Marcus Armstrong Career Background
What is your biggest career achievement?
- My favorite thing in the entire world is presenting my findings to the industry. Whether that is in the form of my client calls for work or writing white papers on a multitude of subjects, including how taking care of your staff can lead to larger returns on your business and how creating a strong sense of community is important to keeping residents renewing. But the absolute best thing is being asked to present on a stage for other industry professionals and there has not been a bigger stage for me than the Atlanta Apartment Association.
My largest career achievement (so far), was when I was personally invited to come present my insights on the importance of online reviews within the Multifamily Rental industry to the Atlanta Apartment Association tradeshow. It should go without saying that this was huge for me because I love to be on stage but even more importantly, it validated the things I was doing. I work with several of the executives and directors of the management companies based out of Atlanta and it was my calls with them that spurred this invite. It told me that the people of this industry are hungry for the insights that data can provide.
Given your past experiences, what event/ project or moment would you revisit and how would you go about it differently based on your current frame of mind?
- My son Sterling was born in 2017, and having a kid immediately changes your life. You go from caring about yourself to knowing that you have to take care of this, for lack of a better word, helpless being. You become the source of comfort and life for your child. That alone changes your entire frame of mind. But, my son was born with an extremely rare genetic disorder that unfortunately is terminal. My son Sterling passed away January of 2020. It was a little over 2 years of emotional ups and downs, but it taught me so much more than any other event in my life.
The largest thing it taught me was to slow down, to understand that no matter how important certain deadlines may seem in the moment or how imperative the fear of failing may be. There are things that are so much more important than work or school.
There is not a specific moment that I would revisit but in a general sense, everything in my life prior to my son. Before Sterling I use to stress about deadlines or would be worried about failing a test in school. I wish I could go back in time and tell myself that while it feels important in the moment, in the grand scheme of things, it is not worth stressing over. I think this has led to my leadership style being very mellow and allowing others to work through things on their time, I do not feel the need to be in the weeds of everything my team does.
From your perspective, what is the industry lacking to support the modern renter and how do you plan to help supply that need?
- Data! Of course the data nerd thinks that we need more data... But the reality is this, the days of cookie cutter leasing are over. Residents these days are looking for an "experience" and are instead choosing to spend their money as an endorsement rather than in a transactional way. It is very easy to say that we will personalize the experience for our prospects and residents but knowing how to do it becomes difficult. This is where the more data part comes in. It is the unfortunate truth that our industry has a lack of data on the "Resident's Journey" from prospect to resident and after. Sure we collect some data from applications but what are we doing with that data? How are we personalizing experiences for our prospects and residents? The same goes with survey data, how can we combine all of this information we have to drive a better product and "experience" for our residents?
But don't just think that is a useful plan to help make us stand out with residents and prospects. There is a strong business impact that comes from understanding the journey of the resident. Imagine knowing where your operational pain points are, you could very easily know where to spend money to increase the experience without having to just blindly throw darts at a wall! Moreover, we can begin to build smart portfolios of residents within our communities that, much like in financial investing, can help weather difficult economic times.
Truly the possibilities are endless when it comes to the use of more data in our day to day business decisions. I think now is such a beautiful time to be in the industry as a data junkie because of all the new ways we can use the data. The next hurdle however, is to just get more of it!