![Interviewing 5 Internet Lead Choices – To Increase the Occupancy!]()
by Diane Masson | Aug 13, 2012
All the big players in senior housing have a budget for Internet leads. With all the Internet lead companies vying for your dollar – how do you choose? We all want to get the best bang for our buck – and we want results – move-ins now!
Pew research has indicated that 50% of seniors are online users now and that 70% of web savvy seniors get online every single day. Baby boomer adult children are surfing the web researching options for their aging parents. Is your online presence strong?
This month I am going on a search to determine which senior housing Internet lead referral companies can bring the best the results for some companies I represent. My strategy is to interview 5 of the top national players who provide senior housing leads.
This is what I want to learn:
- What’s better – paying a full month’s rent for a move-in or individually paying for Internet leads?
- How many Internet leads does it take for a move in?
- What kinds of filters do they provide, so my leads are the best quality?
- If a lead is no good, do I still have to pay?
- Will too many garbage Internet leads discourage my salespeople?
- If the Internet lead person moves in and then moves out in two months, do I still have to pay a full months rent?
- For Independent Living and Assisted Living leads, how are the leads income qualified, so I don’t end up with low-income or senior apartment leads?
- Can they find entrance fee applicants for a Continuing Care Retirement Community, so I don’t end up with just rental leads?
The typical senior housing marketing mix results can now include: 20% or more of move-ins being sourced as Internet leads. At one time, I represented 14 properties that eventually had over 20% of their sales volume coming from Internet leads. There is no question that the quality of Internet leads varies. Many sales people dislike Internet leads because they think they are all garbage. Every lead needs to be treated as a viable lead. I have had to sell my sales people on how to properly utilize Internet leads, in order to increase move-ins. The challenge was having them believe in the quality of the lead, so the staff would treat them as hot leads. Quick response and follow up were the keys and the results were dramatic! The occupancy started to rise quickly with proper use of Internet leads…
Stay tuned for my results…if you were going to interview 5 Internet lead referral companies, what would be your top considerations?
Diane Twohy Masson is the author of “Senior Housing Marketing – How to Increase Your Occupancy and Stay Full,” available for sale at Amazon.com. If your curiosity is piqued to inquire on Diane’s availability to speak at a senior housing conference (CCRC, independent living, assisted living, skilled nursing or memory care) – please call: 206-853-6655 or email diane@marketing2seniors.net. Diane is currently consulting in Southern California for Freedom Management Company, the proud debt-free owners of Freedom Village in Lake Forest and The Village in Hemet, California. For more information: Twitter: @market2seniors Web: www.marketing2seniors.net Blog: http://marketing2seniors.net/blog/
by Diane Masson | Jul 15, 2012
Is this you? Is this your senior living sales person? Unless you have 10 to 15 tours a week, you have time to make follow up phone calls. Some people share this song and dance with only having one or two tours for the week – really? Come on…what are you really doing?
A legitimize excuse, for not making calls, would be having five move-ins for the week! That’s a lot of paperwork! If you were organizing a health fair with twenty venders to generate more leads – would also be worthy of a pass.
Time management is a beautiful thing and not everyone has this gift. Sales people need coaching, goals and daily targets to achieve. Break it down, to connecting with 15 people in a day. Recent averages for my successful sales people would be about 30 phone calls in a day to achieve 15 voice-to-voice contacts (this can include call-ins, but mostly call-outs). Out of the 15 voice contacts, they averaged scheduling 3 to 6 appointments per day for prospective residents to come to the community. Two people, who were called in one day, were actually interested in moving in soon. One person said, “The timing of your call was perfect, it’s time that I move into a retirement community.”
Phone calling success in senior housing includes inviting them to exciting events at the community, which you should have on at least a monthly basis. Chapter six in my book Senior Housing Marketing – How to Increase Your Occupancy and Stay Full is Great Events Can Fill Your Building.
