Stop Marketing in a Silo: Bridging Strategy and Site Teams

Marketing cannot operate in a silo. When strategy lives in one department and execution lives in another, performance breaks down.

In this episode, Paul McClain, founder of AiinaT Brand Solutions, joins us to share how he helps bridge the gap between marketing strategy and site teams. From digital audits and attribution conversations to middle funnel exposure and renter behavior shifts, Paul breaks down what happens when marketing fluency extends beyond the corporate office.

This conversation is not about adding more to a site team’s plate. It is about creating alignment. When teams understand the why behind the work, collaboration improves and results compound.

If you are thinking about performance as a shared responsibility, not a departmental function, this episode will challenge and inspire you.

Flamingo - Resident Retention App
400K+ units use Flamingo’s Resident Retention Platform to stop Retention Leak & hit 63%+ retention.

Transcript

Speaker 2 0:01

Hi everyone and welcome to the apartment department. My name is Anne Baum, and with me as always is my co-host Chris Johnson. We have a wonderful guest with us today, with Paul McClain, the founder of AiinaT Brand Solutions. So excited to have you here. And also the podcast is to be able to kind of circle back on conversations that were uh started. That was in October, so many months ago. So Paul, thank you so much for joining us. Why don't you tell us a little bit about iNat, and then we will go ahead and dive into our topic for today.

Speaker 0:48

Well, thanks. Yeah, I'm really happy to be with both of you. I am a fan of the podcast, and it's nice to be on the mic with you. So thanks for having me. Um AiinaT was born many, many years ago. Why not many years ago? 2018 is kind of when I earmark it back. Um my mom passed in 09 uh of pancreatic cancer. And prior to her passing, I told her that if I ever started my business, that I would name it after her. So I went ahead and and started the business and flipped her name backwards. Her name was Tana T-A-N-I-A. And I just flipped it and it became INAT. So uh part of my mission, I suppose, in in offering these fractional um consulting services is just to help people. I've worked for, you know, different companies that have been third party and invertically integrated and never really felt fulfilled. And so when I launched, that was really my goal is just to help the smaller owner operators that don't have a marketing department, um, you know, don't have the support, the tools to to handle it. That was really kind of who I was looking to help. And so really it's kind of born out of a desire to to make a difference, just because that's really how my mother lived her life. She was a nurse and a parish nurse for many years. So she really cared for others and instilled in us what we should be doing to kind of serve others. So that's kind of how it started. And and here we are.

Speaker 2 2:08

No, that's so wonderful. And we were just, you know, not only to honor your mom, but again, when we were kind of prepping, we were talking about, you know, some of those systems that live under the layers of marketing. And so for you to be able to help out operators that might not have the opportunity to see the connections and manage even the foundational things is is huge for them. So I know that you're working on something really neat right now. And that's basically this idea of extending marketing knowledge to the site level and really um bringing site teams into the fold of all things marketing to do several things, um, to create champions, to create understanding across the company, to, you know, create collaboration and really have another set of eyeballs. You know, we know our site teams know every little thing there is to know about the property. And so will you talk to us a little bit more about this mission you're on to um, you know, how how do we empower site teams from a marketing knowledge standpoint?

Speaker 3:14

Yeah, I, you know, I I think the idea of um including the site teams in this training, this digital marketing theory, if you will, is is really important because you know, back in the day when I was a leasing agent, we didn't have all this digital marketing. So the the marketing training was very limited. It was small, it wasn't much. And the systems and and everything that the the teams touched, the CRMs, the virtual leasing assistants, all of that is such an integral part of the marketing for the property and the operations that it's become now, at least for me with with my clients, pieces where I'm reaching out and asking the managers for advice on how your virtual leasing assistant is working, you know, or something like that. And if the teams that I work with every day didn't have an understanding of what we're doing from a strategy perspective, um, I couldn't go to them and ask. And so this idea of teaching, you know, leasing agents, assistant managers, property managers when they're onboarding about just, you know, simple digital marketing theory, you know, terminology about click-through rates, why attribution is important, you know, not this big long, you know, diatribe of what we deal with in a corporate marketing level, but just enough to get them to buy in and understand that they're asking the question, how did you hear about us? is way more valuable than they even think it is. And if we don't teach them that, then we can't expect them to give that give us what we need. So that's my theory is that if we can teach them and empower them as marketers, we get better results from them, but we're also able to identify future marketers and people with passion and understanding of AI and you know, change processes and spreadsheets, all of the things that we kind of deal with on a daily basis that sometimes we get overloaded with if we empower the teams to complete those, like a digital audit, for example. My managers do digital audits every Monday. I don't do that for them. And that's just a simple, a simple example of what I'm talking about here, you know.

