuff.

He was speaking about how you can make a blog for free and its connection to your overall website and SEO.  Tamela and I are about to present some information regarding Facebook pages and what it takes to make them successful.  I have reviewed about 100 or more property management and community Facebook pages and my findings were conclusive and probably of no surprise.  Over 90 % of the pages I reviewed were standalone pages.  There was no connection from the website to the page or vice versa.  We know it is very easy to make a Facebook page and maybe as Mack stated in his post that it was an easy buy in from the boss, because it’s ‘free’.  What about your overall goals in creating the page in the first place?

The reality is that if you do not make the connecting points and spend the time and money to make sure you have a full circle approach to your Facebook page, website, blog, twitter account etc., then you are wasting valuable time and resources.  If time seems to be an issue to in monitoring these channels then part of your planning phase should be to come up with a comprehensive strategy to keep these factors in mind.

• SEO
• Return on Engagement
• Resident Retention
• Community Outreach
• Return on Investment
• Corporate Culture
• How to be Social

The last point may seem kind of odd but from the status updates I am noticing that really does need to be discussed.  What are we going to talk about to our residents?  What are they interested in?  What will they respond to and appreciate?  I am sure you have some thoughts on this subject that will lend to this discussion.  What have you found that is working for your company, property management or otherwise?

Written by Jonathan Saar

Have you become a fan of The Training Factor on Facebook?  Thoughtful discussion and regular relevant content is posted daily.

Stop and reflect on how many good ideas you had yesterday.  How many did you have last week?  How many did you have last month?  Now ask yourself what ever came of most of those?  Those thought processes are one of the many amazing things about our brain.  We are wired to be creative and are geared to look for the next best concept.  What does it take to see those “good ideas” through to realization?  It takes connection points.

First of all most of our good ideas get thrown out the door by ourselves realizing that once the right side of our brain connects with the left side, the logic of the idea squashes the original concept.  However many ideas do seem to have some possibilities and so we present them to our team.  The next challenge is translating our good idea to the team who is listening with mixed left brain right brain feelings.

Here is the difference in our modern digital age; our team no longer needs to be just the group we see each day when we walk into the leasing or property management office.  Take today’s blog post as an example.  I am sitting here sipping my coffee trying to come up with a “good idea” for a post today.  Nothing was really coming to me and nothing appealed to me on my editorial list so I Googled “good idea”.  As the beginning of this post suggests, my mind was trying to wrap around business good ideas and what becomes of them.  I scrolled down to the bottom of page one and noticed those in my social circle who have used that term in items they have posted and I came across this article from Jay Ehret a speaker from Optimization Summits last year and who will be speaking at Brainstorming and Optimization Summits this year.

His article was entitled “Opportunity Cost and the Danger of the Good Idea”.  It’s a good read so I encourage you to check it out.  Jay’s main point was discussing the growing social media trends that are out there and are they really “good ideas”.  I love this quote from his article: “Good ideas are constantly tempting us. We should ignore most of them and only pay attention to the best idea: the best idea for what we’re trying to accomplish for our business.”

So really I want to emphasize two points in today’s article.  Good ideas will come and go.  Assertiveness is what is absolutely necessary if we want to see our ideas come to fruition.  What does it take?  Ideas need research, they need stats, they need facts and the reason why is because our brain is not the only one involved in the business decision.  All too often we can jump on the bandwagon of new media, out of this world marketing ideas, new gadgets and tools without really taking the time to see if any of these ideas are truly right for our business.

Point number two is that your team is beyond those office doors and conference room.  Ultimately yes the decision will be made there, however you have a whole world out there to assist you.  Google’s social search is a great tool to see what others are saying about a given topic.  This can help you come up with a much more rounded out approach to your concept.  Here is an exercise for you.  Type in some random key word phrases and see what pops up in your social search.  Feel free to comment below on the results.  I am also interested in hearing from you on your process to take a good idea and turn it into something great.

