Disqus - Friends of jonathansaar

Re: 10 Reasons Why Multifamily Will Start Paying More Attention to Twitter in 2011

Bill Szczytko — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 07:12:07 -0000

Jonathan I think your title is right. "Paying More Attention". I'm on board with Tami on this one. It takes a lot of time to do Twitter campaigns right. It's hard to see how much impact it has on driving sales or driving people to the website. Sure it can be a valuable resident retention tool but I think Facebook offers more. Don't ignore Twitter just don't devote too much to it. And seriously ... ham sandwich? Yuck. I'll take Turkey instead.

Re: Multifamily Decisions Makers, Vendors and Lima Beans

Bill Szczytko — Mon, 11 Oct 2010 12:03:25 -0000

I love lima beans but think asparagus is nasty. I am one for discussions and debates. I don't know everything. Maybe there's a way to eat asparagus that makes it taste better.

Re: No Excuses..Track your Leads!

Bill Szczytko — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 12:43:49 -0000

On the last day at AIM after listening to Donald Davidoff speak (from Archstone) I asked a question related to this topic. A typical prospect might drive by the property, go home and google you, go to rent.com, browse to mynewplace, and then fill out a contact form on your website. Who wins? How can you base major decisions on flawed data? No one really had the answer and I'm not smart enough to have it either. It depends on your point of view. First source... combination of all... last?

We use a lead management system to process ALL email leads, and we use LevelOne to answer our source phone calls. Lead Tracking is like swiss cheese. You can try, try, try but you'll always have holes in the system. You need to use the best metrics available to measure your performance; even if you know its flawed.

Re: No Excuses..Track your Leads!

Bill Szczytko — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 13:49:51 -0000

Foot traffic is only as good as the people entering it. We don't have contests for it. We make it a part of their job. It shares the same philosophy as rewarding residents who pay their rent on time. They are contractually bound to! I could certainly argue for and against our policies but I am not the policy maker in this case.

The data helps in tracking our cost per lease. We use Rent.com as our benchmark. ($350).

Re: Socius Has Begun

Bill Szczytko — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 14:31:12 -0000

Love it Jonathan... looking forward to it.

Re: The 5 Common Mistakes Social Media Users Make

Bill Szczytko — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 15:06:01 -0000

Trying to do too much too soon. Best to keep it simple at first... build your audience and then build in your different layers.

Re: Michael Jackson’s Single “Breaking News” Hits the Web, the Web Cries “Fake”

Bill Szczytko — Mon, 08 Nov 2010 21:49:41 -0000

Whether it's him or not is moot. The song is crap.

Re: Why I’m all Done with Google Chrome for Now

Bill Szczytko — Fri, 12 Nov 2010 11:23:32 -0000

I won't be one of those idiots that says "Buy a PC". Gears works fine for me running Chrome (XP). Chrome is fast... Firefox takes too long to boot and it's ugly. IE ... well forget it. Safari on a PC? .. not a chance. Did this Gears breakage just start? What version are you using?

Re: A Socius Take on Paper.li and BridgeUrl

Bill Szczytko — Tue, 16 Nov 2010 12:44:44 -0000

I like the concept but you're right Lisa auto tweeting them is a bad idea. I do enjoy looking at them when posted to see what's going on. Who said newspapers were dead? Good post Jonathan.

Re: How To Design a Website That Won’t Piss Everyone Off

Bill Szczytko — Tue, 16 Nov 2010 13:02:53 -0000

Really excellent suggestions. I think another one is to keep mobile and regular internet sites separate. Don't dumb down your site to account for mobile. Redirect them to a different version to accommodate the smaller screens and compatibility issues.

Re: Imagine a Thirteen Thousand Percent Increase in Customer Influence

Bill Szczytko — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 10:45:29 -0000

I have been hyped up on this as well. It's why I was bummed about missing the live chat yesterday.

The company I work for has been in business for a long time. It has been difficult to get them to see the benefits of using it. Why? They are afraid of having a real dialogue with our residents and don't want to have the negatives "out there". We can talk ad nauseum about why that mentality doesn't fit the new customer service model. All I can do internally is continue to highlight the benefits and hope that one day the light bulb goes off.

I am excited to see how customer service will continue to evolve using social media. Our customers are more empowered than ever. Great post.

Re: 7 Tips On How to Make Your Conference Panel Rock

Bill Szczytko — Mon, 29 Nov 2010 17:05:32 -0000

Recently went to a conference and watched the 4 panelists each give a 5-10 minute presentation. It drove me crazy because it was a panel of people I was interested in hearing from and I got gypped out of LISTENING to each of them discuss all the questions we wanted to hear. Agree with your list completely. Thanks.

Re: Creativity Unappreciated?

Bill Szczytko — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 14:14:25 -0000

@bernierjohn (creator at Best Buy of Twelpforce) said it best last night when he talked about the culture at Best Buy being entrepreneurial. These problems about squashing creativity are all related to the culture of your workplace. It can be extremely frustrating.

