Hosts: Ronn Ruiz and Martin Canchola, Co-Founders of ApartmentSEO.com

Guest: Laurel Zacher, Founder at LZstrategic.com 

Martin: Welcome to The Multifamily Podcast powered by Apartment SEO, with Ronn and Martin, bringing you the latest insights from the world of multifamily marketing, technology and strategy. Today, we have an incredible guest joining us today, someone who has lived and breathed multifamily from the corporate side to consulting, helping property management companies improve their customer experience, branding and SEO. She’s a powerhouse in the industry, a fractional CMO, CXO, making waves in how multifamily companies approach occupancy, resident loyalty and marketing strategies. 

Laurel Zacher, welcome to the multifamily podcast.

Laurel: Thanks, guys.

Ronn: I just wanted to say this on behalf of Apartment SEO, on behalf of the multifamily podcast, on behalf of our relationship, I’ve known you for decades. Super excited about where you’re headed, where you’re at, where you’re headed, but most importantly, having you here on our podcast. So welcome, we’re thrilled to have you. 

Laurel: Thank you. I’m really happy to be here, and anytime I get a chance to sit down and have a conversation with you guys, I am all for it. So, let’s do this. It’s going to be good.

Martin: All right. So LZ, let’s start with your journey. You’ve had an extensive career in corporate multifamily, and now you’re transitioned into consulting. What led you to make that shift and what has been the biggest surprise or challenge during this transition? 

Laurel: Oh, good question. So, yeah, I’ve been in the industry for about forever in a day, but it’s actually, it’s been about three decades now, and anyone that’s heard my stories heard I started on site, I then transitioned to the service provider side for 13 years. I was in sales and marketing roles, and I was selling and marketing for property management companies. Worked with hundreds of companies and different management companies, thousands of apartment communities. And then, 16 years ago, made the move to the corporate side and was leading marketing teams, but then last fall, made the shift to become a consultant. And it’s been really interesting, both wonderful surprises and also things. I’m like, wow, I was not expecting that, but some of the things that have come out of it, that I learned about was that, after being especially for the last 16 years in these corporate roles, I really saw some recurring themes, let’s say, and some of those themes were, I would also call recurring blind spots within our industry when it comes to marketing and CX, things like siloed teams in operation. So, whether it’s site teams, from accounting teams, from system teams and marketing teams, everyone’s operating in their own world. Frankly, because that’s how we’ve got it set up. But it creates its own problems. And then within marketing itself, I’ve seen a lot of reactive marketing. I’ve taken part in that reactive marketing I am in no way putting myself above that, but because of that, I’ve also seen some of the challenges that we create for ourselves in the industry, and I think we can do it better and make it a little easy in ourselves. So, consulting allows me to sort of break those patterns and then to create more proactive strategies tailored for each of my clients that I’m working with. So, it’s been great. But getting back to one of the questions you asked was, what was the biggest surprise is how many companies really want to change, but they don’t know where to start in order to institute that change, they get it. They want to go someplace else, but what’s the first step? And then the challenge is just helping them prioritize without getting their teams overwhelmed in the process. That’s a lot of the work that I’ve been doing lately. So, it’s been interesting, to say the least.

Ronn: That’s so interesting. And do you think that when they’re eager to make a change, but don’t know where to start, is it, do you feel, are you finding that it is like now is the time because of just how fast innovation and tech is moving, or have they always wanted to just kind of get out of their own way and grow? 

Laurel: Yeah, so I think it’s partially two-fold. Part of it is how we are evolving as a culture, as a society. Our adoption of tech is faster now than it has ever been in the history of the world, and we are all adapting to that, right? We are all getting better at finding new ways to do things faster than ever before. But I think within multi family, especially in the corporate realm, we really struggle with “this is how we’ve always done it mindset”, especially with people that have been around a long time. You know, one of the things that I sometimes will get asked about is because I’ve been in the industry for so long, I remember when applications were faxed in on your fax machine. That’s how you got them. Nobody did online applications. They got sent it, and you better take a photocopy of it, because the fax paper is going to become invisible, you know, in a matter of months. So that’s how we used to do it, but that seems so crazy antiquated today, right? So, we have to adapt. And I’ve been lucky being in marketing that I think we are. I’m going to toot the horn for all marketers out there. I think we’re really well situated for it, because we have to, like I love the changes that we’re doing, the new things we’re trying, going into AI, leaning on centralization again, automating more and more things. I love it, and I can’t wait to see what’s coming next. So, I’m not sure it’s how long you’ve been in the industry, but how flexible and adaptable your mindset is. And I run into a lot of companies out there that don’t have that flexible and adaptable mindset. They have a mindset of it’s always worked, we’ve made tremendous profits up to this point doing it this way, we’re going to rinse and repeat. So, I think that’s where we’ve got a real opportunity in multifamily, is to just sort of break out of our existing frameworks, try something new, experiment a little more, and then iterate upon that more.

Ronn: I’m sorry to jump in, but do you think that more and more, you mentioned silos earlier. Do you think that more of operations is getting into marketing and understanding it and giving them the tools that they need, or are open to giving tools?

Laurel: You know, I would really like to think so. I have seen that firsthand, I’ve lived it. And I also have seen other companies had other conversations where that isn’t necessarily the case. So, I’m not going to say that across the board that change is happening. Both are still out there. And so for my, you know, peers that are sitting in corporate worlds where there isn’t a lot of adoption of new ideas and new tech, you have my full empathy or sympathy, whichever it is, I always get confused, whatever. But I feel you, because I’ve also been in that environment, and it’s not fun when you’re saying, hey, I want support for a pilot for this new idea, this thing that other companies are trying. And I think if we did a small pilot, we could see some success with it. If you don’t get that buy in, it makes it really tough, and it becomes defeating after a while. So, I do think getting operations aligned, so that marketing and operations are aligned with the same business goals. And it isn’t operations goals that need to matter, or marketing’s goals that needs to matter. It’s the overall businesses goals that need to matter first, we all need to be rowing in the same direction, in order to create success, both culturally but also financially and to have that financial impact. Frankly, that’s what gets you the buy in for tomorrow’s project, is being successful today and impacting the bottom line.

Ronn: Yeah, show me the money. 

Laurel: Yeah.

Martin: Yeah. It’s important that we break the molds and get out of our comfort zone and try to get a lot of that here. So, when it comes down to it, what advice would you give to multifamily professionals considering making the leap from a corporate role to consulting or fractional leadership? Because we know this can’t be easy, and it’s definitely has its own challenges. You know, just going off on your own, a lot of hurdles could come your way, and a lot of uncertainty. 

