Learning from a visitor to our apartment community, “I was just driving by,” is a personalized opportunity to create a feature and benefit.  An important tool to creating  value for the decision to lease the apartment home.
Knowing the source of our leasing traffic is crucial.  Leasing 101 teaches everyone to ask the question, “how did you hear about our community?”  But there are occasions, when a little clarification is needed.

Using “Driving By” to Create a Benefit

“Oh we were just driving by” is almost a standard response.  As a leasing professional, there’s a great opportunity to build rapport and identify a benefit for the property’s location by asking the simple question, “Why?”

There are some occasions where “driving by” might not even make sense.  A property might be located on a dead end street, or several blocks off the main thoroughfare.

Understanding the Location Value

The leasing team might even declare the location as a weakness for the property in an evaluation of property strengths and weaknesses.  Reviewing the marketing reports with  summaries of where our visitors come from, a surprising source of potential residents is identified.  Somewhere between twenty to forty percent of the visitors indicate they were “just driving by..”

Great, so if the location is truly a weakness, where are people headed when they tell us they are just driving by our community?  “What brings you down Mulberry Street?”

The responses:

-My child care provider is on this street.
-My place of work is close by.
-A family member or friend lives close by.

This visitor has provided you with a opportunity to show how your apartment community meets a need for a convenient location.  This opportunity is just waiting to be discovered.  Then, continue to include this feature point throughout the leasing presentation.

To create a visual reminder for my leasing team, I purchased small toy cars for each of the leasing tables.  A great diversion for small children, but more importantly it creates a reminder to ask the question about why the prospective resident was driving by our location.

Be ready, “you were driving by because…..”.  You have a potential closing tool at your fingertips.