Great Events Can Fill Your Building

Are you afraid of events or do you embrace them? How innovative are your events? Are they attracting qualified prospects to your community? The sole purpose of events is to have new prospects walk in your door and say, “Wow! This is where I want to live.” This chapter goes into detail on ideas and how to put on a great event.

What is your definition of an event? For example, the community picnic is a wonderful celebration for all residents and their families. It is not an appropriate event to invite prospects because they don’t want to see the sea of wheelchairs and walkers from the assisted living and skilled nursing residents. Please do not call this a marketing event. The community picnic is an event for existing residents and should be handled by resident services/activity directors. Marketing directors can help, but they need to stay focused on new sales or there won’t be any.

So how many marketing events should you be having? My recommendations:

  • Large events should be held three to four times a year.
  • Small events should be one to two times a month, depending on occupancy needs and your ability to attract new faces.

Let’s break each of them down from start to finish for ideas and planning to produce effective events.

A large event draws one hundred to three hundred attendees. Who do you invite? First on your guest list is your wait list. There are people percolating on your wait list who just need a subtle push to call the moving van and order change of address cards. If your event is done properly, it should result in three to five move-ins in the next quarter. Secondly, one-third of your guests must be new faces. These will come from two sources: advertising and resident referrals. I recommend a quarter page ad in your local newspaper. Please see recommendations for a newspaper ad in Media Buying, Advertising, Public Relations, and Community Building with a Skinny Piggy Bank. The third group to invite is friends of the residents. Many communities get 50 percent or more of their new leads from resident referrals.

Tip: The best way to get resident referrals is to let residents know that they have an opportunity to attend this fabulous event if they bring a guest who is interested in moving to your community. Hello? Knock, knock? Many of your residents’ friends probably qualify age-wise and financially to move to your community. Start informing the residents two months ahead of the event.

Tip: Make the event something exciting enough that residents will be able to enthusiastically endorse it and want their friends to attend. Do not have the CEO or a botanist describing the cross section of a leaf to be the main speaker. You may as well have an event to watch your newly painted walls dry. No offense to CEOs, but you are not a big enough draw. A resident’s Disney family vacation slide shows are for the residents to see, not your prospects. That theme will make your guest feel grumpy, dopey, and sleepy. Now if you wanted to invite the real Mickey Mouse and give away a trip for two to Disneyland…but that might be too expensive and that would be goofy.

To summarize your event attendance goals:

  • Approximately one-third new faces
  • One-third wait list members
  • One-sixth will be second looks (their second time in your community)
  • Less than one-sixth will be residents (who have invited a new face guest)

Planning should start a minimum of three months before the event date. Begin planning with the end result in mind. An event starts with an idea…

This was an excerpt from “Senior Housing Marketing – How to Increase Your Occupancy and Stay Full.” The book has step by step instructions on how to have an excellent event.  http://www.amazon.com/Senior-Housing-

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/

Do You Show Floor Plans Before Showing the Senior Living Apartment?

There seems to be a new sales tactic to show future residents the brochure and floor plans – before touring the senior living community!  This makes no sense to me.  Most people cannot look at a floor plan and decide to give up their 3000 plus square foot home of 30 years and just move into a smaller sized 1000 square foot apartment.  Some professionals or retirees were former realtors, designers or architects – these folks would most likely be capable of picturing all their worldly possessions on a 8 ½ by 11 inch – floor plan.  So let’s just assume the rest of  the people can’t visualize a space based on seeing a retirement community floor plan.

Some senior living sales people actually asked me if I would like the bathroom placement or closet placement here versus there.  What?!?  I asked them to show me in person. They seemed surprised that I needed a real visual.   Others showed me one bedroom and two bedroom floor plans and wanted me to select my favorite floor plan to determine what to go see in the building – nuts!  Be a better sales person and figure it out for me.  Ask better questions to learn about my lifestyle and needs.

Senior living floor plans are a tool to help someone visualize the placement of furniture in their apartment home.   Use it after the prospective resident has already seen and has expressed interest in a certain style apartment at the retirement community.  A floor plan can be a helpful reminder of what you saw an hour ago.  But if they want to see the apartment in person one more time – please take them back to see it again.

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/

10 Negative Impressions Through the Eyes of a Consumer in Senior Living

Please enjoy this published article I wrote for seniorhousingforum.net for my friend Steve Moran.  – http://seniorhousingforum.net/

Here are my top 10 positive and negative first impressions after touring 15 senior living communities in 3 days. (Part 2)

By Diane Twohy Masson

My top 10 positive first impressions of touring 15 senior living communities were talked about in Part 1.  My goal was to put myself in the shoes of the adult boomer child looking for the right retirement community for an aging senior parent.  What would be his or her overall impression after viewing 3 to 5 senior living communities in a couple of days?  Now, in part 2, let’s talk about how some senior living communities chose to put their proverbial foot in their mouth and some of the reasons why they did not make a good first impression for this adult boomer child.