Speaker 1 5:25

Well, that's it's funny you mentioned the digital audit because that's something I've been doing a long time with our teams, and I have them do it. I want them to buy in, I want them to know what's online, what are the prospects seen. And I've caught myself in the last six months really going back and explaining to them because they'll come back and say, Oh, we're not linked, our our website isn't linked or our logo isn't on there. And it's my fault. They're doing their job, but some of these things that were listed on were not on the package that allows us to have that. So they need to have that info for them to be able to do it. And it's little things like that. So I love when they catch it, and then I can tell them in real time, like, hey, don't worry about it. Thank you for catching that. It's not part of the deal. But I think digital audits is a great, great place to start because it's really your digital landscape, it's your digital brand. Uh, and if they're catching something, then the prospect is too.

Speaker 6:16

Yep. You know, the other the other thing I came across the other day was the team was confused on why they weren't receiving a lead from apartment list the traditional way they're used to. And, you know, that's a different, a different entrance into the ILS platform. And if the team does not know that or has never taken ILF that ILS for a spin and tested their links and and gone to their listing, they have no idea. And so it it identifies a problem that they didn't know they had, but also provides a solution in real time for them to fix it immediately and then move forward.

Speaker 1 6:53

So agree.

Speaker 6:55

And I think you had a thought I I jumped in too quick.

Speaker 2 6:58

Yeah, I know. You know, I always have a ton of thoughts, but I think that's interesting because this is quickly already shifted into, I think you guys are exactly right. And I and I I was thinking about it a different way when we were first starting talking about this, but now I'm thinking about all of those nuances. How do leads come in from each of the different sources? What information do they or can they include? You know, some sources include things like move and date, bedroom, bathroom, pets, sometimes rent range, et cetera. And so now all of a sudden you're having all of this information being brought into a CRM, and maybe it's not always then visible in the same way, but we still want the on-site teams to be able to use that information to have to meet the the prospect where they are. And so I I think this is really I think this is really interesting. Now too, a lot of the ILSs have different um different features like schedule a tour, you know, so then all of a sudden a tour is showing up straight on the schedule a tour calendar, whereas before it might have been a lead that came in and then they had to, you know, facilitate the schedule a tour process. So so I I like this. What what are you tackling first? Like when you're thinking about this marketing training literacy, you know, what is what is the foundation of that?

Speaker 8:25

Well, I when I I guess peel back what I think is the problem, I I try to go backwards to make sure I'm not going to miss anything, right? So like the psychology, the renter behavior, the the renter, you know, satisfaction of it all, the customer experience, like what is it that they're experiencing to we were just talking about, like doing their own test on their listing? Like we have to understand where you know the the prospect is running these tests, these leads. And from there, you know, we can understand if they're even interested, right? People are are making an opinion on Google, they see Facebook, they see Instagram. They already know before they're starting to look for an actual apartment to live in what they're going to be doing. So the idea that they're looking at our communities already should indicate to us that they're a prospective renter in real time because they've been doing research for however long, six, nine, twelve months, maybe 18, right? And we don't even know. Um, and so I think to get into it, I'd start with just the renter behavior of how they're searching, right? Because I think when we talk about how we search, you know, looking at a social ad on Instagram, some of our leasing agents may not even know that they're engaging with the social ad because they don't know what to look for. And so if they knew what to look for when somebody said Instagram, maybe their follow-up could be, oh, did it have a sponsored ad tag on it? You know, that's going to give us an idea of if these paid social ads are working. Because as we all know, we get KPIs on that, but that's not a perfect attribution. So if we can get that buy-in from the team, and even if it's one out of, you know, 15,000, let's say in a year, the return because of what we're paying for the advertising works if it's one lease. So I think getting them into the mindset of the renter is where I probably start.

Speaker 2 10:21

I like that. And then also um making sure that they have an idea of what the current marketing strategy is at that specific property. I know we've run into that sometimes too, and you know, shame on us, but um, there being a disconnect between the marketing strategy we have in place and maybe the site team not knowing what marketing channels that their property is on, for example.

Speaker 10:50

Yeah. Well, and for me, if I'm using a geofencing campaign, for example, yeah, it's important for me to have the team's buy-in. They're on the ground, right? So my property's, let's say, in Tucson. I'm not out there. So for me, their their input is critical for us to find the right targets for a geofencing location and a campaign. So from that perspective, it feels natural to me to ask their buy-in. I'm not, you know, putting them on these monthly calls. We're not doing any of that. That's that's not where we're going. But asking the key details gives us a different layer of understanding. In fact, I was on the phone today with a manager. We're going through photos and Google and on her website in syndication view to make sure that her optimizer on Google was only, you know, posting the correct photos. Um, and she made a comment, like, oh, well, I didn't realize that that's how that works. And so even today on the call, it was one little thing about where the photos came from to get to her social post that she clicked and was like, oh, that makes sense. So when we include the site teams in what we're doing, we're making our lives easier, I think, in the long run, which is hard to prove out, right? Because to get buy-in from these site teams, to get buy-in from the training department to create something like this on the front end, there's you know, there's stakeholders that would absolutely have something to say about the idea of working this in the front end. But I think if we as marketers paint it as an advantage and an investment on the front end to get better results on the back end, it it shifts the mindset, at least for me. I don't know. But then again, I'm out of the box, crazy idea guy over here. Like a little weird is good. Yeah, see that a little weird is good.

