THE DIGIBLE DUDE

Welcome back to the Digible Dudes podcast. In today’s episode, David and Reid have Hannah Kimyon as the guest speaker.  Hannah is the director of customer success at Rentable. Throughout the episode, Hannah shares lots of valuable thoughts about talking about ILS platforms, how Rentable is working on new innovations, and how you can improve your marketing strategies to match new trends in the industry.

Rentable was formerly known as Abodo, and they recently rebranded the company. Diving into the conversation, Hannah shares the reason behind the name change from Abodo to Rentable and how it aligns with the direction they’re headed. Then Hannah shares her career journey from where she learned marketing and grew up with Abodo, starting from 2013, up to now as they have rebranded to Rentable.

In the next section, she shares her ideas about customer service and the value of listening to their clients to understand their problems so that you’ll be more effective in fixing them. Continuing the conversation about Rentable, Hannah describes Rentable’s mission and how they are working on new ways to make renting as seamless as possible for renters. Hannah also talks about the past, present, and future of Rentable and the strategies that brought the company to the place that they are today. Hannah shares how they’re partnering with social platforms and the unique features they offer to consumers. Hannah also shares her thoughts on finding their success in ILS and the portfolio they are working on, and what direction they are heading as a company at present.

In the next part of the episode, David, Hannah, and Reid share their thoughts on having several search engines versus having a streamlined process for searching for listings. Further down in the episode, Hannah shares her thoughts on three frequently asked questions related to ILS platforms. Next, Hannah shares her thoughts on how they maintain their customer’s loyalty by explaining the process with the renters, which makes sure that the customers don’t want to leave to another search engine or property website. 

[13.09] From Abodo to Rentable - The story of the big rebranding of Hannah’s company.

[20.23] Hannah’s story - Hannah shares her journey at Rentable and what she has learned through her experience.

[23.08] Customer Success – Hannah talks about how she looks at customer success and what she does to understand the customers’ problems and fix them.

[24.52] The Primary Mission of Rentable – What Rentable offers and how they stand apart from the rest of the market.

[28.07] More on Rentable – Hannah talks about how Rentable started, its past, present, and what the future is going to look like for Rentable.

[33. 35] Facebook Marketplace - The role Facebook marketplace plays in real estate and how Rentable and how Rentable has partnered with the Facebook marketplace to provide a unique blend of features.

[40.37] Finding Success – Hannah shares her wisdom on what they do to create strategies that stand out in the market.

[44.20] Lead Attribution – How to improve the quality of leads by utilizing the latest tools.

[27.01] User Experience – Hannah talks about making the renters’ experience more user friendly on ILS platforms and how the new updates of search engines and social media platforms may affect the way renters tend to search for housing.

[01.03.30] Major Talking Points with Customers – Hannah shares the three most asked questions she has to answer frequently.

[01.06.59] Customer Loyalty – Tips & tricks Hannah uses at their firm to maintain their customer loyalty.

[01.11.12] Content – How to focus on creating content for listings in a way that appeals to people based on their needs.

[01.19.39] Matchmaking – Trend in the way consumers find listings and how marketers can improve their strategies to match consumer behavior.

We’re back with another interesting episode of the Digible Dudes podcast. This week our focus is on antitrust lawsuits against tech giants and how they may influence the way we interact with our favorite tech platforms. 2020 was a big year for antitrust investigation where several tech companies, including Facebook, Google, and Apple, were brought into the spotlight due to their questionable practices on acquisitions and partnerships.  In today’s episode, David and Reid take a deep dive into these antitrust cases against Facebook, Google, and Amazon and what they mean for advertisers and consumers.

Starting the conversation, Reid shares his thoughts on why antitrust cases have become a big concern in recent years and why it takes time to prepare and process these suits. Talking about what amplified the interest in antitrust cases, Reid talks about the 2020 Netflix documentary, “The Social Dilemma,” which addresses another aspect of the “big tech” conversation. David and Reid share their take on how this shapes the way consumers perceive tech giants and what it may mean for advertisers.

Then Reid shares his thoughts about the consumer’s experience on having Facebook, Instagram being separate entities as opposed to being connected. In the next part of the episode, David and Reid share an interesting set of thoughts on what they are going to do about the current situation related to antitrust practices if they are in charge of Facebook at present.

In the next section, David talks about the way big tech companies were hiring people in 2020 in comparison to the last year and how it was influenced by what happened as a result of COVID. Further down in the episode, Reid shares his thoughts on the role of the consumer and why we must be mindful about the way we’re using technology so that we can take advantage of the new technologies without being victims of them.

