#75- Ask Barbara Anything - Unengaged Team, Resident Issues, Systems and More!
We put it out there to ask Barbara (me) anything and here are the answers to your burning questions!
I'm excited about this week’s episode because we're doing a rapid-fire question and anwer. I've compiled a bunch of apartment community challenges/questions submitted from our free membership, trysproutfree.com, and on Instagram. So many good questions! I picked out a few and here are my answers in an off-the-cuff style- like we’re just two friends hanging out and having a cup of coffee. So watch, listen or read below!
Here’s a glance at this episode…
>> [01:05] - Customer Service Decline
>> [04:10] - Teamwork
>> [05:53] - Resident Event Ideas
>> [07:45] - Social Media Content
>> [11:20] - Developing Your Best Practices
>> [14:40] - Engaging Tenants
>> [16:40] - Favorite Book Recommendations
>> [21:05] - How to Create Killer Systems
Challenge #1: Declined Customer Service
So the first challenge is from Sandy and she says their customer service has declined. It’s declined for a couple of reasons and specifically, since the pandemic, they are short-staffed which is increasing the workload for the current staff. And she also has two new hires that don't have the same drive and work ethic as her former team. Sound familiar? Sandy, I feel for you because I am seeing that everywhere, absolutely everywhere. And all of my friends that I talk to, whatever industry they're in, they're seeing it. I'm experiencing it as a customer. So I want you to, first of all, know you're not alone.
I love the fact that Sandy cares enough because customer service is so important- it’s a differentiator. It's why someone is going to pick you versus someone else. One of the things to remember is, it starts back in hiring. We have to be really careful about who we hire, and who we allow to be on our team. And I know it's not always realistic to wait it out, but sometimes I think it is better to wait it out than to hire the wrong candidate. And I would say as a property manager, I would look at your capacity and prioritize what you can stretch out. What are some things that we can loosen our deadline on or lower our expectations on during this small period of time, in order to hold out and try to find the best team member?
Sometimes you are handed a group of people and they may not necessarily be the best fit. So when it comes to new hires, not having the same drive or work ethic, a rally of the team has to happen. As a property manager, it’s so important to regularly have meetings as a team to talk about the vision for the community and then individually, one on one, finding out what motivates, appeals, and what drives people- it's different for everyone. You might have someone that really needs a lot of praise and validation so when they're doing something that you can high-five- make sure to share that and really highlight it. There's going to be others that have family obligations, kids to pick up, etc, and the most important thing for them is the ability to leave on time. So how can you honor or facilitate them? “Hey, I know this is important to you…” As a team set the stage for everyone to pull their own weight, to really rally together so that those things that are most important, can be had most of the time.
Also, set the example for great customer service. When you see somebody really do an awesome customer service experience, make a big deal about it in the next meeting or even stop and highlight it on the spot, “Hey, go take a 15 minute break. I want to treat you to some Sonic/Starbucks/local treat just because what you did was just so exceptional.” Let your team see your on-the-spot reward and everyone will learn what you want to see more of.
Challenge #2: Teamwork and value in their work
Kimberly shared something similar to Sandy in that her challenge is needing to encourage teamwork and instill value in their work. So again, I think this is a lot about getting to know each other (see above about regular team meetings and one-on-one meetings). On our Sprout Team, we've had a lot of fun doing personality tests, like the Enneagram or the Myers & Briggs, and then sitting as a group and talking about it. Just taking the test yourself might give you insights on yourself, but you really have to share that information as a team so everyone can get to know each other. “Hey, here's how I like to learn… Here's how I like to communicate... Here's what's important to me... Here are my frustrations.”
There's a book called Radical Candor that allows you to learn how to speak freely, both when giving positive feedback and also constructive criticism. And it's not always easy to be clear on our expectations and avoid beating around the bush. As a property manager, I would look and ask myself these questions:
Am I being clear in my expectations?
Am I giving regular feedback?
Am I rewarding and validating when the effort is there?
Am I tolerating things I shouldn’t be?
Once a team member sees that you’re lax on someone because you're desperate to have them there, it's easy for them to want to stop showing up. Or if you keep giving your best employees so much work because they're the best, they'll eventually burn out.
So really pause and say, “How are we working together as a team? And how can we help each other out?” Things are changing so quickly on-site, that regular team meetings are a must. Having a Monday morning meeting, a quick little meet-up in the morning, and having a weekly wrap-up to go over what went well, what didn't, and how can we tackle it differently the next week will really help with teamwork and accountability.
