Early in my business career, I attended a networking event at a local restaurant. I went to the sign-in table and was enthusiastically greeted by Susie. “Welcome! What’s your name?”
As Susie found my name on the sign-in sheet, she dutifully
checked a box and pointed me to a nearby table with white sticker nametags and black
Sharpie markers on top. “Write your
name, your business name, and go meet some great people!” Then she quickly repeated the same spiel to
the fellow behind me.
I did what I was told and uncomfortably started to mill
around the room while simultaneously straining to read the other attendees’ nametags
around me.
Me: “Hi, Jim. I’m
Brett. What do you do for Hillman’s
Autobody?”
Jim: “I fix cars.
What does ‘BDF’ stand for? Oh, that’s
really interesting…”
It was painful for me, as it was for Jim. As I moved on in the room, I saw a slightly
overweight, middle-aged man standing by himself against a far wall with his
nametag on upside-down. I went over to
him and then unwittingly stepped into his trap.
“Excuse me… Joel?” I
tried to awkwardly read his name by crooking my neck. “Your nametag is on upside-down. I just wanted you to know.”
“Oh, thanks! What a
klutz I am, Brett!”, he appreciatingly said while reading my nametag. He then unstuck his nametag and put it on
correctly.
“But do you know what else is klutzy? Not having life insurance, Brett! Let me tell you about it.”
And that was the opening that of his 10-minute monologue. He was very concerned that my grief-stricken family
members would potentially being stuck paying for my funeral costs (thousands of
dollars!) and what a stain that would be for my deceased self’s legacy.
When the conversation came to its merciful conclusion, I
politely excused myself and headed to the exit.
When I got to my car, I realized I had forgotten my coat and backtracked
back to the restaurant. I retrieved my
coat from its hook and was on my way out when I saw Joel standing by himself
again… with his nametag on upside-down.
Wait a minute…
So I fell for Joel’s little ruse. I definitely felt duped. But, to Joel’s credit, he knew why he was
there and what he was trying to do.
Sales is a numbers game. His
purpose was to talk to enough people and expect that one would be in the market
for life insurance. The right
conversation with the right person would lead to a sale.
In the rental home game, landlords are
trying to find qualified tenants to apply for and rent their homes as quickly
as possible. So, they set the bait in
the form of on-line rental ads.
Prospective renters visit these on-line rental home websites
with the purpose of finding the best home for their needs. To do so, they add some filters to the search
criteria (cost, # of bedrooms, size, area, etc.), look through these narrowed
down rental home listings, and then click through the details of specific homes
to find a few finalists. Then they schedule
times to see these top choices in person before applying for them.
In my mind, the purpose of rental ads is to be one of the
homes that is visited in person, not just a home clicked on thousands of times. The more in person visits, the more chance
that a home will be applied for and rented.
Most people do not want to keep visiting rental homes without picking
one. If a landlord can create intrigue
with the promise of a renter finding their “diamond-in-the-rough” property, this
intrigue can generate more visits.
So how does a landlord create intrigue? One way is to use fewer photos. As the saying goes, “you don’t know what you
don’t know”. It may seem helpful to
prospective renters to be able to narrow down properties by seeing 50 photos
and a virtual tour, but landlords shouldn’t want their properties to be
narrowed down and eliminated from consideration. If only 8-10 great photos are posted, it can
create a taste of a property that can only be sated by a home visit. More photos can actually bring up more reasons
to cross a rental home off a list, especially in light of hundreds of available
homes to choose from.
The purpose of Joel’s upside-down nametag was to start
conversations to ultimately generate life insurance sales. Smart landlords remember that the purpose of landlord
rental ads is to generate home visits to induce rental applications.
Happy Landlording!
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