An almost imperceptible time drain can include taking too much time talking to residents and/or helping residents. We love them so much and it’s so much easier to shoot the breeze with residents instead of hearing another “no” on the telephone from our database. Our residents deserve dignity and respect. But let’s look at all the employees at your senior living community… 97% or more of the employees are hired to take care of the residents. Less than 3% handle the marketing to fill the building. Marketers should redirect the resident to the 97% or more of the operational employees who are being paid to serve them. I believe in the two-minute rule, any resident can have one to two minutes and then say, “I would love to talk longer, but I have a phone call, meeting or tour that I need to do,” (whatever is really true).
The bottom line is that proactive marketers make follow up phone calls the next day after a tour and on a regular basis communicate with their database. Start increasing your occupancy today…
Diane Twohy Masson is the author of “Senior Housing Marketing – How to Increase Your Occupancy and Stay Full,” available for sale at Amazon.com. If your curiosity is piqued to inquire on Diane’s availability to speak at a senior housing conference (CCRC, independent living, assisted living, skilled nursing or memory care) – please call: 206-853-6655 or email diane@marketing2seniors.net. Diane is currently consulting in Southern California for Freedom Management Company, the proud debt-free owners of Freedom Village in Lake Forest and The Village in Hemet, California. For more information: Twitter: @market2seniors Web: www.marketing2seniors.netBlog: http://marketing2seniors.net/blog/
![“I’m not ready yet!”]()
by Diane Masson | Jul 9, 2012
How many times have you heard this from people considering a senior living community? It’s probably the number one customer comment, after touring a continuing care retirement community, independent living or assisted living community.
As a sales person, you sometimes honestly have to laugh after the appointment… The really humorous part is that a significant number of the people saying, “I’m not ready yet!” can barely qualify health wise for the community. They are shuffling with walkers and canes and may not even be able to tour the entire community before becoming exhausted with fatigue. You think to yourself, wow, you almost don’t qualify, how can you not be ready yet?
So how do we sell something to someone who desperately needs it? First, we can’t butt heads with them. Don’t argue! Stop trying to talk them into it! Once you have brought someone’s resistance up, you are in a losing battle.
Objections are one of two things. Either something we failed to cover during our time (discovery and tour) with them or they simply need more information. If you wait until the end of your time together to cover objections, then you are battling the prospective resident and creating a stressful sales experience by being a Stressful Sally or Sam. You can cover objections before they become an objection by using examples of past tour experiences. It’s the “friend approach” and it’s very effective.
Share a recent story of a resident who was not ready yet and moved into your community at his children’s insistence or another reason. He or she had fallen several times and they were concerned that even with an emergency pendant in their home, they might not be able to press it and could be laying on the floor for several days (before help arrives). It gives them a lot of peace of mind to know we have a plan in place to take care of almost any situation at our community. I would love for you to meet them…
A prospect could not be mad at you for sharing this story! It is a real story and one that the potential resident and their family has to consider when they go home, because they are not ready yet… The next fall or hearing about another senior falling will trigger the story in their mind again. If you continue calling on a monthly basis to check in, they can suddenly become one of your hottest leads…
Diane Twohy Masson is the author of “Senior Housing Marketing – How to Increase Your Occupancy and Stay Full,” available for sale at Amazon.com. If your curiosity is piqued to inquire on Diane’s availability to speak at a senior housing conference (CCRC, independent living, assisted living, skilled nursing or memory care) – please call: 206-853-6655 or email diane@marketing2seniors.net. Diane is currently consulting in Southern California for Freedom Management Company, the proud debt-free owners of Freedom Village in Lake Forest and The Village in Hemet, California. For more information: Twitter: @market2seniors Web: www.marketing2seniors.net Blog: http://marketing2seniors.net/blog/
![The Occupancy is NOT my Fault! It’s the Economy!]()
by Diane Masson | Jul 1, 2012
Have you heard this from your sales and marketing teams? Is this what the executive director of your senior living community is saying? Are you buying the popcorn? Come on…wake up…seniors are moving into retirement communities everyday. If it is not yours, it’s into your competition.