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Challenge #3: How to come up with events that residents will enjoy
Elizabeth is having a hard time coming up with events that residents will enjoy. First of all, Elizabeth, I encourage you to watch the episode we put out every month that shares the latest resident event ideas from our magazine, SprouthMonthly. Make sure you're subscribed to trysproutfree.com and you'll get a copy of that digital magazine that you can flip through and get a lot of great ideas. I'd also say to look on Pinterest for events for the month and look at party ideas in general and then see how you can tweak them for your apartment community. Sprout has really taken the hard work out of it and provided ideas already tailored explicitly for Multifamily in the SproutMonthly issue every single month.
Leisha wants student living resident event ideas, specifically. My tip? Students are usually pretty vocal about what they like and what they don't. So poll them on Instagram, ask them on TikTok, or get engagement by asking them to submit their ideas. Just ask and see, “would you rather do this or would you rather do that?” You could even have an old-school jar where they drop in their ideas and every month you make a big deal out of the different ideas submitted and then let them pick one, or look at them ahead of time to reveal the winning event idea and who submitted it.
For September, we’re showcasing a dreamy sidewalk chalk event. This would be perfect for student housing. It’s not your regular sidewalk chalk event- it’s got a “head in the clouds” theme. You start by drawing big dreamy clouds and then asking your residents to fill in their dreams- either a list or to draw them out. Another idea is a sidewalk chalk contest. You would definitely want to include parameters, or reminders, on what’s appropriate and what’s not, but I see students really liking things like this. Last idea- your classic summer blowouts are always fun. Once again, our monthly podcast episode and SproutMonthly magazine will always have some ideas that will work for student living.
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Challenge #4: What and when to Post on Social Media
Download our Social Media Checklist for free at trysproutfree.com
Veronica needs some social media help: what, when, and how often to post. Social media content can be very challenging. I'm a big fan of themes and bucketed lists. Basically, you need a nice healthy mix of outreach marketing posts (posts that are going to get leads versus retention posts) and posts that continue to sell your community to your current residents. We have a great social media checklist that gives you those ideas at trysproutfree.com.
Some of my favorites are regularly posting testimonials and things around the neighborhood. While you're out and you're picking up lunch or you're getting your nails done (and it's close by to the community), create posts around that. Hello location marketing! We also love to do posts where you showcase an amenity, but with somebody using it. You can also highlight pictures from past events- it doesn’t always have to be content that was created that day. This is where batch content comes in- create a good amount of content and keep it on your phone camera roll so you're ready to post.
How often should you post? That really depends on what can you manage and how engaged you can get your community to be. Sometimes we set very unrealistic standards, but what we truly want is consistency. I had somebody ask me, “should I be posting three times a day?” And I thought, man, if you have that much time, go for it. So really, ask yourself, “what can I sustain?” If you're on Instagram or TikTok, the videos, reels, and quick content are very popular. So even getting snippets of different things happening around your community and doing a mashup of those with pictures and videos. For example, a mashup that shows our fitness-friendly lifestyle or everything around the neighborhood and using the hashtags that are good for your local community. I definitely invite you to check out trysproutfree.com to get that social media checklist worksheet and it will help you create a posting calendar. And then for our paid members, we also have caption templates, pre-done videos and reels that you can easily customize yourself for your apartment community.
Alyssa is currently in charge of social media and struggling to find things to talk about. She says, “I'm a new leasing agent and I want to learn all the things.” Alyssa, it’s amazing that you are new and you're taking on this challenge! As mentioned above for Veronica, create those buckets and look for content that you can regularly share. Examples:
Welcome new residents
What's going on in the neighborhood
Testimonials
Different apartment features
Huge tip: Don't just post features. If you're showcasing a kitchen, really bring it to life. How does that kitchen translate into allowing you to feel like a master chef in your own kitchen? How does a patio help you to unwind and get that peace and calm at the end of a stressful day? How does your location relate to the fact that you're not going to be stuck in an hour of traffic? What does that do for your mental health? What does xyz amenity really give the person? What is the feeling that they're going to get by having it? So you have to become a master artist at painting the lifestyle.