Written by Jonathan Saar

Did you know we have a Linkedin Group?  We would love for you to join and share your training thoughts.

Probably one of the most common human expressions we use is “I didn’t think it could happen to me”. Unforeseen occurrences can happen at any time.  At work even the most minor of situations can turn into a serious injury.  That is why it is OSHA required to have regular monthly apartment training safety talks on various topics in order to keep the reminders fresh on our team’s mind, with the hope that this training will help them think before they do.

Accurate record keeping is also an OSHA must for property management companies.  Leasing apartments may not be as dangerous as building a high rise, but perhaps this faux appearance is what can get us in the most trouble.  If an incident does arise, what documentation should your records have?  OSHA requires the following:

Each employer is required by OSHA to keep records of fatalities, injuries, illnesses, and must record each fatality, injury and illness that:
(1) Is work-related; and
(2) Is a new case; and
(3) Meets one or more of the general recording criteria of Section 1904.7 or the application to specific cases of Section 1904.8 through Section 1904.11 which can be found at www.osha.gov

What are some of the more common office situations where an injury can occur?  Below are some bulleted items.

Falling down is probably the most common accident.  Whether it’s tripping over wires, using a chair instead of a ladder, traversing in a dark office or apartment and many other situations can arise.

Office furniture and equipment can also pose hazards.  Getting fingers pinched or stuck.  Staplers falling off the top of file cabinets onto our head or feet happen all the time.  Have you ever burned yourself on the coffee pot?

Lifting items the wrong way can quickly put you in traction for a few weeks.

Incorrect posture can cause back, wrist, and neck problems.

Can you add to this list? What are some common hazards that you have come across in your office?  In a future post we will discuss safety from a maintenance teams point of view.

The Training Factor has already released the first set of monthly safety talks as a required course for your curriculum. Contact us today and make your property management company OSHA compliant!

Imagine yourself for a moment on an island by yourself.  You are feeling hungry and all you have is coconuts around you.  You have never opened a coconut before so the only thing you can think of doing is grabbing a rock and pounding on it until you finally make a hole.  Opening a coconut for the first time can seem very daunting and frustrating.  Then one day you receive a visitor.  This visitor has lived island life for some time.  She sees your dilemma and offers a quick solution to help you open coconuts faster.  Thus the power of networking is illustrated.

It was not too long ago that we would sit in our office with a new job position that we had little exposure too and wondered to ourselves how in the world we would accomplish what we are asked.  Those days are over.  Whatever job position we are looking to fill or product or service line we are looking to add, there are numerous ways to gather information from people in order to give our self the best base.  All we have to do is ask.

Are you a leasing professional seeking to be a community manager?  Are you a regional who is hoping to learn operations?  Wanting to see growth in our career path is natural.  We can achieve this one of two ways.  We can keep hammering away with the same old method we have been using for years.  Or we could ask someone.

How has networking helped you in your career path and knowledge of property management?  What resources have you used?  Please feel free to share in the comments below and if you really like this blog, I would love for you to subscribe in the top right corner of this page.

Written by Jonathan Saar

Have you signed up for our newsletter?  Our monthly edition provides news and tips for the multifamily industry.

Can there be any doubt of what a smile can do for another person.  When a prospective resident walks through that door, you have less than a couple of seconds to make that first impression.  It all starts with a smile.  Does a smile only come from your lips?  Absolutely not!  A smile comes from your whole body.  A genuine smile can be seen and understood from our whole demeanor.  Can you think of ways of how our whole body smiles?  Can a genuine smile really make a difference in gaining a new resident who will lease and call your community home?

How about our eyes?  Certainly they play a huge part.  Make sure your eyes on focused on theirs and not anywhere else.  Of course don’t be creepy about it; you don’t want to make the prospective resident feel uncomfortable.  Be relaxed about your eye contact; do not come across as forced.  Make sure you are not distracted by other things going on around you and remember that you are a professional.  Avoid eyeing the prospect from head to toe and back.  That would be really creepy.  If something does demand your attention while first greeting the prospect, make sure you say: “Excuse me”, turn to the person who is distracting you, address the matter quickly, then turn back and continue the conversation.

