MARKETING
BRENT WILLIAMS | MULTIFAMILY INSIDERS
Supplier Insights: For Long Term Sales
Success, A Focus On the Future Is Just As
Important As a Focus On the “Now”
L
arge organizations have a great habit of
remaining as market leaders because they
do one thing very well: They dual mar-
ket both to today’s decision makers AND to the
decision makers of tomorrow. This means they
have set up their success metrics to properly
analyze how they are doing with those target
prospects in today’s world, but then at the same
time plan ways to build a base of loyal followers
in the future.
Everybody has a plan to reach decision makers,
so I’m not going to cover that aspect right
now. Instead, I’m going to talk about nurturing
relationships with future leaders. One of the
best examples of creating early loyalty and
brand awareness comes from the computing
world. Apple and Microsoft have battled for
years to get their computers and programs into
schools - Back in the day, you could get the
entire Microsoft Office suite for something like
$15 if you were in school. Was that just because
they wanted to support students? Of course
not! They realized that once someone was
indoctrinated into their ecosystem, they were
much more likely to stay with it.
position where they are calling the shots and
are looking for service providers, the very first
resource they will use is their own memory.
Companies that have abandoned a brand-
enhancement strategy to a wider audience
to only focus on today’s decision makers will
find that their brand stops being “top of mind”
when tomorrow’s leaders come into decision
making roles.
3. It may not be trackable! Companies are
becoming increasingly sophisticated in tracking
their marketing, which is absolutely fantastic.
However, it is not infallible, as there are still
some marketing techniques that can’t be easily
tracked, if at all. In this case, how does one
track success when that success builds up over
years rather than weeks or months? While
some companies have moved aggressively to
track every form of marketing (and drop those
they can’t track), I foresee there being a swing
back the other way when they realize that they
might have inadvertently sabotaged long term
strategies because they didn’t fit into very strict
tracking requirements.
Property management has a very consistent
career path, where a leasing consultant rises
to assistant, then to property manager, then to
regional manager or marketing and training.
Granted, not all leasing consultants will
rise to the top, but we do know with a fairly
high amount of certainty that most of the
future regional managers, vice presidents, and
“C-Suite” executives will come from today’s
leasing consultants, APMs, and property
managers. In other words, we know where the
future decision makers come from – they are
already working in the multifamily industry!
As suppliers, we just need to remember to build
those bridges now so we can leverage them for
years to come.
Brent Williams is Chief Insider of Multifamily Insiders,
the largest social network in the world for multifamily
professionals. His background includes both property man-
agement and supplier, and he writes on all facets of the
multifamily industry, although his focus lies in resident
retention.
When thinking about creating
a strategy to reach future
leaders