Communication

A Dark and Virtual Storm Still on the Horizon?

It was a dark day on Wednesday, January 18, 2012—for some of us more than others.
Murphy’s Law was in full effect the moment my feet hit the ground that morning, and the string of mishaps continued when I got to work and turned on my computer. I opened Google to check my email, and I saw a thick, black bar covering the logo at the top of the page.

By Jo-Anne Oliveri, ireviloution intelligence, Brisbane, Australia

Recently, I have been involved in the sale and purchase of a rent roll. I had the rare opportunity of consulting for both the buyer and purchaser. Let me say, this was the smoothest and least stressful rent roll transfer I have ever witnessed!

Now some might say there is a conflict of interest by consulting to both the seller and the purchaser, and yes, I would agree! I definitely had my reservations about consulting and advising to both of them, but I discussed my dilemma with both parties. They both agreed they would retain me as the consultant and adviser through the negotiation, transfer, settlement, transition and retention period. In fact, I even conducted the inspection and overview on the selling rent-roll, and prepared the due diligence report.

Regardless of our role within an organization, we will be asked throughout our careers to participate in, lead or evaluate various corporate initiatives. After all, most of what a company really ‘is’ is a series of interrelated initiatives.  These could range from the acts of sales, operations, marketing, and acquisitions to finding efficiencies, fixing problems launching new products, etc. Generally we would like to succeed in whatever initiatives we are involved. And hopefully we have positioned ourselves for success through our understanding and expertise, our dedication and will to succeed, and our preparation and focus. Additionally we may have benefited from multiple books, papers and degrees which exist to provide us tools or help train us to succeed at whatever task we undertake. But invariably, there will be times when success is not an option or when we fail after seemingly doing all of the ‘right’ things. In those cases what do we do?

Our next step should be to perform a postmortem. Think of the postmortem as a forensic analysis of the results of the initiative. Admittedly, the specifics of every project are going to be different. But if we were to approach each postmortem as its own totally unique situation, then it would virtually be impossible to be efficient in our analysis. Over time, we also need the ability to connect the information that we gain to make better future decisions. This is the exact same process that our minds go through as the act of learning. The problem with our mind is that it does not always evaluate the information clearly and unemotionally. That is why we must take a scientific approach to the data and performing our analysis.

We recognize that this time of year can be a naturally quieter time for traffic.  However, when we know that it is a “slow season” it becomes even more important for your leasing team to inject energy into their working week and be proactive in their activities so that their performance does not lag. Of course we set goals to achieve our business objectives. However, setting goals is sometimes the easy part.

We also need to ensure the right training is in place. This gives our employees the tools to do their jobs effectively and thus realize our business goals. A company that invests in an employee’s professional growth is really investing in its own business. Therefore it is essential to provide the leasing team with appropriate training and also to encourage the members to work on their professional development.

No matter what our role is within the multi-family industry, there is always one word which is used more than any other; “community.” Some of us own communities, some of us develop communities, some of us design communities and others of us lease or operate them. And chances are that many of us live in an apartment, condominium or townhome community as well. So then why is it that there is so little ‘community’ in our communities?

When it comes down to this failure’s root cause, it can really only be one of two choices;

a.       Either the management team does not expend their energies in a manner that creates a welcoming and vibrant atmosphere that encourages interaction, or

By Salvatore Friscia, San Diego Premier Property Management, San Diego, CA

For property management companies, the month of January signals a time to prepare and issue year end statements to their clients for tax preparation purposes. Consequently, each January the IRS requires that any taxpayers who have made payments in excess of $600 to workers that are not considered employees must prepare Form 1099 – Miscellaneous Income. Property management companies are also federally required to file Form 1099 for their clients regarding rental income received throughout the year. In addition, copies of this completed form must be provided to the IRS. The IRS compares the payments shown on the information returns with each recipient’s income tax return to determine whether the payments were reported as income and done so properly.

And I'm not talking the married kind of engagement. (although that can be pretty pricey too)

I'm talking the price of engagement in regards to social media. I was not a bandwagon social media user. I wanted to understand how to engage and converse with our residents and potential residents before I jumped on the social media train. I also wanted to understand how to measure engagement and then translate that to value for our clients. 