The handshake is also an important part of the smile.  That really helps translate the warmth, enthusiasm and overall happiness you are feeling towards the prospective resident.  In other words, don’t give the prospect a boiled spaghetti handshake, they need a determined and firm handshake that shows that their visit means the world to you and you can’t wait to fill their apartment needs.

Make sure our smile is natural.  Sometimes we can over smile.  This can come across as showing too much teeth or the cheese smile.  If we over smile it will be shown in our facial wrinkles.  You could be stretching your face so much that appears that we are completely overdoing what should be a natural act.

One of the best ways to get feedback about your smile and its affect is to ask someone.  There is only so much we can learn by looking in the mirror.  Ask someone close to you to give you an honest assessment of your smile in natural settings and its power over others.  Our ultimate goals are always to command the room…and it starts with a smile.  Does a smile really make a difference in securing leases?  Switch roles for a moment and pretend you are the prospect or consumer.  What impact did a smile have on you?

Written by Jonathan Saar

In case you missed it, check out our 15 steps to telephone leasing success.

There really has been little proof that leasing via twitter is or could ever be a reality.  A few of us have been testing the waters and “listening” to those on twitter who use the keyword apartment or apartment hunting.

By sheer coincidence I spotted a tweet from someone I was following already.  Cristin was kind enough to let me blog about this experience which began with the tweet captured above.  I asked her a few questions about what the difficulties were and where she was looking.  Up to this point I had really not tweeted very much with Cristin expect on a couple of chats.

I then began to use my network and send out some messages to property management companies on twitter who have communities along the east coast.  Cristin was looking for something in the Philadelphia area.  Mike Whaling suggests I ask Ellen Thompson since she had communities in that region.  I introduced Cristin to Ellen on twitter and Ellen very kindly provided assistance and found a community with availability in the location Cristin was looking.

Cristin tweeted a couple of times about her experience and how she was on her way to look at her apartment.  I checked in on her just to see what the outcome and here is her tweet in reply.

Please understand the context of this blog.  I am in no way saying that this is the next greatest way to get leases.  I felt compelled to report to my multifamily friends this experience and to demonstrate the power of listening and networking with the end result being a happy prospective resident that started out stressed and ended up happy.  As the dynamic of how prospective residents are changing it behooves us to closely monitor trends and to be in position for opportunities such as these.  There is so much change on the horizon.  How long will it take us to be ready for it?  I look forward to your thoughts on this topic.  What do you see on the horizon?

Written by Jonathan Saar

Want to keep in touch with blogs and tips related to leasing.  Please check out our Facebook page.

This is similar to defining what comes first, the chicken or the egg.  Training and education should not have an end point.  In the most successful organizations, it is continual and ongoing. In fact, the greatest impact comes from utilizing performance reviews as a springboard to initiate additional and appropriate training and mentoring.  This process we term as “Aspire to Excellence” creates the most benefits for employees and companies alike.

In our industry it is common practice to complete performance evaluations of employees, whether it be in the form of mystery shopping, quarterly reviews or budgetary measurements. In the past, these evaluations have only delivered reports citing issues or achievements. But knowing the problem without having a solution is like building a 1/2 million dollar house and failing to add the roof. It is of no benefit. That is why having a triggered benchmark and training program is so beneficial. It not only recognizes if there is a problem but provides training to facilitate a solution. In your company, what do you do when your performance bench-marked expectations are not fulfilled?

Do your employees receive a reprimand or do you have a system that automatically initiates appropriate training and or mentoring?  Your system should initiate training and mentoring in order to provide the most successful results. It is fully accepted in most industries, including the multifamily industry, that in order for job expectations and excellence  to be realized in the first place, training is the beginning point. But what about training as the solution?

