This past month, Patty Morgan-Seager presented a webinar on how to increase your “Mojo” and positive attitude.  During the webinar, we asked everybody on the webinar what they did to increase the Mojo at their office.  Here are their responses!

• “Our team meets every Tuesday at 3:00 to compile a list of associates who have gone above and beyond the prior week.  They are recognized through a company sponsored program and are rewarded with 30 minutes of time off!”   Allison Clark – Tempe, AZ
• “Paying 5 dollars to charity to wear jeans on Fridays”  Courtney Eias – Trumbull, CT
• “Put cow bells on leasing desk and "Ring" when new lease or renewal is signed!  Even the manager rings her bell in response, so everyone celebrates the achievement!”  Jeanne Marie Zublin – Houston, TX
• “When someone on our team is having a bad moment we sing our team song which happens to be "Hello, Good Morning"  LeShannon Jefferson – Lewisville, TX
• “Morning coffee runs for the office”  Natalie Lozon – Santa Monica, CA
• “Let off early on pay-day Friday.  After all quality control issues are addressed - allow them to leave early by an hour or two.”  Lori Schultz – Dallas, TX
• “At closing time, play some music loudly that all like.”  Catherine Williams – San Ramon, CA
• “We have recently instituted "Fun Friday" & this Friday is "Bead Day"!  :)”  Stacy Dueker – Stockton, CA
• “Constantly smile and laugh...it's contagious!”  Jason Hilyard – Aberdeen, NC
• “Funky fun glasses for prospects & team member when we ride out on golf cart” and “Football jerseys on Fri, Sat & Sun”  Sandra Williams – Tampa, FL
• “Flip Flop Friday!”  Lauren Pettit – Port Richey, FL
• “Goodie Bags filled with small inexpensive gifts for my staff members to "grab" something from when they get a rental, save a renewal, etc!”  Amanda Hall – Vallejo, CA
• “Have an ice cream social for the staff and residents.  Grab buckets of ice cream, whip ccream, cherries, etc. and have fun!  Include it with a pool party on a hot day.”  Diane Christy – Cleveland, OH
• “I get doughnuts for my team every other week” and “After every lease my team gets we have a "happy dance”  Tanisha Young – New Carrollton, MD
•  “I like to buy goodies a couple times a month, for example, today I bought the staff ice cream!  They loved it!”  Shannon Lorenzen – Wilder, KY
• “Something positive or a compliment every morning to all of your staff”  Jennifer Moreno – Houston, TX
• “Once in a while have the team go out for lunch together to be able to communicate outside the work environment and share ideas.”  Jackie Cruz – Plant City, FL
• “Our office does a Youtube video challenge where each week we look for the funniest or most bizarre youtube video we've seen and then watch them on Fridays.”  Brad Randall – Salt Lake City, UT
• “Pizza Party”  Philip Nieman – Roslindale, MA
• “Secret Pal – Change it up once a month”  Helene Konneman – Humble, TX
• “Small gifts such such as candy or new office supplies left on team members desk!”  Leah Shay Hartley – Newnan, GA
• “Morning staff meetings for 15 minutes prior to the office opening”  Katrina Avila – Richmond, TX
• “We applause each other in the mornings for motivation even on Mondays!!”  Robert Torres – Houston, TX
• “We have a wall of fame where residents and co-workers can post kudos to the team.”  Lia Smith – Birmingham, AL
• “We ring a bell any time a sales person gets the sale.  Of course, after the prospect leaves.”  Sherre Helmer – Indianapolis, IN
• “We start the morning stating two things that were uplifting yesterday one personal and one professional.”  Karen McLelland – Plant City, FL
• “Manager cooks breakfast for staff 1xm and cooincides with a monthly safety meeting,” and “Pedicures/manicurs for great shop reports and super leasing results,” and “Randomly give out freeze pops to residents at the pool,” and “Big basket of crackers, candy bars, granola bars and drinks for the office staff on the busy days when you can’t get out to get a bite to eat.”  Christina Chalifour – Grand Prairie, TX
• “We share recipes with each other for that nights dinner, we give each other good advice and pump each other up... We love our team.”  Erica Spence – Fort Worth, TX

After reading Alison Voyvodich’s blog, 10 Great Tips to update any Apartment and only spend $10, I got inspired and wanted to share this idea with you.  Although it wouldn’t be an “under $10” concept, I love doing things that inspire an emotional connection with the community, whether it is fostering friendships between residents or creating a stronger bond with the apartment itself.  And one thing that definitely does the latter is taking the time to decorate the apartment! 

