Jillian Fikkert on Earning a Seat at the Table: How Marketing Leaders Build Internal Influence

In this episode, Jillian Fickert of Buckingham Companies joins Anne Baum and Chris Johnson for a practical conversation about what it really takes to make marketing a trusted, strategic function inside a multifamily organization.

They explore how marketing leaders can move beyond the “cost center” label by building credibility through transparency, shared language, and clear performance visibility. Jillian shares specific ways her team creates alignment across marketing, asset management, and operations—and why those relationships matter just as much as the tactics.

You’ll hear about:

• How to reposition marketing as a business driver, not an expense
• Creating standardized budget guides and shared glossaries to reduce friction
• Running inclusive weekly performance calls that bring teams together
• Aligning on shared KPIs to support operational goals
• Breaking down silos to create a more cohesive customer journey

The big takeaway: long-term marketing impact isn’t just about better campaigns—it’s about strong cross-functional relationships, a common understanding of the business, and consistent communication.

If you’re trying to build stronger trust between marketing and operations, this episode offers a clear, actionable starting point.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:02

Hi everyone and welcome to the Apartment Department, the podcast for multifamily marketers by multifamily marketers. My name is Ann Baum. With me as always, my co-host Chris Johnson. And we have a very special guest with us today, Jillian Fickert from Buckingham Companies. It's actually funny, we were just talking before the podcast because Gillian and I were kind of trying to pinpoint like when did we actually meet each other? It might have been 10 years ago, it might have been one year ago. We're not really sure, but that's just how wonderful Jillian is. Once you meet her, you are her friend. And then Chris and Jillian have a similar story. They actually sat next to each other at Zillow Unlock and became fast friends as well. So here we are, full circle, ready to pick Jillian's brain about all of the good things. Specifically, what we're going to talk about today is her experience and success with collaboration and cross-functional communication and how when you do that successfully as a marketing leader, how it really lends itself to better marketing performance and you really shift the view of the marketing department from kind of this support role or maybe cost center to a true contributor to the company. So, Jillian, thank you so much for being here, our old friend. We're so excited.

SPEAKER_02 1:20

Thank you so much for having me. Thank you, Ann and Chris. I agree. It's it's like two old friends here. So I'm excited about this chat and just also hearing both of your thoughts on this topic as well. Because I know it's something as marketing leaders, we're constantly living day to day, and we're trying to create great environments for our teams. So hopefully this will be topical for anybody listening.

SPEAKER_01 1:45

Yeah, I think so. I mean, I think this is kind of the number one question comment that comes up on a regular basis. You know, I want to hire more people, but it's just seen as a cost. How do I shift my purpose? How do I work kind of across the customer funnel? You know, I think we find a lot of times that within companies, kind of each department own almost owns a piece of the customer journey. And so that becomes a really important part of collaboration. So you're at Buckingham Companies, you're the VP of sales and marketing. Tell us about your experience in this topic. Like what success have you seen in making this come to life?

SPEAKER_02 2:26

Yeah, absolutely. So I've been at Buckingham for about two years now, just actually past two years. And I think that this is actually a skill that I've learned across my entire career. And I feel like I'm finally hitting a sweet spot and confident enough to kind of share what I've learned. But it's definitely not something where anyone's going to listen to this conversation and say, oh, Eureka, that's it. That's what I need to do. You need to really kind of figure out what works in your organization with your team members and, you know, kind of figure out where that, where you can get that ever all to gel together. So in past positions that I've had, it's been something that I've struggled with, whether it has been in my multifamily world or previously. I've been in multifamily for about 10 years now. 10 years prior to that, I worked on the retail real estate side and commercial real estate. So all very comparative and same struggles, but I think it's figuring out how to create value and how to show that, like just like you said, we're not just a cost center, we're not just a department that is a support department and you just call us when you have a problem. We want to be included throughout the entire process. But how do you work with your team so that you're not the one consistently trying to insert yourself? Yeah, but they're welcoming you into the conversation. So that's something that I set out in coming into this role and the team members that I work with to make sure that I'm positioning the department in that manner, as well as myself, to be a true partner and not necessarily just an afterthought.

SPEAKER_01 4:08

I think we're gonna have a lot of aha moments after your um, I know what you're saying that like there are so many factors here, right? Like it depends on your organizational structure. It depends on a lot of different factors, but where can we start? Tell us where to start.