What were my top 10 negative first impressions of 15 senior living communities?

1)     Driving up and seeing a weed filled garden, the lawn too long or the building in any type of disrepair.  (If they can’t weed the garden on a regular basis, maybe they won’t be able to take good care of my mom on a consistent basis.)

2)     A sea of people in walkers and wheel chairs staring at me as I walked in the building or looked in the dining room.  If they were having a stimulating dining room conversation with their fellow residents or staff, they would not even have looked up at me (instead they were bored and ALL looked at me).

3)     Bad smells – from walking in a dining room and knowing someone needed his or her depends changed to smelling that old building smell.

4)     No activities happening and the residents looking bored.

5)     Having a resident say the food is bad (this literally happened).

6)     Being shown an apartment that was not rent ready with equipment lying around or was being used as a storage room.  This was surprisingly very common!

7)     Not being offered a cold refreshment when it was 90 degrees outside.  This happened at half the communities.

8)     The majority of marketers sat me down and started grilling me on my mom’s medical needs.  It was all about medical questions and they didn’t focus on her as a person or my concerns as an adult child.

9)     Seeing a resident eating alone in the dining room.

10) Experiencing a receptionist on the telephone, hold up her finger to me to wait, say something rude to a resident, hang up, roll her eyes and then ask me what I wanted…

Most of these negative first impressions can be easily corrected with good management and coaching the senior living marketer.  Even the best communities out there can’t predict what some of your residents would say to a tour.  But if your residents don’t look happy – what can your team do to redirect the seniors into an engaging activity?  Look around your retirement community with the fresh eyes of an adult boomer child.   What do you see?  Can you say that all of the first impressions of your new future residents are great?

+++++++++

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 coach your senior living marketing team (CCRC, independent living, assisted living, skilled nursing or memory care) or have her put on a sales retreat for your organization – please call: 206-853-6655 or emaildiane@marketing2seniors.net.  For more information: Twitter: @market2seniors Web:www.marketing2seniors.net Blog: http://marketing2seniors.net/blog/

Do You Have Proactive or Reactive Marketing?

One of the reasons your occupancy may be down is because you may have reactive marketing. What does this mean? Do any of the following scenarios happen at your community?

  • You walk into Bored Brad’s marketing office and he’s sorting paper clips. He just wants to give a tour but no one is coming in or calling the community.
  • When you stop by Blabby Barbara’s office, she is on the phone, but you quickly determine that she’s talking to a friend and not a potential resident.
  • Residents complain to management that phone calls to the marketing department are not returned in a timely fashion to friends they have referred and who are prospective residents. You march right over to Moody Marbella on your marketing team to address the residents’ concerns. She responds by changing the subject and, worse, blaming you with her explanation, “Events won’t work. Low occupancy is not my fault.” Do you think she missed the point?

Does this really happen? Yes! Reactive marketing people truly exist and I have worked with some of them. It can be a challenge to determine if the new team you are managing is reactive, but once you know the symptoms it’s easy to identify:

Symptom 1) Reactive marketing does not have programs or policies in place to make a certain number of outbound phone calls per day. This means every day.

Symptom 2) After conducting a tour, reactive marketing people wait for prospects to call them back to say they are interested in moving in. This is really the function of an order taker and not the attitude of a professional salesperson.

Symptom 3) Reactive marketers urge spending money on advertising because they claim they don’t have any leads and therefore no new sales.

Symptom 4) Reactive marketers exhibit a lack of urgency to answer the phone within two rings.

Symptom 5) Reactive marketers have a lackadaisical attitude returning phone, web, and social media inquiries.

These reactive marketing teams are waiting for walk-ins and call-ins. They believe the customer should just say, “Yep, here’s my deposit. Let’s call the moving company right now.”

Spending money on new leads is a waste of the marketing budget for a reactive marketing team. Many prospects can be slow (which is normal) to make a decision.  A reactive marketer does not initiate calls with the non-hot prospects, so a cool or lukewarm prospect will never be contacted again. This means that 20 percent to 30 percent of sales can just slip through the fingers of this type of marketer. This really does happen, and it can be affecting your financial performance.   Is it?

This was an excerpt from “Senior Housing Marketing – How to Increase Your Occupancy and Stay Full.

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 coach your senior living marketing team (CCRC, independent living, assisted living, skilled nursing or memory care) or have her put on a sales retreat for your organization – please call: 206-853-6655 or email diane@marketing2seniors.net.  For more information: Twitter: @market2seniors Web: www.marketing2seniors.net Blog: http://marketing2seniors.net/blog/

Who Answers the Phone at your Senior Living Community on Saturday?

Here are my results after calling 12 retirement communities in the Mid-West on a Saturday morning at 10:00 AM Central time:  The scores were one A+, two B’s, five C’s, one D and three F’s…

I asked everyone the same question, “I am looking for a place for my mom – she lives in your town – how many places are there to choose from and how do you rate?”  This was apparently a tough question for many…ratings were graded higher if they answered the telephone, could be clearly understood, answered the questions and asked for my name and telephone number before the conversation ended.

