Does Your Onsite Person Even Care?

Begin forwarded message:

From: Xxxxx Xxxxx <email@PROPERTY.com>
Date: January 20, 2016 at 2:20:34 PM EST
To: <emailaddress>
Subject: RE: Two Bedroom Interest

NAME,

Thank you for your interest in the PROPERTY.  Attached is fact sheet and floor plans for your review.

The apartments facing campus are $25 extra per month for the second floor, $75 for the third, and $100 for the fourth floor.

We look forward to working with you.  Please let me know if you have any questions.

NAME
Leasing Manager
The PROPERTY
(555) 555-5555 phone

Thank you for your interest in the PROPERTY

-----Original Message-----
From: xxxxx@xxxxxlive.gmu.edu [mailto:xxxxxx@xxxxxlive.gmu.edu]
Sent: Tuesday, January 19, 2016 5:03 PM
To: Leasing@PROPERTY.com
Subject: Two Bedroom Interest

Hello!

My fiancé is a law student at the university. I saw on your website that there is a two bedroom option which is what we are specifically interested in.

If you could send me a little more information about it that would be great. What availability do you have? How much the rent is? What is included in the rent?

I look forward to hearing from you soon!

Thank you,

Xxxxx

Sent from my iPhone

If this is what YOUR Leasing Manager sends as a response to a leasing inquiry, then something is wrong with your company. Is it a training issue? Is the employee pool so lacking that this is the best you can find to hire? Or, because the community is new construction in a tight student housing market, it doesn’t matter? I don’t know. For me, there is NO EXCUSE for sending out such a lackluster, “I don’t give a sh*^ about your inquiry” response. At the very least, send something friendly that actually answers the immediate questions and invites the sender to tour the property and doesn't simply direct the customer to do all the work of finding answers to her questions.

Becoming a Roommate Is Not Always Easy

Do you know how weird it is to pull up in your car, packed with all of your clothes, most, okay – just some of your shoes – and look up to see you are sitting in front of your son’s house? It’s a temporary solution to a new situation. At least, this is what I tell myself. The door was open and I could see a happy little face staring out of the glass, tail wagging, all excited to meet this person who will hopefully be new and full of time to give much deserved attention. Yes, moving in with my son – my son, his dog, his girlfriend, and until just a couple of days ago, now a paying roommate/renter. Add to this mix – The Mother.

My son’s name is Tom (Thomas Sean) and he adopted a black Lab who, unbelievably, was already named Sawyer. Get it – Tom’s dog is named Sawyer! What a hoot! Sawyer is a big dog who likes nothing more than sitting right beside you and begging for a scrap or two. If you don’t willingly offer him something, he’ll just nudge close enough to grab it right out of your hand. He’s not even the least bit apologetic either. But he is just so darn cute, it’s hard to stay too mad at him. Plus, it wouldn’t so any good since he honestly couldn’t care less if you’re upset … or hungry, still.

Sawyer has lots of beds, I discovered, throughout the house, including the corner of the basement TV room where I had just taken up residency. This room is tiny, as far as TV rooms go – real estate professionals such as myself would describe it as “cozy” but it is tiny. It’s dominated by his huge big screen with surround sound. That first night I pulled out my queen size air mattress and my son plugged it in and it magically, and quickly, expanded to fill the tiny space. Literally, it reached from one side of the room and touched the loveseat. No more room for Sawyer’s bed, which we placed in the adjacent laundry room, which, because it contained an actual sink and counter became my closet and dressing room. Sawyer accepted the change with great grace and didn’t seem to mind. He willingly snuggled up to me on the loveseat every chance he got and I did not mind at all.

One night, around 2 AM, I woke up to hear Sawyer running around the house like a dog obsessed. I rolled over and tried to ignore it. I heard him at one point come into the TV room-turned-bedroom and leave a minute later. Shortly thereafter, I smelled something. Hummm? I got up and turned on the light. Yep, he had left a smelly disgusting pile right there at the end of the bed. 

I went upstairs to tell Thomas Sean that his dog had pooped and to ask where the cleaning supplies were. After that incident, we just left the cleaning supplies in the TV room. Apparently, Sawyer did not think his bed being moved was such an agreeable proposition. Ahhh, the search for a new home for me cannot come fast enough! And that is when it occurred to me that being uprooted, even for a dog, came have ramifications we may not even recognize. Perhaps we should keep this in mind when dealing with those Prospects who come to us for guidance and help in deciding where to lay their heads each night. Yes, I understand – now more than ever.   

