By Robert L. Cain
It’s harder and harder to get great employees what with more open jobs than available workers. They are out there, but so are the ones who just stumbled back into the labor force and may not be ideal candidates. Same for tenants. The best ones, the applicants you dream about—the pleasant dreams, of course— will move somewhere. Why shouldn’t the good ones call you? Why not to your property? When they apply and you check them out, they are five-star applicants. But they may check you out, too. What can you do to ensure that the top job applicants and the top rental applicants put your company or rental property at the top of their lists?
People like to do business with people they like, trust, and have confidence in. Too many managers and landlords not only don’t qualify, but are toxic. You know you have a well-run company or rental property. How do you set yourself apart and entice the best applicants? Social media is an effective way.
At least 70 percent of people use social media in some way with millennials, 22-38 year-olds, the highest percentage. Some 80 percent of them use YouTube and 78 percent use Facebook, reports Pew Research, and can and often do use them to check out companies before they apply. The best applicants may screen you before you screen them. With the job market where it is, attracting the best employees involves showing that your company is a great place to work, better than that cesspool where they work now for the boss who just doesn’t “get it.” The highest quality tenants are welcomed any place they apply and expect to rent from the best landlords. They check you out through social media, Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Yelp, your website and others. Here’s how to stand out and attract those applicants.
First, what do you say in any social media platform? It’s the same thing whether you use Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter, your website or anything else. Never miss the chance to say something good about yourself. What’s good? What information that you post says “Call me NOW, but hurry”? It’s the preemptive strike. This may be the most powerful tool in your box, and one that others would never think of using but puts you head and shoulders above competing businesses and landlords. Think about what your qualities do for your applicant.—no data dumps, only benefits. If you have owned the business or been in the rental property business for many years, so what? How does your experience and expertise make working for you or renting from you a better experience than that of another company or landlord?
As a rental owner, for example, many landlords don’t respond to repair complaints the same day. So you say, “we respond to repair complaints within eight hours,” (or whatever time). The next landlord they talk to will then be forced into the position of answering a question he or she never thought about before or thought was important. You have made it important because you brought it up. Other landlords may do the same thing you do, but the key is, if you say it, that sets you up as the expert, the standard of performance. People don’t know unless you tell them.
Another example, many businesses have high turnover, but your average employee stays with you for at least five years because you pay attention to employee satisfaction and that has helped make you successful. Say how you do that. It sets the criteria for a pleasant workplace. It is important because you brought it up and sets you up as a great place to work. Once again, people don’t know unless you tell them.
How long have you been in business or doing what you do? Many years? So what? How does that benefit an employee or renter? Many years of experience shows you are a stable company, one that most likely won’t go out of business. That’s a benefit because employees and renters like to be able to depend on where they work or live where they won’t have to look for a new job or a new place to live until they are ready. Combine that with what a great place you have to work or live and you create a model of desirability.
The most important thing is to think in terms of how whatever it is you do benefits the people who rent from you or work for you. Just throwing out facts and figures doesn’t relate to any benefit. Explain the benefit.
Demonstrate expertise. You most likely make a good case for it on Facebook or your website. But you can do more. You may post a blog, but that requires considerable work and may not be something you can do well or even want to do yourself. Of course, you can hire someone to do it, and that’s the best solution, but you can also reprint information about your industry because you keep up with the latest trends and news. Many websites welcome your reprinting their articles as long as you say where you got it and provide a link to their site. Be extremely careful here and only reprint information from sources that invite you to do so or that have given you written permission. Reprint an article where the author has warned it may not be reproduced in any form without written permission could well result in a cease-and-desist letter from the website’s attorney and a demand for payment. When in doubt, ask first. Provide new information regularly so people are enticed to keep coming back. Good tenants will think, “I want to live there,” and excellent employees will think, “I want to work there.”
Something else to post on social media is your elevator speech. What do you say when someone asks you about your business? Many people create a 20-second or so speech that explains about them. I won’t go into how to create one here. There’s considerable information about how to do that on the internet. Write it out and put it on social media. Then be ready to say it when people call you. So what if the applicant has already seen your elevator speech on Facebook. Most likely they won’t remember it word-for-word, just the basic information you provided. And your repeating it reinforces what you wrote.
But what if you don’t get any visitors after you have done the work? By doing it, you have sold yourself to yourself. Just coming up with that information and those ideas reminds you of what an outstanding business you have, one that your competition will envy, but probably could never meet the standards of.
Good people like to rent from and work for good people. The less-than-desirable ones figure there’s no chance they could rent from the top landlords or work for the top companies, so they don’t bother to apply to them. Wouldn’t it be great if after your applicants had screened you, your job of choosing which one to hire or rent to would be made a job of picking from a slate of five-star applicants?
Written for Zip Reports, employee and tenant screening company. Visit their website.