Manager Labs – technology for (visionary) property & facility people.

Q. How do I use technology to generate more business/client/traffic leads for my company or property/facility?

A. Notice, the word ‘leads’? Leads because they are opportunities for business. In this simple blog post, there is no way to tell you how to improve your business itself without knowing a whole lot more information about your business. Leads are simply people making your phone ring, so to speak. In other words, if there are 10 people in your market looking for a business to hire, or an office space to lease, you MUST be sure you get to see those people and at least expose your business to them.

There is no difference in our work to lease or sell a property. If there are 10 opportunities to lease your space or your apartments, or your service centers or storefronts, don’t you push to be sure you see every single deal? The same holds true with your business. Just pretend you are a building owner and your business is a building. Why not push as hard for your business to feed it leads as you do your leasing or investment sales listings?

Here is a simple test: Search for your company or your building in Google Search. Did you find your company or your building? Remember, pretend you are the customer you want to attract. Now that you see what comes up, you need to work to see your business or property come up in that search! Once you see yourself come up in a Google Search, you have accomplished the goal.

Those techniques and tools are a must today if you are going to give your business a chance. In this blog post we share 1 single concept that reveals the most basic fundamental concept you MUST understand and have in place to give your business a chance to see those “new business deals” for your firm or property. If you are a start-up or an existing business, this blog post is of the utmost importance to understand.

Here is the key concept to comprehend………..drum roll, please.

Key Concept

You must have at least one or more versions of your business name, reserved as a domain name.

If you are a new business or an existing business, a new property or an existing property, get the best domain name that describes what you do or the full name of your property. If you can get a keyword in your legal name, that helps tell what you do, that is even better. If your business is a destination or is geographically significant, add the location to your name or geonaming, (made up word) which means, add your location to your domain name or putting your location in your social media names and microsites.

It is difficult to put all of your services into a domain name without it being long. For instance, Property Management, Facility Management or Property and Facility Management, coupled with other services typically provided: leasing, investment sales, project management, consulting, etc., is much too long. I suggest you get your main name reserved, as well as micro-sites in many different configurations. Here are some illustrative examples:

Chicago Property and Facility Management Services, Inc. (super long, but it does say what you do and where you are!) Today, keywords and name searches are really important, especially for mobile use.

http://www.chicagopropertyfacilitymanagementservices.com (Main domain)
http://www.chicagopmfmservices.com (Micro-site)
http://www.chgopmfm.com (Micro-site)

http://www.chicagofacilitymanagement.com

http://www.chicagopropertymanagement.com

http://www.chicagopm.com

http://www.chicagofm.com

http://www.chicagopmfm.com

http://www.chicagoleasing.com

http://www.cpmfms.com

On top of that, you can add the .net, .org, .us, or whatever other category of domain name is applicable to your country or type of business. If your main domain is too long, simply use a shorter version of your name and just forward the other domains to your main site through your domain hosting service. If you use a domain registration service such as GoDaddy, this is super simple and takes a few moments to set up. Now when someone searches for you, no matter what they use, they will find you. Also, the micro-sites are a great way to see what is working in your marketing and promotions. If you know that you always use http://www.chicagoleasing.com for ALL of your “hire us for our leasing” promotions, that traffic is directly attributable to your leasing efforts and is now tracked through that domain.

This is a concept and not an exact blueprint for every business, but in concept, do not limit yourself to one single domain name. Many domain names cost pennies to own and they belong to you once reserved. With the internet exploding and growing, reserve these names now for future use; but always point them to your main site. If you have a long established name, it is also a great way to liven things up in your marketing; add other names that point to your firm. How about http://www.thebestpropertymanagerinchicago.com? or http://www.greatestleasingbroker.com, depending on your business service or http://www.bestplumberinchicago.com, http://www.bestjanitorialinchicago.com, etc. Today with tools like NameCheckList, it is so simple and NameCheckList does all of the heavy lifting for you! There is no excuse any longer as you can now see a complete picture of the name availability of your domain, across multiple opportunties. There is no excuse for any business today, not to be online.

If you do not have the $11.00 to scrape together to reserve the domain name, at least do a Google Place page, Twitter site and Facebook Fan Page, or even Squidoo lens, which are all FREE. Every business should at least have a single page on the internet in some fashion. Reserving your domain name is really step one to embracing the technology available and insuring your company and/or your facility or property has a presence on the internet.

When it comes to your business or name, now is the time to set that up. This is not only your main domain, but your social media names as well. Our industry is so very behind the times, along with our properties. Each property or facility we manage should have their names and a location online to be found. The commercial real estate industry is in its infancy with the internet; so it is not too late. The point is to get your Facebook Fan Page (not Facebook account), Twitter Site, Google Places and domain set up now. Even if you do not have time to use it, at least get your names reserved for future use. Make a pact with your company to include a budget for each property in 2011 called Technology. Include an annual budget for a property website and domain registration. The budget should be at least $5.00 per month! Yes, you heard correct. I am talking about pennies here, just for a single page that gives the basic information. It truly is your job and responsibility to insure your clients and/or your company are not being left behind because you did not reserve the domain name for their company, property or facility.