[35.34] Concerns About Facebook’s APIs – Facebook shut down their social graph API due to privacy concerns five years ago. David dives into what this type of change may mean for smaller companies that depend on APIs like Facebook’s social graph.

[15.51] Antitrust Trends – Why we hear lots about antitrust suits in recent months, why it takes time to process, and how the political situation might have influenced this trend.

[19.24] What Accelerated Anti-trust Suits – How events in recent years such as the Cambridge Analytica incident triggered a new wave of attention towards how corporate behemoths deal with acquisitions.

[25.39] Consumer Experience – David & Reid share their thoughts on how the consumer experience may change if Facebook, Whatsapp, and Instagram become completely separate entities, versus being connected the way they are right now.

[30:00] Concerns About Data – Social media and lots of other tech giants use their user data to generate income. David & Reid talk about the concerns among users about how tech companies handle information of their users.

[44.26] Human Resources – How the giant companies have behaved in the last two years in terms of hiring employees.

[49.57] Consumer’s Role – David & Reid share their thoughts on how consumers must prepare for new trends in the tech landscape.

[54.09] The Google Empire – Just like other tech giants, Google is also getting attention to their practices related to antri-trust concerns. David and Reid talk about what it might look like if different divisions of Google are broken apart and what it may mean for advertisers and consumers.

Welcome back to the Digible Dudes podcast. In today’s episode, David and Reid have a conversation with Jason Dalka, founder of Square One Real Estate. Throughout the episode, Jason shares his wisdom on apartment locators.

Opening the conversation, David and Reid talk about the biggest takeaways from their guest Jason as a founder of a real estate firm and a locator. Jason gets into the conversation sharing his thoughts about the past, present, and the future of locators. He talks about how there was a competitive situation among locators and how the business model has evolved due to the new technologies introduced in recent years.

Then Jason shares his thoughts on the problems solved by the locators and how the major solutions of the locators are saving time for the clients. In the next part, Jason shares his thoughts on the broker arrangements on properties in Chicago and how the open listing market works.

Jason shares his thoughts about the relationship with the clients, how they nurture the customer to show the value proposition. Talking about the relationship with the properties, which are like clients to them, Jason reviews how the properties and brokerage or the agent interact with each other like cogs in a machine.

In the next section, Jason talks about the transitions of clients. He shares his thoughts on how the transitions happen and the structure of making a transition without damaging the income. Moving on, Jason shares his thoughts about the reasons for having and not having locators in a market and how the density of locators affect the market.

Further down in the episode, Jason talks about the biggest challenge as a locator: lead generation. He talks about how the recent developments in the industry have influenced the lead generation process and how to adapt to new situations. Then Jason shares his take on the transparency of marketing and lead generation and how the lead generation process could be improved to be more transparent. Wrapping up the conversation, Jason shares his predictions for the future of the apartment industry for the next five to ten years.

[03:26]- The transparency of marketing and leading generation- The reasons for not having transparency in marketing and lead generations.

[05:24] Biggest takeaways – David and Reid talk about the takeaways and valuable ideas you may hear throughout the episode.

[19:08] Past, Present, and the Future of Locators - How the business model of locators looked like before Jason comes to the industry, the present background of the locators, and how the future will be.

[22:27] Solving Problems - The major problems customers have and how the locators are solving those problems.

[27:16]- Broker Arrangements for Properties - How Jason arranges the brokers for his properties.

[30:50] Value Proposition - What the value proposition is and the importance of building a proper relationship with clients.

[33:23] Acquiring Customers - Trying to acquire customers by getting people higher in the funnel, how to nurture them for a longer value proposition.

[43:13] Relationship with the Properties - What the relationship locators have with the properties and how to keep the relationships healthy.

[45:52] Crossovers - How the transitions happen and what you can do to make transitions smooth.

[52:02] Market & Locators- The reasons for having and not having locators in a market.

[55:46] The Biggest Challenge as a Locator - The biggest challenge for locators and how to overcome those challenges.

[01:22:06] Predictions for the Future – What Jason predicts for the next five to ten years in the apartment industry.

Welcome back to the Digible Dudes podcast. In today’s episode, David and Reid are here to talk about another interesting topic. Today’s episode is about what David and Reid learned from a book they read together: Seven Powers - The Foundations of Business Strategy by Hamilton Helmer. In the book, the author reviews seven things that drive company value, and in today’s episode, Reid & David dives into one of the most important of the seven: branding.

Getting into the conversation, David and Reid talk about the seven powers of a company mentioned in the book and how to implement it in your company. Then David shares what branding is along with some examples of successful branding, including an interesting story of how Coca-Cola impressed the world with its excellent branding strategies.

