Elizabeth Stodolka Career Background
What is your biggest career achievement?
- When it comes to my biggest career achievement, I would honestly have to say it is having one of our company’s most challenging clients in my portfolio. Now I use the word “challenging” to mostly describe my learning opportunity being new to the industry and the journey that I have had with this client and their communities. I would not change having them in my portfolio for anything, and I truly believe that I would not be the Revenue Manager I am today if it wasn’t for them. I was about 6 months into my position when these properties joined my portfolio. I was still in high level learning mode and was still getting used to managing stabilized assets in stable markets, so getting a handful of properties that were going through a major renovation scope, loan restrictions, high vacancy from renovations, and heavy budgeted rent growth was pretty terrifying. If anything didn’t go as planned, performance could have been impacted negatively. Now I definitely can’t take all the credit for performance because the teams did incredible work with managing the construction and marketing the new product, but I can contribute to how the performance played out when it came to Revenue growth. This portfolio saw a 25.3% growth in Revenue from May 2017 to January 2019. I was able to help guide these communities from their most unstable positions to being completely stabilized and the journey I’ve been able to take with these teams and clients has taught me more about my position and myself than any other client or job. I had to quickly step out of my comfort zone and learn confidence and how to accurately and professionally explain the data to a client who owned multi-million dollar properties. I had to work closely with Asset Management to overcome challenges and meet strict goals and deadlines. I have had to compile data from performance and market conditions to get approval to shift strategies. I have had to build the client’s trust in my knowledge so they could reach out to me without hesitation to answer any questions they may have had. When I have to explain to people what my achievements are and how I learned what I do today, I immediately tell them what this client taught me – how to become the best Revenue Manager I know how to be.
What is your ultimate career goal within the rental housing industry?
- Coming into this position as a Pricing Advisor, I was a little skeptical about being driven by data and numbers all day. I like to describe myself as a very creative analytical thinker, in which, I do analyze things but being creative and organizing efficiently is a passion of mine and something I am good at. I was worried I wouldn’t have my creative outlet in a numbers role, but I was completely wrong! Yes, I do look at a data, numbers, charts and graphs all day, but we are also trainers – we don’t keep all the data and knowledge to ourselves, but we empower our teams to understand and learn what skills we have to offer. Hearing someone say that they now understand how the system works and how they should be looking into market forecast data to be proactive with changes instead of reactive is everything we push our onsite team members to grasp and use to their advantage. The Revenue Management role is so unique and incredible to experience because you are kind of the jack of all trades. Not only do we have an understanding of basic supply and demand from a revenue perspective, but we dive into market conditions, specials/incentives, and tools that help the team’s better market their apartments. We have to get creative in how we use the data! I have had the opportunity in my team to head up our internal Revenue Management training initiative. This role has given me the creative outlet I desire because I get to take our most frequently asked questions and most commonly used systems and create on-demand training videos around those topics. Who knew PowerPoint and Video Editor could do so much! Additionally, I help lead our implementation process for new takeovers to go live on a Revenue Management system. This job requires organization and detail awareness to help the transition go smoothly. There are multiple steps that have to take place in an order, or their go live could be delayed.
Because this industry is changing and growing every year, there are career paths and projects and positions that are not even in existence yet, so it’s very difficult to decide right now what my ultimate career goal is. However, my idea of a goal is how I can impact and leave an efficient process behind for new people stepping into this current position. My vision is to create a more efficient and smooth process for our implementations and takeovers. I want this process to be so streamline that anyone can step in while I am away and not miss a beat. This requires communication with other Corporate Support teams and checklists to make sure all orders are in line before moving to the next step. I also want to create an environment where onsite team members can gain a better understanding of what our team does and how they can better use the tools and resources we have to offer them. We all know trainings can be so daunting, so my vision is to create fun and resourceful trainings that can explain even the most complex topics. Not everyone is a data nerd, and everyone thinks and grasps concepts differently. My ultimate goal in this current career path is to increase the knowledge company wide in how Revenue Management works.
What's one rental housing trend you have your eye on?
- We are all in the business of making money and providing the best service to our clients, but it’s using the data to help you get there. The best data tells a story, which is why Market Analytics has been a powerful tool for us to help our teams outperform their markets and make a few more dollars. Market Analytics is a RealPage product that is a combination of two of their previous products, Axiometrics and Investment Analytics. We have used both products simultaneously at BH Management, but Market Analytics is on a whole new level. Not only can we see over 13 million units worth of data across 400 markets, but we can now dive into tertiary markets and gather data on performance metrics like occupancy, effective rent, asking rent, and concessions. This tool allows you to see past market information over time, which allows us to talk through the story of a market’s performance with our team and teach them about what the data represents and how to create a game plan around that data. We can see shifts that none of our teams have been able to see or plan for before, and now our teams are able to explain this data to clients and create next steps around it. This system has the power to change the rental housing industry because historical trends not only tell a story but can now predict the next chapter. Forecasting information based on market research will now allow organizations to plan and budget for conditions that are to come. This increases proactivity to better perform and make changes, ultimately increasing overall revenue. I truly believe that Market Analytics, in all it’s newness, will emerge very quickly and become a market data leader in this industry.