SPEAKER_02 4:24

Yeah, so I think that you always need to level set. And one of the first things that I did coming into the organization was creating structure around an area that is so relatable to property management and asset management. And it was truly around budgets. I think that that is something that a lot of us struggle with. Really, every every company is a little bit different, whether marketing takes that piece and builds that out for all of the properties individually, or you're just contributing, however, that looks for you. A lot of times there's a lot of conversation around it. And it's like, you know, you don't need this much. How can we cut this? Or the questions aren't even asked and things are redlined, and you know, you're you're left with a budget come the new year, and you're like, wait a second, I can't even run a campaign with this amount. Like, what are we doing here? Right. So one of the things I think that really helps is level setting. And it takes a lot of work the first go-around, but we we build out our entire budgets for each property and then created a guide that goes hand in hand with those budgets. And before it was even, you know, handed off to anybody on property management. And as we worked through the asset management, it went through every single partner we have, what they do. And when I say what they do, it's a paragraph. What do they do? Very high level. Don't get into you know all of the KPIs and all of the pieces, but just very high level. What is what does this product do and why is it important to our stack? General costs that may vary, but at least to kind of get it to a place there. And then is this a negotiable or non-negotiable? Yep. Right. And that so we built out this entire guide, and then we also created a glossary because I don't know about you guys, but sometimes our team members are just like not using the right term, and you don't you don't always want to correct it. It's like SEO, SEM, uh, PVC. Like we are definitely an industry of lots of letters. And we want to give our teams confidence to be able to kind of speak to some of these things. So we created an entire glossary of terms, and just that alone that year, we were able to kind of circumvent a lot of the conversation of, well, I don't understand why this is this and that is that, and doesn't this do the same thing? And I don't understand. So I think arming people with information that can create some self-service that no one's embarrassed because they're not really sure on what terminology to use. And then also that that layer of like, okay, we can have some conversation around these, but like we're not gonna negotiate cost for what it what it takes to survey our residents, right? Like, so those areas. So I think being able to have everybody have the self-service, have the same information from you know, one source, and then also to get everybody to speak to speak the same language is so important. So I think that that's something, again, it's a heavy lift up front. But then as you move forward, it's updates year to year. And it kind of just gives everybody that tool. So I mean that that's that's the beginnings of where you can start if you don't know where to start.

SPEAKER_00 7:51

Julian, I have to tell you, that's brilliant. And I wish I wish I would have thought of something like that a little bit sooner. I've been doing this a long time as well, and I had never thought about maybe putting it together in that way. I can tell you, I take an approach like you, just for the listeners out there, that was a great tip. Level set, give some definitions. Everybody needs it. I've done the glossary, just not for marketing. Isn't that funny? I've done it for like what you know, terms in real estate and investment and things like that, so that all my team understands what people are talking about, but not going the other way.

SPEAKER_02 8:24

Yeah, don't let me take credit for it. You know, it was someone else's idea that I heard. Then I thought that's that's awesome.

SPEAKER_00 8:31

Can you share your implement the like that's half the battle? It's like you can come up with the idea, but the other half is actually doing it. Something I like to do when I come into an organization is I like to build trust quickly. Yeah, and by that, I if I tell them that I notice something, let's say you're in the process or you're starting that first day or whatever, and I notice this and I want to get it fixed, I go do it and I get it done and I do it at a high level, and I show them what that actually did for us with numbers, KPIs, whatever metric that we're gonna use. But it's the same sort of level setting that you're doing. I do want to mention on budgets because I think it's so important. Everybody speaks budget. I take my budgets so seriously. I spend time on them, they're all separate. I don't have a huge portfolio, so I can get through it. But even when I had larger portfolios, I spent the time, and I'll tell you why. I wanted to go into that meeting, ironclad. You can ask me a question, I have the answer. Why am I spending this much of this community? Here's why, for whatever reason. Same idea, just not written out. I think budgets is a great place to start, or finding a project that you know everybody agrees on websites, new tech stack, AI, opinion, J turner, whatever you're whatever you're using, and really show how you can bring value to improve that. That's amazing.

SPEAKER_02 9:53

I think I think you're right on. And I think that that's where we get caught up a lot of the time and we're questioned a lot. And we can get in our own way with answering those questions because we go down the road of like being so technical, or either so technical or so vague of, hey, yeah, this is really top of funnel. We can't measure it, or here's every analytic ever. And they're like, I don't even know what those letters are. You know, what are these things? Like I gotta find that sweet spot. How do I get everybody to buy into you know what we're doing, show the right KPIs and get people to understand that it is a fruitful, you know, way to spend those dollars. And you know, something that I've also down that road of budgets, we're turning this into a budget talk, but hey, I'm here for it.

SPEAKER_00 10:47

There's other tools. We can get to the other tools. But this is a good no, I think this is a really good spot place to start. And I just want to say one more thing because if you know your budget and you care and you can show where the money is going, and it's not just some dart that you're throwing because you feel like it, or it's not some number that you made up, you're already bringing trust and buy-in because you can explain it and say property A is 300 units and I need X, Y, and Z, and property B is 550 units, so I need X, Y, and Z, and here's Y, you know.

SPEAKER_02 11:16

Mm-hmm. And you know, what I what I also tell my team is that there's gonna be times when we're gonna be asked to cut something and we're gonna be passionate about it, whether it's you know, an SCM budget or whatever that is, especially when it comes to advertising, if things are not going well, then we're going to be asked to spend those dollars anyway. So if this is a pressure test of determining need, then sometimes we have to play that give and take. But at the end of the day, if we need to offset occupancy and loss there, then we're going to be in that space anyway. So maybe that's a reverse lesson for those other departments. But I think it's important. And I think that building these relationships, especially depending on how you're structured, but with asset management, marketing, having a strong relationship with asset management and building that trust is probably the number one relationship that you need to nurture as a marketer today in multifamily. There's so many other hats we wear. We're focused on training, we're focused on technology, we're focused on just day-to-day leasing and property management. But if you do not have a strong relationship with your asset management team, then you're going to struggle.

