A very social 2012.

Happy new year, everyone. I don't know about your December, but mine flew. Between C's birthday and all of the Christmas-related festivities, the month just blasted by. And now...it's a whole week into 2012. I won't talk about resolutions (personal or professional), since there have been many eloquently written posts on that topic already, but I will tell you that our marketing strategy for the year ahead includes lots of social. Yippee!

• All of our properties (save a small handful, based on recommendations from our regional managers) will be getting Facebook Pages by the end of Q1. I've been blasting ahead with this initiative (our pilot program quickly grew from three to six properties this fall), and am so looking forward to our next wave of properties going live. Overall, our on-site teams are doing a fabulous job managing their pages, and we've had very few hiccups.
• We will soon be setting up a corporate Facebook Page for our company to share new developments, employee achievements, and more. I don't know whether we'll also set up a corporate Twitter account, but in the spirit of optimism, I reserved a name for us...just in case. ;)
• We will (hopefully) be setting up a Pinterest page. I've been playing with Pinterest on a personal level for about a month now, and am loving how creative some other management companies and industry vendors are getting with this user-friendly platform. (If you're new to Pinterest, check out Weidner, Bailey Properties, and the Apartment Guide's boards to start.)
• We will also be continuing to work on our online reputation management plan, which includes claiming all of our online listings, responding to reviews in a timely fashion, and starting to ask our residents to write reviews.

In addition, we'll be rolling out revenue management with a few test properties, and (fingers crossed) redoing our corporate website this year—a project which was originally slated for 2011, and was tabled due to other projects taking priority. It's going to be an incredibly busy, but incredibly exciting year, and I'm really looking forward to taking our company's marketing efforts to the next level.

What does your 2012 look like?  Here's to a happy, healthy, and productive year for us all.

1,094 Days of Mommyhood.

When my daughter turned one, I wrote a post called 364 Days of Mommyhood. Tomorrow, she's turning three. Three. WOW! Time flies. C is now in preschool, sleeping in a "big girl" bed, and taking ballet classes. She makes up stories, has friends, and is obsessed with all things art-related, pink, and/or sparkly. In other words, she's not a baby any more, a fact that makes me both proud and sad at the same time.

Anyway, in thinking over the last few years, I realized I'd learned some surprising additional truths about parenting.



1. It doesn't matter what you like; it matters what your child likes. In other words, if you like green, and your child likes head-to-toe pink, every day, who cares? It's not worth fighting over, especially when you're trying to get out the door. Let it go, and move on. Same goes for interests. If C decides some day that she wants to play the violin, fabulous. I know nothing about that, but would wholeheartedly support her if she fell in love with it. As C gets older, I'm reminded that she gets to make up her own mind about what she likes, and doesn't like, and that part of my job as a parent is to help her discover those things.

2. Patience is the ultimate virtue. If you've ever hung out with a preschooler for an extended amount of time, you know what I'm talking about. As funny and wonderful as C is, she's still a very little girl. And she gets tired and cranky and whiny, just like every other three year old. I've learned that yelling, prodding, bribing, and threatening to take away privileges generally falls on deaf ears when a tantrum is in full swing. Which brings me to my next point... 

3. She'll be ready when she's ready. This goes for just about everything. Whether it's cleaning up, needing to leave, or transitioning to a new activity, springing something suddenly on a toddler is usually a bad idea. Conversely, lots of advance notice is a very good idea, and makes the whole situation much more pleasant for everyone.

4. Being silly is awesome. I mean this. C has a fabulously funny little sense of humor, and she's starting to understand that she has the ability to make people laugh. We goof around a lot in our house. Just this past weekend, we played freeze dance in our yard. For one fleeting second, I thought, "Yikes. Are our neighbors watching this spectacle?" And then I realized, I just didn't care.

5. I (still) love being a mom more than I thought possible (a carry-over from 2009). It's pretty hard to explain, but I'll sum it up with this: even if I have had the worst day ever, when I pick up C from preschool and she throws her tiny, sticky arms around me, nothing else really matters. Being a mom is more work than I ever dreamed, and yet infinitely more rewarding. And as C gets older, I realize that it's also a lot of fun.

Happy birthday, my girl.

The (second?) greatest customer service story ever told, starring the Hilton Anatole.

If you read blogs and/or hang out on Twitter, you likely heard or read about Peter Shankman's delightful encounter with Morton's Steakhouse, which he dubbed the "greatest customer service story ever told." No question, that is one outstanding example of customer service. However, after that story went public, there were a lot of questions swirling as to whether Morton's offered that level of service because of Mr. Shankman's relative fame, in hopes that he would share the story online with his many fans and followers. Though I can't vouch for Morton's (besides noting that they have delicious food), I truly believe that some people and companies are just devoted to providing stellar customer service, whether said recipient is famous or not. I'm living proof: take what happened to me last week. 

I was in Dallas attending the NMHC Apartment Operations and Technology Conference & Exposition (aka OpTech) at the Hilton Anatole. During the very last session, suddenly the power went out. After determining that the outage had affected a large portion of the city, the conference organizers urged anyone who needed to make their way out as soon as possible, as there would likely be back-ups at the emergency elevators for those who needed to return to their rooms before departing for the airport. I immediately stood up and began walking towards the elevators, hoping I'd be able to beat the rush.

A small group of conference attendees was soon gathered at the elevator banks. One of the Hilton's conference managers, Hal, was standing at the elevator and suggested that we all start walking up the stairs, as there was no indication of when the emergency elevators would be operational. My room was located on the eighteenth floor, and when I expressed  concern about carrying my suitcase down eighteen flights of stairs, he said, “No problem, I’ll come with you and carry it down.” 

We went to my hotel room, which was pitch black, and Hal gave me a glow stick so that I could finish packing my belongings. He waited very patiently while I attempted to search the room and assured me that the hotel would be glad to send anything that I'd inadvertently left behind. We then walked down eighteen flights of stairs, while Hal smiled and chatted, and told me about some of the other power outages he'd witnessed during his career. He carried my suitcase through back entrances, all the way to the taxi stand, and gently placed my suitcase on the curb. I am certain that Hal had much more pressing things to attend to, but you'd never have known it from his behavior: he made my little request seem like a major priority that deserved immediate attention.

I was so wowed by Hal's kindness and exemplary service that I honestly could do nothing except hug him and thank him profusely. (I never carry cash; otherwise, I would have given Hal a huge tip on the spot.) Instead, I promised I'd write a letter to his General Manager, and then left for the airport, utterly aglow with thankfulness.

The next day, I wrote a letter to the Anatole's GM, as promised...and then I emailed Hilton's Senior Vice President of Operations to share the above story. (Isn't it amazing what a quick Google search can do?) Within just a few hours, he emailed me the below.

Sara, first of all I am sorry that you had to deal with the power outage while at the Anatole.  That said I am thrilled to read your comments on how Hal handled the situation and put your situation in front of any other issue he had which is the absolute way it should be!  I will be in Dallas next week and will make sure I personally thank Hal!  I appreciate you taking the time to let us know and look forward to welcoming you back at the Anatole and/or any of our Hiltons around the globe!

Wow. When senior management and on-site management share the same philosophy, some serious greatness occurs.