Increase Occupancy via Twitter Mind Control

When I first created my Twitter account, I hated it.  The posts were too frequent, too confusing and there was way too much junk floating around my news feed.  For months, it sat with that infamous egg as a profile picture.  My home page would have jumped for joy at the sound of a cricket.  Just when I thought I’d never log in again, a friend planted a seed that wouldn’t stop growing.  I started out simple at first, but it soon turned into a full blown obsession.  I was determined to lease my first apartment via Twitter!  It was that obsession that now allows me to share how to effectively increase occupancy via Twitter Mind Control.

1. Did you know that you can search for people hunting for apartments in the city of your choosing?  You can find people who might be looking for apartments but they don’t even know it yet, they’re just putting signals out there to their friends, family and anyone else who may be reading their post at that particular moment in time.  Are they looking for someone to comment and say hey I love where I live, go there?  No.  They’re looking for some kind of engagement (as any person is on any social platform) and most times, if you look at the post, they really don’t get it!  Now this doesn’t mean that you should only search apartment hunting or looking for apartments.
2. Create a list of keywords to search daily.  The key here is not only to find those actively searching, but also to discover and engage those that are giving off passive buying signals.  Some of my favorite searches are high electric or gas bills, noisy neighbors, long commutes and horrific roommates.   Once you find a relevant post, should you comment on that and try to sell them?  Absolutely…NOT!
3. Never, ever sell your community on your initial contact!  Instead, scroll through their tweets over the last week and find a relatable post.  This could be something as simple as a movie they just saw, a restaurant they just ate at, or even a sporting event they are tweeting about.  Comment on that.  Be human.  Your community will sell itself.
4. Don’t get discouraged if people you’re contacting don’t respond.  How often do you entertain a cold call?  That is essentially what you’ve just done.  The difference is, everyone looks at their @mentions, EVERYONE!  The connection you just made has now subliminally put your community at the top of their list.  When they start looking and you pop up on an ILS or Google, they’ll say “hey that looks familiar, I think they tweeted me….about a … movie?  I’m sure it’s still in my twitter mentions somewhere…..”  Now hopefully you’re twitter page doesn’t look like a bunch of cold calls all lined up like ducks in a row.  You need to have other content as well.
5. Search for your community often.   Tweets can be the best form of testimonial money can buy.  Why?  Because they’re FREE!  There’s this wonderful little button called “RETWEET”.  Learn it, love it and live by it.  When you’re searching your list of keywords every day, throw in your community name.  See who’s talking about you.  Give yourself the opportunity to retweet the positive and reply to the negative.  This will paint a vivid picture for anyone looking at your page.

There was an amazing segment at Brainstorming that focused on transparency.  You may have seen the ChapStick fiasco…yikes.  That is an epic transparency #fail!  How about  live reviews for Dominoes Pizza flying across the jumbo screen in Times Square?  Can you say #winning?!  The growing trend of word of mouth marketing is making and breaking businesses as we speak.  Attention spans are shortening and tolerance for conventional marketing is dwindling.  Today is the day we look for products our friends and family endorse.  We look for the product with the highest rating or the most positive reviews.  A well maintained Twitter page can help.  Start searching today or yesterday’s tweet could become tomorrow’s lost lease.

We’ll be coming out with part 2 soon.  It will focus on the importance of your Twitter design, relevant content and a special feature on the ins and outs of following/followers.  Don’t want to wait?  I don’t blame you.  The Training Factor has an excellent social media course with some great Twitter tips to get you started.

Here is a real Twitter example…

If you get a bad review, you take that in your stride. – Anish Kapoor

~Angela

4 Ways to Add Excitement to Your Marketing!

How do you view marketing?  Do you get excited about your creations?  Do you even attempt to create anything?  It’s the most amazing feeling ever!  Looking back on your work and saying ‘I did that!’  Think it’s too hard?  It’s NOT.

Social media makes it easier and easier every day to express yourself in your marketing.  Even if you don’t have the approval to implement anything immediately, consider just doing it anyway.  I don’t mean hijacking your company website or even their facebook.  Design a ‘test’ page and ‘test’ new ideas!  Apps and rules are ever changing, so staying current is key, but here’s some starting points for you.