So no matter where learners and team members are in their career path, the only way to help them achieve the success that they want and the fulfilled expectations you need is to implement a system that commands both training and performance in a full circle proactive approach.

Anything else becomes a wall to a learner with no clear direction on what is to happen next.

Written by Mechelle Flowers -President of The Training Factor

Have you reviewed the benefit factors of an automated system?

Our ability to be a true example of successful conflict resolution begins outside the office and especially in down time situations with other team members.  If offsite situations rattle your cage then your sincerity to handle onsite situations will not shine through.  You can’t fake conflict resolution.

Put yourself in the following scenarios and ask yourself how you reacted the last time they happened.

The airline misplaced your baggage

The restaurant took long to bring your order or brought you the wrong items

The bank incorrectly applied service charges to your account

The cashier did not ring up prices correctly on your purchases and does not know what to do next

I am sure you can think of other very aggravating situations.  Feel free to tell me below.  Now I want you to view these situations from both angles.  First of all how did you initially react to these inconveniences?  Did you blow your top right away and become very demanding?  Or did you patiently try to work through the situation?  Now look at from the other side.  How did your emotions change based on the reaction of the person who made the mistake?  Think of the times when you knew the person really could not care less about what happened to you but is merely voicing script in order to handle the situation.  Now contrast that with the times when you genuinely felt the sincerity of the individual who is trying to rectify the situation.  Can you see how it is not possible to fake conflict resolution?

Our teams need to see us as a strong example of living conflict resolution as opposed to just reading a script.  Team leaders who portray this successfully win the hearts of their teammates and of those around them.  In the apartment world and in life in general there are conflicts daily.  The more challenging situations are probably right in the office.  Not faking conflict resolution is no easy task.  It is hard to control the thoughts of wanting to pop someone in the jaw.  The question is how often as companies, do we address this topic?  What are you doing in your coaching, mentoring and training in order to address this topic on a consistent basis?

When you think back to all the situations when we knew that someone was “faking it”, it really gives us grounds and room for improvement within ourselves.  Don’t fake it….live it.

I am interested in hearing your approach to this topic with your teams.  What have you found successful?

Written by Jonathan Saar.

Have you signed up for our newsletter?

Being proactive is without a doubt the single best policy for any company.  That being said, when is the last time that we analyzed the strength behind our human resource department?  Too often companies will place this department on the lower end of the corporate totem pole with the misconception that the only reason it is even necessary is because, “My attorney said so”.

I want to share with you some research from SexualHarassment.com.  Notice this paragraph from section O-iii

Most large companies have human resource departments and most companies’ sexual harassment policies call for human resources to handle the reporting and investigation of sexual harassment complaints. Thus, in most sexual harassment cases, the human resource department is on trial. If the company has an adequate sexual harassment policy and employees know how to report sexual harassment to human resources, and in fact report sexual harassment to human resources and the department performs an adequate investigation, then plaintiff will probably lose any sexual harassment case other than a strict liability case against a supervisor.

However, thorough discovery will usually reveal that the human resource department of the company is not as good as it looks.

The reason why human resource departments are inadequate is simple. They do not make money for the company. Many companies have human resource departments only because an attorney advising the company regarding sexual harassment has told them to, and often very little of the human resource personnel time is spent on sexual harassment prevention, training and investigation.

Does this not speak for itself?  Even though this section of the law is pertaining to sexual harassment, Fair Housing is an even bigger concern since the government is fully endorsing testing groups to go out and mystery shop your properties to see whether or not your team is following the Fair Housing act.  Here are some questions you need to ask about your human resources department.

Does my team have regular compliance training?

Do I have a way to prove that the training took place?

Is my human resource department properly staffed and empowered to do their job?

Is there a follow up program if a team member falls below the benchmark set for education?

Do you know specifically which part of the education the learner failed in?

Does your team just “know” the laws or are they educated with real life scenarios?