SPEAKER_01 12:32

Yep. I agree with you. And I think that level setting is interesting too. Um, I think what's nice is oh am I trying? I'm trying to think of my own journey. And so sorry. I'm like, but we have to start very much, we started in a different way. We started from a performance standpoint. But I remember that the reporting was so difficult that we had to start at the portfolio level and really just say, like, in general, here's how we're seeing sources perform across the portfolio. And we started making recommendations there. And luckily now our tools have gotten to a place where we can look at individual properties, individual performance, return on ad spend, all the good things. But you were exactly you're exactly right that that was a good place. Again, we started with performance, and then we started to be able to get ourselves into those budget talks. Um, we did the same thing. We put together individual budgets, we looked at the average kind of renewal rate at each property, how many renewals we thought would come up each month, then how many, of course, would be vacant. So how many of the units would we have to fill? How much budget did we think we would need for each month? I mean, like it was like right, literally like down to the butt. It then we were able to go back to the budgets. They didn't always get followed, and that was okay, but in a time of need, we were then able to go back to the budget and say, like, well, this is what you're at now for this month, this is what we recommended. And so it it made our job easier that way too. And we had recommendations quickly. And so I love okay. So after budget, then what do we do? Tell tell us what's our next step?

SPEAKER_02 14:13

Yeah, so I think that if you are able, and I I just went through this last week, kind of level setting meetings for our department in partnership with property management and asset management. Um, a lot of times while we we touch all of these areas, there's conversations that happen in these rooms that don't necessarily apply to us, but I think it's so important to see the big picture and the struggles there and figuring out how you can make an impact and you know, looking at even, you know, uh I don't know about you, but I don't want to talk about CapEx for, you know, three hours. But when we dive into areas like that, and we can realize that, hey, we have a plethora of information that we're tapping into with reviews and feedback that we're getting and our ability to dive into that and be able to give you analytics around how many people at a property over the past year have given feedback about parking lot lighting and how that can support the project that you want to get in CapEx. And like no one in the room kind of like thinks about how we can utilize some of that data to help support some of these projects when they only have so much that they're able to do. How do you prioritize that? So I think that being able to at least be in the room and be able to jump in and say, hey, you know, you might not have thought marketing could help you with this, but here's some areas that we can provide data to help you make decisions outside of just advertising, positioning, and all of these areas. And I think again, that's another way with facilities and operations and asset management to build that value with us. So it's kind of even when you don't really expect it, you're like, oh, wait a second, let me help.

SPEAKER_00 16:11

Yeah, because we do we seal. I mean, the thing is like as much as people want to say that we're just in the like this creative thing and we're just spending all this money or whatever, like we're seeing the customer feedback firsthand. Um, one thing that I always do, I'm just gonna throw in some ideas too as we're brainstorming. When we're talking about a problem community, the very first thing that I tell my regionals or asset management or whoever what does marketing need to do? Is there anything here that you guys think that I'm missing? Because you're on the ground, your teams are telling you what can marketing do? So I don't even give them a chance to say like marketing needs to do X, Y, and Z. I just ask them, are you happy? Do you think we're getting enough traffic? We'll look at it together. Do you think the traffic is qualified? If it's not, let's figure out why in this week or month or whatever, what's going on, what's the trend? Is there something going on in the submarket? I like to open up the conversation that way to say, like, here, I'm here, I'm here. Let's listen, let's talk about it. And if it's marketing, I raise my hand and say, okay, we gotta do better, we gotta figure out, you know, maybe this that where we're advertising isn't working and we need to think about it. Or maybe we can go dive in the demographics and help you guys with some who's actually living there and go get some ideas for employment preferred programs or something like that, if all if everything else seems to be going well. But that's something I like to do as well. And it sometimes it like people will step back and be like, huh, interesting. Or the first time I remember the first time I ever said why you know, they come to me, go spend more money. I tell them, Do I really need to go spend more money, my more money? Like, I don't want to spend more money just to spend it. Like, yeah, are these dollars gonna go somewhere? Are we answering the phones? Are we doing the things that we need to do to make sure the money is going the right way? And it sh it was kind of shocking when you reverse it on them and just say, like, I don't mind spending money, but I want to also be cognizant of whose money I'm spending.

