Give an Old Sales Question a New Twist

Sometimes it’s good to shake up old norms and try something new.

“Where else have you looked?” or “Where are you planning on looking?” are questions commonly utilized as a means of determining which communities a client may be comparing ours to. They're good questions that will provide important insight...if apartments are all the client is considering. A better one might be, “What other options are you considering?”

Iconoculture reports on a post in Economist’s Outlook this week the share of adults under 35 living at home with Mom and Dad, especially among those age 25-34, is at the highest level since 1981, (a very long time ago - I know), at over 30%. The historical average is under 28%.

Since there are over 70 million young adults age 18 to 34 living in the US, that means somewhere around 21 million young people are living at home. Who knows how many more are considering the option, as it becomes more and more socially acceptable to do so, even into one’s 30‘s.

Think about it - options might include Mom and Dad’s basement, moving in with a girlfriend, or staying put. If you are competing with Mom and Dad’s basement, low rent and home cooking, you’ll want to build value in your community by highlighting the freedom and independence your client will enjoy.

For those that are already there, it seems likely that Junior may be getting tired of living in the basement, and even likelier that Mom and Dad may be getting tired of Junior. Maybe not, but the lifestyle benefits renting offers to both Junior, (and Mom and Dad), might be just the ticket.

On the flip-side, if your demographic is primarily 18 to 34, understand that this option is one your residents may be considering rather than renewing their lease. As it becomes increasingly socially acceptable to return to the nest for an extended period of time, and generally cost effective to do so, you may essentially find yourself competing with Mom and Dad’s basement for the renewal. Increased focus on freedom and the lifestyle opportunities renting offers will be critical to keeping this demographic.

Before selling (or reselling) anything, find out who you are really competing with - what other options are being considered?

Color - A Lesson Worth Learning

Smart marketers know the power of color. More difficult, is knowing how to utilize color to create the right impact.

I came across a fabulous tool today from journalism site Poynter.org that vividly and interactively demonstrates color theory and how to use it effectively through examples and exercises. (What this means is, you get to play!) I learned about the power of color, creating impact, after effects, how colors react when surrounded by others, and a plethora of other useful and interesting
information. I even got to design a number of my own pages, and see how different color pairings affect overall mood and impact.

Time to get busy and learn something. For your own color mood and meaning lesson, click here.

Say It and Believe

It's no secret that internal dialogue often influences the way people motivate and shape their behavior. Years back, I was inspired by a motivational speaker that encouraged self-affirmations on a daily basis. “I like myself” he encouraged us to say in the mirror, “I’m a GREAT salesperson!” So I did. And every time I did, I found myself chuckling. It made me feel, well, sort of foolish, dopey and, yes I will say it, good all at the same time. As a young trainer, I encouraged my pupils to do the same. I received relentless flack, from video spoofs to teasing, to an endless variety of pranks targeting the “I like myself!” affirmation. For each I laughed and took it all in stride, because, frankly, it is sort of funny to self proclaim how great you are.

The thing is, it works. Now I’m not saying that if you say “I am going to have a million dollars” every day for a year you will. You might, but the real point of self-affirmations (from my very un-clinical perspective) is how they make you feel. Nobody doubts that if I internally declare myself a bad person on a daily basis, that sooner or later I will most likely start to believe it. So why not the other way?

My former colleague Stasia Vishnevsky sent me this video yesterday, and all I have to say is, this is the kind of person I want on my team. When you yell, “Can we do it?” you can bet she is going to yell back, “Yes we can!”

Enjoy. Then get in front of the mirror and say a little something nice to yourself. If nothing else, you’ll get a good chuckle.

A Way to Make Storage All About You

I came across an interesting twist on the self storage concept today, and just had to share.

Storagebymail.com offers free round-trip shipping to a centralized warehouse where your boxes are kept until you need them back. All you have to do is download a label (they even have an app for that), schedule a USPS carrier pickup and pack your boxes. That’s it. The price is $29 per month for 5 boxes, $49 for 10.

Easy breezy. Somebody else does all the work. Convenient. And a new solution to that old objection, “not enough closet space”.

Take a peek. They’ve taken the U Store It concept and truly made it all about you.
Let me know if you have tried this service and what you think.

Goals that Get Them There

We all know that goals should not be determined for salespeople, (trans: leasing professionals), rather, with them. If you set the goal, it is your goal, not theirs. The question is, how do you set a goal that isn't a no-brainer, yet not so aggressive it is nearly impossible to meet?

