Sales or Consultant. Who Do You Hire?

I was meeting with a newly hired VP of Property Management when he asked me what I looked for when hiring or working with leasing consultants. When I answered that I look for a service oriented person no matter what the position is onsite, he quickly cut the conversation off and dismissed me. I thanked him and then turned back. (Not necessarily to get the last word, more to appease my gut instinct) I said I thought it was a mistake to look for the killer instinct salesperson.

When a leasing consultant takes on the role of only looking for the commission, I truly, with all my heart and gut, feel they will never take on the other duties of being a leasing consultant: looking at the best interests of the property while always considering how they can be better caretakers of the residents. It seems those that are only interested in the commission look forward to the next commission and never stay in the present moment of wanting to serve the residents they have “sold a bill of goods to.”

Hire a Team Player

Short and sweet, hiring a team player should be the goal. If you have the fortunate or unfortunate experience of trying to hire someone for your Leasing/Office Team (that depends on why you need to hire someone!), may I make one suggestion? Don’t hire someone for your Office/Leasing Team who uses the word ‘I’ almost exclusively throughout the interview. Instead, listen for the word ‘we’ or ‘our’ at least three times. I know – that’s kind of an arbitrary number. <SMILE>

I know when someone comes in to interview for a position, she/he wants to make a good impression. They hopefully show up in proper business attire, groomed, and smiling. But when you get down to the nitty-gritty, he/she will also want to highlight his own accomplishments. But if the person spends all the interview time talking about “I did this”, “I did that”, “I increased NOI by such and such”, and “I reduced the cost of turns by this much”, that’s great – so – how did YOU do all this? Alone? I don’t think so.

 I really don’t think it matters if you are hiring a Manager, Assistant Manager, Leasing Consultant or a Maintenance Supervisor. Instinctively, we all want to show our great results, that we should be hired on the spot, but no one works in a vacuum. I like hiring people who know how to work within a team and still shine. Eventually, someone who cannot, will become sullen and will not give credit where credit is due and those people, my friends, are not going to do the team or the company any good in the long run.

Leasing Isn't About Romance; It's About Sex

Leasing is not about romance. Leasing is straight up about sex. You can’t get to the romance stage, the stage of wondering if this person is The One, the complement to you, your better half, unless you have the innate, insanely physical, wonderfully blissful chemical attraction. That’s sex, baby, an unadulterated, raw, feral passion.

Leasing has been compared to dating lately, but I am wondering when the last time most of you have been on the dating scene. That’s all changed since some of you married, even five years ago. Once you are married, your priorities change; they evolve.  When’s the last time you went on a date?

Gone are the days where the guy sees a girl and asks her for her phone number, waits politely until Monday and then calls and asks her to a Friday night dinner and a movie. Gone are the days where he arrives on time, rings the doorbell, perhaps brings flowers, and helps her on with her coat, opens the car door, and demonstrates impeccable manners at all times. Nowadays, people meet in groups and travel in packs. People see someone in the group they are interested in and casually start conversations. This may lead to a hook-up long before it leads to dinner. This may happen many times, or may happen only once. He may go to her place and end up sneaking out at some point leaving her to wonder if he will call, or thanking her lucky stars he had a condom. Dating may be frequent and there may be plenty of online chats, texts and Skype chats which may lead to online intimate moments that would never have happened in the fifties! And guess what? Ladies often pay their own way. Girls still confide in their friends and guys still share info, too – info gotten from Google. Yeah, expect that your “facebook friend” will have googled you at some point. Dating is typically very casual these days. This is not to say it can’t or won’t lead to a long term relationship. That may be the end game; but the short term goal seems to be most likely: finding someone to have fun with without a commitment.

Translate that to our Leasing Consultants and their jobs. Compare that to a few of the Top 40 songs out there and redirect your Leasing Teams to lease like it is 2014. You can take any song playing on the radio, on your ipod, through your Beats headphones and apply it to leasing (property management.) Often when we work with new hires or send our veterans to training seminars, we are looking for new ideas for touring, tools to speed up our application processes, and new ideas for resident retention. All great things! But, I truly believe it goes back to the basics.

Maps by Maroon 5: “I’m following the map that leads to you.” Leasing consultants must be able to give correct and accurate directions. You don’t want your Prospect whom you’ve been chatting online with for the last two days to not know how to get to you or how to find the Apply Online button on your website.

All About That Bass by Meghan Trainor: First, the most important thing is for leasing consultants to be real and dress for their body type. “Every inch of you is perfect from the bottom to the top.” Second, quit using photos from when your property and models were brand new. Quit “working that Photoshop!” People feel cheated when the current product is not shown.

Blurred Lines by Robin Thicke featuring Pharrell & T.I.: Not suggesting sleeping with the Prospect; however, there is every reason to let the Prospect know that you know he “wants it” (the apartment) and that you certainly do “want it” (the lease) and flaunt that instant happy connection you felt when he walked through the door. Just for the record, wearing cut offs that leave nothing to the imagination is a No-No. Wearing a super smile, displaying interest in his needs and wants and meaning what you say can be intoxicating to a Prospect.

Taylor Swift’s Shake It Off: Even Superstars can have off days. “Players gonna play, play, play. Haters gonna hate, hate, hate. I’m just gonna shake, shake, shake. Shake it off!” You can’t win everyone who walks through your door or sends you an online lead, but with the right amount of charm and sincerity, you can capture the bulk of them!

Once that lease has been signed, sealed and filed, the next phase happens. In dating, this is known as a Booty Call. In property management, it is known as the after-hours call to emergency maintenance. And, this my friends, is where the love begins. There is nothing more wonderful for a resident than to want someone RIGHT THAT MINUTE and have her every desire fulfilled when SHE NEEDS it. Think about it. The phone rings in the middle of the night. The on-call technician picks up his phone. It’s her! He dresses and speeds over to her apartment. She opens the door, so relieved he’s here! That allows the love to ignite and grow from a professional one to a more personal one. That happens first with Sam Smith’s Stay With Me and cemented with his Latch. Ahhhh, the perfect song for resident retention!

Am I Wrong (Nico & Vinz)?