If first impressions are formed by a new resident within 10-12 seconds of meeting those on your leasing teams, what impressions do the walls in your office make? Can your walls sell? Can your walls motivate and inspire you and your leasing teams? You bet they can! This article will show you three easy steps to make sure your walls are selling—365 days a year.
Inspiring your residents: First, recognize that every time a resident comes into the leasing office of the properties you manage, your leasing teams have a golden opportunity to sell and re-sell the wonderful lifestyle your apartment communities provide. Next, have your leasing teams determine how much wall space is available in their leasing offices and ask them to draft a plan for the types of information they want each resident to see. Here are some strategic items your leasing teams can place on their walls: pictures of their residents having fun at a recent property activity, letters of appreciation from current residents, a mission statement from your company, your service guarantee or promise, a current resident newsletter, a reminder about resident referrals, dates for an upcoming resident party or event, sample floorplans, special awards or training certifications, and a photo of your leasing and maintenance team. Lastly, have your leasing teams professionally frame each of the items they will be displaying on the walls of their leasing offices, as the quality of the framing will make a subconscious quality impression on your residents and future residents.
Tip From The Coach: Now that your leasing offices are ready to sell to your current residents, can your leasing teams use this sales tool for future residents as well? You bet! At the start of each property tour, have your leasing teams begin by showing each future resident the fun items displayed on their walls…especially the pictures of current residents having great fun. When the walls in your leasing offices sell, your leasing experts will have higher closing ratios and more team success!
Motivating your team: Once your leasing teams have finished setting up the selling walls in their leasing offices, it’s time to prepare the walls that will motivate them. Ask your leasing teams to locate a wall or two in their leasing offices that is not usually seen by either current residents or future residents. Next, discuss with your leasing teams the key numbers, corporate information or trends they would like to see on a regular basis. Here are some ideas that might be helpful to display: weekly/monthly leasing goals, budget performance on a monthly and year-to-date basis, maintenance requests, a follow-up system for tracking hot prospective residents, bonus programs, a calendar to plan future resident events or activities, a place to share or post new ideas, company awards and collection reports. Lastly, ask your leasing teams to find a creative way to display this wonderful information so they will have a pride of ownership attached to this special area.
Tip From The Coach: Many of our property management clients ask their Resident Managers to hold a weekly meeting in the area where this information on their walls can be easily referenced. Consistently referencing this information on a weekly basis will show your leasing teams that the information displayed is critical to the success and profitability of their apartment community.
Encouraging yourself: As the executive or owner of your property management company, your walls must also sell. Certainly, many of the ideas mentioned above, would be valuable to have on your walls. Some specialized measurements to place on your walls might include: occupancy trends, employee turnover, ROI performance, quarterly graphs recapping this quarter…compared to the same quarter last year, team rankings and industry statistics that will impact your properties.
Tip From The Coach: Remember, whatever you place on the walls in your executive office will send a strong message to your company about the key areas of your business. So choose each item carefully, as every person who comes into your office will survey your walls and ask you questions about what they see or read. In addition, you might consider giving new employees a tour of your office walls on their first day with your property management company. This will allow them an opportunity to see and read first-hand, exactly what is most important to you and those on your executive teams.
Want to hear more about this important topic or ask some additional questions about how to welcome a new SuperStar? Send an E-mail to ernest@powerhour.com and The Coach will E-mail you a free PowerHour invitation.
Ernest F. Oriente, a business coach since 1995 [27,600 hours], a property management industry professional since 1988--the author of SmartMatch Alliances--and the founder of PowerHour and PowerHour SEO has a passion for coaching his clients on executive leadership, hiring and motivating property management SuperStars, traditional and Internet SEO/SEM marketing, competitive sales strategies, and high leverage alliances for property management teams and their leaders.
He provides private and group coaching for property management companies around North America, executive recruiting, investment banking, national utility bill auditing , national real estate and apartment building insurance, SEO/SEM web strategies, national WiFi solutions, and powerful tools for hiring property management SuperStars and building dynamic teams. Ernest worked for Motorola, Primedia and is certified in the Xerox sales methodologies. Recent interviews and articles have appeared more than 6500 times in business and trade publications and in a wide variety of leading magazines and newspapers, including Smart Money, Inc., Business 2.0, The New York Times, Fast Company, The LA Times, Fortune, Business Week, Self Employed America and The Financial Times.
Since 1995, Ernest has written 185 articles for the property management industry and created 350+ property management forms, business and marketing checklists, sales letters and presentation tools. To subscribe to his free property management newsletter go to: www.powerhour.com. PowerHour® is based in Olympic-town…Park City, Utah, at 435-615-8486, by E-mail ernest@powerhour.com or visit their website: www.powerhour.com