Staff Buy-In Strategy

Well, okay. We're moving the conversation along, and the focus of this little slide video is getting the staff on board. We kind of said before, it's all in the presentation. Getting the staff on board right up front is really critical to implementing this and making it work, no matter what you do with the money. But we're going to just focus for a few minutes on getting the staff on board.

Now, everybody has their own management style. I had a tendency in my early years to come into a meeting and say, "Here's what we're going to do. Get on board. This is it. No grumbling, no complaining.

Embrace this, do it, and the money is all mine." There are other managers who take a very laid-back management style and just present it to the staff based on their own ideas, and not taking any time to watch through this training. And basically lay it out to the staff, say, "Well, what do you think?" And let the staff decide whether or not it's something you want to implement. I think that's very dangerous, but there are some people who do it that way.

Presentation Methods

So let's talk through some different options about how to present it to the staff. Okay? You can say, "Let me just present it to the staff and let them decide." Well, you're letting them decide on a whole lot of money, so be very careful taking that approach. Okay? If there's nothing in it for them, they see it as extra work.

We all know this. We've been around. You've been around management for a while. If the staff don't see that there's something in it for them, they will tap the brake, they'll find you five reasons why it won't work, and they'll feed on each other's negativism, and it'll go down the drain, and you'll have an uphill battle in getting this implemented.

So I've gone through this little exercise before, but there's serious money in this. You want to make sure you don't give it up to your staff and just let your staff decide. Okay?

Revenue Impact

And we've done a little math because I want you to see this again. If you're doing about seven leases a month, that's 100 a year, and do it to 250, there's 25,000 bucks per year. Now you say, "Robert, we manage 500 or 1,000. That's not big money." But remember, this is a nickel-dime business. So it's nickel dime, but it'll substantially increase your income because over five years, that represents enough to pay off one of your rental houses or to send your child to college.

This is really serious money when you think about what it might generate over a period of time. And that's 125,000 if you never go above 100 leases a year. So if you grow the company, that number's going to be more like $150,000 or $200,000. If you're doing 300 move-ins a year, we've got lots of clients doing 25 move-ins a month, $250 is 75,000 a year or $375,000. That might even pay a house off.

That's serious money. That could add substantially to your retirement account. You might decide to spread that around the staff a little bit and make sure everybody gets some of the money to help them buy in. So getting the staff buy-in is critical because there's big money in it. Okay?

So you got to really think this through together and make sure it gets launched the right way. Management style, give the staff a reason to embrace it. And that's what this video is about.

Staff Incentives

And we've got a list of things that you can use that other students have used to help get the staff to embrace it. So you can go to the staff and say, "We want to set up a resident reward program. We want to give out gas cards. We want to do this, this, and this. And it'll really help our company reputation.

It'll help our company grow. And I've got to have extra revenue to figure out how to pay for that. And I think I have found a way. Let me introduce it to you." In other words, just introducing a new revenue stream, if you get it all, and they don't see any benefit, they're not going to respond the way you hoped they would. And so we want to help you do that the right way.

You could say, "We want to initiate a spoil the staff program like Crown did for so many years, and take our staff out to blockbuster movies and lunch, and bring in a nail manicure, or bring in a chair massage." We did that stuff for years, and it made your staff just love working here. So maybe that's an idea that could help you kind of launch it and say, "We need revenue to pay for this. We think we found a way to make it work." It has to be a benefit to the staff, or they're not going to embrace it. Or you could say, "We want to pay some bonuses.

We want to spread the money around. We want to begin an IRA for everybody. We want to spread the money around and make sure everybody gets a little bit of money." So you could say to those people who are intricately involved in getting this money, whether it's the leasing agent or the manager on the phone with a tenant dealing with this and dealing with their questions. So maybe you spread some money between them.

I'm not sure the receptionist should get any, but that's kind of your call. That's why we have to talk in the next couple of weeks, kind of figure out a strategy on how it might work best. Some managers just say, "We're going to do this." Some managers just kind of walk in, and this is a management style issue, as I mentioned before, and just say, "Look, I've got a new idea that's going to make the company some more money, and we want you to engage. Here's the way it works.

Get on board, and the money is mine." And you won't say that, but that's kind of what they'll hear if you don't give them some benefit, something where they feel like their life is going to be better because the company's life is better. There's more revenue coming in.

Presentation Approaches

You can do more things for them. So here's some options that we're going to-- Again, we're going to expand on this idea of presenting it to the staff on how to get it to them in a way that they'll respond really well. Okay? One is let my site present it. In other words, in the first video, we said there's a site on this for your staff.

This page is for your eyes only. So that page, once you pull the trigger on presenting it to them, you could let my videos and my conversation on the staff page kind of help you in the presentation of it. A number of our students have done that. You can let me present it. If you're in the Atlanta area, I'll drive to your office and present it.

Okay? I'm not afraid of that. Sometimes coming from an outside person, be able to answer all the questions right off the bat is another way, or I can do it by Skype. I can do it by in-house TV. There's a number of different ways that you can engage me to do it.

Or you represent it if you're ready to do that, or get your senior staff involved in the presentation. So there's a list in this section of your page, for your eyes only, where you can print it, and we can have a conversation about some of the different ways that you might make the staff feel like they're going to be better off because of this new fee coming in. Okay? So keep going through this material.

Some of it you'll want to print because it's lengthy, and we'll talk through it, and you're going to want to underline it and grill me with some questions. So take your time. We're not in a hurry. You're not going to present this to your staff at the end of the week.

Developing a Strategy Together

This is something we need to kind of methodically go through together and develop a strategy. Okay? So that's the end of this video. Let's keep moving forward.