SPEAKER_02 18:00

Yeah. I think one of the things that I've kind of structured my department around is we're not only focused on the marketing piece, but we're also focused on the sales process. And while we can kind of come up with overall strategy and advertising and all of those things and how we're going to position the property at the end of the day, if the property team is not managing those leads appropriately, then it does not matter. So when we created what we call a sales and marketing specialist role, one of the things that I was most focused on was making sure that we were hiring people that were leasing first and marketing second. Like I didn't need someone who hadn't worked on site, who didn't know the process. And I really needed someone that felt really comfortable diving in and taking a look at the CRM and really diving in and finding out what you could do differently and providing those sales tips. And, you know, we can teach marketing to someone that is willing to learn and has that spark, right? So I think being really focused on how we can create also a sales team to guide the property management folks on how to manage those leads, how to best work them, and not just throw more at them, because again, that's just not gonna work. Like they haven't even worked the leads they have, they're not gonna, you know, get to the new ones. So we're paying for nothing. So I think looking at things holistically, and again, it's not just pointing fingers, which we all, you know, that needs to just completely go away across the board. And I think that depends on the organization. But you can't just be like, yeah, I sent you the leads. Good luck, peace out. Like, not happening. Like, we need to make sure that it can't just be like, Oh yeah, you sent me 200 leads and they all sucked.

SPEAKER_01 19:56

Did they really? There's a yeah, there's a balance there.

SPEAKER_00 20:01

Being able to dive in together is a we're going together, we're on the same team. We're all want the same thing. Like, marketing is not sitting here like, oh my god, you're at 88%, like not caring. I I care sometimes. I'm bringing stuff to these regionals and telling them, like, hey, you've had three lead three applications this week. We have, yeah, because I'm looking at it every day.

SPEAKER_02 20:24

Yeah. Yep. Yeah. I think it's not just creative, it's not just strategy, it's like what is truly working, and being able to look at it holistically is a huge part of it. Huge part of it.

SPEAKER_00 20:40

So I have a question. So obviously, you're lucky. I I don't get to control the sales process in my position. I think it's nice that you can have the sales and marketing together. I think early in my career, when I came into marketing, people would always be like, Well, marketing and sales are the same. They're really not, like they're totally different animals. What is the advice to those that can't control it? Obviously, you have that control, you could get the training in that you need, you can kind of control that whole process in the way that you envision it to be, which is awesome. But there's some of us out there that can't. So, what can we do to help support that process, even if we can't be directly influencing it?

SPEAKER_02 21:16

Yeah. I mean, I think it's creating best practices and expectations, and you need to then use your partners to be able to kind of carry that all the way through. So, you know, I want teams that I'm working with to think about the questions that we're going to ask before we even ask them. So when we're going into a property of concern call because you're under a certain occupancy rate and you know it's all hands on deck, um, I want them to be thinking about, hey, how does our queue look? Hey, did we follow up with everybody? Did we send out an email blast to anybody that we haven't? You know, doing all of those things before we even Think about it. And if you can get your regionals and VPs to be an extension of what you would want in that sales team, and it takes time. And not everybody is of a marketing mindset. So it's definitely more high touch in some areas, where then you'll have some partners that are like, okay, cool, you guys got it. Like, just let me know what you need. But it's really hard. You got to build those relationships and set the expectation of what you are looking for so that they can um jump in. And I think that something that, you know, as marketers, sometimes is a struggle. And I I've seen it is gatekeeping. And, you know, well, I'm not gonna necessarily show you how to do this or my technique or whatever, because, you know, then I won't be of value anymore. And I think that, again, that's just we can't live in that headspace of gatekeeping any of our strategy because if we all work together and we're getting the results we want, then like it's making everybody's life easier and it's making, you know, marketing look good as well as operations.

SPEAKER_01 23:10

We all look better. Will you talk about talk about the property of concern call? Because that sounds like a really great collaboration, cross-functional opportunity where you all are kind of in an immediate need and working toward a common goal. We who's involved, what all who's initiating it? What all are you talking about? Like, I'm fat, I I I need to know everything. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 23:35

So I'll actually speak to two different calls that we have, kind of similar, but the property of concern call will be driven by within a VP group looking at their properties that they are most concerned about. Like, are they trending in the right direction? What does that look like? Sometimes it is not a conversation about marketing at all, but they're taking all of those properties. And, you know, uh actually last week I had one and I like walked away. I was actually in the same room as the VP and I walked away and I was like, that just made my heart so happy because she had properties that were jumping in and providing suggestions, property managers and leasing managers that were providing suggestions to a property that, you know, isn't theirs, they're not involved in. They're like, hey, have you thought about this? This really worked for me. And creating that synergy across their group is so important. So we're not only talking about marketing opportunities, but we're talking about, you know, is is it maintenance issues? Are we not turning the apartment in appropriate time? Are we, you know, having issues that are creating, you know, not having product available? So it's kind of an all hands on deck of like, how do we what are the issues? Let's identify them and get them to where they need to be. Another call that I host every single week is our lease up marketing calls. And we just got to a point mid-year last year where we let we were like, wow, everything is delivering and we have a million different calls, right? And it wasn't creating that cross-collaboration. So I was like, okay, that's it. Like we need we need to not have at the time five calls with different groups, and we need to get everybody on one call. So every Thursday I host a call with all of the property managers, leasing managers, VPs, regionals, development construction will call in sometimes. We'll have asset management. Um, and we're going property by property. We're providing data up front that's consistent every single week as a reference of where we stand from a leasing standpoint and how we need to drive that traffic and where the opportunities are. And we're having those conversations, but obviously things come up, but the expectation is for anybody on that call to stay on the entire time because the same cross collaboration is happening, where you know, we get to the end of the call and we're on the last property, and we're like, hey, property manager from who was first up, didn't you experience this? What was tell us again how you handled this. So creating being the catalyst for cross-collaboration, especially outside of even the silos in property management of, hey, I report to this regional, this VP, this whoever, kind of breaking that down across those groups as well. And I think again, marketing being that catalyst to be able to do that is so important. Um, I was just saying the other day how oftentimes, I'm sure you both experience it as well. We're getting asked questions that have nothing to do with marketing because we're a safe space. Yes. And, you know, it's like, hey, I'm not really sure where I get a screwdriver. And I was like, cool, I don't know where to get the screwdriver either, but I can point you in the right direction, right?

