To my Regional Community Managers,
A Leader’s Task: Motivate Others to WANT to do what Needs to be Done; Okay but HOW?
1. You owe it to your Residents: We all want to receive Quality, to experience exemplary Customer Service: “Become the Change You Seek”, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”.
2. You owe it your fellow Team Members: If you do not give your best, someone else must pick up the slack.
3. You owe it to yourself: “Life is one indivisible whole”; you cannot call in your performance at work and then magically morph into a higher performer in other areas of your life. We are all Leaders; it is the Duty of Leader to be Good Teachers; high performance Role Models. As coaches we are instilling the work habits of a lifetime; we must not fail!
4. You owe it to future generations: In the finally analysis, how we perform as individuals determines how we perform as a nation.
Matrix for Community Walks Triage: Easy to Look With Out Seeing!
Make a Checklist and Look for the Following:
1. True Life Safety Concerns: Protect residents, while avoiding the “chicken little syndrome”.
2. Material Asset Preservation: Halt any current deterioration, Prevent future deterioration.
3. Quality of Life/Marketing Opportunities: Is the asset Crisp, Clean, Maximizing Curb Appeal.
4. Within Categories, Prioritize According to Best Cost/Benefit Ratio: Maximum Benefit for the least cost; look for Low/No dollar activities.
5. Capital Expenditures: Avoid the temptation to use capital expenditures as your way out of problems. Instead focus on behavioral changes, raising the standard, cultural norms, better blocking and tackling, increasing. motivation and engagement – remember “So Easy When You Want to; So Hard When You Don’t”.
6. Community Walk Emails: Avoid sending community walk emails that over whelm or are beyond the scope of the Community Manager. In effect, it can “teach” on-site Team Members to ignore issue. If they ignore some issues, gives them license to ignore more.
7. Resource Allocation: While true life safety concerns are the same for all assets; available resources vary greatly from affordable assets to high-end assets (mainly because the return on those resources vary). Understanding this requires an educated, discerning eye.
Community Manager/Rental Manager & The NET RENTAL REVENUE Concept
Think about this:
1. Which is better? $100 Rent @ 100% occupancy OR $105 @ 95% Occupancy?
– $100 Rent @ 100% occupancy says we haven’t found the top of the market yet, it could be $10, $20, $50 higher!
– $105 @ 95% gives you the opportunity to rent remaining 5% at higher rents, helps leasing by giving better location choice to new Residents; allows renovation time and if doing upgrades, gives time for outside vendors to work.
2. The Art of Supervision/Task Assignment, Effective Delegation, Proper Staffing Levels
– I have observed a Leasing Specialist reading a novel at their desk, the Community Manager was unaware.
– Impact on Culture: is it de-motivating for Service Team Members s to observe?
– How effective/efficient was Community Manager at Effective Delegation? Supervision? Task Assignment? Over Staffing?
– Failure of Supervision: Yes, the Leasing Specialist should be ProActive; i.e. staying productive with other tasks but primarily it was the Community Manager’s responsibility.
From Nathan S. Collier
As always, I share what I most want/need to learn. – Nathan S. Collier