The idea of living in your niche is a concept we developed in 1995 when we launched our business coaching service. As a result of using this strategy, we have worked with more than 600 property management executives and their companies in North America. In addition, we found this concept to be so successful for our coaching business that we began to teach our property management clients how to do the same for/with their own companies and organizations.
To understand the principles of living in your niche for your property management company you first need to answer these questions:
Who are your best residents/future residents? Will it be fun to have more of these residents/future residents?
Can you easily find/locate more of these residents/future residents?
Will these residents/future residents pay full rent at the apartment communities you own/manage?
Can you identify any painful shifts or changes with these residents/future residents?
Can you identify any profitable trends, developments or opportunities with these residents/future residents?
How well are these residents/future residents served by your market competitors?
Can you build powerful strategic alliances?
Once you have answered the above questions, the principles for living in your property management marketing niche are carefully explained below. Is living in your marketing niche easy? Yes! Just stay focused, follow the principles as explained and watch your leases soar!
Writing industry/professional articles: A key element and the foundation for living in your property management marketing niche is to write a free monthly article. This article is designed to position you and your property management company as experts within the profession/industry of your residents/future residents. This monthly article should be 700-1000 words long and once you getting rolling, a new article will only take an hour or two to complete. This article can now be sent to your residents/future residents by E-mail, posted on Facebook or a blog, inserted into a multi-formatted newsletter, sent to targeted industry/professional publications, placed at specific industry/professional websites, used as a foundation for training, placed into a workbook when making a speech, etc. You see…once you begin writing a new article each month, you can use and re-use this intellectual capital, over and over again.
Tip From The Coach: Have several people within your property management company proofread each new article. This proofing-reading step will ensure your articles are accurate, timely and communicate a concise message. A word of caution…this article is not designed to be a commercial about you and your property management company. By sharing industry knowledge, insight, trends and tips your residents/future residents will remember the expertise you provide.
Placing free articles: The next step for living in your niche is to have these free articles placed where your residents/future residents will see and read them. Here are some examples of where you would want to have your articles placed:
In the magazines/publications where your residents/future residents will read it
At four or five of the most popular websites within the industry/profession of your residents/future residents
As part of an industry/professional newsletter or mentioned within an industry blog
When your articles are placed with this kind of industry visibility, the reader {think—“your residents/future residents”} will read what you have to share on two levels. On the first level they are going to read your articles, be impressed with what you have to share and will contact you and your property management company for more information {think—“qualified prospects and leases!”}. On a second and deeper level, the people reading your articles will perceive that you and your company must be experts within your field, which is why your article was selected over other authors and companies {think—“more leases!”}. Part two of this article will include the steps for: joining industry/professional committees/organizations, hosting free teleconference calls and speaking at industry events.
Want to learn more about how to live in your niche or to hear what others are doing around the world? Send an E-mail to ernest@powerhour.com and The Coach will E-mail you a free PowerHour invitation. During this call we will discuss how to implement the steps in this article.
Ernest F. Oriente, a business coach since 1995 [28,660 hours], a property management industry professional since 1988, the author of SmartMatch Alliances, and founder of PowerHour, PowerHour SEO and Pirmg.com , 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 193 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