SPEAKER_01 26:55

So I don't know why I said screwdriver, but we get the yes, but you're right, because you're you're showing that you're willing to help, you're building those relationships, there's consistent communication, no judgment, you know, like the planet fitness, like judgment free zone.

SPEAKER_00 27:14

Um I did that on my leasing calls. We had a checklist and like we just went through it every week with everybody, everybody was on a call, and I'm not in lease up now, or new development. This is a couple firms ago, but it really helped when every like construction was there, asset management, zero marketing was there, the heads of, and we would just kind of go through it. Have we done this? Have we done that? Did we do this? But on the property of concern, there's there is something about that because I've done these my whole career. Lately, the the ideas coming out of the teams have just been so brilliant. And I'm gonna I'll share one. Like, in in it's kind of like we we were on a pod and we're talking, you know, what's the most thing searched on apartments at comments, like air conditioning air, whatever, right? Like it's so like yeah, wow, that's so simple. But yeah, it matters. But we have a couple properties that don't have washer dryer, okay? We have connections, yeah. But something that's come out of these calls and talking to people and things that we've done in the past, how about just giving them a laundry, fun laundry gift when they lease the apartment? So maybe 50 bucks on a card to give them a month's worth of laundry, give them some detergent, things like that. That is built in now to that apartment.

unknown 28:26

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 28:26

And property A was doing it. They had a ton of success. They got to leave they leased the units that they couldn't lease before because they had this gift. But these cross-functional calls, we were able to share that with others, and now everybody is doing it. It's same with moving gifts. I mean, I think we try to get outside the box of like one of our regionals had a great idea. Pick it, you know, lease it, pick it kind of thing. Okay, and you can pick, you know, we've all done spin the wheel or gift card or whatever. But the way that she's promoting with her teams, it's like you're giving them the ability to pick something, whether it's an air fryer or smart home or whatever. I mean, we have like a whole list of things, but this is all because of these cross cross-functional meetings to make it better. And we don't have to give the farm away. We're even we're even thinking about doing like the first 50 that sign a lease, we have some student properties. You know, you'll get X gift as part of, you know, and their gifts are gonna be awesome because they're they're younger, you know, it's a younger generation, it's what they want, it's not just five hundred dollars off or you know, yeah. So, like having those calls gets us to these outside the box ideas to be different.

SPEAKER_02 29:31

Yeah, I I so agree. And I think sometimes we get in our own way, right? Like, you know, we're a bunch of 40-year-olds sitting in a room talking about what a college kid wants as a gift for a move-in gift. Like the other day, I had it was right before the holidays. My stepson was here, and I was like, Hey, can you come up to my office? I'm on a call with asset management and operations. I need some ideas. And he comes and he's like, What am I getting into? I'm like, Yeah, okay, you just graduated from college. What are the things you want? And he just like spouted them off. And I was like, here we go, focus group, done.

SPEAKER_01 30:04

Yeah, buy those. Let's go next.

SPEAKER_02 30:06

Buy those, exactly. So yeah, but I think it's it's so important. And you know, I know there's so many exciting things to talk about right now in multifamily, and you can go down the road of AI and all of these things, but like I j I think this is an important topic because it's just how do we function day to day? It's not the new shiny thing, it's not the you know, big change in multifamily. This is like back to basics, and this is in a in a time right now where we might get asked to cut a lot of budgets or we might get pressure because you know, leasing velocity isn't what it was a year ago. Creating the value and the partnership is so, so, so important.

SPEAKER_01 30:50

No, I agree with you. And then you do get to test out the shiny things because you have the trust. I mean, yeah, I can think of several things that have started because we had an RVP or property manager who trusted us, and we were like, we want to try this thing, so-and-so will let us because we have, and I I mean, it's it's huge. And I think that there is kind of talk right now of like you have to have a strong foundation, and a lot of times going back and strengthening the foundation is innovative because if you neglect it, then all of a sudden you're not paying attention to how is the funnel performing, and I mean, all of the like you're saying, like the the core fundamentals that make the business I mean the the the the foundation of the business is never gonna change. The financials that we look at, the the KPIs that we look at are always gonna be the same. So I think I think you're you're doing the right thing. Um, so you have calls, you do budgets. What are some other like collaboration points that you've found that are successful?