Is your senior living occupancy below 90%? The first thing to look at is the attitude of your team. Do they believe they can do it? Are they truly doing everything they can to fill the building? Are you having exciting events to draw in new faces? When guests arrive at your building are they treated like a precious jewel worth thousands of dollars? They should be – one move-in could be worth $36,000 per year to your bottom line. Does the receptionist jump up to great them? Is your phone answered with clarity and enthusiasm?
Are the sales people selling the real estate or the emotion? If your team is only selling the real estate (floor plans and apartments), people would just rather stay in their own home. Senior living communities are about a vibrant lifestyle – do your offer one or is it just bingo? Seniors want the security you offer instead of being isolated in their own home. One of a senior’s biggest fears is having a bad fall, not being able to call for help and end up – stuck – lying on the floor for several days. Are you sharing life-long-learning opportunities and the connectivity with like-minded seniors at your community? Do you offer them? How about sharing the peace of mind (in some CCRC’s) – just knowing that if something did happen to a resident’s finances they could have a guarantee of care for the rest of their lives?
The biggest tell tail sign of low occupancy is a low amount of call-outs after a tour. It seems so obvious, to give a quick call to the previous day’s tours. Just find out what they liked best the previous day, answer any more questions and always share something NEW that you failed to mention yesterday. Consistent follow-up phone calls is the key! ALL seniors say they are not ready! It means they don’t have enough information YET and they can’t picture themselves living there. Keep inviting them back to exciting events! You don’t need every senior in your city to picture themselves at your community…only enough to have 100% occupancy.
My book, “Senior Housing Marketing – How to Increase Your Occupancy and Stay Full,” teaches 12 keys to kick-start your sales and marketing program in the right direction. Good luck and start watching your occupancy increase!
Diane Twohy Masson is the author of “Senior Housing Marketing – How to Increase Your Occupancy and Stay Full,” available for sale at Amazon.com. If your curiosity is piqued to inquire on Diane’s availability to speak at a senior housing conference (CCRC, independent living, assisted living, skilled nursing or memory care) – please call: 206-853-6655 or email diane@marketing2seniors.net. Diane is currently consulting in Southern California for Freedom Management Company, the proud debt-free owners of Freedom Village in Lake Forest and The Village in Hemet, California. For more information: Twitter: @market2seniors Web: www.marketing2seniors.net Blog: http://marketing2seniors.net/blog/
The illustration has a copyright of 2011 by Diane Twohy Masson. The illustration may not be reproduced – mechanically, electronically, or by any other means, including photocopying or scanning – without the written permission of the copyright holder. Requests for permission can be submitted to Marketing 2 Seniors.
by Diane Masson | Jun 17, 2012
First, you need to have a database! Second, after each inquiry calls in or walks in, the contact information (senior and/or baby boomer adult children) needs to be captured in your database. Most retirement communities have a database of 1,500 to 15,000 names (please note that real leads are somewhere in the department of 3,000 names or less).
I recommend that your leads be sorted into hot, warm and cool. Hot leads will move into the community in the next two months, warm leads will move in about six months and cool leads are beyond a six-month move-in. Hot leads should be touched weekly. Warm leads should be touched bi-monthly depending on their situation. Cool leads should be touched quarterly.
Typically, most senior housing organizations also have a large group of people who are not interested now and just want to be on the mailing list. These need to be organized too! Even when someone says, just put me on the mailing list and don’t call – I still schedule a call once a year with him or her. Some of you may say, “No way – I will go by their wishes to never call!” Well, what the senior is really saying is don’t bug me all the time, but I am interested in staying in touch. NO one has ever been bothered by a yearly call from anyone on my teams!
