"... Even though we know you won't."

What can we do when the pool isn't cooperating with our plans?
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The takeaway from the convention is conversation and connection.
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What's on top of your cone?
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That's right... just SIX DOLLARS!

Also, did you know they made pickle Popsicles? The things you learn from FoodTV...
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5 quick ideas to maximize your greatest summertime asset: Your Pool!
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A totally personal entry about banned books- Not property management related in the slightest.<< MORE >>

I do the site vists and bring the cool stuff I see back home with me!
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I thought I was brand loyal. Turns out, I'm customer service timing loyal.
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It's all about the cookie
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Are you ready for the new Carbon Monoxide Detector Law in WA State?
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So, what exactly DO you believe in?
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A list of blogs I'd recommend anyone check out for new multifamily thoughts and happier leasing!
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Twitter's applications are endless! Here's one more to add to your lists of reasons to reach out and tweet out!
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Thank you so much for coming to see me at the Education Conference! If you missed my presentation, you're still welcome to the slides and information. I hope that your onsite teams find these slides and resources helpful!  Remember, When we connect, We retain!
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Are you a leasing litter bug? You might not even know it!
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Sometimes the old ways are the right way... just jazz it up with the new technology!
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A moment to show off some of my recent marketing efforts
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The grey space in myspace
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A great quote for your wall of great quotes. And if you don't have a wall of great quotes, you need to start one!
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Not 99 Red Balloons(sorry Nena!), but something even better! Some helpful suggestions to make your balloons POP!
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Are you making the best use of those note cards in your drawer?
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Fair Housing Signage "Whoopsie!" in the Seattle Area!
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Essex leads the big boys in social media community building!
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You must be THIS organized to sit behind the leasing desk...
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Some cold day ideas to heat up your resident retention!
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Who's got internal team conflict? Raise your hands... and read this post! :)
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I love a good deal, and so does everyone else. Make them use their scissors for your move in special this weekend!
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A few marketing banners I wish I could see out there!
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140 Characters made me feel special!
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3 great resources to resident retention<< MORE >>

Cutting your budget a little, up your resident retention and go green all in the same step!

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Trying to sell by screaming in someone's ear all day works about as well as trying to get to the bottom of the ocean without an oxygen tank. Either way, at the end of it, you're dead in the water.<< MORE >>

A $50 resident retention idea from the community I live in!<< MORE >>

Let's face it - Sugar sells, and not just to people under the age of 10.




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Where Microsoft and fish tending meet...<< MORE >>

I wrote this piece for our January newsletter, and I really liked the ideas, so I wanted to share them with everyone else out there, even if they weren't on our property mailing list!  Enjoy!<< MORE >>

If you learn only one thing about me as a person, I ask that it be the indisputable fact that I am an Insatiable and  Voracious reader.  After being raised by a librarian, I feel like a piece of me is starving if I don't have my nose in a book at least once a day.  Alan swears that I keep my local branch of Half Price Books in business with my quenchless vice.  And I think I'm okay with that.  I can stimulate my brain AND the economy in one fail swoop.

This is a list of the books I have read during 2008 and eventually, I hope it will include a short review of each as well.  Enjoy!
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If you've ever wondered why no one listened to your new ideas...<< MORE >>

The math just isn't in our favor right now, folks. Maybe we need a new formula for success.<< MORE >>

As a young child, I had an English teacher who was obsessed with what she called, "the verb words," because they were active and led to more and more action in writing.  She used to make us stand up and act out all the verb words in our papers when we read them to the class.  I liked the writing part of that class, but the acting out "verb word" madness not so much.  I was the fat kid, you understand.  But what I did take away from that teacher is the importance of action, not only in our writing but also in our doing.<< MORE >>

Plant some seeds now to grow some awesome groups and resident retention in the future!<< MORE >>

So, how much are YOUR two bedrooms?<< MORE >>

I'm a hippie at heart. In third grade, I decided that ecology was cool and have pretty much been hooked on saving the dolphins and trees ever since. I didn't know it was science until I was way too far sucked in to decide it was too hard to understand. Science is sneaky that way. But, to me, dolphins and trees are totally worth it.<< MORE >>

I'm going to need to know where doggy day care is, where a good hair stylist is, and where I can buy a new toaster.<< MORE >>

Olfactory Demonology and how it can help you sell.<< MORE >>

Unconventional pets on your property?<< MORE >>

Where IS your good talent going?
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Kicking up the carpet cleaning another notch!
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How Human Resources departments can teach us resident retention
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How NOT to entice my people to work for you!
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Where rock climbing and throwing resident functions meet, and how to get over the mountain of both
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Exploring the reasons why I hate the C word!
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Upping resident retention and renting numbers tweet by tweet!
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Small incentives can be more powerful than the big stuff
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A sweeter sales approach
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The teacher in me speaks up...
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I call Dregs!
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An experiment in getting to the hot buttons
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Stealing marketing ideas from a cup of joe
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I spend a lot of time talking with different property managers these days.  Sometimes I get really awesome gossip, sometimes I get some interesting ideas out in the market today, and sometimes I get either really great feedback or really great complaints.  Either way, I'd say talking with my managers is one of the highlights to my day, even when they're less than happy with me in that particular minute. 