SPEAKER_02 32:01

Yeah, I think it also not only creating that at the top, but finding that space in the middle as well with our team members and making sure that there's that same exact level of communication and collaboration in those middle and lower levels as well. Um, and again, it's speaking the same language, being able to have those resources for everyone, and creating consistency in the approach so that it's not necessarily like, oh, well, so-and-so said we should do it this way, but that's not what I'm hearing here. And I actually wrote this down because I was like, I heard that I read, I was listening to a book. I can't even remember what it was, but I wrote this down a long time ago and I've kind of like really gone back to it. And it's alignment turns opinions into decisions. So I mean, the you can have a million opinions if you do not necessarily know what you're talking about or you're not aligned in those spaces, it's just going to be a lot of noise. If everybody is already aligned, then you can make decisions really quickly. And I think that not only happens at the top, it happens at every single level. And being able to make sure that there's consistency and clarity. Yeah, whether it's everybody working from the same numbers or, you know, giving the same explanation for how something works is so, so, so key. It's like creating that united message.

SPEAKER_01 33:36

Yeah, you're right, because we've had that happen before where like a question comes in and there's misalignment on understanding straight from the start, and it takes like two, three, four emails to clear it up, and then everyone's frustrated. We were talking about that today, too. So I'd be interested in your opinion. We're talking about like at some point, there has to be like a a point where the email is not effective anymore. Like we have to have an internal, like, okay, we've emailed about this three times. It it's phone call time. Or I I mean, I'm making up that rule, but like I think that a lot of misalignment inadvertently comes from email as our primary communication tool.

SPEAKER_02 34:25

Yeah, yeah. So it's funny because I always tell people like, please don't just call people on Teams. Like, don't just push the button and be like, call, I have a question. Like, make sure you're creating that relationship so they want to answer the answer that call when it comes through. But there is no reason why if you are going back with someone back and forth, because it can really just get lost in the world. Like we have the means to so easily, whether it's Teams or Zoom or call somebody quickly and say, Hey, I just want to make sure we're on the same page. Is that this is what I'm saying? Is this what you're saying? Like, let's just settle this. It communication is just so underrated.

SPEAKER_01 35:09

I agree. Screen share, probably my favorite thing. Oh my gosh. Yeah. Like agreed. Let like let me show you what that's like. I think that's I'm realizing that more and more that the email is inadvertent. Again, it's it's not on purpose, but especially in companies where we're so scar, you know, we're scattered around states or we have different whatever the case may be. I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 35:33

Yeah, no, I agree. Yeah. A tool that we've been utilizing a lot more, and it's actually kind of coming full circle for us now, is scribe. Yeah. So we're just anytime that we're kind of getting one of those like process questions, we're creating a scribe for it and we're putting it in our arsenal. And, you know, we're kind of getting to that sweet spot of using it now. Oh, we have a scribe for that. Oh, we have a scribe for that. And it's, you know, kind of helping that because a lot of people are just moving too fast or they're not at their desk, or you know, so many of us are traveling or going property to property, or just like you said, in your situation, like I don't live in the same state where my company is. Um, so you know, I can't just walk over three cubes every day. I can when I'm in the office, but you know, you need to be able to make sure that you're still able to meet those needs and have those resources consistently. And, you know, sometimes we don't have time to jump on a call. So how can you find, you know, that space too?

SPEAKER_01 36:37

I think that's a good, I think that's a good point too. Something else I've been thinking about lately, and maybe you have a solution, is you know, we're talking a lot about individual properties, right? Like how do you so what we're talking about today is like uh we have these issues. Issues is not the right word, misunderstandings, roadblocks, whatever the case, but it's happening at one property. But in theory, you could kind of back up and put it almost as like this happened because something is fundamentally broken, or there's there isn't a chain of command, or there isn't a escalation process, or something to the so like how do you take like things that come acros up at individual properties and kind of tie them into portfolio-wide or company opportunities? Does that make is that does that make sense?

SPEAKER_02 37:30

Yeah, I I think that you almost get some real life examples out of these situations. And that's where from a leadership opportunity, when you're in those planning conversations and those opportunities of where we can do better, I think a lot of times we're all so very focused on like, what are our wins this week, month, year, what are we doing? Great. But being able to find the areas of opportunity and being able to talk about them honestly is probably more powerful than listing your wins all the time. So I think that there's also that trust factor too. It can't be the finger pointing situation, but it's like this is what I encountered. This is what how we could have avoided this. Yeah. And like, what's your feedback on how we could make this better? And I think it's just kind of like listen, some of some of this stuff is like therapy, right?

SPEAKER_01 38:32

With it is, and I I mean, I I think it's easy to get like emotionally involved too, but I always try and say, like, what is the business problem here? Yeah. What is the business issue preventing something from moving forward? Or and so that's what I was thinking about today. Like I said, like, okay, we were having a problem at one property, so then how do I take that and say, if we get into a situation like this again for any property, what do we do? Who does it go to? Who's the next step of dis do you know what I so yeah? I I think that's kind of an interesting, and it's an opportunity for cross, like you're saying, cross-collaboration, because you're identifying you're you're using the specific examples, but you're ultimately saying, like, there's something broken in the process and we want to fix it.

