Full Transcript for Breaking Down the Silos with Derek Miller

also let them know, right, that feedback is welcome. And that it is, you know, truly vital to the success of the program. That I need to know what's going on from an on-site level and if there's glitches or, issues. what you don't want to have happen, of course, is this almost like authoritative, coming from top down kind of approach. And in my mind, because then it really stops that communication. And so really trying to be an open book to explain kind of the reasoning behind the tools, the ex reasoning behind the marketing initiative, and then allow them to then interject when things are clunky. Rory Anderson: Yeah. I think that a lot of times the marketing team has never been on site, right? And they have not, Derek Miller: Yeah, yeah, a hundred percent. Rory Anderson: they they don't know like the day-to-day operations. Sometimes they have. I've seen it both ways. I've seen somewhere you've got a third party marketing, well, or even a even a department that works in the corporate office, right? And They but they're more geared toward digital marketing and understanding that and and all the ins and outs of that, which you need. You you absolutely have to have in this day and age, right? Derek Miller: Yes, right. Yeah. Rory Anderson: But they might not know what's how hard it is on on site to track things or to f or or to get information back. And I I think what I'm trying to say here is I I found it more successful when the marketing team and the leasing team can speak the same language a little bit. And can kind of share information back and forth and help Derek Miller: Yes. Rory Anderson: each other understand what they're seeing. Derek Miller: yeah, a percent. And right, and like to your point of like either like marketing teams not have been on site or even if they have been on site, it may have been a while. And so Rory Anderson: Mm-hmm. Derek Miller: in the age of rapid changing technology, you know, your CRM may be different or have had a huge amount of updates. And so, I have essentially tried to tell our teams I'm an open book, And so I don't want you to feel like my door's closed. You know, I wanna know what it you are seeing. And there's plenty of times that I actually have to dive in and and like hop on a call, right? And have screen sharing and look at the CRM and how is our bot interacting with inputting that information as well. I've had to work closely with our operations team of really studying the follow-up processes and procedures to understand what is the expectation of the on-site teams Rory Anderson: Mm-hmm. Derek Miller: and then what is the expectation of our technology. And the in its role, And w what are those handoff points? And do the site teams understand what that handoff point is to really try to create the best, you know, prospect experience? And you know, I think it's really easy in our industry just to kind of be like, I bought a software, and I'm just going to install it and call it a day without really having an implementation process, It's really looking Rory Anderson: Mm-hmm. Derek Miller: through. each step and analyzing those before implementation, but then even after the fact of are there even additional tweaks? so we have at Sterling an implementation schedule that we come out with. And we kind of set that expectation, right? Like so here's the prep work. It's gonna take me let's say one to two months to get it started. We may run a pilot, you know, on a few properties, what's that information gathered? To then refine it for the rest of the rollouts. And then after that rollout period, and even we've set we set trainings for on-site teams in that implementation schedule as well. And then after you could say everyone's on it and launched, I've even set up like one or two additional follow-up schedules of training slash feedback communications to allow the teams to like provide that feedback and kind of additional learning. Rory Anderson: Yeah. Derek Miller: you know, so I think all that is vital to make sure that everyone's on the same page, speaking the same language and utilizing the software to the best of its ability. Rory Anderson: Yeah, that's true. I also think it's important for like we had a great company that we worked with in the west on the western side of the United States, who their marketing team actually came and visited every site, got a feel for it, took some pictures, if it was like a luxury prop property, they they were able to just see the vibe. And feel the vibe Derek Miller: Yeah. Rory Anderson: of the property. And I felt like that really helped them a ton. After they had visited it once, they were like, we get it now. We Derek Miller: Right. Yeah. Rory Anderson: understand. So that's something too that I think sometimes gets forgotten about, especially if you're, you know, like more of a nationwide company and you've got an in-house marketing team, that you're Derek Miller: Yeah. Rory Anderson: often not sending your marketing team out to sites. But I feel like that helps so much to create the level of intentional marketing strategy that that these sites need because they really are their own individual businesses, right? And I'm a big believer in the customer experience and what that Derek Miller: Right. Rory Anderson: what that journey looks like as a customer. And so that that's just something I think that's that I I wanna say go above and beyond, but really I think that should be kind of part of the job. Derek Miller: Yeah. No, I'd like I I would be curious to know you kinda your thoughts on even like how do you maintain something like that, right, on a regular schedule. Like Rory Anderson: Yeah. Derek Miller: it like similarly, like st you know, like with the company that I work before, it's you know, Sterling. We're based out of South Bend, Indiana. My team's a actually a very remote team. And then our all of almost all of our properties are in the southeast, you know, part of the United States. So something