Challenge #5: How to develop your team's best practices
We kind of hit on that at the beginning and I’ll emphasize it again: lead by example, but also develop your team regularly by pulling someone in. For example, you've got a leasing agent and you want them to take a lead in dealing with resident complaints. After you have had one of those tough resident conversations, if it went well or not, invite that specific employee into your office. Let's say her name is Sheila and say, “Hey Sheila, I just had this conversation with Mrs. So-and-so. She was upset about this. Here's how I handled it. What do you think I could have done better? How would you have handled it?” The benefits:
It’s a real-life teaching opportunity,
You lead the example in always wanting to learn more,
Your employees learn that you're looking to learn from them as well,
It allows you to hear their thought process.
I think that's really important. You’ll be able to notice little weaknesses and opportunities at the same time. So, you're noticing that Sheila has a really nice way with words and she could really diffuse some situations. She's not completely trained in fair housing though and that could get her into trouble. This is the perfect way to get her some fair housing training and also involved in resident conversations.
Also, try inviting your team to keep a log, maybe a Google doc, that's a running sheet for the week of frustrations and challenges. It could include things that they didn't know how to handle or things they want to learn from. Then, you can pull from that list and make it part of your training. “Okay guys, we’ve got three different scenarios that happened. How could we make our process a little bit simpler? How could we make things a little bit easier for our residents? Is our language not clear? Why are we having this issue over and over again?”
It's also just as important to make a big deal about it when you see something done really well. So if you have a way to celebrate your team, or in the next meeting bring it up, “Hey, the other day Sheila dealt with Mrs. So and So in a potentially challenging situation. She could have lost her cool. She dealt with it so well. Sheila, please share a little bit about that.” Let them relive what they did in their own words and talk about what made something successful or not.
Send your team out to shop other industries (not just the competition). They'll see and learn what they like and what they don’t like. “Okay guys, this weekend, everywhere you go- to the bank, to the grocery store, etc., pay attention to the things that make you feel really good, good customer service experiences, and also negative customer service experiences. Let’s share the best and worst next week.”
Last thing is, I like themes. You guys know that, so even have themes in weekly training. For example: “This week we're going to be focused on our closing. Let's see how many good closes we can come up with- everybody share on Monday or Wednesday. And we'll talk about them and we'll make a cheat sheet that we can all pull from.” So again, collaborative training, not making it, “Hey, let's sit down for this official training”. It’s all about being hands-on and getting them excited and letting them know that you are a learner too.
Challenge #6: How to be more engaging with tenants
Next question. “As a PM, I would like to be more engaging with tenants." First, where do you feel that you're lacking- is it time, energy, maybe both? Then, it starts small. “Hey, today, I'm going to have a really meaningful engagement with ONE resident.”
So even if it takes me out of what I'm doing, I'm going to stop and really engage. When you think about engaging with 50 residents in a day, meaningfully, it can be overwhelming. But when you think that you could engage with one resident and have a meaningful interaction over a month period, if you work five days a week, that's 20 residents that you've had one small, meaningful interaction with.
I also look for ways to take a personal interest. “Hey, you know, I love your blouse. Where did you get that?” Or “How are you doing? What's been going on? What did you guys do this weekend?” Find those little connection points and then really listen to the reply. Even for myself, when I post something personal on social media, it's amazing, the connections. I have people who make sourdough bread and we now talk about making our bread together. I have people who love to garden, and so now we talk about that. The more you get to know these little nuances about your residents, what they're excited about, for example: “Oh, I got a new job that I'm looking forward to,” or “my kid's about to graduate” or “I'm looking for a new job.” Then, when you see them next and you say, “Hey, how's the job hunt going?” Or, “Hey, how did the graduation go?” Those are things that people remember.
If you have a team, you guys can make a theme this week, let's all make one resident smile each day and at the end of the day let's post it on our dry-erase board. Mrs. So and So smiled when I complimented her …. and So and So just had a new baby. And then as a team, you're bringing a lot of information to the table and it's so cool to get to know your community. And everyone is focused on bringing a smile to your residents’ faces.
Question #7: What are your favorite book recommendations?
If you want to build good habits and if you want your team to build good habits, doing a book club as a team can be a lot of fun. Keep it simple- like a chapter a week or a chapter every two weeks and then talk about it as a team.
I love High Performance Habits: How Extraordinary People Become That Way by Brendon Burchard. He says a lot of things that just need to be said to a team about hard work and what is expected. When you can read a book together and talk about it together, you can build on that. Hey, where are areas that you want to work on? Where are you really excelling? So I love this book for that.