Re: What Would Happen if You Took a Break from Social Media?

Bill Szczytko — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 14:55:59 -0000

As someone who is starting out in this whole blogging, social media, marketing ... blah blah world I feel like I HAVE to engage everyday. Truth is I probably don't but I feel like if I'm not a part of the conversations I will be forgotten. Honestly there is no balance yet. It's nothing but a frenzied rush for every Tweet. It's sounds like I'm kidding but I'm not. Building up an audience is hard work (I'm not telling all of you something you don't already know). I will find a balance soon but ... not yet.

Re: Property Management: Money Orders are a Necessary Evil

Bill Szczytko — Thu, 02 Dec 2010 12:18:43 -0000

I think that you have a level of trust with your employees. Ponzi Schemes (using ones rent to pay for another) ALWAYS unravel. The house of cards always falls down.

We do have reporting that shows if an app fee hasn't been collected on an application. (It checks our Cash Write-up Database). We make people deposit and send up the slip along with the Cash Batch the same day they receive it. You are not allowed to hold money in the office.

As I said above, you do have to have a level of trust with your employees right? I would be curious to hear what other people do to keep an eye out.

Re: Apartment Leasing, Technology, and Hammers

Bill Szczytko — Thu, 02 Dec 2010 12:44:31 -0000

I find that (especially here) people get locked into staring at their metrics all day. They forget about the individuals that usually drive those metrics. You can only have confidence in your numbers once you're confident in your people. Excellent post Jonathan.

Re: Social Media Insecurities- Part I

Bill Szczytko — Mon, 06 Dec 2010 10:10:37 -0000

You know I'm right there with you on this one. It's a cold and lonely place. Takes lots of work and effort. (Real genuine effort ... not fakery) HOW can you be engaging in a world where people won't stop to listen? Tough. I am actually planning on posting something related to this soon...

Thanks Jonathan.. as always on point.

Re: Social Media Insecurities- Part I

Bill Szczytko — Mon, 06 Dec 2010 12:22:15 -0000

No problem Jonathan... I'll still talk to you. HAHAHAHA.

Re: To My Apartment Team- You are Simply the Best

Bill Szczytko — Mon, 06 Dec 2010 17:11:14 -0000

You had me at answering the phone.

...Because you are passionate about what you do.

Re: Survey Says: Renters Shy Away from Social Media During Their Apartment Search?

Bill Szczytko — Wed, 08 Dec 2010 09:29:40 -0000

I don't want to say that there aren't some decent insights to find here but with a survey size of 850 it's hard to really take much at face value. The conclusions I draw are most people use Facebook (Yup), the majority of people don't use social media to find an apartment (Easy one), and over 70% of people use social media but 75% of them don't use it to find an apartment.

I agree with you Mike about reviews. I believe they want to see what other people are saying about an apartment and will use social media to find out. Excellent article.

Re: Brand Symbiosis: Balancing Personal and Professional Online

Bill Szczytko — Wed, 08 Dec 2010 10:33:39 -0000

Brilliant. This is a battle I've had in my office and have taken the approach of just being me utilizing just one persona. It's true that we can be different people at home and at work. George Costanza summed it up best during one of his irate diatribes "My worlds are colliding". More now than ever before our worlds collide with such frequency that I'm not sure they're separate anymore. Really amazing insights Amber. Thank you.

Re: I’m a Guy and I Don’t Want to Have Sex with You

Bill Szczytko — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 09:12:03 -0000

My opinion on this is simple. Harassment is harassment regardless of sex. They shouldn't be separated out but should be handled in a similar fashion with no focus on what sex the person is. It's irrelevant. Great post Jonathan as always.

Re: Want Higher Occupancy, Stay Open Later

Bill Szczytko — Tue, 14 Dec 2010 14:11:32 -0000

Funny... if you were to ask a PM company why they closed at 6pm they probably wouldn't have an answer or would reply "Because we've always done that." I love ideas like this because it gets you thinking outside the box. Having your employees staffed when your customers want them there sure makes sense to me. Next would be to make sure they answer the phone. Don't get me started about that though. Great topic Eric.

Re: Multifamily Mobile Marketing-A Guest Post by Sarah Greenough

Bill Szczytko — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 10:04:20 -0000

It's a great post. It highlights one of my worries about the internet in general. With mobile expected to be the #1 way people get on the internet by 2020 doesn't that mean then that the internet will then have to be dumbed down to accommodate it? You can't look at the same things on your phone that you can on a PC. What does that mean for the internet going forward? Hmm....

I digressed. Excellent looking sites ... great job.

Re: Almost 10 Tips to Indicate You Are a Twitter Addict

Bill Szczytko — Mon, 20 Dec 2010 12:11:45 -0000

I often have TweetDeck open as well as the Twitter website. You might call it a mistake; I just call it double checking.