For me, the  issue with social media is not the time it takes to post, blog or tweet, the issue is engagement. Are you maximizing on opportunities of engagement? Are you talking at your residents and prospects are talking with them? Having thousands of fans or followers are great but what are you doing with them?

What gives you the best engagement bang for you buck? I have included my top three.

DON'T BE A NEWS FEED HOG

Posting and tweeting are a marathon, not a race. If you clog up their news feed, they are sure to unfollow or unsubscribe. Studies show a post every 3-4 hours is the sweet spot.

INSIGHTS

Are you looking at your insights page? Your insights page has a wealth of information and demographics. Use that to your advantage when posting. 

FEEDBACK SCORE

Look at your most successful post (in terms of likes, comments, impressions, re-tweets, etc) and figure out your feedback score. For the posts with the highest feedback percentage, do you see a pattern of posts people engage with most... sports, fashion, decorating ideas? 

I benchmark everything. As a Director of Marketing, making sure my marketing team's time is well spent requires just that, benchmarking everything. Have we figured out the secret formula to social media, engagement and ROI.. not yet but I'm working on it. :-)

Happy posting!

Sparkle Hammond, M.Ed.  First Communities | Director of Marketing
shammond@firstcommunities.net
www.century-apartments.com | www.facebook.com/centuryapartmenthomes

Have you ever been talking and before you finish speaking the other person starts talking? Does it mean they were not listening to you, or they thought they all ready knew what you were going to say? Does it mean they think you do not know what you are talking about and want to set you on the right track?

Now as you have reflected on how that makes you feel, think about it, when you do it to someone else, be it a staff member or a tenant. I am of the mind if someone does not let me finish putting my idea out there; they are not listening.

Nothing is more frustrating than when someone is trying to communicate and they feel the receiver is not picking up on what is being said. We have all heard the saying, "God gave you two ears and one mouth for a reason." I am a firm believer in this.

In my history as a paid employee in the position of property manager we had an organization moving in and we did not have enough housing, so I was tasked to get them housing. After doing my research, I saw that the new organization had overstated their requirements by almost 38 units. Since I had to enter into a contract for no less than one year with private property owners, I was concerned about 38 units sitting empty for one year. We had our second meeting, of which I was the low person in this room of heavy hitters and was asked the status of filling the requirement, and I said we were at 100% based on my study and we had x number of units. I was adding to it and was cut off by the new organization leaders, and they said that I was not at 100% because I had not gotten all of the units that I was commissioned to get. I had my matrix which I was preparing to put up and I was told by the regional vice president to get the numbers they stated were needed, and if I could not make it happen to speak up now. I said I can do it, but... (and that is where I was told there are no buts, make it happen). I went back to my office and got the other 38 units under contract.

Just as I had said, the other 38 units were not needed, and so for one year those units had to be paid for and was a waste of money. The RVP came to me and asked how could I be so negligent to contract and have to pay for 38 vacant units? I said I tried to tell him and he would not listen and shut me down and told me to do it. He said he did no such thing and trusted my opinion and had I told him no, he would have never let it happen.

Well, I had witnesses in the meeting who came to my defense that I had tried, but was shut down. Here is where we get to hearing the person out before making a call to ensure you have all the facts to make and informed decision.

So, it was a costly lesson for my employer, and it cost the RVP his job. I am not happy that he lost his job, but he should have listened more than he talked. That also further enforced in me to make sure I did more listening than talking to ensure that I had the full story, as well as to ask questions if there was some element that I was not clear on.  $444,600.00 is an expensive lesson to learn for not listening.

The new RVP that came in was a listener and the operation ran so much smoother because he was. He also was good about asking questioins to ensure he had the right understanding. I learned a lot under his leadership and I even crashed and burned one time, but he knew that it was not because I did not get all of my information right, but that is another story for another time with a different point to be made!

Are you an effective communicator? If the purpose of communication is to get your message across to others -- envision how often you communicate effectively with people during one day. You may answer the uncounted times over the telephone, writing emails, in meetings, participating in conference calls, creating reports, debating with colleagues…the list goes on and on. We all communicate in countless ways every day to residents, future customer, colleagues, suppliers and even the corporate office.  The better our communication skills are the better we can serve and be more productive. Use the 5 Cs of Communication to communicate in the clearest, most effective way possible:

1. Clear