Daisy Nguyen's Blog

Time flies when you're having fun, and the past 2 years have been a BLAST. I've been blogging and doing my own thing now for two years. It was so hard to decide to write my first blog/decide to do my own thing, because the choices were:

1. now or never
2. sink or swim
3. do or die
4. all or nothing
5. to be or not to be! (This last one is SOOO important!)

For the first time in my life, I was on my own.

I was on my own, but I had a voice, I had opinions, I was doing MY thing, and it was scary, (what if people disagreed with me? what if they hated me? what if they don't want to hire me? the list went on and on) Scary, but I loved every minute of it.

Looking back, there really was no other choice. Eventually, all roads, all training, all experiences had led me to this road > the road where I I had to CHOOSE to create my own path, my own way.

This is the first blog in a series of blogs that takes a closer look at success in the multi-family apartment industry - Who's successful? Who's Being promoted? How did they do it? and most importantly to YOU as the reader - can their stories help YOU become successful in your apartment industry career?

With studies showing that the mobile web will rule by 2015 (i.e. more users will access the internet through their mobile devices than their desktops), in the apartment industry, who has apartment-related mobile apps?

As apartment professionals, whether leasing agent, marketing director, apartment industry consultant, property manager, etc, it's important to see and understand how our prospects are finding us - so that we are reaching out to them in the platforms that they use. We should know which one of our current advertising sources (your apartment internet listing service or apartment ILS) are already mobile ready and which ones aren't - so that we can make better advertising decisions. If your apartment community's demographics are likely to use their mobile devices as part of their apartment search - you should come up on that search!

The next 30 days are a whirlwind of end of year celebrating. Whether your residents celebrate Christmas, Hannakah, Kwanzaa, or ringing in the New Year, the spirit of giving and goodwill are out and about. Here are 3 Gift Ideas your apartment community can give to your residents, for the cost of some elbow grease!

3 Gift/Amenity Ideas for Your Apartment Residents

1. Package delivery - The next 30 days, your residents maybe ordering gifts for themselves, others, or receiving gifts from loved ones. Many of those items are delivered during the time when your apartment resident is not at home. How great would it be if you could accept their packages and deliver it into their apartment? What a great gift/amenity to give to your apartment residents!  To coordinate this, you will need to have your residents sign a package addendum allowing you to accept packages on their behalf as well as allowing you to place their package into their home. I've implemented this at many sites - sometimes as a year-round amenity. If you need a sample package addendum, email me at daisy@rentsoda.com and I can send you one that you can use as a template.
2. Weekly Recycling AT-DOOR Pick-Up - With all the boxes arriving, packaging of gifts, and unwrapping of gifts, your resident will have additional recycling this month. (i.e. boxes, paper wrapping, newspaper, shopping bags, etc.) Why not offer a once a week pick-up at your resident's doors for their paper recycling? If you opt to offer this, you will need to set rules and guidelines so that your hallway doesn't become a trash center. I would recommend limiting it to dry packaging, so that it is not messy. However, your community can decide if you want to expand that to include any recyclables!
3. Clothing & blanket drive - Find a local charity that needs clean, gently used clothing for their cause. Your residents are already being asked for donations from every avenue possible. Give them an opportunity to get rid of some of their extra items they may have lying around the house and make room for the new gifts they will be receiving from loved ones! I recommend a drop-box, and guidelines to make sure items have been recently cleaned. Your staff may need to drop off the items to your charity weekly! Depending on the size of your site, this could mean A LOT of stuff. Keep the clothing/blanket drive as long as you feel you can collect donations. I've implemented this at several sites, and we've always had a great turn out. Some of the local charities that we partnered with were surprising - one year a local food shelf accepted clothing/blankets, another year, we had a local non-profit fashion-related scholarship fund pick up our clothing drive items to sell at their annual garage sale in March. Another year, our clothing drive went to a local church that operated a homeless shelter. Don't limit your local charity options - there are tons out there that need gently used clothing!

These are 3 great ways to help your residents during a busy time of year. Great for year-end goodwill, great as "gifts," AWESOME amenity, great for resident retention and they'll love it! Do you have other ideas you want to add? Please leave me a comment!

Here at RENT SODA, we've been talking about success A LOT. From our recent article (Build on Your Strengths: Build Success by Jim Baumgartner) to our Profiling Your Way to MORE Success sales classes, to every day conversations with our clients ("We want our manager to be more successful,"), it seems everyone is talking about "SUCCESS."

OK, I'll admit it. I'm a Foursquare GEEK, and now, with the launch of Facebook Places, I am TOTALLY CONFUSED. There's so much news out about Facebook Places - what will be the best tool for helping your outreach or marketing efforts at your apartment communities? Which application will help you stay connected to more apartment residents, attract more apartment prospects, give you more positive exposure?

Some background:

I use facebook as a place to connect with friends and collegues, keep up with the latest news about places/businesses I "like," and connect with other like-minded individuals.

In today's apartment marketplace, when a prospect walks into your doors, they are READY to lease from you. With all the information available on the internet, your facebook page, your twitter account, your website, apartmentratings.com - believe me. They've seen it, and your prospect is STILL interested. They may as well have a sign around their neck that reads, "Have Money, Need Apartment."

What's preventing you from leasing to them?

I call it the PS factor. They sign around their neck that reads, "Have Money, Need Apartment," should also have a postscript that reads,

Do you have a need to check on your site's various craigslist ads - and its taking too long? Are you a Community Manager, Regional Manager, Marketing Director or someone who needs to check on your apartment sites' 20+ ads and find the search, find, review process in craigslist cumbersome & time consuming?

If you are doing a search on craigslist to find and check on your apartment listings every day, every few days or weekly, THERE IS A BETTER WAY! And best of all, this is a FREE tool!

If you have multiple apartment sites, or your sites are listing multiple apartment listings, and you don't have a good monitoring option, this TECHNOLOGY TIDBIT is for you! (A special thank you to Laurel Zacher of Bigos Management who shared this juicy technology tidbit.)

Have champagne taste and a beer budget? Need a model apartment to help you lease, but on a shoestring budget?

A client told me yesterday that they read my blog, "Got Vacancy? Apartment Models - Is it a DO, a DON't or a CAN't Afford?" and during their budgeting process, the sites that struggled the most with vacancy, budgeted for models. BUT, the budgets were "scrubbed" and the model expenses were taken out.

With so many choices available, the price competitiveness of the market, and concessions still a tool that lots of apartment communities still use to entice renters, the best way to control vacancy loss is to close that back door – retain your existing residents. What’s the most important thing you can do to increase resident retention and lower your resident turnover?

Here’s my #1 most important tip I can give you regarding your resident retention plan: RESPECT your residents and genuinely APPRECIATE their business. OK, so maybe that’s 2 tips – just consider it my two-for-one tip deal!

The reality is, no matter what the rent is, whether its $500.00/month, or $5000.00 a month, its likely the BIGGEST check your resident writes every month. Find ways to let your residents know you respect and appreciate them as residents of your apartment community! If you can find ways to show them you respect and appreciate them as residents, the higher your likelihood of turning them into life-long residents!