Morgan Stolle Career Background
What is your biggest career achievement?
- Let’s be honest… 2020 was quite the year. To say our worlds were turned upside down is an understatement. If you had asked me this question in 2019, I would have said my biggest career achievement was rapidly moving up the multifamily ladder in just under 4 short years. Starting my career with Bozzuto as a leasing agent and quickly becoming a marketing director for Lincoln Property Company was and is a badge I wear proudly.
But times have changed. The world has changed. Now I feel, as I’m sure many of us do in the industry, that COVID may have been (and continues to be) our toughest challenge but also our greatest achievement to date.
I currently oversee a portfolio of approx. 13,000 units in the Southwest Region for LPC and during that time we were able to maintain an average occupancy of 96% for the year. We did not lose any assets and continued to regroup, think outside the box and implement new strategies that would benefit our onsite teams and clients. Something I’m most proud of during that time was not just keeping the business running smoothly, but coming together as a marketing team to answer the question, “How do we make our onsite teams feel special and cared for during uncertain times?”
LPC has a very prestigious award ceremony once a year called Gold Medallion. We went into lock down just two weeks before the day of the event. Months of hard work and planning went down the drain. During the uncertainty, we still knew that one way or another, the show must go on. So, we took it virtual. From learning to navigate Zoom, creating a virtual script and presentation, figuring out how to highlight our winners in a way that made them feel special and appreciated was all something that we had not done before. But we dug in, got it done and learned so much along the way.
It’s not about what was destroyed, it’s about getting back up and rebuilding something without the blueprints. We are all role models in an ever changing world and showing up, standing tall and rebuilding speaks volumes. Taking something and saying “I don’t know what I’m doing. But I’m going to figure it out and give it my all.”
What is your ultimate career goal within the rental housing industry?
- While I would immediately say that my ultimate career goal is to become a VP of Marketing, it’s not always about titles. I work hard and continue to put my best food forward because I love what I do. I care about our onsite teams and providing them the tools to be successful. I care about ensuring that our prospects and residents have a roof over their heads. I care about the growth and innovation of our marketing team. I want to volunteer, sit on boards and be involved in as many organizations as I can in order to continually learn from my peers.
Something we have to remember is that a title does not equal respect. You are respected by your actions and voice in a community. I want to look back on my career and be proud of my achievements, not because of a title, but because I made my mark on the multifamily industry. I would like to continue to develop new marketing initiatives that focus around the renter’s experience from start to finish, developing more tools that are ADA accessible and working to build a culture that makes not just our residents but also our onsite teams proud to call our communities and LPC home.
What's one rental housing trend you have your eye on?
- Ensuring that our websites were ADA compliant was a huge task for us in 2019/2020 and continues to be. We are finding that more and more technology is being developed in order to help those that are visually impaired, hard of hearing, have a sensitivity to light and sound, etc. This has been a huge interest of mine because I feel that it’s extremely important and usually overlooked.
Something that we strive for in the multifamily industry is making sure that housing is provided to everyone in some shape or form and I do feel that we are behind the curve when it comes to ADA compliance. We are starting to progress forward, but we still have lots of work to do and that’s why I feel that it has all the power to change the rental industry for the better.
As more technology is being released, we still can create, learn and adapt that technology because it’s so new. Learning how the product has made renting a smoother experience but also learning how we can make it better. Isn’t that what we are always trying to achieve? Taking something and saying, “This is great! Now, how can I make it even better?” From our websites, ILS’, applications to in person meetings, there are so many opportunities to make the renter’s journey ADA accessible.