Speaker 2 12:39

Yeah, Paul has a sign that states that.

Speaker 1 12:42

So I think anytime you can get buy-in, I think this goes into any conversation that we've had about buy-in across an organization and using KPIs in the language, the buy-in has to come from the teams. If we don't get buy-in from the teams, it doesn't really matter what we're doing as marketers, they have to be bought into our program and understand that we are working for them. I always tell, I mean, this is something I've been doing for a long time, but I always tell them, I'm actually your consultant. So here's what I think. But it you tell me if it's not working or you're getting bad leads or you need more, uh, the phone's not ringing, you gotta let me know. You gotta tell me um the day that it happens, don't wait two weeks to tell me or whatever that may be. Um, and I'm under the I mean, we we talked about this, but I've been talking about this a lot. I mean, I I think people today are narrowing it down to five, three to five communities before they're going out. We're not doing the 20 search anymore. They have way too much info. And really, when they walk in the door, like I even think our 30, 33, whatever number you're using for conversion is low because they came. I mean, you know how hard it is to get somebody to go somewhere these days, even for an apartment. People know they can do it online. Yeah, so I do think the buy-in really does matter. Um, and it helps us be better too, because maybe there's something we're missing. Maybe there's a local chamber that we should be at. Maybe Google isn't working in this market. I mean, I'm just making something up. Maybe Facebook Marketplace is the where is where we need to go, or even Craigslist. You know, Craigslist still works in some markets. Um, but we don't know that if we're not talking to the teams and we're not getting their buy-in, then they don't trust us to come to us with the info. You know, sometimes it's hard for teams to go to corporate and say what they want to say because you know, there is that divide. But we try to break down those walls, and I know Ann and I work at that, and you Paul are working at that, but for everybody else out there, trying to break down the walls and get that trust is so big.

Speaker 14:35

Yeah, I agree a hundred percent. I think it's critical to let them help you, help them, I guess, kind of, and that's just repetitive of your point, Chris, that uh, you know, we're working for them because if we don't get them the quality leads at the right time, at the right pace, the right volume, all of that, they're uh they're in our hair, if you will, anyway. So, you know, us marketing teams want to help the site teams get the leads they need to, and you know, finding ways to to make that, you know, exchange easier, more exciting, and more fulfilling, you know, from a team perspective. I don't know. Something feels really special about the idea of trying to fix something like this and and make a positive change in how we look at it.

Speaker 2 15:21

I agree with you. We've um been doing recently, it's I've talked about it before, but um, we're doing brand projects at some of our properties, and we're on our second one right now, but we just finished up a round of focus groups with the site staff, with um the both maintenance team and office staff. Um, and then we had a focus group with residents as well. And um, you know, that's all of a sudden we had clarity. Like, I don't know how else to describe it, but all of a sudden we understood. We understood the property, we understood the people that were working there, we understood the residents that lived there and what they enjoyed about the property. And it just, I don't know, it it it was just amazing. I don't like that's I don't even know what else to say, but like it was really just clarity, the instant clarity just from those conversations.

Speaker 16:14

I mean, I don't know about y'all, but there I've certainly been in in roles where things are pretty siloed, and you know, that gets very isolating. And and really, I think in in our market and and how we operate and the high-stakes pieces we have every day, those silos prevent us from doing the larger work of collaborating cross-functionally across the organization and creating a more I kind of I guess complete relationship when we're having these discussions, right? Because in the marketing department, for example, we could be doing X, Y, and Z with the team that translates on site. But if the training team doesn't know that or they're not doing the same thing, our mission gets dropped. So I think when we're talking about this, right, it it kind of spider webs into a whole other thing that maybe we don't even realize that that we're opening the can of worms, right? So it's I think a lot of this is bigger than even we think it is when we're talking about it, just in this setting.

Speaker 1 17:17

It's kind of amazing when you step back and think about how many people, just for one community, make it work. You know, there's a lot of people that are involved, even at small communities. When you include corporate staff and vendors and uh your team on site and the residents and the prospects, I mean, we have a lot going on. And I think sometimes we need to take a step back and just realize like, hey, we understand it's hard. Uh, but these are why, to your point, Paul, these are why we do these things, these are why we're having these conversations, and it doesn't just have to be marketing related, it could be any uh any of the topics that we talk about, but just to take a step back and just take a breath and realize how much is actually going on on site, and these teams, I mean, I applaud them all the time, they have a lot going on. They these managers have to wear 10 different hats sometimes a day. They have to be a psychologist, they have to be a rent collector, they have to manage their teams, they have to report to us. I mean, there's a lot going on. So anytime that we can get collaboration and everybody kind of on the same page about stuff, the better, right? The better that'll operate, the better the teams will want to come to work, they'll want to lease because they they understand the the purpose.

unknown 18:30

Yeah.

