Leasing agents and property managers who handle leasing have a full plate of responsibilities, including answering phone and email inquiries, showing apartments, managing the lease application process, managing digital presence (website, social media channels, Google Business Profile, and online ads), and coordinating move-ins. With so many job duties, income-producing activities can be neglected, resulting in a leads pipeline that may one day dry up.
What is a remote sales specialist?
Remote sales specialists are seasoned sales professionals who partner with your multifamily community management team to drive leasing momentum. Starting at just 2 hours a day, remote sales specialists act as part of your leasing team. They make calls to your database, schedule tours, warm up cold leads, fill in for leasing agent vacancies, and drive tour-to-lease conversions. Grow Your Occupancy’s Remote Sales Specialists are more than “call centers” – they are an extension of your leasing agents’ department. Try Grow Your Occupancy – engagements begin at little as 90-day agreements.
4 ways a remote sales specialist can support a multifamily community
- Pre-leasing: Even before the sales trailer opens, there are prospective residents interested in the community. Having a remote sales specialist in place at this stage to respond to inquiries and add prospects to a waiting list puts the building closer to stabilization – before the community opens.
- Lease-up: Once the first units become available, the race is on to be profitable and generate steady rental income. However, this is a busy time for the leasing agent as they’re handling paperwork, supervising move-ins, solving problems, and more. A remote sales specialist focuses their time on selling: calling, texting, and emailing the database to schedule showing appointments.
- Nurturing leads: Existing communities can’t ignore their sales pipeline. Keeping leads engaged through ongoing nurturing calls and emails will provide you with a ready pool of applicants when units become available for leasing.
- Covering the hours the leasing agent is off: Leasing agents can’t be available every hour of every day, so scheduling a block of time each day to be covered by a remote sales specialist – for example mornings between 10 a.m. and noon – will give your leasing agent more flexibility to show units in the evenings and on weekends.
How are remote sales specialists different than call centers?
Call centers: basic coverage, not skilled selling
Call centers typically provide phone coverage for specific days and times during the week. Their agents answer inbound calls, take messages for the sales team, set tour appointments, and answer basic questions about the community.
While this may sound helpful on the surface, it’s important to recognize the limits of this approach. Most call center agents are generalists who may or may not have multifamily housing leasing expertise. An agent typically handles calls for multiple clients, some of which might not even be multifamily communities.
What’s more, call center agents may not follow a specific sales process. They aren’t immersed in your company culture. And due to turnover and rotating staffing, continuity with prospects is often lost.
Also, call centers are paid to be available — whether they’re actively producing results.
Remote sales specialists: experienced and conversion-focused
Unlike call center agents, remote sales specialists operate as a true extension of your leasing team. These housing sales professionals are not merely taking calls—they are your community’s sales strategists, assessing where need is most critical to make impact quickly. Remote sales specialists also work the current database; the often dreaded “cold” leads, to warm them up and shorten the sales cycle.
Here’s what remote sales specialists do differently:
- Act as sales strategists for your community, not just receptionists
- Initiate outbound contact with new and existing leads in your CRM to re-engage interest
- Impact lead-to-connection, lead-to-tour and cold-to-warm lead conversion ratios
- Schedule tours and appointments directly within your CRM for a seamless handoff to the community leasing staff
- Follow your company’s established sales system and processes
- Have deep experience in the housing industry, often with years of hands-on work guiding families
- Build rapport through meaningful discovery, not impersonal scripts
And the best part? You only pay for productive selling time. No wasted hours. No fluff. Just results.
Multifamily leasing requires more than answering the phone
Multifamily leasing is not like booking a dentist appointment. It requires emotional intelligence, listening skills, and a deep understanding of the journey that families are on. Call centers simply aren’t equipped to deliver that level of care or strategy.
Remote sales specialists, on the other hand, can:
- Reignite stalled leads who need a thoughtful follow-up
- Personalize conversations to match the pace and needs of each prospect
- Improve outcomes by increasing tours, deepening prospect engagement, and shortening the sales cycle
Find out how a Grow Your Occupancy Remote Sales Specialist can improve your leasing outcomes
Let’s talk about how we can meet your specific needs for sales coverage.