Perhaps you have some other questions that the human resources department should ask.  This really is no laughing matter and this department should never be scoffed at.  Technology has enables many companies to streamline the process and provide a SAFE and economically sound solution to compliance education.  Do I really need to start citing lawsuits and the financial judgments that have been passed as a result of a “weak human resources department”?  We read about them all of the time.  Specifically when it comes to Fair Housing violations, I post them regularly on our Facebook page.  This has created an even greater awareness of really the scope of what is going on.  I encourage you to join the page.

From a corporate culture perspective it really hinges on how much as a company we really value education and training within our organization.  Do you list it as an expense like you do office supplies?  Or is it presented as a valuable tool and investment for your company?  I look forward to your thoughts on how much you value education and what checks the human resource department needs to be constantly doing.

Written by Jonathan Saar

Do you have a way to track, analyze, and report your compliance training?

Do- Look for room for commendation for every team member.

Don’t- Single out failures on any one team member’s part.

Do- Allow room for everyone to express their thoughts on the agenda items.

Don’t- Insert random items that are not on your agenda.  Your team will not be prepared for the item and this will inhibit the productivity of the meeting.

Do- Create specific guidelines for how the team will implement agenda items

Don’t- Use “Air Statistics”.  In other words do not make statements as if they were facts. (Pulling them from thin air) This is especially important when referring to your competition.  Don’t make up items.  This will only intimidate and discourage your team. Making up facts also discredits you as a team leader.

Do- Create healthy and realistic goals for your team.  Help them have something to look forward to as a result of the agenda items outlined.  Having goals increases productivity.

Don’t- Go Overtime on your agenda.  Stick to the allotted time for each section.

Do- Use visual aids to assist with agenda items.  Using print material, whiteboards, projectors, and other items will greatly assist with overall retention of key agenda items.

Don’t- Develop an “I” problem.  Always be selective in your word choice so that the meetings overall aura is positive and is fostering a team spirit.

I am sure you can add to this list of Do’s and Don’ts.  Whether you are in the property management industry or any other, what are your tips for a successful team meeting?

Thanks for reading today’s post.  Feel free to share it with your friends.  So you don’t miss out on any post, there is also a “subscribe to” function on the top right of the page.

Written by Jonathan Saar

Did you know that The Training Factor is now doing mystery shops?

Another epiphany hit me this morning when I woke up besides the fact that I really wanted more coffee.  I got to thinking about all the projects I have on my plate and also the list that each of my team members have in anticipation of future events.  The word “deadline” was the associative word of the moment.  Then it kind of struck me how really that is such an awful word.  I tweeted it out, put it on my Facebook page and I had people agree with me.

The next step was to find out where this word came from.  So here is what I found.  According to the Online Etymology Dictionary the words history comes from the civil war era where prisoners were warned that if they crossed a literal line they would be shot.  Chew on that for a moment then continue to the next paragraph.

So now that we know this it behooves us to ask ourselves the question: “Why do I use this word as a daily business term in order to set a time limit on a project?”

The word screams negativity!  It has the word “DEAD” in it.  I thought to myself all the times I put myself on a deadline or was given a deadline or realized my deadline was in just a few hours and every time I recited the word in my head or remembered those moments the only feeling that I experienced was….fear.

The property management industry is project oriented.  Multifamily professionals across the board are working hard each day to improve their business profile.  Is there not a better word we can use for our teams to signal a completion time frame?

We are required to inspire our team not scare them.  So I now I put this out to you.  Am I in left field with the crows and cornstalks on this post?  What kind of lingo do you use to help your team see their projects through to completion?  I look forward to your comments.

Thank you for taking the time to read today’s post.  If you feel this and my other posts have value, feel free to share them with your friends.  To not miss out on a post, there is a subscribe to feature available on the top right corner of this page.  Thanks so much!

Did you know that we now have student pay per course options available now?

See you at the National Apartment Association Educational Conference at booth #1740  Don’t forget to register!