Laurel: Yeah, it’s scary to think about going out on your own when you’ve been in a corporate role as long as I have, and there’s quite a few of us out here in the world today that are making our way in the corporate consulting gigs, and I’ve had some great conversations and learned some things that have really helped set me up for success. The first one I learned was to be really crystal clear on what your value proposition is. What is the problem that you solve, and who is your audience that you solve it for? Who is your customer? It can’t be everyone in multifamily, because you will fail, because you can’t serve everyone equally. You also, you can’t be all things to all people. So, you have to be really clear on who you serve. I predominantly am serving operators for the most part, that’s where the majority of my business is. I do have some services for owners and asset managers as well, who are very entrenched and have different needs than operators do. And also doing some consulting with Prop tech firms, because I understand the mindset and how to communicate and position messaging to my peers, to who are their customers, ultimately. But really, 80% of the work I’m doing is with within the operator space. So be really clear on that and what the problems are that you’re solving, and then make sure you build a really strong network before you make the change, because your network, especially in those first couple of weeks, your network, is going to make or break you. For me, I was busier the, let’s say, the two weeks after I left my last company than I think I’ve been in the last 10 years. I mean, I was on calls all day, every day, and this industry is so full of people willing to give their time and their expertise, and frankly, that saved my sanity as well. I was used to being busy. Well, I made myself super busy. That was good. Build up your network. And then finally, you really need to understand that consulting isn’t just about being out there and giving your opinion and doing the work, it really is running a business. So, before you make the switch, start listening to the podcast about consulting, reading the book, that’s how you like to learn, but really start educating yourself about what it takes to set up the business, to run the business, to be responsible. Should you have a solo entrepreneurship versus an LLC, you know. How do you need to do it? What do you need to do to set it up? So, treat it that way and understand you need to know about your finances, your operations, your own sales, because you’re going to do all of it.

Ronn: Amen. Trust me, we know that, my friend, Martin.

Laurel: You know that really well.

Ronn: Any startup business, yeah, you’re like, I want to focus on this because, you know, but then you realize the business aspect of it, you’re like, okay, we got to focus on the business.

Laurel: It took me so long to finally get the website launched. I’m embarrassed to say how long it took, but, you know, I was doing all of it. I am my marketer; I am my webmaster; I am my sales person. It is what it is. I’m going to give myself grace on that.

Ronn: Absolutely, and to that end, I mean, you do have a great network, and I truly saw and it was a breath of fresh air to see us, really all getting a piece of Laurel and what your brain thinks and all your years of experience, you know, while you were building some of those virtual hate tanks on LinkedIn, right? And really asking some thought leaders for their feedback. You tagged us as well, and I appreciate that, and I think that that’s how you truly build your network. And let’s just give a plug out to multi family. I think that’s truly where our family is huge, and everybody’s willing to lend a helping hand. And what I realized from you doing that, is that you, I think you really brought a lot of people to life, and they came forth with, you know, some of their thoughts. And it was really refreshing to see, you know, of our industry just really attacking or tackling some of the things together.

Laurel: There are some amazing responses to the posts in the comments and great commentary, back and forth engagement. Like I wasn’t expecting that, but that, like that’s really one of the silver linings of doing all of this, and the people I’ve connected with have been incredible. So, I’m super thankful. 

Ronn: Yeah, no, keep it going. I love that. So, moving on to a little bit about the CX. I really want to hear your thoughts about, obviously, you specialize in customer experience. What does CX mean for our multifamily industry? And then, more importantly, where do you think we’re getting it right, or are we missing the mark? If you could be some candid with us.

Laurel: I am nothing if not candid. Well, CX or customer experience, right? There’s only so many times you could say customer experience in a row without us, like I can’t. So CX, it’s everything from someone seeing your very first ad or finding you on in Google search results, right? Or whether it’s on an ILS, it’s the first time they become aware of you all the way through the point of renewing their lease and moving out, and even after move out. It’s every engagement they have with you, even if you’re not in the room. It’s every time they see your name or think about you or interact, ask you a question, chat with you online, all of that is CX. Because they are experiencing you, to put it really simply. And again, you don’t even have to be there, and they are creating opinions about you based upon the work you’ve already done or what you’ve put out there. Again, it could be your website, it’s your ads, it’s your photography, it’s your Google business profile. It’s the AI that you have in place and the tone with which it responds to questions, or the tone with which it’s answering the phone and responding on online or on the phone call. That way, it’s all of the ways. It’s also, by the way, the messages that your on-site team sent to residents. It’s your renewal notices, it’s your 10-day notices. All of that is CX. It’s them, it’s you and them having a one-on-one conversation, whether you know you’re having it or not. So that’s sort of the really big picture of what CX is, right? Like it’s all things all the time, which can seem, you know, like okay, well, that’s big and abstract, but what does that really mean? So, those are some examples of what I’m talking about, but where we’re missing the mark. It’s in a couple of areas, but one of the things that I talk about a lot is having inconsistent experiences across the different touch points. So, for example, we might do a phenomenal job on our website, and the marketing team is like a plus an execution with the website. The photography is on point. The branding is beautiful. The logo is beautiful, like it tells a story on the website, but the minute they send in a lead, it’s now taken five days to get a response back, or maybe they don’t get a response to the phone call that they left with a voicemail at all. That’s the first moment of distrust where you really let down these prospects in that relationship that you’re starting to build with them. Or maybe it’s a resident that’s moved in, and the day they move in, they open up one of their drawers, and it turns out it’s full of crumbs because it got missed during the cleaning from turnover, right? Or there’s an appliance that’s broken, or a light that’s out. It could also be just an email that goes out reminding all residents that the parking lot is going to be restriped and you can’t park in the parking lot overnight. The tone with which you let your residents know that you are about to inconvenience them matters. It isn’t just a matter of sharing the information. It’s saying this is for the betterment of the community. Here’s what’s happening, here’s how it’s going to impact you, and here’s what you’re going to get out of it at the end of the day, and using empathy in the process as well. Those are some areas where I’m seeing a mismatch between what we’re promising at the start of the relationship and then what we’re delivering on site. So, the more that mismatch happens. I think that’s where we’re really missing the mark. 

Ronn: That’s huge. It’s back to basics, right?

Laurel: Yeah, exactly. And then I also think we don’t put enough resource and enough rigor behind looking at what happens with our residents after they actually move in. How are we communicating with them? How are we talking? How are we engaging? It’s not good enough to have a resident event once a quarter anymore, right? Especially with, we’re looking at between Gen Z and our younger millennials, and the renters often in one- or two-person household, and they really want that sense of community and that connection. Now, it isn’t about having resident events every week either, but it’s also not, not about that, right? It’s about having an opportunity for them to connect with each other and connect with you in the office, to build a relationship, even if the relationship is I’m going to talk to you once or twice a year, but make it easy for that to happen, and that takes time and commitment to create those little touch points along the way. So those are a couple of areas and examples of where I think we can do better, and it really elevate the process and what we’re doing. 