Only four people asked for my phone number, so those unique individuals were awarded a C+ or above for their heroic efforts.  Two assisted living communities went straight into voice mail, so they received automatic F’s.  The A+ person was an executive director (E.D.) working on a Saturday.  The E.D. was outstanding answering all my questions and asked for my name and phone number.

Three communities had workers that mumbled when they answered the telephone (I literally had no idea what they said and had to clarify if I had called the correct number – which of course I had).   One of the “mumblers” sounded like a 4 year old answering the phone.  I had to clarify three times that they were indeed an assisted living community and then they said no one was available to answer my questions.  They never asked for my phone number and I eventually hung up giving them a F- as a score.

The B- score asked for my phone number three times and inquired when I would be in town to visit.  But when I asked them how they rated for a third time, they talked about the activities or their medical services (without answering the rating question).

A C- answered the phone with an award winning description.   Then they said their boss would be in on Monday to answer more of my questions and never asked for my phone number.

One of the “mumblers” transferred me to the sweetest gal who gave the most sincere and heartfelt description of the community.  The nice gal kept going and started giving too much information that I never asked about like the price, rooms were available and the nurse would need to do an assessment first.  Overall the community was given a C- because of the heartfelt description.

As you can see, there was a wide variety of scores but overall, the majority of these staff were not trained on how to answer the phone correctly and to ALWAYS request someone’s name and phone number.  This same challenge can happen when the Monday thru Friday receptionist takes a break during the week.  Could this be why your occupancy is down?  There is a simple solution – training!

You may want to check out who is answering the phone at your community on a Saturday…

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 peaked to inquire on Diane’s availability to coach your senior living marketing team (CCRC, independent living, assisted living, skilled nursing or memory care) or have her put on a sales retreat for your organization – please call: 206-853-6655 or email diane@marketing2seniors.net.  For more information: Twitter: @market2seniors Web: www.marketing2seniors.net Blog: http://marketing2seniors.net/blog/

What Percent of Time Does Your Senior Living Sales Person Spend Selling?

How much real time is your senior living sale person spending in nonrevenue generating activities? The operations team should consistently do all nonrevenue generating activities, so the sales person can just focus on selling – right?  Yet sales people can get caught up wanting to be accepted by coworkers, so they start contributing part of their precious sales day to the operations team.  Suddenly the sales person may be helping at a resident event or going to visit new residents to make sure they are adjusting to life in the community.   Sales people tend to be the best event organizers, so it is also a very frequent practice in retirement communities to have them organize the annual resident picnic.  FYI – the resident picnic should really be the focus of activity director.

Any salesperson can slowly evolve into participating in nonrevenue activities in any healthy organization. Even great executive directors, might not notice two hours here and a three hour project there. A retirement community may literally need an outside consultant or regional marketer to evaluate – how much time the sales person spends not selling.  The administrator may have just needed help with one certain project that turned into more time wasters, because the sales person was so efficient at completing his or her requests.  Then when the occupancy drops another 5% and corporate is breathing down the administrator’s neck to find out why – the administrators could be unknowingly sabotaging the occupancy themselves.

Many administrators don’t even realize how his or her salesperson is utilizing their time. I actually found out that one of my regional sales team members was vacuuming and cleaning apartments before move-ins.  The operations team could not keep up with preparing apartments for new residents.  The sales person did not want the residents moving into dirty apartments, so he stayed late at night to clean them, rather than be a burden to operations.  Are you kidding me??!!?  I met with the administrator immediately and said, “This is a great problem to have with all these move-ins!  Let’s solve it and help our sales person get back to selling.”  The administrator agreed and we hired an outside agency to clean and prep the apartments of the next five move-ins (happening that week).  The sales person was thrilled to get back to selling and the operations team got caught up.  Yahoo and problem solved.

My first rule of thumb is: The sales person does all the activities that help people move into the community – period. Once someone is living in the community, the sales person needs to direct the new resident to the appropriate person on the operations team.  I believe that some sales people are so excited about their new resident that they would rather spend time talking with them, than getting on the phone to do follow calls.  Doesn’t everyone want acceptance in person rather than possible rejection on the phone?

My second rule of thumb is:  If a resident stops by to talk with the sales person, give them two minutes. Then the sales person should nicely let the resident know that they have a phone call to make or a meeting to attend.  Residents will get the picture after a sales person gives them the two minutes rule… two or three times.

What is happening in your organization?  Watch your occupancy start to skyrocket again, if the sales people are spending all their time on selling activities.

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 you need an energetic, creative and analytical mind to help increase your occupancy inquire on Diane’s availability to coach your senior living marketing team (CCRC, independent living, assisted living, skilled nursing or memory care) or have her develop an effective sales retreat for your organization – call: 206-853-6655 or email diane@marketing2seniors.net.  For more information: Twitter: @market2seniors Web: www.marketing2seniors.net Blog: http://marketing2seniors.net/blog/