Custom HTML:  For anyone who isn’t really computer savvy, this may seem like an impossible task.  It’s really not.  YouTube tutorials for beginners are a huge help.  Once you get the basics down, you can launch just about anything.  With some basic HTML and FREE apps I did this:

Flash banners, buttons and text:  Take it up a notch!  Look for free sites that allow you to create fun flash text, functional buttons and maybe even flaming banners.  Here’s an example I created from a free site (the finished product is interactive and moves) –

IWIPA: THE most AMAZING thing since sliced bread!!  Don’t have a budget for web hosting?  Create a website INSIDE your Facebook page…FREE!  I haven’t tried the paid version, but the FREE version is just peachy.  Check out this or this as examples.  You can block items from people who don’t like your page, make more tabs than you know what to do with and utilize the basic HTML you just learned by watching how to YouTube videos.  You will not be disappointed I PROMISE!

Attention Grabbing Pictures:  How’d they do that?  Well, I’ll give you a hint.  It has a lot to do with Word, Paint and this wonderful little thing called ‘snipping tool’.  Want more info?  Let me know, I’d be happy to help!  Didn’t know Word could do such things?  Check out The Training Factor’s Word course.  It ROCKS!  (Note:  The following picture was created using the newest version of Word.  The above mentioned course is for an earlier version of Word.)

 <~ He’s never seen a palm tree…EVER.

The more excited you are, the more exciting your marketing will be!  GET ENTHUSED!

~Angela

“Enthusiasm is excitement with inspiration, motivation, and a pinch of creativity.”  – Bo Bennett

Is Your Face Costing You Leases?

I often listen to a local radio show on the way to work.  Today, the host was talking about his recent trip to Europe and something called “face control”.  This sparked one of those dangerous brainstorming sessions…you know the ones you come out of wondering how you got from point A to point B without crashing.  Then, because that wasn’t bad enough, I called a good friend of mine for some input.  She had never heard the term either so I looked it up.  To my surprise, it wasn’t at all related to any of my brainstorm tangents.

From “feis kontrol”, a Russian klub colloquialism of the English words “face control.” Your “face” is your level of wealth, beauty, power, social standing, and overall desirability. – Urban Dictionary

Deep right?  Here’s how I see it…

How does this apply to the multifamily industry, specifically your leasing office?  You might…no should be…familiar with the importance of body language and it’s effect on prospect buying tendencies.  So what about your face?  Could your facial expressions be losing you leases?  Are your facial expressions a violation of fair housing?  Very possibly yes.

We have gut reactions to many things and people are no exception.  The way someone smells, the clothes they wear, piercings or tattoos they have, something they say or just their overall appearance can cause gut reactions – very visible ones at that.  This is not to say that you should become desensitized to appearance, but just gain control of your reactions.

Have you ever walked into a vacant with a prospect, had it smell not so fresh, found dead bugs or cobwebs in the corners and tried to redirect their attention somewhere else?  Your face control or lack thereof could  have been the reason they leased with you or went with the property down the street.

Visual ques aren’t the only things to spark a facial reaction however.  I mentioned smells before, but how about words.  Test your reactions with these descriptions:

-A man, clean-shaven with piercing blue eyes and golden blonde hair wearing a freshly pressed black suit and shoes you can see your face in walked into our office today for a tour.

-The apartment I showed him had fresh carpet lines, smelled like that Febreeze I love and the floors were literally squeaky clean.

-A man with a ten o’clock shadow, horn rimmed glasses and a lip ring wearing a sweat suit and dirty tennis shoes walked into our office for a tour.

-The apartment I showed him had a musty smell, cobwebs everywhere and someone tracked mud all over the carpet.

Just imagine if a co-worker was describing something and then a prospect walks through the door.  You may have to change your facial expression pretty quickly.  This can be a great team building excercise!  When the office is closed of course…

If you would rather discover your level of face control in private, do a Google image search for some of the things mentioned above, turn on your webcam and click away.  You’re going to see a myriad of different photos that may cause gut reactions.  I urge you to watch and record yourself.  You may be surprised at the face(s) you make.

Still wondering about the term face control?  Well here’s all I could find on the origin:

Feis kontrol is the power of the velvet rope, originally referring to the surly bouncers at the most exclusive Moscow klubs. It can literally refer to club door personnel, or it can be used figuratively to refer to some ideal social arbiter.  A sophisticated addition to bouncing at night clubs. Usually performed by a designated host(s). Face control persons are there to decide which individuals in the line are privileged to get in without having to wait in line and sometimes avoiding cover charges/lists/frisking. If you get picked out from the line at the club it means that you’re privileged! – Urban Dictionary

Oh and if you’re not familiar with how important body language is, stop by The Training Factor.  They have a course for that!

Thank you to Melanie B. for your help on this!  I love our morning phone calls 🙂

~Angela

“Expressions of disapproval are on a level of vulgarity that cannot be tolerated. The way to express disapproval is to do without applause.” – Rudolf Bing

What’s keeping you on the edge of your seat?

