CLASS Leasing: When It Comes To Marketing, Persistence Is Key

One of the most advantageous ways to increase the amount of traffic being driven to a property is to start at home: auditing the resident files. By figuring out where current residents work, a leasing specialist can begin targeting these business venues, because a leg up is already provided by having the name of an employee at the respective business. The first plan of action should be to make certain that all residents are made aware constantly of the resident referral offered by the community via letter, or some other form of material that can be delivered directly to each resident. Then, there should be multiple attempts made to each targeted business, because it may take many "No's" before a leasing agent is able to gain access to a business to drop materials off. It takes persistence to be able to get-by HR departments, but the potential benefits of driving more traffic to the property are endless.

Here is a direct example of how one of our leasing specialist's, Seth, was able to gain access to three major employers through the use of persistence and continuous face time with a community's residents.

"While on site in Indianapolis I was able to gain access to three major companies: Red & Gold which employs 930, Sallie Mae which employs 1,700, and Nestle which employs 400.
Although it took me a good month to do, it was well worth it. I started out by going through all 175 resident files. Next, I made spread sheet which consisted of the resident’s name, apt #, work information. This allowed me to see where everyone works, and it gave me an idea of where most of our traffic was coming from. I preceded to hand write all of the residents a letter reminding them of our great resident referral program, and then hand delivered each of them.
The next big step was outreach. I went to each Company with a pizza, flyers, pens, and merchant referral cards at least 3 times or more. I was always turned away at the gate by security or some type of personnel. So, I gave all the information to the security personnel, smiled and said, “enjoy the pizza and have a great day!” This made for a great story to tell the employees when they came in to take a tour of the property. I would just say, “I was at nestle today, and that security guard sure does love his job.” This opened the door for conversation with the prospect and allowed me to build a good rapport.
Finally, I made personalized flyers for all three companies and hand delivered them to one resident from each company. Each of the residents took them to their HR departments to see if they could help. While doing this and staying persistent I was able to get flyers and information into all three companies, which will be beneficial for the property in the future."

Well done Seth!

Enjoy!

CLASS Leasing