So try having a community-wide decorating weekend!  Here are some things that might be fun:

• Team up with a local home decorating store, home garden center, and home improvement stores for discounts and freebies
• Provide an option to buy upgraded apartment fixtures at cost, which really means that your residents are subsidizing your renovation for you!
• Bring in a home decorator to give a seminar in the club house, and maybe even do some consulting for participating residents
• Have your maintenance team ready to paint accent walls for the cost of the paint
• Have an apartment home “showcase” with awards based upon the difference in the before and after, and with permission, post the pictures on your website, Fan Page, etc.  (Make sure you tag your residents!)  You could have different categories for the contest based upon room:  Bedroom, Living Room, Balcony, etc.
• Create a framed “storyboard” that shows the before and after pictures to be on display at the partner stores!  These end up being “case studies” for the stores on how people can decorate their apartment, AND it is free advertising for your community!
• Share the story with a website like ApartmentTherapy.com, who would probably link back to your website, giving you some nice Google juice!  (They have an unbelievable page rank of 7!)
• At the end of the showcase, it’s time for a wine mixer at the clubhouse!

After spending time (and money) on their apartment, not only will their enjoyment of their apartment increase, but their emotional attachment will increase, as well!  In other words, if they spend a lot of time personalizing their apartment, they are much less likely to abandon it at the end of a lease!

If there was a theme to a book review, I would have to say “conflicted” would sum up my thoughts on the book, Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us, by Seth Godin.  It came highly recommended to me from several sources, and the author has a cult-like following in the world of marketing and business.  So maybe that led me to have expectations that were unrealistic, but I think the problem is that I’m just not the target market. 

The general concept of the book is about creating a swell of support and community for an idea, product, company, or anything else, really.  It means becoming a leader at any point in your life or career, without waiting to reach executive status.  In fact, the top down method of corporate strategy is dying, replaced by leadership and innovation flowing from throughout the organization. 

So that sounds like a compelling concept, right?  Well, of course it is!  And I think that is the major drawback for me – that the book didn’t break any new ground from my perspective, and I’m not sure if it would for you either.  And the reason I say that is that our Insider community tends to be much more innovative and forward-thinking than the average person in our industry.  If you are a daily reader here at MFI, it is quite likely you are part of the cream of the crop in the apartment industry, and by participating here, you already understand many of the concepts that make a vibrant and passionate community.  That’s not to say that our community knows everything, by any means, but I do believe we excel in breaking away from “the way it’s always been.”  And in that respect, we are already living the lessons that Godin is espousing in Tribes. 

Reprinted with permission from Multifamily Executive, a publication of Hanley Wood Business Media © July 2010

Fresh off of its June 30 release of one of the first multifamily apartment search applications for the iPad, Highlands Ranch, Colo.-based REIT UDR is rolling out an electronic renewal system that has been in development for the past 20 months.

(Before you get upset by the concept, please see the disclaimer at the end!)

Hazing in college is an interesting thing:  Not only does it weed out those who are not fully committed to the idea of the frat or sorority, it creates an unbelievable sense of loyalty after that initial period.  But why is that?  It sounds counterintuitive that the organization puts the person through hell, and yet the members are somehow more connected to the organization after the fact! 

The reality is that however horrible it might be, surviving hazing ends up being an accomplishment, earning the ability to gain seniority within the group.  They have “paid their dues”, and if they left the group, the significant cost of hazing would be lost.  In this sense, their experience in the group gets better over time, first after surviving hazing, and later by rising in seniority. 