Written by Jonathan Saar

Determining a career path in the property management industry can be a challenge.  We start in one position.  We wind up doing really well at it and then it comes time for a possible promotion.  With a promotion, may also bring the necessity to demonstrate leadership qualities in one way or another.  The typical problem that pops us is that many professionals are not fully prepared for the roles they are being asked to take on.  Do we really know how to manage people?  Do we understand how to handle group dynamics?  Do we have the ability to make decisions we can stick by through thick and thin.  As we move through our career path it is so important to analyze ourselves and see what kind of leadership and management styles we have currently and ones that we can be developing.  Below are some examples.

The Visionary

The visionary shares their goals with the group and team. They give clear direction of where to go but don’t necessarily give directions on how to get there. They share information and impart their knowledge and experience onto others. The Visionary Leadership style can create a company culture that facilitates directional changes. Evaluate your team and determine if a visionary style would motivate them to think and work more independently.  Not everyone may be able to work independently.  Balance is needed when using this approach.  The visionary is focused on helping the group to reach a proper conclusion.

The Coach

Are you a coach, do you mentor and guide your staff along the way? Do you have their trust and admiration? A coach typically inspires respect via their track record.  Did you ever play sports? Think of your work team like a sports team and you are the coach. Give good direction, motivate and moderate results. This sort of leadership style is great for creating a cohesive team.  The coach is not afraid of trying things new and is eager to share a new approach or “play” with the team and motivate them to get on board.

The Affiliative

An Affiliate leader promotes harmonious relationships within an organization.  This can be challenging if your team is to focused on the pecking order.  They use a collaborative style and focus on the emotional need of those around them.  This means that you are taking time to get to know your team members beyond just their job description and requirements.

The Democratic Leader

The Democratic Leader makes an effort to listen to the opinions of others. They seek out advice and discuss the issues among the group. Although listening and taking advice is good, it is important to avoid long decision making time-lines. You could appear weak to your team.  This means you need to outline a clear follow through plan and timeline that the team can adhere to once a decision is made.

The Pace-setter

The Pace setter sets measured goals for the team. They have high expectations and are quick to identify poor performers and demand more of them. They often expect that the team member should already know how to perform the job so they tend to provide little direction and training to the team. This can create a very poor working environment if not executed properly.  The worse thing a team should feel is frustration.  Your goal is always to instill positive energy.  Negativity will only slow production.

The Commander

The Commander is in charge. They give clear directions and expect compliance. This style works well when firm quick decisions need to be made.  This is where some major balance is needed.  A commander can quickly find himself overwhelmed with responsibility because other forms of leadership have not balanced out the times when quick decisions are made.

Many companies may have a mentoring program in place to help you develop various leadership and management attributes.  Others may not, however with a modest approach and analyzing who we are, we can look in the mirror and sort out what kind or person we are.  The next challenge is application of the principles you have learned.

Please feel free to contribute to this topic.  If you have any thoughts on these different management approaches feel free to comment below.

Written by Jonathan Saar

Don’t forget to visit us at Booth #1740 at the National Apartment Association Education Conference

1. When the telephone rings, answer it!  - With a smile!

Do you have anything you can add to this list?  I look forward to your comments.

Posted by Jonathan Saar

We are looking forward to seeing you at NAA in June! We will be in booth 1740.  Come by and say hi!

Today’s video blog speaks for itself.  I want to commend all of the new multifamily folks that I am seeing on twitter.  I know in time you will see the value in the platform not only for your company but for your current and future residents.  I wrote a post not too long ago entitled Twitter Etiquette: Why did you unfollow me?

Today’s post is a follow up to that since today I was blocked by a new Twitter user.  Find out why in the video.  If you have any thoughts on Twitter chivalry for all of us in the apartment industry, please feel free to share in your comments.  Thanks for tuning in.

Written by Jonathan Saar

Learning management systems (LMS) are nothing new to our history.  When you reflect on the basic definition of the expression we can travel back in time to all cultures that mandated education as a way of society and also outlined it in such a way that it gave the learner a clear path.  Looking back to our grade school and college years, our learning was managed by our teachers who then worked with a standard reporting system that graded us and then we viewed our grades via a report card system.