Speaker 19:16

I mean, imagine a new manager coming to like the dinner table, right? With this full plate of food, expecting like an empty plate because they hadn't gotten to the party yet, and they don't like anything that's on the plate because they just don't know how to do it, they don't know where to get started. So, like sometimes I wonder if that's kind of how we're setting our teams up, right? You're talking about the manager doing a million things. I think about how often I email the managers I work with. And so I suppose I do probably add to their stress level. But then when I take a step back and think about the proposition I'm making about cleaning their plate from the front end, making sure that they understand what to look out for to make my life easier in the long run so that I'm not knocking at their door or ringing their phone or sending them a text saying, Hey, help me, if they've already had the information and the understanding that I need that, perhaps that alleviates the stress. So just changing the behavior, not trying to be all, you know, psychoanalyzing of these people, but sometimes you got to make it work and and give people the tools they need to understand.

Speaker 1 20:25

I think just going back to your point, like even with the glossary of terms and all of that, I mean, that's a good idea. And we've I've done that in the past, and I think we just had somebody on that has a really good one. I don't know. Jillian Jillian, this is reminding me very much of Jillian and our conversation of getting buy-in and um yeah, go ahead, Chris. No, it's just it was the exact same thing. Um, where you're doing this, and I just wanted a real life scenario, having our teams understand why putting the traffic into whatever CRM you're using right now. I'm using Yardian, I'm using uh Real Page, so real page is knock. Why putting the traffic into Knock and putting all the information in and completing it is so important because that traffic goes to all of our reporting, okay? And guess what? I make decisions on traffic and lease it. And so if you're not putting all your traffic in, or you are that makes do I spend more, do I spend less? They're not getting the traffic, they are getting in the traffic. And so just little things like that in the communities that we worked with, the problem is solved, and now the traffic is being inputted correctly. And it's been this is nothing new. I mean, we've all dealt with this in our careers, but that simple alignment made such a difference. And it was like, okay, they are getting the traffic, we're fine, you know, they'll close. Uh, it's not dire. Um, but little little tweaks or looking at the data and explaining to them why it does this or why you're in this program and why you have to click this little box because sometimes a knock, if you don't do one little deal, that it just the traffic doesn't get countered the way you want it to. Yeah. So it's just kind of an interesting way when you're talking to the teams for them to and the light bulb goes off and they're like, Oh, okay, we can do that.

Speaker 2 22:04

Yeah. So that's this is interesting too. So we started talking about the idea of from an onboarding perspective, but then Paul, how have you have you put any thought around kind of the the maintaining of the train? Like how often then do we go back and and educate on new things or what cadence is appropriate to kind of connect on a regular basis with the site teams? You know, I think we can solve a real I think the three of us can put our heads together and and solve something real.

Speaker 22:36

No, I I think that quarterly for me is is what I strive for. So I do a quarterly marketing call with all of the managers. This last one was. Last week, and I sent just a simple prompt through Gemini saying, you know, summarize the reviews at X address. And I had did the same prompt, so they all came out the same way. I sent out the the summaries to the teams that said, I've generated these for you, be ready to talk about them next week on our quarterly marketing call. So that was their task, excuse me, to um be involved and have something to say on the call. So I think to answer your question minimum quarterly, I think is we need to be checking in with the teams. Like next quarter, I have a I've been work smithing like some of these sessions, I don't know, content pieces, right? Because my brain goes a mile a minute and I have an idea. And if I don't express it or do something with it, it's lost. Um, so I I created this session on, you know, the digital front door and and reputation and reviews and the kind of psychology behind it. And so they're gonna be my my little testers for that one in quarter two. So I'm not trying to be reactive, I'm trying to be proactive and almost keep a theme that I I realize is a consistent, I don't gonna say issue because that makes it sound negative, but uh a consistent focus. How about that? Right for us all the time, right? Is reputation generating better reviews? Um, so that's that's how I kind of stay in contact with them. And then of course, if their traffic goes down over a certain course of time and I get involved from you know my asset manager, then we have that regular conversation until things are stabilized.

Speaker 2 24:25

Okay. No, I like that from a quarterly standpoint. We were we were talking about that the other day. I think I've mentioned before we have monthly meetings with our R VPs. Um, but we realized a little bit ago that there's an opportunity to bring managers on, but maybe not on a monthly basis, but maybe a quarterly basis to kind of allow for that room to still have the conversations with the R VPs, but also get the site level input um that we also crave as well. So I like the idea of a quarterly cadence. Chris, what about do you do you have any like cadences set up from a from a touchbase or communication standpoint with with site teams?