Ronn: Those are amazing. I love the concept of the we focus so much on the top of funnel, so really digging into the when they actually are our customer, right?

Martin: And when you laid out all the different customer experiences from, you know, from start to finish, I mean, there’s just so much that could happen in between that time from them, you know, first finding you, going through that living experience, and then, you know, after they’re gone, you know, how do they speak about your name or your brand, because you know there could be referrals there and opportunities, so well said.

Laurel: 100%, and we know that your online reviews will impact your ability to lease in the future, right? So, the customer service and the customer experience that you’re providing today will be showing up in your reviews tomorrow. And those reviews will either help or hurt your ability to lease. So, it’s a full circle moment, right? It all matters.

Martin: Oh, you’re speaking my language over here.

Ronn; And the cool thing, I mean, obviously our residents, customer lives with us, right? Whereas some other industries, you know, you be at hotel, airline, whatever it may be, it’s a one and done, right? So, you have one chance to get it right, whereas in our industry, I think that you have multiple opportunities to get it right, and hopefully it’s right and not wrong, right? 

Laurel: Yeah, and if you get it wrong, how quickly do you recover from it? Everybody gets it wrong sometimes. Nobody should think that they need to be perfect. I don’t have that standard out there, either for my teams, for site teams, or for any other service providers that I work with. But the question is, what happens when you get it wrong, when there is a service mishap, how earnestly does the other person actually want to make it right. That goes so far to really reversing your perception of what happened. You know, it could be something simple, like you know, I got overcharged something truly by mistake, or something I purchased something, something was forgotten, left on the counter. That happens, nobody’s out to get me. It’s just mistake. People are human, and mistakes happen, but do they care that they made a mistake that impacted me? If they care, frankly, I am 90% of the way they’re being over it, as long as I know somebody else cares.

Ronn: I’m back. Yeah, love it. 

Martin: Can you share a real-world example of a property or a company that transformed their customer experience and saw significant results, and then also some key takeaways from that.

Laurel: Well, one of the things that comes to mind is a portfolio that I worked with, and we worked on standardizing their communication templates. Now, when I talk about standardizing communication templates, I don’t mean that things need to be so rigid that you have marketing, automated messages that are never changed, and an SMS response it’s never changed, and a script that the office follows when they are answering questions on the phone, right? But we are also creatures of habit when it comes to ourselves as people. So, I do like to train when it’s an in-person phone call, I like to train on best practices for how to think of all the questions that you need to talk through, right. So that you’re used to doing it, and then you can forget it. You can throw away the script. When it comes to messaging, like marketing automation, having those questions but having the flexibility to be able with natural language processing, or now with AI, right? To be able to specifically respond to or adapt the answer to respond to the question that the person asked, rather than giving everyone the same standard answer, you need to really respond and address it like you’re having a one-on-one conversation. Lisa, two weeks or so ago, wrote a post about a conversation that she had with an AI bot about, it was, she was coming in from out of state to look at an apartment, and I would say, go look at the post on LinkedIn. It was a great example. And I’ve sent the link out to a bunch of people, and she said that it was going to be like, well over 30 days and coming in from out of state. But the answers were standardized to the extent that it didn’t acknowledge that she wasn’t searching they were from out of state and that she wasn’t looking for an immediate move in and it kept prompting and responding that way. Well, we need to have the flexibility and, frankly, smarts to understand that this is unique situation and respond appropriately. But in this portfolio that I worked with, we did standardize their communication template so that we had a place to start and that there was a baseline for communication that was happening. We also implemented resident feedback loops, so that we understood how the residents were experiencing with this day to day, where their pain points were, and then we also launched empathy-based customer service training with its teams. So, at the end of the day, the result in all of that, with all of this work, and it took multiple departments working together to create this, was a 15% boost in a resident satisfaction scores year over year, and an 8% increase in renewals. I mean, that’s huge, and that impacts the bottom line. That impacts NOI. When you look at the reduction in costs for turnovers, reduction in cost and marketing, and still being able to increase rents, that becomes huge increase in property value for the property. So that’s one instance where I think some small changes made big results.

Ronn: That’s huge. Talk about impact there. So how do you balance, I know you went a little bit into the AI road, but how do you balance technology and the human touch in customer experience, especially now that we have AI and automation playing a huge role in the resident interactions.

Laurel: I think and I’m not the first one to say this, but anything that is repeatable is a great potential use of AI. So, things that are routine, I really rely on AI to help with those sorts of routine, things like Auto Replies or FAQs or payment reminders. And those could be either AI or, in some cases, marketing automations. I’m going to use them a little bit interchangeably, depending on the company and what the company is using, but same idea, just a matter of customization behind it, right? So those sorts of routines that are on-site teams were used to doing and fielding, you could save hours by automating that, again, through automation, or through AI. And I think there’s huge potential savings there. I also am seeing use cases in affordable housing. So when I was at SPR we had affordable housing communities quite a few, and one of the things that I heard all the time from the site teams were the questions that they were getting asked all day, every day, about the programs, and how does this work, and what do I need to provide you, and just the technical things around the affordable housing programs, our teams are getting those questions all the time. I think that’s a huge opportunity for AI and automation to be able to take that off of our site teams, and then I really reserve human interaction for those moments that matter, like move in experience, like service recovery, really inject the humanity into those moments. And that’s where I would really reserve our teams to spend their time. At the end of the day, I think that AI should augment empathy and not replace it. So, there you go.

Ronn: Oh, that’s a mic drop, right there. 

Laurel: There you go. 

Ronn: No, I think you’re right on it. Yeah, definitely affordable housing, they do get inundated with that. So that’s huge.

Martin: Yeah. And you pretty much did just give us one simple, and that was just one simple update, right there, strategy, which really ripples throughout the whole experience, right? Just that one thing, but if you could, what’s another one simple item that could possibly have a big impact on customer experience for our industry?

Laurel: Yeah. So one of the things that I have trained teams on for years, and I honestly believe that it has a huge impact is, when you first open the office, or you’re coming back from lunch and you’re getting all the messages that came in overnight, if you’re the ones that are, you know, returning the calls, call your residents back first, before you call back all of your prospects. Make sure that you’re investing your time and your energy into the people that have already committed to you. They’ve already said yes. And if you think about it, think about how many leads we all get on site, right? 90% to 95% of those people are not going to lease from you, even if you have great leasing skills, because there isn’t enough. There aren’t enough apartments to lease to everybody that contacts you. The majority will not. So don’t spend your time there when it comes to prioritizing communication and addressing questions and building that relationship, invest in the people that have already committed to you first. But I’m going to give you a bonus. Second one, consider it a gift with purchase, because I can’t limit myself to one. Quick tip. The second one I give, that I talk about is be your own mystery shopper, and go shop your community, like your resident, like your prospect, pretend like you don’t know anything about it and experience the entire journey from searching for it online and trying to find it, think of yourself as a renter. What are you looking for? And then see if your property comes up, looking for those sorts of features. Do you need a two bedroom that accepts dogs? Go search for that and see if your property comes up. And then submit a lead, and then go take the tour and see what it’s like through your customers eyes. Those are your two tips that I think will drive the greatest change for any property out there.