Almost every lead in your database should be touched on a quarterly basis by telephone and by mail. If the senior living sales person is making a minimum of 15 calls per day, that becomes 75 calls a week or 300 phone calls a month. Three sales people can easily generate 900 calls a month or 2,700 calls on a quarterly basis. Now with this amount of calls, it WILL GENERATE TOURS to your community. Tours can turn into sales and sales will become move-ins.
If your community made all these calls for three months, it should generate 5 – 10 move-ins – just from your database. It really works.
So why aren’t the sales people doing this now? They need to be coached and directed! Maybe the number of calls they are making needs to be added to their job description? They need to be held accountable. It is much easier to shoot the breeze with a resident and not make calls. Calls can equal lots of rejections and no’s.
My book, “Senior Housing Marketing – How to Increase Your Occupancy and Stay Full,” teaches senior living sales people how to overcome this fear and be persistent. One little trick I share is counting your calls with hash marks on a piece of paper. By the time someone talks to 20 people they should have scheduled 2 tours. It may be the 19th and 20th calls – so don’t give up. Good luck and start watching your occupancy increase!
Diane Twohy Masson is the author of “Senior Housing Marketing – How to Increase Your Occupancy and Stay Full,” available for sale at Amazon.com. If your curiosity is piqued to inquire on Diane’s availability to speak at a senior housing conference (CCRC, independent living, assisted living, skilled nursing or memory care) – please call: 206-853-6655 or email diane@marketing2seniors.net. Diane is currently consulting in Southern California for Freedom Management Company, the proud debt-free owners of Freedom Village in Lake Forest and The Village in Hemet, California. For more information: Twitter: @market2seniors Web: www.marketing2seniors.net Blog: http://marketing2seniors.net/blog/
by Diane Masson | Jun 11, 2012
Several marketers told me in the last few weeks that follow up phone calls after a tour can be pushy – what do you think?
When every senior living tour is completed– someone is sold in my opinion. It’s either the prospective resident sold the sales person on not being ready to move in yet or the sales person has sold the prospective resident that it is time for them to move into his or her retirement community.
When some sales people hear a prospect indicate that he or she is not ready yet, they believe that a phone call will bother the people the next day. They think making that phone call would be considered pushy. And you know what? They don’t make the call! Is your occupancy down? This could be why!
Granted, every situation is unique! In the majority of cases, if a senior living marketer really listens to the customers needs and builds a great first name relationship with a senior, then the senior will welcome a sincere phone call the next day. The phone call could be about inquiring if they have additional questions, answers a question they had from the previous day or better yet shares some NEW information that would be pertinent to their decision making process. Obviously a sincere and caring attitude is of the utmost importance and felt by the customer.
Everyday that a sales person waits to make a phone call after a tour or an event, the senior’s emotional connection to the decision making process decreases. So if your company’s policy to follow up 3 to 4 days later – this is why your senior living occupancy is down.
The best attitude to have when making the phone call is to believe the senior or the adult child does not have enough information to make a decision yet and your phone call will continue to educate and help them. Most seniors or adult children are great with a quick phone call to see if they have additional questions…. The sales process is about a willingness to go through some no’s to get some yes’s. If a salesperson is afraid of the no’s, then they won’t get as many yes’s! I hope this advice helps you fill your CCRC, assisted living, or retirement community faster!
Diane Twohy Masson is the author of “Senior Housing Marketing – How to Increase Your Occupancy and Stay Full,” available for sale at Amazon.com. If your curiosity is piqued to inquire on Diane’s availability to speak at a senior housing conference (CCRC, independent living, assisted living, skilled nursing or memory care) – please call: 206-853-6655 or email diane@marketing2seniors.net. Diane is currently consulting in Southern California for Freedom Management Company, the proud debt-free owners of Freedom Village in Lake Forest and The Village in Hemet, California. For more information: Twitter: @market2seniors Web: www.marketing2seniors.net Blog: http://marketing2seniors.net/blog/