Speaker 1 25:06

So we don't have any standing meetings besides the pricing that I'm involved in now, and all the managers come on that call. I talk to the regionals every day, um, all of them. And I obviously talk to our boss every day to make sure we're all aligned. Um but I wanted to go back to something before well, I'll finish the stop, but I want to ask Paul a question too, and I don't want to break head. Um, but on the pricing calls, we do talk about what's working, what isn't. Thankfully for us, our traffic has really picked up before leasing season starts. I don't know what you're seeing, but I mean, we are some of our properties are getting insane. We had a property last week at over 30 pieces of traffic, you know, 300 units. That's awesome, right? In February. Um, and so we know we're hitting it right, we've priced right, we're obviously marketing right, but we do have those conversations and ask what's working, what isn't, what do we need to pull a lever on. I always like to keep a full a couple of bullets in the chamber um and not pull everything at once so we can try to measure. And I know you know that's what we love to do and Paul and you too, being data driven. Um, so the cadence now is that call, which I get with the managers every two weeks, and we do talk about everything on the call. It's not just pricing because the pricing piece is easy now. We kind of know we're kind of in the swing of it, but we do talk about other issues on site and what the traffic's saying, or we all brainstorm as a group. Like, where else could you go? Is there, you know, a school district nearby that we can advertise at that you could go hit if your community kind of by itself? Um, is there a local chamber we need to be a part of? I mean, whatever it is, you know, what cool events could you do to help with the current residents? Bring a friend kind of thing, which has been a real popular idea lately, is like bring a friend to the event. Like, why not? So things like that. But we we touch them and I touch them just in general. I send them emails every week um when we do our we do contests and you know about our contest. And so I talk I reach out to the managers all the time. I call them um to talk about stuff. Uh, and they know it's a safe space and it's a pretty good working relationship, but it helps because the regionals were always on the same page, um, which is also a very important relationship. So that's kind of our cadence. Um, Paul, I wanted to ask you though, on the training piece, because I struggle with this too. How much info are you giving them on this quarterly? Because it's like you want to give them a bunch of info, but you also don't want to overload them. And so have you found kind of even on the onboarding piece, like how much info do you want to give them up front? How much do you expect them to retain? And how do we do that moving forward so that they do retain it? Because we've all been in, it's like a conference, you know, like some conferences, if the session is too long and you have a bunch of long sessions in a row, it gets hard, right? So I was curious if you had any thoughts on that.

Speaker 27:48

Yeah, I mean, uh listening to uh uh pose that question, I guess this may not be a direct answer, but I think this kind of gives the idea of what I think. I had a manager on board probably 90 days ago, and within the first 30 days, I asked for a call with her. So I could sit down and I could say, okay, here's your apartments.com listing, here's your special, all of this. And and we go through the what I quote unquote say basics of their online listings, right? So I'm not taking them into my geofencing dashboard to talk about what fences they're living on right away. That's not a conversation I'm gonna have. You have no idea about this property, you just got here. So there's not anything really that you can provide me at this time material on that. So let me wait on that piece and and get kind of the immediate stuff out of the way. Um, one question I love to ask new managers when I have those calls is what are your thoughts about the property? And I ask them to be really honest. Like, what are your thoughts? What are we missing? Like, what am I missing on your online marketing? And when you ask that question, it allows them to give an answer that perhaps they didn't know that you were even looking for, right? Yeah. I think when you give them uh kind of the floor to just opine about how they're feeling or what they think the actual problem is, even if we might disagree or the numbers are telling a different story, their nuance is important and that validation in understanding them, I think is is critical for them to trust us enough to your point earlier, Chris, so we can trust them to give us what we need. So I don't I don't go super deep right away. Um very strategic and really, you know, manager A may not be a high-depth or you know, high entire conversation, and and conversation B might be very low detail, right? Like it just depends on the person. And I think if if we focus on on finding the way to speak and and talk to these people in a way that meets them where they're at, we get more done. And those little micro moments, I guess, is what I like to call them of teaching, right? The light bulb moments, those are the pieces that people remember. I think, you know, these long conferences, right? These calls that drag out for an hour, two hours to your point earlier, Chris. Like they lose on all of that. But it's the material things when they actually learn something that mean the most. So that's a very long-winded answer. Sorry, and very not direct at all. It took like a detour.