Ronn: That’s amazing.

Martin: Yeah. And the first part, too, was, you know, calling your residents first, like that’s powerful stuff. And I wonder how common it is for that to be the practice over, you know, focusing on elites first.

Laurel: You know, I’ll only speak for myself when I was on site a million years ago, but I will tell you that we didn’t, and not everyone was in my peer group. They didn’t all call back either. It’s something that I’ve had to learn the hard way, and then once I really saw the benefits of doing it that way, I preach that far in one because it will make all the difference.

Ronn: You know what I used to do too, when I was back in the day at the site level two millions of years ago, is I would have my maintenance team mystery shop, our competitors. and can you believe that they actually brought a little bit more detailed feedback back to the team, because they saw it from a different lens, and it helped leasing be able to recognize and appreciate, kind of like, even though we were putting lipstick on a pig at the time on certain properties that we managed. But they looked at it from like how cleanliness. You know, they looked at it from just like, they were talking about the caulking in the bathtub, like do you see how dirty it was or and it was things that us as leasers were just, we would go over our head. 

Laurel: Yeah.

Ronn: Your competitors have no idea who your maintenance team is, whereas they may recognize, you know, one of their own, right?

Laurel: Yeah. Well, you nailed it, having a fresh set of eyes, like the office team, they know the other properties. They’ve already shot them. They talk about them. They know what their features and benefits are compared to our features and benefits. They talk about that all the time. But you get a little immune to it, right? So, you need somebody that doesn’t know all of it, and could go in with fresh perspective, like you said, and really see it. And there’s going to be a million things that are going to pop out at them, that we just wouldn’t see because we’ve seen it a million times.

Ronn: Maybe a portfolio manager can say, hey, you guys shop each other’s properties and, you know, within where it’s a safe space.

Laurel: Yeah.

Ronn: Information back to me only, and then I’ll disseminate the feedback. Yeah.

Martin: So, moving on to the next topic, branding and multifamily is evolving, but many still think of it as just like your logo and color scheme versus actually living in the brand. How do you define branding, and why is it so critical for multifamily operators in today’s market?

Laurel: So, I think that’s an excellent question. I’ve heard you guys talking about branding in the past. I’ve heard Stacey Feeney talking about branding, and I’ve learned from all of you guys that are such, have such deep expertise in these areas. The way I look at it is I take sort of a holistic approach to it. Branding is your promise to your customer and whether or not your operations teams are able to deliver on it, right? So, it’s not just your logo. It’s not about your logo and your design, but it’s not just about your logo. It’s about those tangible things, like what are the color schemes and what, how do they make you feel because there’s a psychology behind color that we study in marketing, right? And it is your logo and how does it position your property? Does it make it seem young and playful? Does it make it seem, you know, luxurious and high end? Those things matter, but those are just pieces of the puzzle. They are not the entire puzzle. And at the end of the day how all of those pieces fit together, along with the words that you’re using to talk about the community, along with the customer service that you’re providing, all of that together becomes your brand promise, and that is your brand, right? At the end of the day, that’s your brand. Who are you? What do you stand for? That’s your brand. I think taking, so I purposely take a more holistic view of it all, because, frankly, I find it more helpful for myself to understand that all of these pieces work together. You can’t build and work on one set of the experience without understanding how it impacts the whole. So, I think it’s important to understand all of it together. Again, what does it look like? What does your imagery look like? What is your model furniture look like? What’s the lighting inside of your photos? What are the words that go on your website and in your ads that talk about it. And then do those same qualities reflect when they get on site and they’re looking in your community and they’re talking to your people. Your people are also part of the brand. The way they speak to prospects, the way they speak to residents, the way they and here’s my pet peeve, the way they get up or don’t get up when somebody walks into the office to greet them, to say hello to them by name. Are you so and so? I’ve been waiting for you. I’m so happy to meet you. Those become part of your brand, because they become part of the whole experience. So, I could go on about the importance of holistic branding for quite a while. But let me just say, if you remember nothing else about that, stand up when people walk in the office and greet them.

Ronn: Amen, oh my god, yeah, and call them by their name. 

Laurel: Yeah, yes, people love it.

Ronn: My dry cleaner does that. I walk in literally I’m like, from the parking lot there, and they’re like, hey, Ronn, how’s it going? I’m like, how do you remember my name. Like not there that post COVID, I’m not there that often, as if, you know, wearing suits every day. But anyhow, HSA goes a long way. And yeah, I think that that’s part of your own personal brand too, right? That you’re building up not just the community’s brand. So, about branding, you know, as we evolve into this current section, on the flip side, I wanted to talk about how I believe, we still believe that SEO is often overlooked, probably because of the technical aspects to it, and not understanding, you know, truly what’s behind the scenes. But what is your take on how branding and the technicality of SEO, work together to drive better visibility, resident engagement, all the above.

Laurel: Yeah, I think they have to work together. And again, they cannot operate in a vacuum, or going back to an earlier message, they can’t operate in silos either. They have to be joined. Even if you have different team members or different teams working on them, they have to be unified. Branding is what’s going to attract people. It’s going to help you stand out from the competition. But your SEO ensures that you’re found in the first place, right? So, you need, is it the chicken or is it the egg? You need both. You need that chicken and that egg in this instance. So branding is going to build that emotional connection. It creates your story and your vibe and your value, but SEO make sure people actually discover it in the first place. So, you need both, and then without SEO, your best branding isn’t going to be seen, because we are such a digitally focused world today. So, you have to have them together. One of the analogies that I give is, think about if you created the most beautiful AD, the most beautiful billboard, but then you put it up in the middle of the desert. Nobody saw it. Nobody would care, right? SEO makes sure it picks up that billboard, it puts it in the middle of downtown, rather than being out, you know, in the hinterland. So, I think that really matters. And I look at SEO as your digital foundation, right? It’s really about basic things that, as a brand marketer, you might not think about, but really matter. And I’m sure your digital team knows about things like your site speed and optimizing for mobile. Designing your website for mobile first, not for desktop, your metadata, your local search information, they all help your brand show up so that people, once they find you, will convert to a lead and come in and see you, right. And you’re positioning yourself already for them. When they work together, you get more qualified traffic, and you get people that are engaged. And so, I mean, I think that’s really the super power of getting them to work in a more unified manner, and communicating with each other to understand the goals together, will help each other be better at it. So, you know, at the end of the day, the bottom line is that beautiful branding is going to get you remembered, and smart SEO is going to get you the results, but you need both.