There is a manager that I met a few months ago who is doing something GREAT as a side business that I must shout to the world.  She looked at the properties she had been at and found that while mini models can be a great sales tool there were some definite draw backs to using them.

1.  If they aren't done well then they don't sell anything.  Things have to be artistically laid out so that they do make the room more appealing.  Things have to be clean and not covered in dust and cobwebs (and if you think that there are mini-models out there that aren't like that, you're only fooling yourself)

2. It takes a lot out of a day to run out and buy the supplies for Mini-Models.  No one has extra time on a property.  We're already trying to jam 28 hours into a day as it is, so the thought of making the discount value store run for supplies is the first thing to slip down to the bottom of our to do list.

Michelle is running Dorian Reliable Services and she's selling ready to go mini-model kits.  Brilliant idea!  Everything comes in one box, it takes 10 minutes of your time to set it up and enclosed are several different directions on artistic and design happy ways to set everything in the box up.  Her kits run from $150 for a 1x1 to $225 for a 3x2 and, depending on the kit, she includes supplies to mini-model the bath, kitchen, laundry and closets.  She's just getting off the ground, but has had very good luck so far and her customers seem to be quite pleased with the product and service.

If anyone would like to get in to touch with Michelle, please let me know and I'd be more than happy to make that connection for you.
    
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A few months ago, Lisa Trosien wrote about how Ikea had done a studio apartment in a box stunt that was working out really well.  Before I moved to Seattle, I had heard of IKEA, but I had no idea who they were or what they did.  The Swedish furniture trend has yet to hit it big out there in Kansas... but we're usually about 5 years behind everyone else.  However, in the Seattle metro area, IKEA is HUGE.  They have this large store that you can just utterly get LOST in while you wander through, living the rest of your life on meatballs and sleeping in faux rooms that have the best solutions for storage you can possibly imagine! 

As I was thinking about the section of my training course that discusses overcoming objections, I was listing the most common hurdles that I remember hearing from my days as a leasing consultant.  One of the big ones was STORAGE.  It seems there's never enough storage, no matter where we move to.  Americans are an interesting paradox in this matter because we love our material "stuff" but we also want our homes to look as perfect as the staged rooms in the Better Homes and Gardens magazine.  I am personally VERY guilty of this particular fault, since it is just a dog, my guy and myself, and I still require a home with three bedrooms before I feel happy because things aren't crammed in everywhere.

It occurs to me that IKEA, which as I mentioned is BIG in the Seattle area, is the answer.  As I train them, I'm going to start giving my consultants the latest IKEA catalogs so that when they are asked, "And just where am I going to put my pots and pans?" or "I have way more shoes than that closet can possibly hold!" they have the answer right in front of them.

I honestly don't know why properties don't just start keeping that catalogs in their leasing offices in general.  It sure beats an angry resident who swears the linen closet won't hold a single towel.

Any Thoughts?
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Back in the day, a property manager changed the course of my life.  I know, it's a little dramatic for a starting sentence, but just go with me on this.  You see, at the time, I was in the middle of a 6 month course of chemotherapy for  lymphoma, and I pretty much refused to acknowledge that when one is in treatment, one cannot do all the things that a normal person can do.  I wasn't working at the time (there are perks to having a phenomenal boyfriend who have incredibly marketable computer skills) and I was suffering that variety of boredom and loneliness where you start singing to your dog just because you need someone to talk to.  One day on a break from serenading my dog, Fox, I wandered down to the management office of the community where we were living.  I probably went in to pick up a package, but what ended up happening is that the manager and I got involved in a good long talk, and towards the end of which she told me I had a great personality for property management and offered me a job.

Several flaming HR hoops later, I became a leasing specialist.  All of a sudden, the random skills that I had been gathering for years, and not one of which was anything that someone could base a job off of by itself, pieced themselves together in to this patchwork quilt of an amazing industry that was exactly what I'd been looking for, but had never thought about.

I could do:
Graphics Design
Marketing
Sales
Customer Service
Bookkeeping
Event and Party Planning

and tons more jobs that all rolled together in to this one.  Also, my background in psychology and conflict resolution came in pretty handy, too!  I became kind of a specialist in resident relations and retention, and I was no slouch on the marketing end either.  My real passion, though, is training.  I think that training makes all the difference in the world when it comes to how far someone will go and how committed to a job they can be.

I'd like to think that a lot of people "accidentally" fall in to property management.  And it's not your normal job.  It gets down in your blood.  People either love property management, or they hate it.  For most, there's no middle ground. 

Many of us love to hate it as well, but that's a different story.

Today, I work as a Staffing Facilitator, Recruiter and Trainer for the property management staffing company Career Strategies Inc. out of their new Bellevue, WA office.  I'm now in an amazing position where I can help change the course of
someone else's life the same way that manager changed mine.  And, I do
believe heartily in giving back. 

So that's a little about me.  In a nutshell...I love my job and I love the industry.

And by the way, Kerry Devine, if you're reading this, Thank You!
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