Speaker 1 30:32

No, this is great. And this is it's perfect for the pod. We love the detour. And I haven't done my two, three questions in a long time either, so I'm getting better at that as well. I my boss had a really fun idea that she just did at our L C meetings. Um and it really, I think it eye-op it was eye-opening for our managers, and I agree because I don't know if I've ever thought about it this way, but she had the teams, and I really thought this was brilliant, and this is a perfect time to talk about it. She had the teams split up, and basically, manager A said, Well, who are who's your top comp? And manager B would say, X. And manager A had 15 minutes to go on that website, go look at their digital footprint, look at what that community has to offer, and tell manager A why it's better. And what happened was you got these biases because we all have them, and it was like, Well, they have XYZ, I don't know, like they have a better pool, they have their fitness center looks great, and you know, I could see myself working out there, whatever. I'm making this up because I wasn't in the room. But the other manager was like, Really? That's what you care about? Because this is what I thought, and so when you're in it every day, and this happens to us too, right? Just with our own biases, like sometimes I have to remember to check my phone when I make changes to the website because we're on our desktops all the time, but our prospects are like you have to remember, right? So I thought that was a really great exercise, and I want to pass it off to you guys now because I think it's relevant to this conversation. Something we can teach our teams when, especially when they're new, as you're already kind of doing, that's per that's a perfect time for them to come in and say, Well, here's what our comp is doing, and here's why what I like about them when I look at their website or I go, you know, actually shop them, because I think it does open up to get some fresh eyes on something when we've all been looking at it for you know, as long as we've all been doing it. And it was a really it was a good idea.

Speaker 2 32:19

I love that. Um, I would say similarly for us, when we did that resident focus group, um, the manager of the property was in that meeting as well. And um I think for her to hear first hand, uh and for us as well from a marketing standpoint, but to hear first hand what the existing residents really loved about the property, because then Chris, I think you're right, some of those biases do go away because, you know, what we heard from the uh residents was that they loved the um community and they loved their neighbors and they loved the walking paths and they loved, they did love the pool. It's a very nice pool. But like, you know, I think one person said they liked the fitness center, you know, they were like, it's cool, but it was just really interesting because again, all of those things that we kind of would have thought might have actually mattered, um, kind of went away. So I agree with you. When we're when we're able to like have these conversations and gather information, um, it creates an understanding and a focus because then you know, we're focused on what the property actually is and how we should represent it properly. And we're working as a team to do that.

Speaker 33:34

No, I I think even you're I'm listening to talk, and and to my brain pops this idea of social media even being such an untap untapped resource of understanding for these teams from like intent, how algorithm works, like all of these technical things that perhaps we know, but perhaps they don't understand. So, again, this idea of better educating the on-site teams, I think we we should, we must, especially if we want them to be better for us in the future, you know. Like, not that I'm gonna be retiring anytime soon, but like I'm you know, I'm 14 years into my career. I'm not just like a spring chicken anymore. So we need the new guys to come up and and get on on the board.

Speaker 1 34:21

I like the idea of recruiting marketing too that way, and like get them excited about it, and then maybe they become the next marketing leader because they've had this experience and you've given them the exposure that some may not. Um, I just know when when our teams get buy-in, they they perform, and it's just so much easier when everybody has the same buy-in on something on why we're doing it.

Speaker 2 34:44

Yeah, and we're not fighting my new favorite thing too, and like this is so lame, but like screen shares. I now screen share. Like, if someone I was on the call the other day and someone was asking about like rent ranges in apartments.com and how they pull from the website. And so I literally shared my screen, pulled up rent cafe, pulled up the settings, we looked together on where this setting might be that might control the rent range. Um then we went to the back end of apartments.com and I, you know, because I was like, listen, if this setting in rent cafe doesn't change on apartments.com, like it pulls straight from a feed. Do you see how this is locked? So, like, we're not gonna be able to change this rent range if this setting doesn't work because it's outside of our workflow or whatever. And so I don't know. I was kind of proud of myself because it wasn't just me being like, yeah, I did some things and whatever. I was like, literally, like this is how all of these systems work together. And um, luckily it worked, but I think even if it hadn't, I think I was effectively able to show, like, it's not that I don't want to do this for you if this doesn't work, but like literally my hands are you know, lock like lock symbols tied. But that that's my new favorite thing now. Like, let me pull up my screen and show you what I'm doing.

Speaker 1 36:03

It's so funny. I've been doing that too. Oh, really? Like, if of course somebody's like in knock, or even on on we only have one on Yardy right now, but I'll go in the back end, I'll be like, okay, so you couldn't quote it, you didn't see what you wanted. Let's look at it together. I'll I'll drive and we'll go apples to apples. And guess what? 99% of the time we can figure it out. It's a setting thing, it's a date thing, it's whatever. But we do it together, and the team's like, Oh, got it. And you know what? It takes two minutes for us to jump on a i mean, with the technology we have today. Yeah, we can jump on. I'd use I mean, we use teams, just jump on and do a teams call real quick and do a screen share and just do it together. And um, it solves so many problems doing it that way, then trying to put in a ticket, rushing to put in a ticket instead of just taking a step back and saying, wait a minute, we know this is happening on the back end, there's some sending here. I've been in the back end enough to be dangerous. Let's go see if we can do it before we have to like rely on third party to just tell us you're supposed to go click this, toggle this button or whatever it is, you know, because that's usually what it is, right? It's a date or it's a toggle. Yep, you didn't have your special out far enough, whatever. You know, I mean it's like we can do this. And so doing it together, it's great. I think I love it. I would I think to the audience out there that that's the light bulb thing. Start doing these screen shares with your team if you have the time to do it. I know not not everybody does, but it really does make a difference when you can sit there together and look at it.