Ronn: Amen, wow, you’re hired. We can’t get that message out loud enough.

Laurel. Well, let me help spread the word. And I’m telling you, I’m going all in. I don’t know. I might make my hashtag holistic branding, just, you know, or maybe holistic marketing, who knows, but it’s all of it, all of it matters.

Ronn: Yeah.

Laurel: Here you go.

Ronn: Yeah. And for those that I mean, yeah, I mean, just the value, the long-term value and SEO is huge, right? The consistency behind it, versus, like you know, paying to play.

Laurel: Yeah, if you’re not investing in your SEO, whether it’s, you know, working with a partner, or if you have teams internally, if you aren’t investing resources, I honestly believe there is a certain percentage of your dollars, anywhere from 25% to potentially 100% of The rest of your marketing dollars are being wasted, depending upon how much competition you have and the market you’re in and all the other factors. But you are, it’s not zero, I’ll tell you that. You need to be investing in SEO one way or another.

Ronn: Absolutely. So that being said, one more little question. What do you think are the biggest mistakes multifamily companies make with their SEO and branding efforts? 

Laurel: Well, that’s an easy one for me. There’s a set it and forget it mentality around SEO, and I think that’s like, oh, the website set up. We’ve gone through our checklist, we’ve added all of our meta tags, and we’ve optimized for our keywords, and we’re done, right? No. We’re not done. Great start, wonderful. And that puts you ahead of a lot of other properties out there. Because, remember, there’s millions of apartment units out there in the market, right? So, it does put you ahead by focusing on it and set up. But you’re not done. You really need to be able to go back and continue to update it. You need to go back and look at and making sure that the messaging is consistent around all of it. And then you need to go back and look at what’s actually driving traffic. What are the search terms and the key words that are relevant when you set up the site, originally, you did it either based on other properties that you have, other you know, luxury communities, or others in the same city, and use that same list. But this is a separate property, and we love all of them individual. They individually. They are all pretty, pretty princesses, and they deserve their own attention and their own focus on SEO. So now you need to go back and you need to optimize, you need to refresh. You need to really look at what’s driving traffic today and make those changes. So, looking at the keywords, if you find, I’ll give you one example, and there are others out there, like you guys that specialize in SEO optimization. So, I’m not going to go into all the details today, because they’re people smarter than me that know 10 million ways to do it, but let’s say you find out that one of the keywords that’s driving a lot of traffic is, I’m going to give a really generic term, is Pekingese, right? The dogs, like you really cater, you have a lot of residents with small dogs. And you like, what is this search term of Pekingese that’s driving this much traffic to the site? Well, if you think I’m not going to see that and then find a way to work it into my website copy, even though I didn’t originally have it there, you are mistaken. I am going to look for those things. If there’s something that’s standing out that I didn’t know when I first wrote the copy, first built the site, I’m going to make those adjustments later. That’s what I’m talking about. It isn’t a set it and forget it, once and done practice for the site. 

Ronn: Amen.

Martin: And you were really making this a really jam-packed episode. Thank you very much. Because while we’re on to our last topic, and I’m trying to, we usually do a couple of shorts, but I’m gonna probably do like five YouTube shorts out of this episode, because there’s just so many good nuggets to kind of put out there.

Laurel: I’ve got hot takes on a million topics. So, if you two ask me a question and let me go. There you go.

Martin: Well, on to our last topic of the day. Every industry has its hurdles, but multifamily seems to have some unique ones. What are the biggest challenges you see operators facing today?

Laurel: There are a couple. I see resident expectations are increasing, while we are also struggling with limited staffing. And by limited staffing in some places, that means we don’t, we aren’t staffed up to the appropriate level that we know we need to be at. In other instances, what I mean is because of the resident expectations, the amount of time that they expect us to invest in them. Our old standards of one per one team member per 100 units doesn’t necessarily cut it anymore, if our on-site teams are expected to do everything themselves, right, if they’re expected to answer. They certainly can’t do it if they’re expected to answer calls 24 hours a day. That’s why we have AI to help us. And marketing automation, so the resident expectations of 24 hour a day service, instant responses. I mean, it used to be that we would say two hours to respond to incoming leads, not ideal, but at least is within the window, juggling everything else you’ve got going on, right? But residents, their expectations have been steadily decreasing. The last I saw, I want to say it was a six-minute response time, is their ideal. Up to 15 minutes. I mean, that is basically an instantaneous response time. If you don’t have AI helping you out, you are failing already on the very first contact, unless you are literally picking up the phone or instantly responding to a message. So that’s one area where I see that we have a big hurdle today. Another one is tech adoption fatigue. We are rolling everything out, all new changes, new CRMs, new PMS. Adding in AI, adding in new processes for managing maintenance, managing renewals, all of it, but it really wears us out after a while. So, we need to recognize that, and we need to understand what’s the problem that we’re trying to solve for, and make it one or two problems when we’re adopting new technology. So that’s what you’re measuring against, to determine was it worth it. Was your ROI there at the end of the day? But if you don’t know, if you think it’s just a good idea to do it because everybody else is doing it, you will not be able to know if you’ve been successful or not. You need to know what the problem is you’re solving first, in order to know if you’ve solved it. So that’s the second one. And then the third thing I see is that we need to do a better job of balancing our occupancy goals with creating really authentic communities. Okay, now this one, it falls squarely within my CX world that I think about and talk about regularly, but I really feel for our on-site teams, because there’s this sort of push and pull between things like getting more reviews. I’ll use that as an example of what I mean about that. They are getting pressure all the time to get more and more and more four star and five-star reviews. But are they delivering and do they have the tools they need to be able to deliver a four- and five-star experience? If we are giving them the tools to create four- and five-star experiences, then how can we possibly expect our on-site teams to be responsible for all of these four- and five-star reviews. We have to balance our expectations with the outcomes that we are expecting them to deliver as well. So, I think probably because of being on site, I’ve also carried through this empathy for the on-site teams, understanding what they have to do. It’s a lot. So those are three areas where I think we can do a better job. 

Ronn: I think the empathy definitely comes from those that have been at the site level before, and I’ve left that life years, decades ago, really at this point, and I remember early on, when I became a marketer, now 20 years ago, talking to anybody that would listen in operations and let them know, like hey, like let’s pump the brakes a little bit about how much we asked the on-site to do. And this was way before reputation management and all of the above that we had to focus, you know, that residents actually gave feedback. So now I think it’s just it’s so important that you have to realign that. And I think that’s a powerful statement about giving them some grace. So, with that, how do you think marketing and operations can better align to remove friction and improve like leasing renewals, overall resident satisfaction?