Lost In Transition

Tell me again why change is good? Oh, yeah, right. If change doesn’t occur, then you really have no reason to grow, whether that growth is internal or external. However, with impending change, one has to learn to adapt and roll, accept and climb, and move forward. Therein lies my routine of late … and I think I am a bit lost in transition!

I’ve experienced many opportunities to live through transitional periods, like most people have. After all, I have been mostly on my own since I was ten years old. You would think it would not throw me like this latest transition has. Well, maybe not exactly thrown me, but at least made me scramble to work through details: find a new job, decide on where to live: apartment or house, make moving arrangements (a two-state move to a third state; where to shop – heck, even where to park my car when I am onsite. I read that one of the last managers had her car stolen her third week there.)

My adventure has started! I decided on a new company, accepted a new position, and secured a new place to live. I hired movers and am relocating items from one state while they are loading items in another. I think (who really knows?) I have placed stop orders for cable, internet, mail and start orders in the new place for these services. I believe I have most of my little ducklings in a row and am ready to get this show on the road. During this process, I have learned one thing. Moving is not for sissies.

When I started my new position, I made arrangements to stay in an Extended Stay motel located not too far from the properties and right next to the airport. When I arrived, no one else was around and the person who checked me in was fabulous. She printed off the directions for the properties for me so I could have a back-up to ones I hastily jotted down from my iPad. It was quiet, and I settled in for my two-week stay.

Staying in a motel reminded me of living in the dorm in college. Back in the day, you could take a little electric pot, place on the desk, cook Ramen noodles, a can of Campbell’s chicken noodle soup, or even stir fry. It was a college student’s basic necessity. Nowadays, colleges do not allow this. Of course, in my day, you weren’t supposed to have alcohol either but I had a full bar in mine. (I was seventeen.) Room inspections? What is that? They never did that. I think the RAs actually do perform such things nowadays. Anyway, the motel had a microwave but every time I used it, it set off the smoke detector – which freaked out not only me but also the neighbors in the next rooms. I decided I wished I had my little electric pot from college.

Staying there in the evenings left me a lot of time to think and reflect on my past, present and future, which is always good for the soul. In fact, I need that kind of time frequently. This time of transition, as some others in my life, left me feeling lost. I don’t like that feeling. I started remembering the worst transition time in my life. The time when I was sick, fighting for my life and my husband told me he wished I would just go ahead and die. He was tired of this process. (It was a three to four year process, and I was only in the first few months of it when he said that.) The next day I filed for divorce. It wasn’t that he said it to me, but he said it within earshot of our son and I could not deal with that. I guess if he had said it to me in private we might still be together. That whole illness, treatment and getting better propelled me into the notion that I might actually make it out of that hell intact and stronger than ever.

Looking back, I marvel that my two children and I managed to succeed against all odds. Now, I am looking at all these new changes in my life and I can honestly say I am thrilled to be moving in a new direction. I know I can make a difference at these properties. I KNOW I have an Action Plan for progress. I KNOW I am here for a reason. I do not think I will be lost in this transition for long.

Life as a Prospect

Expectations. Professionalism. Client centered. All of these words are important to someone currently focusing on finding, securing, and starting employment with a new company. All words I want to attribute to a new company with whom I want to forge a new relationship, not unlike being single looking for love. Maybe there is no difference. Certainly there are many similarities.

The past two weeks have found me traveling all over the country for various interviewing opportunities. Each company has varied in its approach to interviewing, its level of professionalism, in the amount of attention given to me, the hopeful, though decidedly wary of the process prospect. It is so important that I do not make a mistake in this process. After all, I want this relationship to LAST. It has occurred to me, on more than one occasion, I am representative of the apartment hunter – surely they, too, are wary of the process of walking into our Leasing Offices, of meeting with a leasing agent, hopeful of locating the perfect home where they can set up a place to LIVE, not just exist.

I know one thing. The next time I stand up to greet someone who walks through the Leasing Office door, I truly will understand their trepidation, their fear of the unknown, their questioning of whether or not I care about them and their needs and wants. I am also looking for a new place to live, so by virtue of being in the same place they are, I do understand. I can commiserate. I can empathize! This will make me a better Manager. I think it will also make me a better person.

No longer will I settle. This is not the time in life to settle for “just enough.” It is the time to seek the challenge and to figure it out. It’s time to put into practice, again, the tried and true and also the unique approach to issues. Now that I have found The Company and will soon decide on a Home, I am ready for 2013: all the pieces will soon fall into place and my picture will be complete. I cannot wait to get started.