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Feb
2
Submitted by artchickhb on Tue, 02/02/2010 - 08:00
Dear Heather,
I currently work for a Leasing Firm and I travel all over the U.S. though for 45-60 days at a time. So behind the leasing desk has become an essential to my everyday life. When I am new on a property I want to impress the Manager my Boss and the Owners, but lately the wear and tear of being homesick is affecting my creative ability. I find my self distracted by thoughts of my children instead of how I can market the property. I am extremely talented. I close on more then 83% of my traffic phone and walk-ins. My bubbly well rounded personality and spunkiness help. I am writting you right now becuase I am brain spanked and spent. I will be going on a 6 day break in 3 days after which I'm headed out to the Heartland (Kansas) on an assignment. Do you have any advice or direction to give me the jolt I need?
-Spunked Out
Dear Spunked Out,
First of all, I want to thank you so much for reading my blog! I'm glad that you've found it helpful in your work.
As to your problems, I can completely understand how being homesick could affect your abilities. I find that my creativity severely suffers when I'm feeling depressed or upset. With most jobs, when you have a stressful day, you get to go home and the people there bring you back to center and help you refill that creative well. With your job though, you only get to go home every 6 to 8 weeks, so refilling that well is going to be a little more challenging.
An 83% closing ratio is most impressive and you should be really proud of it! But no one can run on overdrive all the time. Trust me, I just came off an 18 month long job where I was constantly on, 24 hours a day, and that feeling of being completely spent was a constant with me. I would say what you're going through is completely normal and to be expected. There are a lot of different techniques that people use to deal with the homesick feeling. I've known people who take pictures with them or who travel with webcams so that they can video chat with their kids when they're away. You can run web chat through Yahoo Messenger, and you could even play online games with them if you wanted to through the Yahoo site.
Stress and cortisol are going to kill creativity, so the first trick is to learn to shut down your stress a little bit. Exercise helps. It's helped me A LOT. I like the elliptical, since it's really low impact and really high calorie burn. I also like kickboxing since you get the chance to work out some major frustration. Either way, the physical activity will help out. It can help reduce stress, make you happier (endorphins are a great thing) and even help you get better sleep and deal with feeling as disconnected.
To rejuvenate my creative chemistry, I explore other outlets from time to time, whether it's painting or drawing or scrapbooking or writing. I also started carrying around a small moleskin notebook everywhere I went so that if I got the seed of an idea, I could write it down and come back and expand on it later. Reading Rent and Retain magazine, and re reading back issues, always gives me loads of ideas. I might also suggest that you try reading Seth Godin's blog as well. He tends to be funny and has a great perspective on the world of marketing. And if you haven't already gotten a profile on Multifamily Insiders yet, you should get one. That site can be an incredible resource and a good source of reinspiration.
If I know Kansans, and I've got an inside scoop on this one, fall is a big season for them. Little things like switching out cider for coffee, holding caramel apple weekends, or even having a full fall fest for your residents would go over pretty well. It's going to be very important for you to maintain your bubbly personality to sell out there and to aim for the genuine connection with people, as KS folks don't buy from anyone they don't trust. I find that of anywhere I've been, the Midwest is the hardest to close in because of the personality requirements.
If there's anything I can do to help you out with your time in the Midwest, please let me know. I'm going to email you a list of blogs and sites that I keep up with and that might help you out with getting your creative juices flowing.
Good Luck,
Heather
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