SPEAKER_02 39:26

And when some of those things are broken, I think it's okay to say, like, people will come at you quick and fast and say, Oh, I need XYZ, and you'll have, you know, a solve for it. And then sometimes, like, you literally have to say, time out, no. Here's what we're not doing. And, you know, when we look at it from the full business case and what's best for our business, like you saying no is powerful. You know, there isn't a marketing solution for this because that is not the root of the problem. Here's why I can help you focus on where the root of the problem is. And I think it's marketing earns a seat at the table by being able to really dive into those requests and be able to, you know, protect the outcome and not just jump at the, you know, ask. You know, you can jump all day, you can get a call from some and be like, oh, we need to increase our apartments. Okay, hold on. Let me, you know, it that's that's not that's easy. That's easy. And you know, if it was that easy, um, everybody would do it.

unknown 40:35

Chris.

SPEAKER_00 40:35

But I think that's the point because when you have a seat at the table, you're it's not always just go spend, spend, spend, or whatever. You can actually talk what the root of the problem is. And you can it's not always marketing, and quite frankly, sometimes it is price, and sometimes we do have to do the concession or increase it, decrease it, whatever. Because the sub market is doing what the sub market is doing. This is we are not out there making these decisions, the market is making these decisions, and but I think if you're I just think if you come into these meetings prepared or you come into conversations prepared and you've built trust, then you can just have an honest conversation, and sometimes it is marketing. I yeah, I learned something about a property. I've been here for two years, almost two years. I learned something about a property I didn't know two weeks ago, and I was dumbfounded. And I said, Marketing gets an F on this because we haven't been promoting it hard enough. But now I'm promoting it. I mean, it can't we're not perfect, we have to be able to admit to our mistakes. Yeah, for sure. And everybody needs to, but you just need to be able to talk to them. And I think, and this goes back to something that me and you uh aligned on very early on in our friendship was KPIs and how we can use KPIs to to to open up these silos. And when you can speak to KPIs and you know what the numbers are, yeah, sometimes I feel like I know the numbers the best in the company of where we're trending, where we're occupied, what our traffic is, because I because I'm there and I'm ready to speak about it. And if I can speak to the numbers, then everything else, all the all the walls get broken down.

SPEAKER_02 42:08

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 42:10

Gone are the delay, by the way. Like that's the thing. Like, if we can deliver on our controllables, like if we need some extra signage, if we need a balloon, I love balloons, by the way. But if you need some extra signage, I have to tell you a funny story, you know, but like we actually get it done for our teams in a timely manner and it shows up and they get what we told them that we're gonna get them, like the Tchotsky marketing stuff. Well, we only have one chance to make a good first impression, right, lady? Like, whether that's digital or in person, you only get that one shot, and so we just have to deliver on the things that we can control. Yeah, tell us your funny story.

SPEAKER_02 42:46

I've created a reputation because I just refuse to put a waving arm guy at a property. I refuse to do it. Like that, we're not selling cars, we're selling homes, we're selling a lifestyle. I'm not putting a waving arm guy out anyway. So I one of one of my uh gear coworkers from asset management actually purchased me a desk waving arm guy, which just to tease and taunt you. Just to tease and taunt me. It was my birthday like a week ago, and I got multiple cards, like messages, gifts of waving arm men. Everybody just thinks it's the most hilarious thing, and I just have this like waving arm. I hate them. I literally hate them. People will be driving by faces and send me pictures.

SPEAKER_00 43:38

I'm not gonna put that in front of my property. I think I can go there, but there are some the Trotsky things that and I I started marketing on signage way back in the day, 20 years ago. So I have this affinity for signage. I do like the vinyl balloons, and I do think they pop and I like to change them out. Um, and I might be alone in that and I don't care. I'll live on that island, I'll buy all the stock. If you guys don't want your stock, give it to me. I'll buy more real estate, but again, it's just about the control of the controller. Yeah. Maybe I'll just waiting arm guy for one of my properties now and send it to you.

SPEAKER_01 44:08

And just to send or just to do it.

SPEAKER_00 44:11

Yeah. I'll do it in one of my student ones. They'll probably find it's funny. Put out some fun music or pop music to go along with it.

SPEAKER_01 44:18

Put it in like a college, I don't whatever colleges, college outfit. The logo.

SPEAKER_00 44:24

Exactly. That'd be hilarious. I have a Texas RM properly.

SPEAKER_02 44:28

Someone I work with is gonna listen to this and they're gonna call me and say, I have this great idea at our student property. Put the t-shirt on the waving arm guy, and I'm gonna go, Ian and Chris, you're welcome.

SPEAKER_00 44:45

Ten pieces signed already. Or we get we just get the emails now of anybody, YouTube waving arm guys. Can we just get them? We're gonna afford them on a Jillian, and that's gonna be like I want to see it out there in the wild.