When establishing goals with your leasing professional, ask this first -

“What number do you know for sure you can hit?” Then wait. The leasing professional will respond with a number. Here is the key. They will most likely respond lower than what they know they can do. It’s human nature. They want to hit the goal.

In this case, let’s say they say “9 leases”. Since you know this is probably a little less than what you know can be accomplished, and dependent on community variables, you might add 2 and then throw on 2 more for a total of 13.

Then say, “Since we know you can hit 9, how does 13 sound for a goal? If you hit 13, your bonus will be xxx over what if would be at 9. Do you think you can do it?”

If they say “yes”, it is their goal and they own it. If they say “yes with conditions”, hear the conditions, and, if they are reasonable, summarize and take it home by saying something like, “If I am hearing your correctly, you are saying that as long as we have ready product to show, and something available to lease, you feel confident you can hit 13 this month. If I make sure that happens, can we agree to 13? Excellent.”

Remember, effective sales is not just about the salesperson's performance, external forces can impact success. Deliver on your end, and hold your salespeople accountable to deliver on theirs.

Easy Adaptions to Aging-in-Place

I just finished reading an article in USA Today on aging-in-place remodels for boomers that are getting to be “the age” where a few modifications can be a big assistance to staying put in the golden years, and have to say, when I saw the list of most popular aging-in-pace updates, compiled by our friends at NAHB, I thought, “Some of these are an absolute no-brainer, they’re so easy to implement.”

A percentage of projects remodelers have done in the last year to be able to age-in-place: (For a complete aging-in-place checklist, click here.)

Grab bars 78%
Higher toilets 71%
Wider doorways 57%
Added lighting/task lighting 45%
Non-slip flooring 20%
Easy to read thermostats 13%

They’ve got the numbers, stability and spending power...make a few easy adaptions to meet their needs and you’ll uncovered a unique marketing niche, or you may discover you keep a resident you otherwise might have lost.

A Gift of Optimism

I grew up in a small town in Wisconsin full of hardy German citizens. The winters, particularly “back in the day” were long and unyielding, generally starting in mid-November and ending in April. (To provide some perspective to warm weather inhabitants, it was nothing for my Dad to warm up the car for 20 minutes before we ventured out.) That’s a lot of cooped-up in-house time for a kid...and a mother. The minute the thermometer hit 20, Mom mummified my sisters and I in wool scarves and snowsuits and sent us outside to play, deaf to our pleas to be let in because “we were so cooooldddd!”. We built snow forts, made snow angels, threw snowballs and...we survived to enjoy a hot bowl of chicken noodle soup for lunch. The people in my hometown would declare, after hearing this story, “That’s good for you. Toughens you up.” I would agree, and add that it also develops a sense of optimism.

A Wisconsin winter can include weeks of nothing but gray weather and dirty snow. Very depressing stuff, yet most of the people I know from the area possess an incredible sense of humor and a wonderfully optimistic attitude. They know how to persevere. I would imagine, though I have never lived it, the people in a state that survives hurricane after hurricane are much the same way. Perseverance breeds optimism.

Being optimistic, in the typical sense of the word, ultimately means one expects the best possible outcome from any given situation. Optimists generally emerge from difficult circumstances with less distress than do pessimists. They seem intent on solving challenges head on, taking active and constructive steps to solve their problems - as if they know, “this too shall pass.”

A client of mine, Jim Schloemer, CEO of Continental Properties, shares my hometown. During a recent session, he approached me and told me how his mother, every single morning, even on the grayest and coldest of Wisconsin days, would walk into his room throw open the drapes and say, “Good morning, Jim, it’s a beautiful morning and time for you to rise and shine and show the world all that you can be!“ While not as poetic, my mother would prance in, flip the shades and sing, “Rise and Shine!” in the most cheery of voices. My conclusion; a positive outlook was bred in us to the point we became inherently optimistic through repetition and practice. We laughed as we confessed to using the same tactics on our own children. And, much as I hated the sound of that shade rolling up then, I now remember it fondly.

A more simplistic time, perhaps, without the daily barrage of bad tidings so abundant and easily accessed today. Will things ever get better? Of course they will. Change is inevitable. The important thing is to stay cheerful and know that tomorrow is another day, and even if it’s gray, it’s a beautiful opportunity to show the world what you can do. Imagine, if just for a day, every person you knew, actually lived that. We’d be unstoppable.

Happy Christmas to all!