Just because we are out of school, has the need for education diminished?  Absolutely not.  As a matter of fact, continuing education is an absolute must in order for us to keep in tune with our current or future job positions and to keep pace with how business in general continues to evolve.  Education creates a stabilizing influence for a company’s employees and provides the learner confidence and a pillar to lean on when things become challenging.

As the digital age continues to morph, learning management systems continue to be an asset and a necessity for corporations.  It is no longer a question of “Should I?” it is a question of “Why don’t I have one yet?”  Stop for a moment and remember when you received your report card in school and you received all “A”s or you see from one quarter to the next an improvement in grades.  Did not the full circle of that learning management system create stability and confidence for you to start your career?  Should not this stability exist for our own career path and for our team that we count on every day?

As I have been able to get to know various multifamily property management companies, I have observed 3 distinct categories with their approach to education.

1. Strong advocate of education.  Believes it is a fundamental to a company’s existence.  Have their own internal LMS or have an external platform provided for them.
2. Strong advocate of education.  Have no LMS and not sure of its benefits and value.  Is overwhelmed with trying to keep track of all the learners’ training and progress.
3. Does not believe in continuing education.  Feels that education should be listed as an expense like paperclips are on the profit and loss report.  If education is a mandate, then they find the cheapest content and delivery method available and they get what they pay for.

For the first group, imagine a huge cheerleading squad for your company because that is simply awesome.  For the second group, a hat tip to you for moving in the right direction and there is help available for you.  For the third group, perhaps this post will provide inspiration and food for thought.

For the second group, here are 6 ways The Training Factor’s LMS can benefit you.

1. Completely automated training from the first day of hiring.  That’s correct!  From the moment your employee is entered into payroll, they are automatically enrolled with their educational program based on their job title and sent a welcome letter by you via email outlining their first steps.
2. A user friendly reporting system that automatically sends out exception reports every week to key positions of oversight.  A reporting system that allows you to drill into every level even to the point of being able to see which parts of the education that your learners need the most assistance on.
3. A fully functional, user friendly custom course builder.  Imagine a simple policy change that has taken place and you need to make sure every team member is aware of it.  In as little as 15 minutes you can create your own course, a test and enroll all necessary learners.  This becomes a requirement of their curriculum and is noted on their transcript when it’s completed.
4. A multifunctional online calendar.  Do you have different schedules for different teams?  Of course you do.  Imagine a drop down box with different calendars for different people.  Now the whole team is completely aware of the company’s schedule.
5. Are you tired of having documents stored in numerous locations?  Are you tired of having to make changes to a document and then having to communicate those changes and making sure that your team does not use the old one?  Our resource center allows you to have a single point where all of your key documents can be uploaded and stored for whomever you wish to have access to them.
6. Remember the difference between the inspiring and boring professors and teachers?  I am sure you preferred the inspirational teacher and so do we.  Our courses are not simply content that is delivered, it’s education that is engaging and is designed with the learner in mind.  With interactive scenarios and role playing in many of our courses, you can be assured that you will reap the most benefits with this enhanced style of delivery.

This really provides a very basic overview of what our system does for our clients.  It was designed for the multifamily industry not as an expense, but as an asset.  When you reflect on the cost of employee turnover, lack of resident retention which leads to more turns, and the challenges with occupancy, the value of a powerful learning management system will no longer be a “Should I?” it will be a “Why don’t I have one yet?”

In all fairness I have heard from many multifamily folks that they were seriously burned by their decision to choose XYZ Company’s LMS.  Feel free to make your own expressions on what an LMS has done for your company good or bad.  If you are a client of The Training Factor, please feel free to make your own comments on how system has benefited you.  The following video testimonial was from one of our clients that were hosting a leadership conference at which The Training Factor was invited to attend.  Please take a moment and view.  Thanks!

Written by Jonathan Saar

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