I have had the book Tribes by Seth Godin on my “to read” list for a long while, and just started to read it during a five minute break this morning.  Like the name implies, the book is about pulling together groups of people that are somehow related, whether it is in the same company, community, with the same hobby, or like Multifamily Insiders, the same industry.  This blog won’t be about the book, as I haven’t read past a few pages, but it definitely inspired me to share something…

Within our industry, we talk about creating “tribes” within our apartment communities, hoping to engage our residents, prospects, and the outside community to make them feel connected and emotionally invested.  Although there is a lot of talk about “engagement”, many communities use a “push” mentality, using it as a one-way street to send out information, links, etc about the community, not really sure about how truly create that “tribe”.  So in the end, the apartment community “spotlight” often is just pointed back at themselves, focusing on the apartment community rather than the community of people. 

We realized something here at Multifamily Insiders, however, that I think will help you in creating your own community.  We learned very quickly that although people wanted to know about how MFI was doing on the whole, such as how quickly we were growing, what new services we were unveiling, etc, the real value was not us at all – it was our members.  So instead of pointing the spotlight back on ourselves, we instead find ways to highlight our members.  If you look at our newsletter, for example, we usually only have one message about MFI directly, with the rest dedicated to members’ blogs, discussion posts, job listings, etc. 

[NAA allowed us to share this article with the Multifamily Insiders community.  You can see the original article here.]

Boxing gloves were playfully placed on stage at the start of yesterday’s session, “Titans of Technology: Multifamily Housing Industry Technology Solutions for Today, Tomorrow, and Beyond,” as panelists began a lively debate that focused on the future of technology.

David Bateman, CEO and Co-Founder of Property Solutions, said search-engine marketing and mobile participation are leading technology trends. “The advent of mobile technology is going to rock our industry,” said Bateman, who joked that he was still wearing diapers when fellow panelists launched their companies in the 1980s. “There’s a reluctance with new technology because no one wants to be on the bleeding edge, but if you wait and wait, you’ll be unprepared when the shift happens.”

Recently Apartment Guide released a list of the top 15 amenities apartment prospects searched for on ApartmentGuide.com.  Although this can't be used as a guide for ALL apartment prospects, it's an interesting read.  

1. Washer and Dryer in Unit
2. Pets (allowed)
3. Air Conditioning
4. Some Paid Utilities
5. Washer and Dryer Connections
6. Dishwasher
7. Balcony
8. Garage
9. Cable Ready
10. Furnished Available
11. Fitness Center
12. Swimming Pool
13. Short Term Lease Available
14. Gated Access
15. Oversized Closets

The most interesting amenity ranking in my opinion?  The fitness center and swimming pool, which is an apartment tour staple, is incredibly low on the list at numbers 11 and 12!

For this year’s NAA Education Conference, the event headed to New Orleans to make a great mix of jazz, apartment industry discussions, and Bourbon Street.  Although the Cat’s Meow got plenty of action during the late nights at the conference, I’m going to stick with the main point of the conference, the great education and networking opportunities of the event itself. 

The event held five education sessions, with several sessions to choose from each time.  The drawback to simultaneously running sessions is that you inevitably have to choose from several different sessions you would love to make, but fortunately, they provide a way to purchase the sessions you missed, as well as sessions from past events.  And besides, with so much going on in the exhibit hall and elsewhere at the conference, it may be best to have a condensed program for the sessions. 

As we all know, many prospects have difficulty imagining an apartment full of furniture when it lies empty and vacant.  Add to that the strange visual effect of an empty room appearing smaller than a decorated room, and we have long used model apartments to give prospects that image to help guide them to how their own apartment might look once moved in.  But model apartments are extremely expensive, both for the furnishings and the vacancy cost. 

The iPad, however, will give leasing consultants the ability to show pictures and videos of furnished apartments as prospects tour empty and vacant apartments, as well as other creative uses for the iPad while on apartment tours. 

Although this solution will not be as enveloping as having real life furniture to walk around in the apartment, one must also consider the vast differences in cost, especially as the iPad and similar products decline in price.  So I want to throw out the question today of whether you believe that the iPad will give apartment communities the tools to help prospects visualize their apartment without the expensive use of model apartments.