The new kid in town…

You may have noticed that we have a new marketing representative in our office! Her name is Carrie Crest, she started with us about 2 months ago and we love her! She fits right in like an apple in an orchard and we are delighted to have her. Since she’s begun showing up out in the field, I’ve had an alarming number of people ask if everything’s okay, did I fire Jason, am I leaving LaRocca and “grooming” her to take my place… I’ve even been asked if I’m pregnant!!!

I PROMISE YOU GUYS, I’m not going anywhere and neither is Jason (and neither of us have a bun in the oven)! I love my job at LaRocca Inspections and they love me. I was just spreadng myself too thin and needed a little help! So this is how I’ve structured our Marketing department:

Me (April Kass): I am still our Marketing Director and handle our marketing department’s strategic planning and annual budget. Jason and Carrie report to me and I give them their “marching orders” so to speak. I will be spending the majority of my time working on planning, public relations, and networking. This means I may contact you to ask you some marketing research question, get a testimonial from you, etc. I will spend time at our local associations, on various committees, in the field (delivering presentations at sales meetings, going on weekly caravans, etc.) writing articles, blogs, and keeping up on social media.

Jason Wrightsman: Jason will be taking over the promotional design section at LaRocca Inspections. With the four companies that we represent it really takes a full time employee to do all of the concepting, inventory, printing, ordering (and reordering) of promotional brochures, cards, pens, and other items that we order on a regular basis, basic layout and graphic design, keeping our websites current, sending out email deals, and posting those photo blogs that everyone loves! As part of his new position here, he will also be attending school part time for graphic design which he is already talented at and this will make him just invaluable to me in the marketing department!

Carrie will be taking over a number of the functions Jason and I were previously doing. Her main focus is promotional activities. She will be scheduling office presentations and educational classes and she will prepare what is needed for those presentations (bring the food and goodies everyone loves so much!). She will also be doing the rounds visiting the offices around town, keeping our brochure stands stocked, droping off fliers, sending direct mail, and assisting me when needed at networking events, trade shows, etc. If you see her out in the field, say HELLO!

I know that we are structured a little differently than other companies that service te real estate industry and I hope that this clears up some of the confusion out there. We feel that this structure allows us to get the most efficient use of our time and energy to best serve our clients!

April Kass – Marketing Director

 

June’s C.A.R.E. Project at Ocean Park Community Center

This years Beverly Hills/Greater L.A. Association of Realtors president Robin Greenberg launched the C.A.R.E project. C.A.R.E. stands for “compassion-acceptance-respect-empowerment”, The goal is to focus on the needs and efforts of a different charity each month. And the idea is that by providing compassion, acceptance and respect we can empower the less fortunate to overcome the obstacles they may face. June’s charity was the OPCC, also know as the “Ocean Park Community Center” in Santa Monica, CA. (http://bhglaar.com/pdf/OPCC.pdf)

Our newest Marketing Rep, Carrie, joined me and we went to lend our hands as volunteers for the morning of June 24th. Some folks prepped lunches, some gave out clothing from the donation closet, and some checked in lunch recipients.

We arrived around 9am and Carrie was put to work making sack lunches, while I was charged with the job of checking in lunch recipients and giving them a lunch ticket. I asked the folks in line a series of questions; Full name, date of birth, gender, ethnicity, how long they had been homeless in Santa Monica, where they were originally from, and whether they were on disability and/or were a veteran. This was an interesteing exercise. I’ve done quite a bit of volunteer work with the homeless in Los Angeles but rarely found out so much personal information about so many of them in such a short time. There were all ages, ethnicities, and types of folks. Many on disability, many with mental illnesses, and although many of them had not been homeless for very long, there were some who had been homeless for dozens of years. As a humanitarian, it was of interest to learn a little about the people we were serving to, rather than just slap food on their plates.

Once the line slowed to a crawl I went into a kitchen in another area of the community center. This was where the residents of the center ate. We prepared lunch for the residents. Another volunteer (Angel Moser) and I cut up apples, oranges, bananas, and plums and mixed them with canned pineapples for a fruit salad. Then a group of us made tuna sandwiches. Everything was fresh and looked quite tasty. We served the lunch to the residents at noon with a big scoop of ice-cream for each as well.

The best part about this particular volunteer experience was the gratitude that the residents showed us when we were done. A woman who lived there exlaimed how grateful they were for us volunteers and said thank you, followed by a chorus of thank you’s and a large round of applause. It caught me off guard as it’s very unusual to recieve that sort of acknowledgement. It was truly one of the most wonderful volunteer experiences I’ve had.

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