Suspense movies and dramatic television shouldn’t be the only things to get your heart pumping.  That rush of adrenalin can be a great motivator!  I recently entered a contest to win a trip to the Apartment Internet Marketing Conference in sunny California.  The voting alone has me so excited I can barely stand it!  It appears that Michelle Fording has it in the bag, but it’s not over yet…  Click the link above to see the contestants and vote!  FYI, there’s still time to get your entry in so don’t miss out!

Ok, back to my point.  Have you gotten comfortable at work?  Do you make it through the day only to wake up the next feeling like you’re in a rut?  Change it!  Challenge yourself to do something different.  Pick up a class, set goals, organize an event or even start a blog!  Whatever you do, make sure it’s something you’ll enjoy otherwise that adrenalin may be associated with stress instead of excitement and we definitely don’t want that.

The Training Factor has courses for all interests.  Want to learn more about maintenance?  How about social media?  I personally love marketing so I went with ‘The Science and Art of Multifamily Marketing’.  It’s amazing!  Passing the exam gave me a sense of accomplishment and each frame had me on the edge of my seat.  I can’t wait to use the things I’ve learned at EnVision!

Your comments on this topic are welcome!  I’d love to hear what keeps you on the edge of your seat.

~Angela

Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Did I really just send that?

There is nothing more embarrassing than realizing you sent an e-mail to the wrong person, replied to all with a private comment or had some obvious grammatical errors.  We’ve all done it.  Chances are, more than once!  Here are some of my most memorable examples:

-Copied a prewritten e-mail and accidentally clicked send without changing the name.

-Forwarded a prewritten e-mail, forgot it was open, typed a message to someone and clicked send not realizing that it wasn’t a blank e-mail.

-Sent someone a blank reply.

Ok, you get my drift.  We learn from our mistakes, but will we ever really stop making them?  I’d say probably not, but there are ways to prevent these and other epic e-mail fails.

Do you remember your English teachers?  How about what you were thinking about when they were droning on and on about apostrophes, action verbs, or who vs. whom?  No?  Well you’re definitely not the only one.  In fact, The Training Factor has just the refresher course we need!

‘It Takes More Than Spell Check’ will help you identify and fix the most common grammatical errors.  This isn’t just for e-mails folks.  You could be missing job opportunities and promotions just because you used “your” when you should have used “you’re”.  What are you waiting for?  Click the link above and take that course!

~Angela

“Each day learn something new, and just as important, relearn something old.”  ~Robert Brault, www.robertbrault.com

Show me the $$

Good morning sunshines!  Hope the sun is shining for you because here in Ohio we’re covered under a thick blanket of snow.  Mother nature must be playing a cruel April fool’s joke on us!

The first course I chose to take from The Training Factor was ‘Surviving Leasing Series Part 4: Closing the Sale – Your Strategy To Win’.  I was very impressed!  Here’s why…

I’ve always found writing has been a helpful memory tool so the workbook provided is a great feature!  It focuses on the most important details of the presentation and engages you with clever fill in the blanks.  Interaction rocks!  You can’t lease an apartment without interaction so how can you learn without it?

Prospects come in to the office expecting to spend money so it would stand to reason that asking them for the money would be easy.  Well, as outlined in this course, many multifamily professionals, myself included, sometimes experience difficulty asking prospects to SHOW ME THE MONEY!!  The real life example in this course showed smooth transitions during the conversation with the prospect and easy ways to ‘pop the question’, overcome objections and ultimately close the deal.

So often I find myself bored by slow repetitive presentations or completely lost by sporadic rushed presentations.  The course presentation from The Training Factor was easy to follow and the pace was just right!  I’m excited to try the techniques outlined in this course and take another!!!

~Angela

“Tell me and I’ll forget; show me and I may remember; involve me and I’ll understand” – Chinese Proverbs

Ahhhh! It’s so exciting!!

I have The Training Factor, Creating Home, Jonathan Saar, Kim Cory, & Mechelle Renea Flowers to thank for giving me the umph to start this blog.  The multifamily industry has been my home for several years now and I’m in it for the long haul!  Sometimes the mayhem seems unmanageable, but with support from people like them and proper training it’s well worth it!

Just in case you weren’t following the madness on Facebook this week, I (along with 5 other superstars) was given an amazing scholarship and want to share my thoughts with everyone!  So far I’ve explored the site a bit and I have my eye on a few courses I’d like to try first.  Stay tuned because tomorrow morning the journey begins!!

~ Angela