by Donald Davidoff | Apr 29, 2016 12:00:00 AM
In just a month and a half from now, the largest meeting of our industry takes place. Somewhere north of 10,000 operators, marketers, executives, vendors and so on will descend upon the William Moscone Convention Center and a dozen or more hotels in San Francisco. It will be quite the swan song for NAA Executive Director Doug Culkin, who is retiring at the end of the year.
In between all the meetings, trade show hours, food and parties, there’s perhaps the broadest and deepest education program the industry sees each year. Hundreds of speakers vie for the dozens of speaking slots through a strenuous, juried process. This year, D2DS is proud to have been chosen to be among a group of well-respected peers in offering up educational content. On Thursday, June 16, 9:00 AM - 10:00 AM, I will be moderating the panel, How The Zero Moment Of Truth Requires Us To Change Sales (the abstract is published below should you or anyone on your teams be interested in attending it).
You’ve all heard me talk (or read me write) about how sales is the last big thing in the demand generation platform that hasn’t been disrupted in our industry. Well, really it has been disrupted as prospects clearly don’t shop and buy the way they did twenty years ago. It’s just that we, as an industry, haven’t yet altered how we approach leasing to take this into account. We’ve changed how we do credit screening, how we price, how we market and how we operate property management systems…but fundamentally not how we sell.
What may be true for the industry as a whole is not true for a few pioneers. One of them is Gene B. Glick Company, a roughly 20,000 unit regional owner/operator of market rate and affordable housing headquartered in Indianapolis.
In late 2014, Glick decided that they need to change their approach…in kind, not just in degree. Jason Whittington, Glick’s Vice President, is going to share with us why they decided to make such a change and why embracing an authentically prospect-centered model was the obvious choice to him. He’ll discuss the results they’ve gotten, the challenges they faced and what he would recommend to anyone thinking of going down this road.
Joining him, Joanne Chapman-Reps will focus on how we can get adults to change behavior. She’ll bring the latest in adult learning theory and combine it with change management best practices to give a roadmap to attendees for how they can make sure any new initiative sticks…as opposed to generating great fanfare and excitement and then slowly withering away.
Along the way, we’ll share data and stories, weaving them into an example of successful behavioral change we can all learn from. If you’re interested in generated incremental revenue that drops virtually 100% to NOI, then you don’t want to miss this session. I promise you’ll leave with practical lessons you can start using the day you’re back from the conference. I hope to see you there!
Abstract
The past 15 years have seen revolutionary changes in credit scoring, pricing, property management systems and marketing. Yet most operators still model and train leasing the same as they did 15 years ago. As Google's Zero Moment of Truth (ZMOT) study shows, prospects don't really need (or want) a salesperson anymore. No wonder--since most sales approaches are really about the salesperson's need to sell, not about genuinely helping the prospect. This session presents how operators have implemented a truly prospect-centered approach that allows leasing associates to be themselves and create an authentic "trusted advisor" role.
