State Suppliers: A Message from the SSC Chair, Dale Holder

State Suppliers: A Message from the SSC Chair

Saying that 2020 has been a challenging year would be the understatement of the year. While communities work hard to find creative and safe ways to maintain their residents as well as way to continue to reach new prospects and lease virtually or through self-guided tours, suppliers are faced with many challenges as well. Suppliers are met with the challenge of how to service our onsite partners and clients and still meet operational needs and goals. For some, working from a home office is nothing new and not much has changed. For many, whose normal daily routine relies on property visits and service calls, they have had to pivot to Zoom meetings, email and text messages with property managers and maintenance teams.

With the cancellation of the AANC Education & Legislative Conference due to COVID-19, along with NAA Apartmentalize and almost every state affiliate trade show, suppliers are left having to figure out how to reach that type of irreplaceable exposure and branding during what is normally the busy spring trade show season.

The State Suppliers Council continues to meet regularly, replacing quarterly in-person meetings with, you guessed it, Zoom meetings. On April 16th we hosted our first ever Virtual Coffee Meeting for state- wide suppliers with close to 100 registrants. This featured panelists Amy Timocko – Regional Vice President with Hawthorne and Lawrie Myers – Director of Training for Grubb Properties. When registering, attendees were able to submit questions in advance for the panelists. Amy & Lawrie were able to give our guests great guidance and tips to service and communicate with the on-site teams during COVID-19.

On May 26th we had a second SSC Virtual Coffee Meeting with 75 suppliers in attendance. This webinar featured panelists Steve Hayworth - Director of Maintenance for Drucker + Falk, Lisa Taylor - Senior Managing Director for Greystar and Franklin Rodriguez - Senior Service Manager for Blue Ridge Companies. Like the first webinar, all registrants were able to submit questions in advance. Steve, Lisa and Franklin did a phenomenal job providing information and inspiration to those in attendance. 

During times like this it is more important than ever to set your company apart as not just another vendor, but as a real supplier partner.

Hang in there, we will get through this as we are all in this together!

Dale

Dale Holder
Chair, State Suppliers Council