In the next part of the episode, Reid shares his thoughts on the brands that have the branding power in the multifamily industry and why the industry has a lot of room for improvement in terms of branding power. Then, Reid shares his thoughts on popular tech companies such as Facebook, Google, TikTok, and Spotify and how the branding power of these companies penetrate the vertices in the multifamily industry.

Further down to the episode, both David and Reid share their thoughts on the rule thumb in branding: having a specific strategy for launching brands. Reid & David talk about how companies like Apple and Tesla use that kind of specific strategies for launching their brands.

In the next section, Reid shares his thoughts on the innovation of brands and the risk that comes with innovation. Further down in the episode, Reid shares his thoughts on how branding strategies relate to clients what you have to do to build a brand along with a community around it. In the last part of the episode, Reid and David share their thoughts on the trust you must build between the brand and the buyer and how the value of transparency becomes a big advantage for a brand.

[06.13] Seven Powers - Seven powers and how those powers connect with the multifamily apartment industry.

[17.09] Branding - What is branding, and why every company should have a properly planned branding strategy.

[20.18] Quality of Branding in the Apartment Industry – How current players in the apartment industry are performing in terms of branding and how they could improve their branding efforts.

[25.51] Tech Behemoths - How big companies such as Google, Facebook, TikTok, and Spotify use branding for better outcomes.

[31.04] Rule of Thumb – The value of having a specific branding strategy.

[49.59] The Innovation of Brands – How innovation comes into play for branding and the risks involved in it.

[56.30] Diversifying - Things to consider when you start to diversify your product or brand.

[01:01.43] Mega Brands – How Companies like Apple and Tesla have strategized their branding.

[01:07.01] Brands and Clients – How branding relates to your clients.

[01:17.35] Building Trust - The importance of having transparency between the brand and the buyer and how to build a trustworthy brand.

We’re back with another episode of the Digible Dudes podcast. In today’s episode, we’ve got the three founders of Digible, David Staley, Reid Wicoff, and Nicole Staley, here to talk about the capturing moments of the year 2020 and how they influenced the business and the industry.

Starting the conversation, the three of them share their thoughts on the most significant memory in the 2020s: EOS, the Entrepreneurial Operating System, which had the greatest impact on the company, according to Reid. In the next part of the episode, they talk about the impacts of COVID on their business. They talk about how there was not a great deal of impact on their field, but there were challenging situations with hiring and relocating people.

Further down in the episode, they share their thoughts about the year’s key memories, which happens to be the new headquarters and another financial milestone. Moving on, they talk about the biggest surprises they had in 2020. Nicole shares her thoughts on the biggest surprises she had, including the team’s growth of revenue this year.

Continuing the conversation, they share their thoughts about the predictions for the coming. Reid predicts that they will be a preferred vendor by the end of 2021. According to Nicole, she’s expecting the growth of different service opportunities. David shares his thoughts on how the compliance aspect of the business is going to get bigger in the upcoming year.

At the end of the episode, they talk about some exciting memories they had throughout the year. Wrapping up the conversation, they share their thoughts on how the coming year will be.

[10.59] EOS, the Entrepreneurial Operating System - What is EOS and how entrepreneurs can optimize their business by implementing the concepts of EOS.

[21.33] COVID Pandemic - How the COVID outbreak affected the culture of business and other aspects of the company.

[26.54] Key Memories - The key memories and most exciting events of the year.

[33.54] The Biggest Surprise of the Year – Our founders reflect on the biggest surprises they had through the year 2020.

[44.34] Predictions for the Coming Year - Prophecies for the coming new year about the company and the industry.

[50.46] Funniest Memories in 2020 – David, Nicole, and Reid share the funniest memories they had in 2020.

[57.46] Final Thoughts – Our founders share their plans for the year 2020 to make the growth of Digible sustainable and to create a better environment for everyone involved in the business.

Welcome back to the Digible Dudes podcast. In today’s episode, we have Isobel Parish as our guest.  Isobel is a client services manager at Digible. Throughout today’s episode, we will be discussing some valuable things surrounding transitions that could be beneficial at the year-end in several aspects of apartment marketing, including budgeting, optimization, setting up tests, and many more.

Getting into the conversation, Isobel talks about her planning at the end of the year and how she intends to take some time off for Christmas. She shares her take on ways to manage planning for the start of the next year effectively during the holidays. In the next part of the conversation, Isobel talks about vendors and clients and the things you need to do for the coming year. Building on Isobel’s thoughts, Reid shares his thoughts from the perspective of an operator about the coming new year season, which is different from other new year seasons because of the COVID outbreak. He also talks about being defensive with money spending in the coming year.