Speaker 2 37:26

Paul, what else are we what else should we be thinking about? Um, like should we be thinking about also maybe, you know, updating job descriptions or accountabilities for on-site staff to include more, if they don't exist already, you know, to include more marketing-related fluency things or like how, you know, you talked a little bit about buy-in from like training teams and stuff like that. But where how how far out should this concept um reach within a company?

Speaker 37:58

Yeah, I I think is as far as it can go, I think that's a kind of a vague, open-ended answer. But uh I think if you find a problem, there's always a solution, right? So the first thing I would say, we talked about this earlier was the digital audit. If you have nothing in place right now for your teams to be involved, that's a great way to get them involved right away, right? Um, you know, I think when I peel the onion back about, I don't know, the idea of this teaching the teams, the psychology behind it, like even the the idea of how long it takes someone to to make a decision or that type of a mindset too, I think is is critical. So diversifying, I think, the the training based on maybe what a real-time problem is, but also maybe uh, you know, something you're trying to plan for, you know, I guess an example would maybe be Geo, you know, the the generative engine optimization trainings, the the highlights, all of that. Maybe getting in front of that, pardon me, from a training perspective instead of being reactive, might be something to consider too. So, but then also, you know, I think if you have training teams, you getting them involved and with the bandwidth. So I think it's not just our it's not just our project, though. I think a lot of times it requires a lot more people and there's several stakeholders. Yeah. But I bet you if if a company sent a survey to the team to said, hey, would you appreciate more marketing training, there would be yes. And I bet if we asked a question, do you wish you would have had more marketing training at onboarding to help you more efficiently do your job today, it would be yes. So maybe next time we send out a survey of some kind, like maybe that one can be the next one that you all do. That'd be a great survey to send. So I don't know. I just and we if we ask them, maybe they'll tell us. You know, your focus groups are a perfect example of that, right? You were, you know, gobsmacked of what you found out. And unless we give them the floor to express themselves, we'll never know.

Speaker 2 40:04

I I agree with you. So I love that digital audit, and that's simple too. It's a simple, it's a simple place to start and it's expectation setting. How do you keep track of what packages, marketing platforms each property is on, and then how do you make that accessible to the site teams?

Speaker 40:25

So I have uh it's like this spreadsheet, this Bible spreadsheet that has the properties, the um type of advertising. So I'm very OCD, right, in in how I organize things. So I have like the type of advertising, whether it's pay-per-lease or it's regular static ILS and it falls reputation over here, Google Optimizer. It's in one big spreadsheet. And I don't necessarily give the site teams access to that, except for when I'm like counseling with them or talking to them about what they have going on. The regionals have access, my asset manager has access. That's where I make the, I guess, budget changes that happen throughout the year. For example, I don't touch my 2026 budget. If I make a change like with strategy, which I already have had to do now in February already, um, I keep a separate log of that in a in a separate Word document. And I I have a separate spreadsheet, I track that on because I want to be able to look at my budget, what I had in my budget, what I'm currently spending, how much I'm gonna be over. Because if I'm forecasting through the end of the year and my client comes and says to me, like, are we gonna close your in budget? If we're not, I need to be able to provide a solution to say, hey, no, sir, we're not, however, X, Y, and Z. So I I have a it's a very simple spreadsheet. I mean, it's it's nothing fancy, but it works for me because again, I'm kind of OCB and very controlling when it comes to organizational work structure and what I'm doing.

Speaker 2 41:55

No, I love it. That's a million dollar question. We have like a centralized kind of data space in YARTI that's accessible, but um, keeping it up is sometimes uh, you know, by the time you change a contract and do all the things, and then you're like, oh, and then I also have to go change it in this little place. Um we're trying to get better. But anyway, um, Chris, what else? Anything else for Paul before we have to say goodbye?

Speaker 1 42:20

Oh, I'm I keep a budget just monthly for my community to make the change. Um, so if anybody asks, it's on a share drive. Um, but that's how I do it, just so you guys know. Um, and yeah, and it's hard to keep up, but I'm not as big as you, so it's a little bit easier for me to get in there and kind of manipulate it. I don't have any other questions related to this, Paul, but I would like to know what you think. We talked a little bit about digital on this, you know, podcast today. Where do you think our future lies? Um, you know, there is, I think, uh some battles out there for AI and who's gonna take take the hill and the best AI program. Google's making a nice comeback, which makes my heart happy.