Laurel: Yeah, I think it starts with making sure that there are shared KPIs, meaning key performance indicators. So, you know where the yardstick is, and both teams are fully aware of what that expectation is. Isn’t just about your goals, although certainly the goals matter, right? But it’s really understanding what are we measuring against? There have been a lot of conversations that I’ve had where the on-site team and corporate teams, operations, leadership or marketing teams were not aligned. They weren’t talking the same language. What the problem with that is, I’m going to use a practical example of things that I’ve seen. The conversations I’ve had myself, things like conversion ratios, right? And we’ll get a message from somebody in operations, usually a regional manager, saying, hey, we’re not getting enough traffic at, you know, happy apartments. And then marketing will start digging into all that. They go, well, this is weird. We’re actually seeing a ton of leads coming through, but you’re right. They’re not getting a lot of tours. They’re not getting a lot of leases at the end of the day, or maybe they aren’t getting a lot of tours, but they’re not turning them into leases. That’s where we need to start digging into understanding where the KPIs, because they may look at it and say, listen, 15% of those leads are turning into tours. That’s great, because it was junk leads that you guys and marketing were sending me, and we look at it and say, listen, you were supposed to get, you were supposed to have the sales-based conversations to turn at least 35% of them into tours on site, right? It’s being able to see the numbers and understand what they mean. But then it’s meant to drive conversation. It isn’t meant to be used to point fingers. It’s meant to say, hey, here’s where we put the yardstick, and you’re either above it or below. But let’s talk about why. Is it because you’re short staffed, and there’s literally one person in the office handling everything? Or is it because maybe you’ve got construction going on, and your main entrance was closed for two weeks and people had to go all the way around to another entrance, but we weren’t telling anybody about it on either the website or ILS ads when giving directions, because marketing didn’t know, and you didn’t you know, put in other information about it. So, it isn’t necessarily a person issue, it isn’t necessarily a sales issue, it isn’t necessarily a marketing or product issue. It could be any of them, but you use the data to be able to guide the discussion around it, right? So that’s the first thing, is make sure everybody knows what the KPIs are, so you can talk about them. And then create those feedback loops, just like we do with our residents. Have feedback loops with your site. Teams get their feedback and buy in, and especially if you’re doing a rollout for a new program. Have regular feedback loops where you do a roll out, you do a launch and a demo with what the new technology is. Then you get their feedback from that, get their questions, get the concerns that they’re worried about. You can use all of that to build out your training. Then, once you’ve launched, have office hours so that they can join or have online forms, so they can ask questions about it, but really ask them so that you can figure out where their pain points are. I think those are some of the things that we need to do. And then finally, just again, more training, cross training our teams to understand each other’s worlds helps. I think that would be a great place for us all to start.

Ronn: Huge. Great feedback.

Martin: Well, with the time and comes change, are there any outdated industry practices that you think should be left behind?

Laurel: You’re gonna get me in trouble, Martin. I’m about to get calls, so I’m gonna tell you. I’m going to tell you one but, but I need to qualify it. So, I think if we over rely on our ILS traffic, without nurturing our own website, without putting resources into our own social channels or a Theo, we are doing a disservice. It is like having a table and chopping off one of the legs, right? You are going to fall; it’s going to fall over. Maybe I’ll make it a chair. It’s like having a three-legged chair, it’s going to fall over, right? So, you need to invest in all of those things so that you can see how they impact each other, because ILS listings do drive traffic to our website. Don’t you want to know if you’re listing on this platform sent 20% of the traffic to your website? I would want to know that for sure, and I’d want to make sure they got full credit for that. So, I think it’s important. It doesn’t have to all be, you know, one or the other. It needs to be a balance, and it depends on the property. I also have a pet peeve when I hear people talking about the residents as tenants and thinking about them in transactional terms, rather than thinking of them as customers. They are a customer just like any other customer, just like your customer, and I’m a customer out there buying in the world, and they are spending the largest percentage of their paycheck with us and our communities. So, we are treating them as valued customers we will lose every single time. They need to be respected and they need to be treated that way. And then finally, the reliance on paper only that I still see out there, not great. So, I get there are things like notices for legal compliance reasons, we have to provide paper notices on many things, right? I am not in any way saying don’t do that. But not everybody is pulling the paper off of their apartment home, and I’ve learned the hard way, not every resident is home every night. So, you might have fulfilled the letter of the law by providing the paper notice on their door, but follow up with a text in an email if you’re going to do that, make that part of the process as well, because the point is that we’re supposed to communicate, not that we’re supposed to do the least amount of work within the communication process. That’s better for everybody. That’s my last…

Martin: And they still love paper checks too.

Laurel: Listen, I have, I’ve taken, spearheaded a team to take a company fully paperless. That was listen, that’s a whole other conversation. I could be with pain. I know. I know the pain. It’s a whole other episode. I know those pain points intimately. And yes, residents are going to complain when you remove the drop box, but I got you on that, there are ways to minimize that.

Ronn: Yeah, that could be a whole other episode, because we also need to get our industry to do more virtual payments, you know, stale mail checks in the mail for your…

Laurel: Not to mention, not to mention the reduction in fraud. I mean, look at how many paper checks, paper money orders and cashier’s checks either go missing or get misapplied or there’s just mistakes that happen, right? Forget the fraud. Just look at mistakes that happen. You eliminate all of that, and people that are unbanked can still pay in cash when you have the proper paperless payments programs put into place, then go take their cash to Walmart or 711 and pay with cash that way. Anyway, that’s not what this topic is about, but I can talk about that more than you want. 

Ronn: On another episode, but in the meantime, I have one more question. What about if you could wave your magic wand instantly fix one multifamily marketing or operational challenge? What would it be?

Laurel: It would be a central communication platform that works across whether you’re talking to a prospect or whether you are talking to a resident. It sees, it understands, it absorbs all of the communication that’s happening and can customize the responses back. So, here’s a common pain point that I’ve talked to my peers about, whether you have a centralized leasing team or not. You may have a prospect out there that is contacting multiples of your communities, especially if you’re in a single geography, right, you may have one, the same prospect has reached out to three or four properties, and each property is having a one-on-one conversation with them, as if we have no idea who they are or what we’re talking about. Wouldn’t it be great if we could have the systems talk to each other to say, so they send a message, and then we send them back the response, but here’s what we have available. And then five minutes later, because they’re still looking, they send a lead to another one of our properties. We say, it’s great, we saw that. We just sent you that email about this property, but we’re glad to see you’re interested in this property as well. Here’s what’s unique about this one, and yes, we do have a two bedroom. It is available on April 1, but compared to the other property, here’s some of the unique things about this one. If you can sort of elevate the conversation to become more human, I would love that. That would be my magic wand, to be able to do that, and then to have one place for residents and teams, just to sort of be able to manage all of that. That doesn’t exist today, as far as I know, if somebody does, if it exists, hit me up. I want to know about it, but I really want a communication system that is able to think and respond like a human, and I don’t just mean human like, I mean really understand, like is if every conversation is happening with me to the 40,000 prospects that we’ve talked to in the last six months, and I remember all of them, and I remember everything that they care about, just put that chip in my head and I’ll do it for all.

