Brief Instructions for the use of VendorEdge
Revision 1.02 on March 4, 2008
Welcome to VendorEdge! ALN Apartment Data and The Vendor Guide are pleased to provide this invaluable tool for finding information on apartments, providing multitudes of sales leads, helping to identify your target properties and keeping track of who to invoice. This system was developed to keep you informed of the inside details of the ever-changing apartment industry.
Since 1991, ALN Apartment Data has collected and updated
information on nearly 12,000 properties throughout the southern
Detailed property data, current manager names (including property email addresses, fax numbers, area supervisors, etc.), detailed property management company information, management company changes, New Construction Reports and more are now at your fingertips through VendorEdge. We are confident that you will soon realize how beneficial having this wealth of information is for you and your business.
Our current markets have been grouped into 6 market areas for VendorEdge. These include:
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Dallas/Fort Worth,
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If you purchased your subscription through The Vendor Guide, you will sign into the program from their site at http://www.thevendorguide.com. If you purchased your program through ALN, you will sign in at http://www.vendoredge.net. Either way, you get the same valuable information, but if you don’t already know about the advertising opportunities available at The Vendor Guide, we strongly urge you to look into their organization. For more than 20 years, The Vendor Guide has helped thousands of companies get the exposure needed to sell their wares to the apartment industry. For roughly the same price as a subscription to VendorEdge through ALN, you will get all VendorEdge has to offer plus many great advertising and direct access to the apartment industry, including their revolutionary BidQuest, where property’s can directly solicit bids from Product and Service members.
I. Signing in to
VendorEdge
If you purchased your account through The Vendor Guide, go to http://www.thevendorguide.com. Use the LOGIN CODE and PASSWORD that you were assigned by The Vendor Guide.
If you purchased your account through ALN, go to http://www.vendoredge.net. Use the LOGIN CODE and PASSWORD that was assigned by ALN.
II. VendorEdge Main
Menu
There are 6 options available on the left-hand side of your screen.
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A. Search
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Clicking on this button will bring you to the search screen for VendorEdge. There are many ways that you may search ALN’s database. Since these are really pretty self-evident, we will only go through a few of them in this report as well as explain the “thought-process” of how the search will be performed.
If you have purchased more than one market, (or purchased a VendorEdge market with multiple city combinations) you will first need to choose the Market that you want to search. A drop-down menu shows you the markets that you currently have access to. If you need additional markets, please contact your sales representative.
When you are entering your fields in “Property Name”, “Address”, or the other fields where you type in a series of letters or numbers, remember that for the most part, less is more. What we mean by that is that if the name of the property is “Amli on Pickard” and you type in “Amli at Pickard”, the computer will not find it as a match for you. If you simply type in “Amli”, the computer will return to you all properties that have “Amli” in their name. Since capitalization does not matter, in this example it would find not only Amli properties, but anything with Hamlins in it as well (Hamlins at DeerLake). This process works on all data entry points (for example, as an address search as well).
Another Hint: When typing in names
anywhere on this screen, you may separate different entries with commas. The computer will search all that match any
of the words you enter. For example, if
you type in “
You may then limit your property matches by entering information in the other fields. Look at these fields and you will quickly see what they are used for. You may leave any or even all fields blank.
So, as an example, let’s say you wanted to find all the properties in the DFW area which were built before 1985, have at least 250 units in them and have a fitness center. First, choose the Dallas/Fort Worth area, then put the Number of Units at 250 to 9999, then put the Year Built in as 1900 to 1985 and finally check the box next to Fitness Center. Then click on “Show Matching Properties” at the bottom of that screen.
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The screen will then show you how many points the list will cost. Each matching property costs 1 point. At the time of this writing, there were 242 properties matching all of these criteria (thus costing 242 points). Once you agree with this point reduction, you will see a list of the matching properties.
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The list you see may be sorted by any of the headers on the top row (Property Name, Sub Market, Year Built, etc.). The green “X” above and to the right of the header is a way for you to download all the contact information on all of these properties into an Excel file which you will be able to manipulate or import into your database. This download does not cost any additional points. The fields offered in the download include Property name, address, city, state, ZIP, manager’s name, area supervisor’s name, email addresses, and management company information.
In addition, you may look at any or all of the matching properties by clicking on the property’s name on this list. This will display the Property Information Page. All property information may be printed off and used—you have already paid for this information my agreeing with the search results.
At the top of the screen, there is a button labeled Download all property sheets as a PDF file. This will save you time if you want to print all the property sheets at once, rather than one at a time.
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B. Management Company Portfolio
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The Management Company Portfolio will give you all the properties which are managed by any specific management company in each area. Click on “Mgt Company Portfolio” on the left side of the screen and then enter the name of the management company you are trying to find. Again, less is more. Also, remember to look for different spellings (Is it LPC or Lincoln Property Company?)
For this example, let’s look for Greystar Management: Type in “GREY” into the box next to “Search For” and click on “GO”
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Click on “Greystar Management” from the list returned.
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The computer will count up all the matching properties of Greystar in this specific metropolitan area and let you confirm the point cost before being charged. Each management company costs 1 point and each of the matching properties costs 1 point. In this example, the is one management company and 39 matching properties, costing a total of 40 points.
Confirm the points charge by clicking on “I Accept…” and the computer will put your list together as illustrated below. Note: ALN provides you this file in an Adobe PDF file for easy printing. You may be asked if you want to open that file in PDF. Once opened, you may easily save that file as you wish.
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This PDF contains all the contact
information about Greystar Management in the
C. Management Company Changes
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Management Company changes are available over the past 30, 60 or 90 days. Choose the list you want to review (the point cost is displayed on the report choice and are statis-meaning that they cost is the same no matter how many properties are on the report). Note: ALN provides this list in Excel, so you may be asked if you want to open that file. Once opened, you may easily print, sort or save it as you wish.
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Since ALN updates all our data on a monthly basis, these list are extremely current. For many reasons, it is very important that you know as quickly as possible which management companies are adding or losing properties.
· Many management companies will only pay an invoice for the first 30 days after losing the management contract.
· Many Product and Service members divide sale “territories” by management companies and these sales people need to quickly know as their individual properties increase or decrease.
· Some of the easier sales can be made between “sister properties”. As these properties change management companies, you will quickly be informed as these easier sales leads arise.
· With this ever-changing data at your fingertips, you can be the first sales person in the door to these new leads.
D. New Construction Report
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ALN presently compiles a New
Construction Report for the Dallas/Fort Worth, Austin,
We include all projects that we know about—no matter how far down the pipeline they are. Zoning requests, building permits, land purchase, bid requests all trigger an inclusion into our lists. Then ALN does what it does best—we dig until we find out the particulars.
All of these New Construction Lists are updated continuously and new items are added daily. Each report costs 350 points, regardless of the number of entries on that report.
E. Point Log
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The point log will show you the running total of your points, how they were used and how many points you have left. Each month on the day of your initial subscription, your point total will be increased by 500 points per market. If you need more points, they may be purchased through your sales person at The Vendor Guide or at ALN Apartment Data, depending on where your service is held.
The Vendor Guide at 972/550-9440 or
ALN Apartment Data at 972/931-2553 ext 1 or 800/643/6416 ext 1.