Speaker 43:01

Yep.

Speaker 1 43:01

Um, but forget about AI. I think we know it's here and it's gonna get better. What do you I mean, do you think there's gonna be any other changes in our industry with what we're doing or how we're getting data, or even how the ILSs are communicating and giving us the data? Do you think there's any change on the horizon?

Speaker 43:19

I hope so. I for me, the biggest change I would like to see is a shift in overall understanding of renter behavior and how that affects middle funnel exposure. I think we have spent so many years at the top and the bottom, whether your client pays attention to the top or the bottom, no one's ever paid attention to the middle because you haven't had to, but that's where everyone's living now, right? Social media, mobile, all of those places that aren't necessarily the actual conversion point, but influence the decision, right? I mean, you look at some of these influencers on TikTok that are in their apartments, you know, if if these apartment communities aren't paying these people in the form of like a rent credit or something to help influence their buildings, they're missing a prime opportunity to do that. So yeah, I think that would be one thing. The other thing I think is is along that same line, right? Like resident-generated content. Um, Sydney Weber, and I don't know everyone out there, I'm sure, has has heard of Sydney Weber. She's amazing, works over at Venn. She spoke at Zillow Unlock about influencers and and what she did. And she was so creative and and was able to, I say use, not in a negative way, but use her resident in a way that worked for both of them. And so it felt like a real relationship to them. And I also think that's something we need to consider is is. We kind of move into the future is this idea of they're not just renters, they're like people, they're like relationship people that come in when they have a problem, like they can't pay their rent because somebody died and they're in your office crying. We aren't just a transactional thing. And the swing to AI and automation that we made, I think proved that there was still room for that human element and people craved it. And so the idea that we don't need social gathering spaces on site, I'm not saying that we, you know, we don't need that, we need those, but we also need to create experiences around them living in our buildings, right? And I think if we don't do it now, we're gonna be behind, similar to how now we're trying to prove out to these owners and clients that the middle funnel is necessary when they're so used to looking at top and bottom. It's hard to get buy-in. We're talking about buy-in, getting a client to buy in an extra thousand dollars for exposure. No, I want money where it's gonna convert, but the the renter journey's changed, and we need to change with it this time quicker than we did the last time. Long-winded answer again. Sorry. I'm speechless.

Speaker 1 45:59

And about how she can create a spreadsheet to track middle funnel and uh come up with a cool program for it.

Speaker 46:06

I can't if you do, if you do get that figured out, if I could just see it so I can kind of like recreate it on the side, I'd be fine with that. Like that that's the most elusive piece of the the puzzle. And it's because people don't understand it, and you can't can't track it. Like you need to have it.

Speaker 2 46:25

Yeah, you can't track it, but it's important. And we're using these words like you know, we do have an influencer. We got an influencer to move into one of our buildings. Um and it's really cool, and his content is amazing. Um, but the way we were able to get buy-in, the first time we pitched it, we were like, you'll get awareness, and you know, and like blah blah blah. And like the owner was like, I don't even know these words. It was basically like, and how much is it gonna cost? And so what we ended up doing was reframing it as um basically you're paying him this much a month, and if you get I I forget, we basically did math of like, and if you get X number of leases from this, then it will pay for itself. And so we basically translated the influencer's value into kind of the value of like an ILS or another marketing source that we're used to tracking, and then we added in the value of like some of the social media impressions and stuff as extras, but not necessarily the main seller. And so when we repackaged it that way, that's when we were able to get buy-in um, because it translated into language that we always use when it comes to marketing.

Speaker 47:44

Well, isn't that a good anecdote to end the call, right? That messaging matters. Like it's some people don't get it the first time or second time or whatever. So I think that's excellent that you were able to identify it and repackage it like with a nice bow, it sounds like.

Speaker 2 48:31

But when we presented it as this could be comparable to other marketing sources, then it was it was more digestible, more digestible. So um, but Paul, thank you for being here. I loved your answer. Um, I think you're right. Multifamily marketing is an ever-evolving uh journey, and uh I think you're doing really wonderful things. So thank you for you know bringing your insights to us. Um, we appreciate you. I can't wait to see you soon. I'm gonna see you next month. So yay. Um, yes.

Speaker 49:05

Well, I appreciate you guys. It was a fun, a fun time chatting with you, and I'm always happy to come on and and share the mic with you. I think there's a lot of things that we could talk about that deserve the the airtime for sure.

Speaker 2 49:16

Oh, yeah, your whole prediction, like that's basically a whole other episode. So we appreciate you. Like, I'm like, oh well, we're done. That's a part two. Um, thank you to you, thank you to Carlos, Chris, thank you as always. Um, thank you to our listeners, thank you to Flamingo, and uh until the next time, this has been the apartment department.