Take this PM/FM Poll in trendycharts.com. trendycharts is the place to find out what other PM/FM think, so take the poll.

If you need help with this concept for your properties or firm, please send me an email or call me and I am happy to help. My personal agenda is to remind our industry to obtain a good domain name or social media name for their business or property and facility. It is a necessary business decision you must make today.

Okay people, it is not Greyhound this time, but the bankrupted Amtrak and the very dysfunctional DMV in Las Vegas, Nevada (you had to be there). Our industry has been passed up again! I just heard from a fellow Buzz connection, that Amtrak is now offering free wifi on its trains. While at the same time, I have also learned that the State of Nevada-Las Vegas DMV is following the post office’s APM machine, since 2005 and has kiosk automation that collects money and processes basic services! Although the comments on some of the blogs about Amtrak today, were quite entertaining, the subject reminded me of our recent post, “If a bus, a hamburger and plane can do it, why can’t we?”

Nevada DMV Kiosk, circa 2005.

You may recall that McDonalds offers free wifi at all of its restaurants. I am not talking about slow, bogged down lame wifi here folks. I am talking about super fast and awesome wifi. The workers are clueless that it exists, most of the time, but boy is it fast. I love it. Surf the web and drink coffee and eat yogurt. Yummy.

So when I saw the Buzz this morning that Amtrak now has wifi, I just shook my head. Here we are, property and facility managers with captive audiences all over our properties, owners who want full buildings and no FREE or public wifi or even the thought of automating anything at all! I think it is absolutely unbelievable. How did this happen? How did the world just pass us by? Why and how can the most dysfunctional and blatantly known, perpetually bankrupt Amtrak and the classic DMV offer something as simple as wifi and a kiosk/machine, similar to an ATM, inside a building or facility that we completely manage, repair, clean or worse yet, own. Yet, we still do not have wifi or even the thought of the dream machine like -an APPM (Automated Property Management Machine) for our industry?

I look back over the 30 some years in this industry and shake my head every single day. I talk to property managers, facility managers, service businesses too, that tell me they have no website, no domain name, no awareness of what is happening all around them. What is Twitter is not even remotely in the cards. Now even Facebook has passed all of us up. Yes, Facebook. The app that your great grandmother uses! The buildings are in a time warp or something and the managers got swooped up too! We are all just stumbling and mumbling while this goes on.

Facebook at 500 million users!!

Everything is a swipe, a click, a snap or whatever, but we still have 3 part Peachtree NCR forms on our desk and are filling out paper lease forms and logs on clipboards. It is so funny, but it is not really. It is rather pathetic and mindblowing. There must be something scary to us or we have a fear of technology. I am not exactly sure which. The IT departments at our companies might as well be frozen in giant ice cubes since 2000 (yes, 2000!!) when they started to think that a property or facility manager might be able to use a single computer in an office of 5 people. Oh and they gave us 1 single email address called abccompany1@abccompnay.com. They did stop technology once they rolled out the LANS, only at the corporate office. Each of our desktop machines were not even connected due to the cost of a modem phone line in 2000. I guess that was good enough for us and all we could handle.

Now grant it, there are many that have embraced it, exploited and used it up like it was air, but those are the few and far between. All of those people are at Realcomm right now in Las Vegas, Nevada. They are having a blast and they are mingling and talking to Jim Young about where we are today. (According to Jim that is probably 5% of us are using webbased systems) and Jim is just so worked up right now with all of the enthusiasm you cannot imagine the frenzy and energy at that place. I bet Las Vegas is wondering what on earth came to town!!

I am eager to hear feedback from him and I will do my best to track him down or Jean Claude Goldenstein, the founder of http://www.creopoint.com or others that will be sure to attend. Once I do, I will give you the report and a take away. Many of the people from all of the major software accounting houses are there, along with the technology SaaS people, like Dale Vanderlaan of Realogic and his team. We will find out what and how things went down and share it right here for all of us to learn.

But the icing on the cake of all of this. And this is a true story, for real, totally accurate. I got 3 very fuzzy pictures today. So fuzzy, I do not believe they are real. I actually asked my friend Stan if these were real. He said yes, these are real. Here are 3 pictures of the first that I have ever seen, APPM units. APPM=Automated Property Management Machines. No joke. Read the fuzzy words on the screen. It brings a tear to me eye, it is so awesome. I am hoping that Stan will give me more information on these fuzzy pictures. He had better not be kidding. If it is true and these are real machines (outside of the U.S., of course!) You will all be the very, very first to hear of this. Stay tuned.

APMM = Automated Property Management Machine