that's pretty difficult on our end, right, to to go to sites regularly. No. I am fortunate enough to have, I'd say, like a product type that is very similar to a lot of our sites close to us. Rory Anderson: Mm. Derek Miller: And so we have scheduled meetings and marketing team almost get togethers at that site to help bring that context in. But yeah, yeah, getting everyone out to, you know, every market or every site can be really a challenge, I think, in today's world, especially of trying to cut costs and, you know, things of that nature. So, yeah, I'd like Rory Anderson: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it's not gonna work for every market, right? Or every company. But Derek Miller: Yeah. So I'm like how have you had an experience or a chance to be able to essentially how how have you been able to keep that fresh and alive with you guys? Rory Anderson: Well, so we work with different third party companies, so it's different for each one. And I'll and I'll say that we haven't had every company do that. I feel like that the company that did do that with our marketing, they just were more bought in. They understood the market better, they understood the the client better, like the potential client that would be coming to that particular property. And it really helped. It helped a ton for them to see that. And you're right, like it's not a it's not realistic for that to happen with every every property. But what you could do is do a virtual, like, get together with the on-site team. And you're like, hey, walk Derek Miller: Yeah. Yeah yeah, great idea. Rory Anderson: me around your property. Help me understand a little bit about what challenges you face when people come on site. What are the things that they ask about? What are the things that you know, cause cause that helps drive your SEO too when you're when you're getting into FAQs and putting that on your website Derek Miller: Yeah. Rory Anderson: and understanding that better. That's where I see the marrying of the the on site team with the marketing team really being beneficial. I mean, when we do FAQs on our websites, we reach out to the on site team and we say, How would you answer these questions? And then of course we go over them and help them, you know, maybe like wordsmith them Derek Miller: Yeah, formulate them. Rory Anderson: a little bit. But we're having them do that so that we're getting the information from the horse's mouth, so to speak. Derek Miller: Yeah, no, that's awesome. Rory Anderson: So that said, we I'm gonna I'm thinking of a a situation that just happened recently on one of our properties where we had somebody kind of look in, not necessarily secret shop, but they were just going through the experience of Derek Miller: Yeah. Rory Anderson: what it looks like to to try to become a resident, right? from the on site, from the the online Derek Miller: Right. Rory Anderson: process all the way through. And the feedback was Wow, there is a lot to this process and it's taking me a long time. And I feel like maybe we could do something better on that end to make it shorter and Derek Miller: Uh-huh. Rory Anderson: make it more dialed in so that you know you're making it easier to easy to become a customer, easy to stay a customer, right? Derek Miller: Yeah. Rory Anderson: Stay a resident. So where do marketing teams sometimes unintentionally maybe create problems for the on-site teams and not even know it? Derek Miller: Yeah, no. I unfortunately I think, you know, us trying to be problem solvers, right, and helping the on site teams, I think there's I think a lot of ways to become the problem instead of the solution, for the onsite teams. you know, I Rory Anderson: Yeah, yeah. Derek Miller: I think like taking re s like that exact same story that you had said, right, of following the same journey. I'm like we had to do the same. recently on our on our sites, so we actually changed from one provider to another with our AI again answering chatbots and phone answering but in that we had to actually almost pretend to be the the prospect and and almost fill out again in our pilots we Rory Anderson: Yes. Derek Miller: f we filled out the c question card we you know Then had to see what those communications were. And in that, we discovered, for example, that the prospect was getting three notifications almost as soon as they entered into the CRM. Because our AI solution was giving automated response. The CRM was giving an automated response. And then it was like the question form from let's say our ILS was also giving a response. And it was all pretty much saying the same thing of, hey, we'll get back to you soon. Right. And so Really, that's a little excessive, And so that's again Rory Anderson: Yeah. Derek Miller: utilizing the pilot and like learning Rory Anderson: Yeah. Derek Miller: those things are are vital to to that, I have seen communications from prospects, where they get irritated and they'll say something like, Can you stop talking to me? Right, or you know, things of that like, leave me alone, right? And that's all because those things weren't aligned correctly, Rory Anderson: Yeah. Derek Miller: and it was overwhelming. You know, so again, having that speed to lead and thinking like, hey, we're trying to be, first and answer you and let you know that we're coming, to answer your questions, like ended up backfiring, right? In in the sense Rory Anderson: Yeah. Derek Miller: of like it was over communication and too many sources saying saying that. So yeah, totally agree that you know, s sometimes in solving the problem, you don't think through every single step. And it required Rory Anderson: Yeah. Derek Miller: again either on-site teams filling out those questionnaires or forms, or even checking in the I like their own CRM to see what are those communications coming from it, right? And then letting us know like, hey, this is how we're we're seeing those populations. Rory Anderson: I love that. Okay, so homework assignment