Martin: Now as Ronn says, now we’re gonna build it out.

Yeah, no. I mean, yeah, just again, going back to the original, like customer experience part of this conversation that alone would just make such big impact, if that, you know, in the resident journey, and really create the, you know, talk about creating the right brand is, like these people get me. They understand me. They know who I am. We deliver thereafter, you know, in the in person. 

Laurel: Exactly.

Ronn: And I like your magic wand. 

Laurel: Thanks.

Martin: So, we are going to keep this party going. We are going to cover one more topic, because we are just having way too much fun. This topic is around your work, isn’t your identity. So, let’s shift gears a bit. There’s a big conversation happening around work, life, balance and identity. You’ve made career transitions and taken on new challenges. How do you separate your work from your identity?

Laurel: So, I’m going to tell you, it’s something I’ve struggled with the last five years, and I’ve had to actively cultivate a shift in this area. It was probably two years ago, and again, I’m not going to do it justice. There was a post that I saw on LinkedIn, probably that said that there’s three areas of your life that you need to really focus on. It is your work, it’s your relationships, and it’s your health. And you really need to focus on all three. And if you’re putting your energy just into your career, that will go away and you will tackle, maybe that’s where I got, like the stool strategy from, but I think it was like three-legged stool that you knock out one. You need to have all three of those areas and balance for whatever reason. I don’t know if that was the universe tapping me on the shoulder, but I saw that, and it was like, oh, I have not been balanced in all of those areas, right? I’ve been putting for years now, all of my energy, my identity, into my work. And so, what I do now and what I’ve, it’s been a process. It is not just, oh, I get it now. I’m different. It’s I still struggle with this, but I remind myself that my job is just what I do. It’s not who I am, it’s just the way I spend my time, right? And I choose to do what I like to do, but it isn’t who I am, my humor, my friendships, my, you know, sometimes inappropriate jokes, they all are bigger parts of who I am. Can the work that I do from nine to five, Monday to Friday. So, you know the people in the passions that are outside of my work, they really deserve as much energy as I spend working, you know, at work, so whether it’s in a corporate role or whether it’s for my consulting clients. The people outside deserve my time and attention and full commitment to being present as well. But it is a muscle that you have to flex, you have to practice, you have to get better, and you have to choose to say, I’m going to strengthen these areas. I’m going to choose to spend the time to go work out. I didn’t use to work out at all, and now I’m working out multiple times. This is not a Hooray for me. I hate it, and I hate every minute of it, but I do it, and I invest time with my friends, and I try to be more intentional with my family, and sometimes I fail miserably, miserably, but at least I’m thinking about it. And that’s, I think at least trying and recognizing where you’re falling short is the first step. So, I don’t know, wish me luck on this journey my friend.

Martin: You become self-aware.

Ronn: Absolutely I love this new journey. For you.

Laurel: We’re all experiencing it in real time together.

Ronn: We’re all on a journey. That’s it. So, to that end, I wanted to ask a similar question. Is like in an industry that’s always on, burnout, obviously, is real. What advice do you have for multifamily these professionals who struggle to step away, maybe your former self from work, and to find themselves beyond their job title. Yeah, I am asking for a friend, by the way, because I need this advice.

Laurel: I really suffered. I mean, the last five years have been really tough, right? And we’re still, it was a huge overnight shift when COVID happened. And there are people listening to this that were not working in our industry then. We got to remember there are new people coming in every day. They don’t understand what we went through when all of a sudden, we were told, as of Monday, all of your offices are closed. You may not have anybody in the offices. You can’t have anybody working on site. You’re done until we tell you otherwise, like well, we got a lease. What now, we’ve got a lease upon how are we going to do this, right? We had, it was, there’s a little PTSD there still. I think let’s just acknowledge that for everybody that went through it, but some of the learnings that came out of it, I think there are a lot of us that got burnout after that. I know I did. I own that I did, and I was part of the creator of my own burnout, and I felt like I was always on, like you talk about. And so, some of the things that I’ve had to learn the hard way is setting boundaries, both digital boundaries and physical boundaries. So one of the things that I love is at SPR we used Outlook, right? Like a lot of companies do for your email and our IT team had turned on Viva insights, so you could pause when a message is going to be sent, if the recipient has set their office hours in Outlook, Viva or Outlook will ask you, do you want us to hold this message until their office hours. Yes, every time. That was a commitment that I made with my team that listen, the stakes happen and, you know, again, Grace. But whenever I saw it, whenever I could be, I always tried to be intentional, so that I didn’t stress them out. I sent messages during their business hours, and I encourage them to do the same for me, but also so they knew that there were, if there were emergencies, I was available. When you’re the boss, you are available at all times, the day when there’s an emergency. But talking about boundaries, again, the digital boundaries, holding messages, not checking your messages, unless something’s an emergency. If these are emergencies, manage that communication both up and down. My boss knew how to text me or DM me if there was an emergency, and so did my team. I didn’t have to look at emails because I knew that nothing that was really urgent was coming through that way, that gave me the space to do it. And then the physical ones, turn off the computer at a reasonable time. Don’t work into the evening. Have the time to focus on the people that matter outside of work, and step away from the computer. I think that’s the first thing. And then take your time off. If you’ve got time off, take it. Don’t take your computer. I used to take the computer. I tell everybody on my team, leave your computer. Ronn, I’m telling you; I will literally write you a note, leave your computer. Because, again, if there’s an emergency, your team knows how to get a hold of you. If there’s an emergency, you know, Martin will call you and you could talk through it, if there’s a real problem. How many times have there ever been real emergencies that you absolutely needed to be pulled in off on your vacation? Once you make that mental shift, you have such a better vacation because you’re not worried about it anymore. So those are two of the big things that come to like your day to day, and then, outside of work, find a hobby. I know that’s easier said than done. Find anything you like that has nothing to do with work, and go do it and maybe make a few friends along the way that have nothing to do with work. How about that.

Ronn: Those are powerful. I’ll take your letter, by the way, your notes. 

