After a greeting and introductions my very next questions is always “How did you find out about us?” This question is great for investing in resources that generate qualified leads. In context to the conversation between you and a new customer,however, it is a valuable way to begin finding out what people know about your community.

Example
How did you find out about us?
Customer: “ I work down the street and drive by everyday”
Follow-up questions: “Have you ever come inside to tour?”

How did you find out about us?
Customer” “My brother lives there and I have been to his apartment and love the layout”
Follow-up questions: “What is your brothers name, do you know his apartment number?”

How did you find out about us?
Customer: “I live in Minnesota and saw you on the Internet, I am coming to town next weekend to look around”
Follow-up questions: “Have you ever been to our city, community, area?”
Customer: “Yes, my sister lives in the area, but I have never been to your community”

The answer to this question helps you in understand their point of reference and provides you with a compass for what direction to take your conversation about your community and area. This is when you want to make sure you have a plan to share important area and community information.

Use this moment to direct them to your company website and community blog. I like to ask them if they are at their computer and if so, I tour them personally through both sites. I also really like to have them Google my property name, city & state to use the “Google Neighborhood” feature. Your community will come up with a red bubble as a feature of the map. Click on the red bubble and a new text box opens up with: directions, Search nearby, save to and more. Have them click on “Search nearby”. A search nearby space appears for you to type in suggestions. You can search restaurants, parks, schools or retail to show all the cool stuff in your area and how close it is. 

This is a fun exercise to do. Take a minute and conduct this same search yourself and capture and print screen shots for each search. Put them into a “Online Guide” book for your desk with these screen shots to guide and direct your customer in case you don’t have internet. If you have a community blog all of these maps and lists would be included with links to all areas of interest in one location. If you have not looked into creating a blog – contact Apartment Finders and take a look at their Community Sherpa product. Go to Metro67.com and check out one of the best blogs I have seen. Be sure and click on each of the tabs and check out all the impressive information presented as a fantastic tool for both leasing and retention.

How did you find out about us? What a rich, powerful tool to guide and direct the first part of your conversation! What a fabulous fundamental!!

Litmus Test - Ric Campo, CEO of Camden, national REIT based in Houston, BELIEVES in litmus tests.

Camden is awaiting waves and raves. Multifamily Executives are asking for it. They're sticking their toes into the water...they just want Reviews and Communication through Social Media done RIGHT. They are seeking new ways to bridge the Consumer & Community Gap.

"Rented on of our apts recently? If so, let other renters know how you like it by rating it at http:..."

 A total of 22 new apartment communities were completed in metro Denver during 2009. These new properties added almost 5,300 units to the area's apartment stock, expanding total inventory by 2.2 percent. The burst of deliveries followed a four-year span when Denver's completion tallies were fairly restrained, as deliveries had been held to an average of slightly fewer than 1,800 units annually during the 2005-2008 time period.

More than in most metros, then, there are select neighborhoods in Denver where new supply could fill a product niche that's gone unsatisfied over the past few years. On the other hand, it's tough to get new properties through initial lease-up at a time when the Bureau of Labor Statistics is reporting annual job loss at approximately 63,000 positions.

So how have Denver's brand new communities fared?

Hi everyone,

I just wanted to write a quick know to tell you about our new website.  If you had been to the old PCMGonline.com you would know that we desperately needed an improvement.  

We just launched the new http://pcmgonline.com this week.  It attempts to speak to a few audiences; Clients, Prospective Clients, Residents, Prospective Residents and Team Members.

If social media is overwhelming you with the plethora of tools, platforms, fan pages, accounts, usernames etc, then it's imperative to stop for a moment and organize your thoughts and process.  You may be voicing your frustration and throwing up your hands and saying there is nothing but a bunch of noise going on.  Or you may be wondering how in the world you can keep up with the pace that these platforms are growing.  Let's reflect on another platform that morphed and that we quickly evolved the ability to control how we used it.

Jump back a couple of decades in the television world and reflect on what was available.  Mainstream television did not even become available to most people until the 50's.  Those were the days when you only had one or two channels tops and you had to get out of your chair to turn the TV on.  As the decades past, the amount of options and information increased.  Currently you can make a choice on what kind of channel package you wish for yourself.  Some can be as low as 200 and then the options continue to climb.  Within these packages are channels dedicated to certain topics.  We have The Weather Channel, The Food Network, ESPN and many others.  Does this mean that you leave your TV on just one of these channels all day long?  Of course you don't.  What was the premise behind making channels that focused on just one topic?  So that the viewer would always know where they could find the specific information that they need.  Maybe at first people as the viewers were a bit perplexed at seeing an information specific channel available, however we learned the ability to change the channel.  You got to love remote controls for that!

Here we are again.  Faced with viewing all the "gifts" that had to this point in time, been covered up by a beautiful white sheet of snow.  As the temperature warms, we get to discover all that has been given to us throughout the winter.  Sounds nice doesn't it?

Let me ask you this...at your place, do you let junk and trash and litter drift quietly around where you live?  Do you decide it is ok to let your kids dump their french fry boxes and pop cups on the ground as they get out of the car?  Do you randomly toss pens, jewelry, debris and detritus all around you?  I am a small time operator (32 units and growing) and admit that I possibly haven't seen it all, but...regardless of which of my three sites I am at, I am ALWAYS finding trash to pick up.  Have I become the "picky" "neat freak" owner or do I have tenants not pleased enough or proud enough to do it themselves?  I always get thanked by folks that are going out to their cars.  I hear from the neighbors in fact about how happy they are that I am here to "clean up the place".  Geez, is that all there was to making the neighbors happy?  You mean I didn't have to get rid of the bad guys, just the hamburger wrappers!?!

I recognize in our Multi-Family world we should be talking about ROI, Cap Rates, Best Use and the latest Federal Occupancy statutes, but not today.  Besides, I just dropped off my tax doco to my CPA so lets not even think about stuff like that...today.

I love facebook, I have been creating free educational content sites to serve my favorite people in the biz - LEASING!!!!! Tonight I asked my friends on facebook to nominate America's TOP 100 Apartment Leasing Professionals and send them to my new fan page "America's TOP Apartment Leasing Best Practices". The postcard jpeg above is alone in a photo album and people nominate by simply tagging the person they wish to nominate in the picture. That sends this beautiful congratulations postcard to their wall with the nominators profile picture. It has been live for 46 minutes and I am 20% there!!!!! CRAZY FUN! Additionally 100% of the leasing people nominated were not my friend and so I have be able to invite over 20 apartment leasing professionals to be my new friend tonight as a result of their nomination!!! "TAG YOUR IT . . . one of America's TOP 100" is a catch phrase that could be used by any fan page to engage their fans. It is so exciting to use your imagination, creativity, great graphics and a fantastic fan base and the tools at Facebook to create such fantastic social media success.

Following up after "Are you the next American Idol?" I wanted to challenge the judges (management) to make sure they are worthy of being a judge and what that means.  If we, as managers, are going to encourage great art then we have to do it the right way.

As seen @ Tidbits from The Apartment Nerd