Reid then shares his thoughts about the general public and their movements with the COVID pandemic and how that affects the apartment industry. Further down in the episode, both Isobel and Reid share their thoughts about budget planning and situational planning for the coming season, which is going to be different from other new years, and how the clients should manage their transitions with vendors.

In the next part of the episode, Reid talks about the new opportunities coming with the new year and how he will cooperate with his vendors. Wrapping up the conversation, Isobel and Reid talk about their top pro tips for the coming year.

[13.08] Year-end Planning – How to start planning the next year effectively during the holidays.

[16.57] Vendors and Clients - What clients should consider doing in order to optimize their connection with their vendors.

[23.38] Handling Vendors - Incorporating data, annual budget plans, and situational planning in the decision-making process for vendors.

[26.39] Situational Planning - The importance of situational planning to prepare for the coming year.

[32.06] Other Opportunities - The opportunities you can make use of and how to cooperate with vendors in transitions.

[40.09] Tips & Tricks – Isobel, David, and Reid share their top hacks to optimize your marketing efforts in the next year.

Welcome back to the Digible Dudes podcast. In today’s episode, we have Jenny Haacker as our guest. Jenny is a paid media manager at Digible. Today they are talking about metrics that matter.

Starting the conversation, Jenny talks about the main takeaways about metrics from what Jenny and her team talked about in the Digible Summit. Then Jenny talks about some of the key metrics and how they apply to properties. She talks about how different people on the team weighed in about their respective aspects of marketing.

In the next part of the episode, Jenny shares her thoughts about important things to consider in the onboarding process. She shares how clarifying information regarding properties and communication with the vendor plays a vital role in the process. Further down in the conversation, Jenny talks about effectively managing marketing expenditures and the challenges they are facing with it.

In the next part of the episode, Jenny talks about several types of Digital metrics and the deeper levels of metrics they can use for digital marketing. At the end of the episode, Jenny talks about metrics that provide a clear idea about the performance of a marketing campaign, such as the clock through rate.

[03.28] Takeaways of Metrics - How metrics apply to different roles in a marketing campaign, such as marketing managers or regionals, leasing consultants.

[04.20] Key metrics for Properties – The most useful metrics for properties.

[07.01] The Process of Onboarding - Importance of having more information on properties, the vital role of the communication with the vendor.

[11.31] Budgeting – Challenges involved in budgeting and justifying your marketing spend.

[13.02] Types of Digital Metrics – Jenny and David talk about several types of metrics and how they help you improve the performance of your marketing efforts.

[16.39] Benchmark Metrics – Metrics that give you a better understanding of the performance of your marketing efforts.

Welcome back to the Digible Dudes podcast. We are back with another episode of David and Reid’s talking about some of the current events, including the US presidential election, Google anti-trust cause, and the Apple search engine release.

Starting the conversation, Reid talks about the impact of politics on the real estate industry, separately analyzing what is going to happen if President Trump gets re-elected or Joe Biden gets elected. Reid further talks about how the election might affect the apartment industry and potential benefits for affordable housing.

In the next part, David and Reid share their thoughts about the technological influence of current politics. They discuss in detail how Facebook and Twitter interacted with the campaigns of the two presidential candidates and how these platforms enforced their community guidelines on the two campaigns.

Further down in the episode, David talks about Google anti-trust lawsuit and how data privacy and anti-trust laws will be updated under a new president. Then, Reid and David share their thoughts about Apple’s search engine, the pros and cons of the new release, and how it may affect users, existing search engines, and the digital marketing arena.

Talking about data privacy, both David and Reid share their take on what you get in return for the personal data that the social media platforms can access from their users. As their fourth topic, David and Reid talk about Microsoft’s bid budget management system and its usage. Wrapping up the conversation, David talks about how the recent trend of anti-trust lawsuits may affect big players in the tech industry, such as Google, Apple, and Facebook.

[05.13] Impact of the Election – How data privacy regulations and fair housing might look like under a newly elected president.

[12.02] Apartment Industry and the Presidential Election - The pros and cons of the presidential election for the apartment industry.

[15.54] Politics and Technology - How the tech companies like Facebook and Twitter interact with the two presidential candidates and how it may have affected the outcome of the election.

[19.17] Google Anti-trust - What is anti-trust, how Google ended up facing lawsuits, and how anti-trust laws and regulations may be shaped under a new president.

[23.11] Apple’s Search Engine - What is the Apple search engine, the features of it, and the competitive nature with other search engines like Google.

