From the moment you spoke your first word as a small child, your voice and the words you select are often taken for granted—a gift you use throughout your life.  As leasing professionals, you know the importance of using the telephone, because this is how a majority of your future residents contact your apartment communities.  In this article, we are going to ask you to capture your voice and listen closely to how you are handling each call—a powerful exercise for becoming a leasing SuperStar.

Capturing your voice and words:  Let’s start by agreeing that capturing your voice and hearing the words you are using to lease apartments is an important first step.  As a leasing professional, how much would your leasing skills and closing ratios improve if you listened to 50 or even 100 of the most recent calls you received from future residents?  Capturing your voice and listening to the words you are using to paint verbal pictures about your apartment community will have a positive impact on your leasing performance and your career in the multi-housing industry. As a resident manager or property supervisor, imagine the powerful coaching you could do with/for your leasing teams, if you could hear the five best presentations this week, given to future residents?

Tip From The Coach:  Using the simplest of tools, place a digital recorder next to your telephone and start the record every time a future resident calls your apartment community.  This will give you the opportunity to hear your voice and listen to the words you are using to lease your apartment lifestyle.  For a more powerful system, select a vendor who can help you automatically capture, save, and index every future resident telephone call.  An important note for resident managers and property supervisors:  you must receive written permission from your leasing teams to capture their voices and we recommend a system be used just for in-bound calls from future residents, as these are the calls that increase your occupancy and define property management success.

Learning from your voice-mirror:  Once you have selected a system for capturing your leasing voice, it’s now time to learn from your powerful voice-mirror.  Begin by play the recording of your calls from today and ask yourself these important questions as you listen to your voice-mirror:  Can I hear the smile in my voice?  Was my voice too soft or too loud?  Was the speed of my voice too fast or too slow?  Am I proud of the way I handled the questions asked by this future resident?  If I could re-do this call with the same future resident, what single improvement would I make?  Now, continue this process of capturing your calls and listening to your voice-mirror for the next four weeks.  Then, call us in 30 days at 435-615-8486 and tells us how your leasing skills and closing ratios improved.  We want to hear your success stories!

Tip From The Coach:  As a resident manager or property supervisor, imagine how powerful it would be to have a recording collection of the best-of-the-best in telephone presentations to share with a newly hired leasing professional.  These powerful telephone presentations could also be shared during weekly leasing meetings so your entire team could continue to polish their skills and refine the verbal pictures they are using to invite future residents to your apartment communities.  In addition, try comparing these telephone calls to the shopping reports used by your company—and watch to see how the scores of your leasing teams improve.

Linking your voice with your leasing success:  As an added bonus, companies like Who’s Calling® or Lead Tracking Solutions® will help you and your leasing teams automatically capture every in-bound telephone call from future residents and will provide you with a special index number that is spoken out by the system at the end of each call.  As a leasing professional, this becomes a wonderful audio guest card which you can go back and replay right after you finish speaking with each future resident.  By replaying this message right after each call, you can add any additional notes you might have missed during the original telephone call.  In addition, if you place this special index number on your guest card or traffic log, you can replay this saved call minutes before your appointment with each future resident!  Wow!  Can you imagine the response you are going to receive from future residents when you can remember the exact details of your telephone conversation from a week ago? More importantly, how will this personalized approach increase your leasing success?

Tip From The Coach:  As a resident manager or property supervisor, this special index number can serve a dual purpose.  For example, your leasing professional, Mary, speaks by telephone to Rick Brown on Monday and schedules an appointment for a Friday morning leasing tour.  Mary calls in sick on Friday so you can now ask Bill to cover for Mary and have him use this special index number to hear Mary’s original telephone call with Rick Brown.  What a concept!  Bill is right in step with Rick Brown, a future resident, and Bill has a better opportunity to lease a new apartment to Rick because he has the information he needs to close this sale.

About the Author

Ernest F. Oriente
PowerHour, LLC

Ernest F. Oriente, a business coach since 1995 [34,100 hours], a property management industry professional since 1988– the author of SmartMatch Alliances…the founder of PowerHour, PowerHour SEO and his live weekly PowerHour Leadership Academy plus PowerHour Sales Academy and has a passion for coaching his clients on executive leadership, hiring and motivating…