Laurel: Yeah, you got it. I’ll send it to you. No, I’m going to send it to Martin, and he’s gonna make sure, he’s gonna get the note. Dear Martin, please excuse Ronn, and don’t let him take his computer on vacation. 

Martin: Yeah. He knows we can hold it down. 

Ronn: Oh, no. We have an amazing team. Yeah, I take my iPad now, and that’s my, like in between my phone and my, yeah, in case I need like a bigger screen. Yeah, right now. Take your time off. I agree with that. I support that.

Martin: Love this. All right, so have you ever had a moment where you realize you need to reset your relationship with work? How did you navigate that situation?

Laurel: Well, I just mentioned to you how after COVID, I had gotten burned out, right? Didn’t want to show that to my team, because I have to, when you’re the leader you have to be, you know, you have to give yourself. You have to be the motivator for your team, but you have to have something in your own tank to be able to fill up somebody else’s tank as well. And I was running on empty, so I wasn’t my best self for, you know, for quite a while there. And I had to sort of take a step back and think about what’s my why in doing all of this. You know, am I doing this because, are you doing it for fame and glory and the title? Are you doing it because you love the work that you’re doing and you love the people, you love working with the people that you’re working with to do it? You’ve got to get really candid with yourself to figure that out, but that’s what I had for me, that’s what I had to do. And understanding that really helped me put it in perspective, like it’s okay if we’re not perfect, it’s okay if we make mistakes. Nobody’s getting fired over this. And having that grace for myself and for the team as well, I think made a difference when I was able to start making that shift. I was able to finally regain my joy and have the fun again. But boy, it got, it was tough there. I can’t imagine any leader that doesn’t experience burnout at some point too, where you’re like, oh, I want to have fun again. I had to find the fun.

Ronn: That’s amazing. Yeah, definitely, you have to. You have to lean into that and understand that that’s where you’re at, and then give yourself grace and find a way out.

Laurel: Exactly, yeah.

Ronn: Make your happier soul happy again. So, a little fun question to kind of wrap things up a little bit. What is something outside of multifamily that you’re passionate, I think I know the answer. That you’re passionate about, that keeps you grounded.

Laurel: Yeah, well, we’re friends on Instagram too, so you see all of my posts and what I do, but first and foremost in my life is travel. Whether it’s getting out in the RV and we’re going camping, we’re going seeing, exploring out there and just getting out of our usual routine. Or I took a trip with my best friend last fall, and we went to Portugal. I realized that isn’t, that is impossible for everyone to go fly halfway around the world. But I’m going to tell you, for me like it was so life affirming for me, I loved it. I love just going and meeting new people that I don’t know and New Towns and new places to shop and new places to eat, whatever it is, right? I love all of that. I love exploring. I am an explorer. So, if I lived in a different century, I would, that’s probably what I would do. I would go be an explorer someplace, and then another thing I’m passionate about. I don’t know how grounded it keeps me, but it’s champagne. I love all things sparkly and bubbly. So, my husband might say that also applies to diamonds, but I would say it’s champagne, all the champagne, all the wines. I love taste. I love wine tasting. We share a passion for Paso Robles. And I can’t win over the holidays, going back in May for Wine Fest, for anyone that’s there for wine, and I can’t wait. I’m so excited about that. I love exploring and trying new wineries wherever I go. 

Ronn: Yeah, I knew we were friends. We’re speaking my love language, and we certainly need to get that RV trip around a wine, all three organized.

Laurel: It’s the best of both worlds. It’s traveling and wine forgetting.

Ronn: You’re in your own home.

Laurel: Yeah, in your own home. Like coming back, I was on a fishing trip with work once with a guy. He said, oh, it’s your Chateau to go. I’m like, that’s it. I’m stitching that on a pillow. It is my Chateau to go.

Ronn: It is. That’s amazing. We call ours our penthouse. 

Laurel: Nice.

Martin: LZ, I just gotta say, this has been a very wonderful, valuable conversation. And I’m sure our listeners are going to get tons of information from this. So, thank you again for sharing your insights, all about customer experience, branding and SEO, and really the bigger picture, about work life balance. Because I think a lot of people really need to hear that today in our industry. And I think you know, this message is going to go far and wide, and I hope it makes the impact on at least, you know, one or a handful of people where, you know, you can help change the way they think, and you know what they’re doing with their lives. So, thank you again. 

Laurel: Oh, thank you, guys. It was so wonderful being here. I really appreciate it. And, you know, this was fun. I loved it.

Ronn: Absolutely. I think that no matter what, like I was thinking about it mid podcast, is whether you’re an operations, whether you’re in marketing, whether you’re an on-site team member and or whether you’re a supplier partner. I think we touched; you touched on so many different lifestyles that people can relate to. So, I really appreciate your candidness. Obviously, we knew this was going to be an amazing podcast. Super excited to finally get it together. Before we wrap up, though, I want listeners to know how to connect with you. I’m sure a lot of our listeners already know who you are, but how do they connect with you and talk about your company? 

Laurel: Yeah, well, the best way to connect with me is on LinkedIn. It’s where I’m the most active and engaging in conversations every single day. So, find me there. I’m the only Laurel Zacher on LinkedIn, so I will not be hard to find. If you find there’s another one, I’m going to report them. So let me know, which I’ve done a couple times now. And then, otherwise, if you just want to understand more about what I do and how I help companies and multifamily, you can go to my website at LZstrategic.com, and can see all the different ways that I can help you or help your organization. And I’d love to connect. I am really; I’m in my era of Yes. I’m coming from a place of yes, this Bethany would say. And I’m like, leaning into all the conversations, meeting, all the new people, having all the conversation, you know, the meet and greets, because I’m just, I feel more excited about the conversations that we’re having as an industry that I felt excited about, you know, things in a while. So, I love it. I feel like I’m in the trenches in a different sort of way. I miss the corporate role. I miss the corporate world. I miss having that team around me every day. So maybe that’s what I’m doing. I’m back filling by meeting a million new people and having, like amazing conversations which I wouldn’t have, I wouldn’t have guessed was going to be the phenomenal silver lining in all of this. So, I love it.

Ronn: That’s amazing. So, no more burnout, and hello to yes life.

Martin: Awesome, awesome. 

Laurel: And in return, you’re seeing the sort of conversations I’m having online. I’m like yeah, I’m gonna say it because I’m only beholden to my own brand now, and there’s something kind of liberating about that.

Ronn: Amen. 

Martin: Yeah, all right. And to our listeners, if you enjoyed this episode, please don’t forget to subscribe, leave us a review and share this with your network. We’ll catch you next time on MultifamilyPodcast.com with Ronn and Martin. Until then, make sure to get your Free Marketing Analysis from ApartmentSEO.com and let our team take your communities to the next level. Bye everyone.

Ronn: Bye.

Martin: Bye, Laurel.