[28.48] Privacy Search Engine - What is a privacy search engine, and how effective it could be.

[36.08] Microsoft’s Bid Budget Management System - What is Microsoft’s bid budget management system, and how it works.

[39.24] Data Privacy and Governance – Why you should be mindful of the data you give to tech platforms.

[44.40] Final Thoughts – How the current trend of privacy and anti-trust lawsuits may shape the future of digital marketing.sode 53

Welcome back to the Digible Dudes podcast. We are back with another episode related to a mastermind session from the Digible Summit. Our guest today is RayAnn Ortiz. RayAnn is an account manager at Digible. Throughout the episode, we talk about RayAnn’s work on marketing and some valuable tips and tricks you can use in your marketing strategy.

Starting the conversation, RayAnn talks about her previous profession as a marketing influencer, and she shared her most significant success when she worked in Yoga International as a marketing influencer. RayAnn shared her thoughts on key takeaways of marketing tips and tricks around organic and paid social. She talks about the growth characteristics of paid and organic social during the period of COVID.

RayAnn then talks about the process of creating videos that maximize the impact of your marketing efforts. She shares video production tips on how to create videos for different social media platforms in a way that performs better for each platform. In the next part of the episode, RayAnn and David talk about semi-professional influencers in the world. David shares influencers’ statistics in semi-professionals while RayAnn expresses her thoughts on the human touch behind the properties or brands.

Talking about the tips and tricks for budgeting, RayAnn talks about some things you can do to optimize your budgets for paid search. Wrapping up the conversation, RayAnn talks about the interaction of paid social with different property classes.

[02.42] Influencer Marketing – RayAnn shares her experience and the things she learned from her work in the influencer marketing arena.

[09.30] Paid & Organic Social Media – How paid and organic social media performed over the last few months and the current states of paid and organic social.

[10.47] Creating Videos – Tips and tricks for creating videos that grab attention from your target audience.

[12.21] Semi-professional Influencers - The statistics on semi-professional influencers worldwide and why they are successful in what they do.

[15.22] Budgeting & Targeting – How to manage your budgets for paid search and how to optimize your targeting.

[20.24] Interaction of Paid Social and Property Classes – How paid social media interacts with different property classes and how to adjust your marketing strategy to match different property classes.

Welcome back to the Digital Dudes podcast. Today we’re sharing with you the value-packed discussion we had at the Digible Summit panel with three distinguished guests. Our guests share their wisdom and perspective on numerous aspects of marketing for the real estate industry. Today we’re joined with Joya Pavesi, SVP of Marketing and Strategy for RKW Residential,  Darren Williams, President at Portico Property Management, and Chasten Fulbright, Principal at Blanton Turner. The three companies are third-party property management companies.

Getting into the conversation, our guests share their background stories and what their current ventures are at their companies, and how the markets are behaving in their local areas. Cheston talks about the current climate in the property management arena in Seattle. Joya joins the conversation talking about the current state of the two major markets, Charlotte and Miami, followed by Darren’s remarks about how things are going on in Texas.

In the next section, our three guests share their take on companies that brought bis disruptions to the industry and the contributing factors to the success of these innovative businesses. They also talk about the innovative approaches to virtual tours and how virtual tours have evolves over the last few years. Moving on to company culture, our guests talk about how to keep the marketing department and the operation department aligned with the expectations and goals of the business. They also share some approaches they use at their property management firms.

Towards the end of the discussion, we talk about budgeting for marketing. Our guests share their wisdom on creating smarter and flexible budgets that maximize the results.  Wrapping up the session, our guests discuss differentiating brands at the property level and how to develop brands, and some things every marketer should know about building a successful brand.

[05.39] The Current State of Property Management – Out guests share what sort of a climate they see in the industry in their areas; Seattle, Texas, Charlotte, and Miami.

[12:33] Disruptors – Chasten talks about companies that brought big disruptions and innovative approaches to the industry.

[15.01] Competition – Darren shares his thought on how to deal with competition in the industry.

[21.00] Software Products – Our guests share their thoughts on the usage and popularity of newly emerging software solutions for the real estate industry.

[24.31] Impact of COVID – How the pandemic affected the industry and how it leads to new innovative marketing approaches for property management.

[31.23] Operations and Marketing – How to keep the marketing team and the operational team aligned towards the company’s goals and expectations.

[41.36] Marketing Budgets – Our guests share how they approach marketing and what you should know about managing your marketing budgets.

[47.49] Establishing Your Brand – How to differentiate your brand at the property level and successfully grow as a brand.