for anyone that's on site right now today. Go get on your get on your website, go look through Google, go try to become a resident and see what happens. See what happens. Cause I think that's something that we often overlook. But that's such an easy thing for us to go through and look and then give your give your marketing team some feedback. Hey, I think it would be better if this happened. at this point instead of this. Or I it's it's more helpful to me to have this button on the website up here than down here. Like I didn't even see it. You know, just things like that. Or the mobile version was confusing, but the the desktop version wasn't, you know? There's just Derek Miller: Well Rory Anderson: little things like that. Derek Miller: yeah, and and again I I think What I truly try to preach, I think, even to like our on-site teams is like it is fine, like it is like own your site, right? and and like and help Rory Anderson: Yeah. Yep. Derek Miller: us be successful for you, And I I've had even mobile versions where again we do an update to a website, you think, I've created this beautiful t new template, we've updated it with all the correct photos, and then we find out that the mobile version has a grayed out. icon, So then the resident portal all of a sudden wasn't discoverable because it was the same color as the background of the header, and then having the teams reach out even, and being like, hey, just so you know when you updated the the template, this is an issue that we're seeing, And we're getting feedback on. And all that stuff is vital, If that communication doesn't come up, then those are unresolved issues that last way longer. I shouldn't be. Rory Anderson: Yeah, so good. So good. Okay, last question on this one. What information do you feel like every property manager or leasing agent should understand about marketing that they usually don't? Derek Miller: Yeah, I I think for a property manager or leasing team to understand about marketing is to not always just focus on I guess, you know, is the the top of funnel lead quantity, right? but to actually think through again your whole resident journey and Rory Anderson: Mm-hmm. Derek Miller: where on the on-site level, are we falling short in those stages? And I I think if you can focus in on, what we just said with the homework assignment of following through that process, you may be able to identify spots that are lacking in your marketing line and then provide that feedback. And I I think that ultimately Realizing that marketing is involved more than just trying to populate the top of the funnel is vital to your property success. Rory Anderson: I love that. I also was thinking, I think that in this day and age, we sometimes leave too too much up to just the digital marketers. And we forget that we also have a responsibility to be part of the marketing, be part of the face of the property, and go out and do some creative out-of-the-box marketing. Go out and talk to different businesses. Go out and talk to preferred employers and make those connections and try to build more of a community base, go to a chamber of commerce, you know, things like that. Derek Miller: Yeah, perfect. Rory Anderson: I just think sometimes that's marketing gets put in and that's when the silo happens, right? When it's like, well, Derek Miller: Yeah. Rory Anderson: they're not bringing us any leads, so we can't close anybody. well, no, it's your job too. It's your job Derek Miller: Right. Rory Anderson: to you know on site to be the face of the of the company and bring people in. Do some resident referral programs where you're trying to bring in Derek Miller: Right, right. Rory Anderson: friends, you know. So I would say marketing doesn't end when someone fills out a guest card, right? And operations doesn't begin when someone signs that lease. They are part of the same customer journey. And so when when marketing understands what's happening on site and the on site teams understand what marketing's trying to accomplish. Then we can make better decisions, we create better experiences, and ultimately Derek Miller: Yes. Rory Anderson: we can operate those properties in a much better way. So I would say to wrap up this episode, the challenge for everyone listening is very simple. Go find one place where marketing and operations aren't communicating today and go fix it. Go figure out how to fix it. Anything else, Derek, you want to say about that? Derek Miller: No, I I think you hit the nail nail on the head try to poke holes in your processes and refine Rory Anderson: Yeah. Well make sure you come back to our next episode to learn more about the least expensive resident that you can acquire. Until next time, keep leading great teams, keep leveling yourself up and go be a light and a blessing to someone else.