SPEAKER_01 44:57

Oh my gosh. I think you know so I know we're having fun, but I I think the dashboards are really, and again, the tools now are getting a lot. That has been a major source of alignment for us is looking at the same data together, setting benchmarks. So I mean, I think that that's a really easy way to align twofold. One, understanding what dashboards are on-site teams, managers, regional managers are looking at on a regular basis, and we need to be fluent in those dashboards as well. And then second, having marketing dashboards that we can look at together. One of my favorite dashboards to look at is the leasing funnel dashboard with a team when we're having a talk about performance, because you can very easily see here's what's working, here's what isn't. Let's talk about it. Yeah. But I I think, like I said, I I think that's a huge opportunity. And it's a it's a good way for marketing to flex their knowledge beyond marketing, right? Again, like you said, to be speaking the same language is hugely important. So yeah. Is there any it is there anything else that any other things that you have found successful? Um I think we're about we're almost out of time, which I'm so sad.

SPEAKER_02 46:15

I'm like, I know this went so quickly.

SPEAKER_01 46:21

I know, like three hours later, like it should be like that. But uh what what are if you were to leave us with any final things, what what would you say to the audience?

SPEAKER_02 46:34

Yeah, I think again, going back to basics, finding where you can create relationships and be able to create trust is only going to help you in the future. So, you know, credibility compounds and it creates transparency, it creates collaboration. It's just it's it's kind of the secret sauce. So hopefully people can kind of take that and figure out how it fits within their own organization, their own role. You don't need to be the leader of a department. Everybody can do this in their role and figure out how to make it work. But relationships across the board is are are just the most important piece of our job.

SPEAKER_01 47:18

I love it. Chris, any final thoughts?

SPEAKER_00 47:22

Is uh Google dying or what? You gotta answer the question that we asked.

SPEAKER_01 47:26

Do you know? Wait, I want to do my new question.

SPEAKER_00 47:29

My new question No, you don't get a new question.

SPEAKER_01 47:33

I have a new question. The chat GPT. If you were to search for an apartment in chat GPT, how what would you put in? That's my new ice I shifted. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 47:45

Well Well, Google lives on forever, just so you know. That's that's the deal.

SPEAKER_02 47:49

But okay. Well, to answer your question, Chris, uh I don't think it's dead. I think it's evolving. And if I am going, I think that first of all, if I am going to Chat GPT and typing in how I want to find an apartment or whatever that is, that is not the same way as our prospect is searching. And you always need to keep that in mind. That's one of those things I'm sure we've all had the conversation with someone sitting in a meeting room saying, Hey, I'm Googling this property that's 500 miles away, and I don't understand why it's not coming up in the results, right? So I also have to be mindful if I'm typing into Chat GPT in my account that is all about marketing apartments, my results are very different than the person that is uh searching. So let's take that out of there right away, right? Like, and when when I need to level set these things again, like I go, I go to my family and I go, how would you search for this? And they like, you know, and I'm like, you know, okay, because we are we have blinders. Like, let's be real. We shouldn't be doing any of that and thinking that's what real results are, right?

SPEAKER_00 49:10

I love it. That is that's actually an aha moment, and let's cut that out and like really highlight it because it's true. We do have our own biases, yes, and we can't sit on our desktops and think that that's the experience. We have to remember go look at your phone. That's what everybody is using. You can't live on a desktop, you gotta live on a phone when you're looking at your website, all of it. Oh, you guys I know we know that I know we talk about it, but do we live it? Do we are we actually checking our websites on our phone?

SPEAKER_02 49:38

Like my team is not tearing me so by three screens, like you know, the consequences like a mad scientist.

SPEAKER_01 49:45

Oh, yeah, not there's nothing worse than going to a website, one of your websites on a mobile phone and realizing like you can't see the text on the menu because you've like forgot to change it in this. I mean, like you're saying, Chris, like really like, oh, it looks beautiful on the desktop. And then you are like, Well, why isn't it converting? Oh, because no one can find a link on my menu.

SPEAKER_02 50:06

Like, yeah, well, we get lost in the minutiae of things, and you know, and again, that goes back to you'll have someone from one of these departments call you and be like, Why can't why don't you have XYZ on here? And you're like, Yeah, I do, and I like, I don't like what happened, and it's we're moving too fast, we're doing it too many times, we're doing and those fresh eyes are so important. So, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 50:33

Awesome. Great conversation.

SPEAKER_01 50:35

This was so wonderful, Jillian. Thank you so much for joining us. Um, thank you for having me. Yeah, we can't wait for part two, three, four, five. Can't wait to see you soon at um the conference or out and about. All the things, yeah. Cincinnati, when you come to Cincinnati, you actually have to tell me that you're gonna be here. Yeah, absolutely. Next time.

unknown 50:55

Yeah, you're welcome.

SPEAKER_01 50:56

Um, okay, thank you. Thank you, Carlos. Thank you, Chris. Thank you to our listeners, and until next time, this has been the apartment department.