Maximizing the success of the leasing season requires thorough preparation. In addition to preparing the property, it’s vital to prepare your leasing agents. 

Leasing agent training, although it’s a worthwhile investment, can be expensive. Your leasing agents need to have an in-depth understanding of effective sales techniques and your marketing strategy in order to perform optimally, identifying and converting more prospects into residents. 

The good news is that providing your leasing agents with the skills and information they need for meeting occupancy targets does not have to cost you a single dime. There are plenty of no-cost but effective training approaches you can use to get them ready for the leasing season.

Shopping the Competition

In the world of business, it’s a commonly accepted and proven fact that you have to understand your competition if you want to outdo them. Knowing competitors very well isn’t just something for you as an owner or manager, but is also important for your leasing agents. 

Send your leasing agent off on a mission. Let them go around to the properties of your competitors and see how prospects are handled over there. This will give them some insight into how the prospects who check out your competitor’s property as well as yours view what you have to offer. 

While out on their mission, your leasing agents should take careful note of the advantages and disadvantages that each competitor offers as compared to your property. This will assist them knowing how to present to prospects in a way that helps those prospects view the lifestyle that your property has to offer as more attractive than your competitors’. 

Building Local Relationships

Having strong relationships with those in your local area is what can set you, your leasing agents, and your property at a big advantage, even at times you would not otherwise be able to compete. The strength of those bonds can open doors of opportunities for you even when it seems like one of your competitors has an insurmountable leading edge on you.

Teach your leasing agents to be active in the surrounding community, and with area influencers of all statuses. In fact, building relationships with your competitors is also a smart approach, as there may be times when they can work in your favor, referring prospects to you when those prospects simply can’t find the size of apartment or price they’re looking for at the competitor’s property, for example. 

Overcoming Objections

Although there are numerous costly sales training programs which can teach your leasing agent how to overcome objections, you can train them on this aspect of selling for free. The more capable your leasing agent is at handling objections, the more effective they’ll be at increasing occupancy rates both in and out of the heart of the leasing season. 

A great approach to this training is to have the leasing agent make a list of all the things they like about your property, and a list of all the things they don’t like about it. The chances are high that these same pros and cons are the ones prospects will identify. 

Once they have a list of pros and cons, they can take the cons as possible objections the prospects could present, coming up with three ways to respond to and overcome those objections. The pros can be used as a list of highlights they can bring up when talking to the prospects in order to make living at the property sound more attractive. 

Refining Your Leasing Season Preparations Year After Year

Sending your leasing agents out to shop the competition, having them come up with ways to overcome objections, and encouraging them to build local relationships can go a long way towards preparing them to work at maximum effectiveness during the leasing season. But it’s also important to use the season as a time to assess ways to improve. 

By first preparing your leasing agents, then assessing how well the leasing season goes, you’ll be able to develop new, highly customized training approaches that enhance the success of your leasing agents even more. Make this your routine every time the high leasing season comes around, and the level of your own success will continue to climb with each and every passing year. 

The best part is that this approach enables you to bring out the best in your leasing agents without you having to pay out a single dime for training if you don’t want to. Instead, each and every new leasing season can be the best one you and your property have ever had.