When it comes to habits, this is by far one of my favorites: Tiny Habits: The Small Changes That Change Everything by BJ Fogg. So it's called tiny habits and that is what it is- how to change behaviors with really small changes. You can put on a lens of how can I make changes myself, and also how can I create change in our team? This book will help you see how to do that.
The other book that I love on habits, is like a staple, I read it at least once a year: Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones by James Clear.
If you want to get better at selling, closing, and leasing, Daniel Pink To Sell Is Human: The Surprising Truth About Moving Others. One of the best books that I've ever read on sales and that doesn't feel like a sales book. Basically, it talks about how to embrace selling as not being this ick factor but basically viewing it as an influence. We're influencing people on things that we believe are really good and we’re helping them find them.
This one, Tools Of Titans: The Tactics, Routines, and Habits of Billionaires, Icons, and World-Class Performers by Tim Ferriss has little nuggets of wisdom from tons of people that he influenced. Here is a quote that I've highlighted (you guys know I'm a highlighter of books): “What if I could only subtract to solve problems?” So we asked ourselves, “what should we simplify as a test?” Well, we eliminated roughly 70% of the clickable elements on our homepage, focusing on the single most valuable click conversions, and immediately improved it by 21.1%. That quick and dirty test informed us of things we could instantly improve on and even had an influence on later decisions for much more expensive development. Sometimes I rephrase it as, “what should I put on my NOT to-do list. You can pick this book up and read it in any kind of order. I've gotten so many good tips. It's like getting a mentorship from people that have excelled in all areas of their life, but you're getting to pull out their best tips.
The last ones are classic and it's Dale Carnegie's lifetime plan for success. How to Win Friends & Influence People and How to Stop Worrying and Start Living. It's an old-fashioned book and it's so good. The title is a little cheesy to me, but it is not a cheesy book at all.
A couple more:
The ONE Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth About Extraordinary Results by Gary Keller and Jay Papasan
Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman. I recommended it recently to Mike Brewer and he came back and really liked it too.
Challenge #8: How do you create killer systems?
Any tips or suggestions on creating killer systems? Yes, absolutely. When it comes to our business, Lauren is actually the queen bee of creating killer systems. And I've learned a few things from her. I am more of the queen bee of pinpointing things that are not working and saying, “Hey, we need to find a solution.” That's part of my skill set. And she's great at finding the solution and implementing it.
One of my favorite quotes is, “ you've got to slow down to speed up” meaning if you're going a thousand miles an hour all the time, you’ll never stop to evaluate your systems and see what's working and what's not. So to me, slowing down is a huge one.
Google Drive. I love Drive because everyone can access it. Spend some time setting up your folders- put some thought into it from the beginning. So an example would be a marketing folder that would include community logos (all different resolutions/layouts), a brand book, marketing collateral files, your brochures, your business cards, your sales sheets, a list with all of your providers, all your training materials. I'd also save templates for emails that you write frequently and have a templates folder for different types of follow-up. I’ve heard it said, if you cannot find something in five minutes, you don't own it. If you're spending time to find something, you need a system to back it up.
The other thing I would say is keeping a frustrations list. This has been one of my favorite things to do. People think it's kind of morbid, but I don't care because it works for me every week. I keep a list of frustrations and I do it for personal and for professional frustrations. So personal, it could be that I forgot X at the grocery store and I had to go back for one thing. So frustrating, right? So what that does for me is I've created a grocery list that I take with me and it has the things that I get all the time. So I review that before I leave the store and ask, did I miss anything? And I'm always adding to it, but at least I know the basics. Now, for work it might look like, this employee couldn't handle this task because I haven't trained them yet. So the next time I'm doing that task, I might record a loom video, which is a free service where you can record your face and your screen. I'm actually using it to record this podcast today. And then you can send a link to your employee(s) for them to watch your screen as you’re doing something. It's so much better for them to actually see you doing it. Have a library of video trainings or written google docs created by whoever does certain things in a step-by-step process.
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I hope you enjoyed these. If you'd like to submit a question, look out for my question box on Instagram, send me a DM, submit to hello@watchyourbusinesssprout.com or when you sign up at trysproutfree.com, fill out that form and let me know: What is your biggest challenge? I'd love to just hang out and help you solve it. Even though we might be many miles away, I want it to feel like we're just sitting next to each other or across from each other. Have a great week. I'll see you next week!
Links we mentioned in this episode: