5 Tips to Achieve 5 Sales in One Week

5 Tips to Achieve 5 Sales in One Week

5 Tips!  Go Hawks!

5 Tips! Go Hawks!

Five sales at one Continuing Care Retirement Community (CCRC) in one week! Are you and your team hitting these numbers? How is it possible? Here are a few tips:

  1. Have a sales retreat to appreciate your senior living sales team and make them feel valued. Have you taken the time to do this or are you too busy to “waste” a day of work? It could be the most important day to improve the sales team’s attitude and turn around your occupancy.
  • Our retreat focused on setting individual sales goals and building self-esteem and confidence.
  • Each sales person was recognized for his or her achievements in 2014.
  • The retreat created two types of energy: individually and with the team. This energy blossomed into momentum.
  1. Have you created a marketing plan that brings new people to your senior living community on a regular basis?
  1. Does your team call back every tour the next day even if they say, “I’m not ready yet.”?
  1. Is your entire operational team focused on first impressions of guests and prospective residents?
  1. Are your residents 100% satisfied and sharing their enthusiasm with prospective residents?

Focus on these five tips and watch your occupancy increase for 2015.

Diane Twohy Masson is the author of “Senior Housing Marketing – How to Increase Your Occupancy and Stay Full,” available at Amazon.com with a 5-star rating.  The book is required reading at George Mason University as a part of its marketing curriculum.  Within this book, the author developed a sales & marketing method with 12 keys to help senior living providers increase their occupancy.

“Your Senior Housing Options,” will be coming soon to Amazon.com. If you sign up for my weekly newsletter on the right side of this blog, you will be notified when my new book becomes available. Check out my new website: Tips2Seniors.com or please follow me on Facebook.

How Many Calls Does Your Senior Living Team Make Per Month (part 2)?

How Many Calls Does Your Senior Living Team Make Per Month (part 2)?

How Many Calls Does Your Senior Living Team Make Per Month (part 2)?There were such a variety of responses to “How Many Calls Does Your Senior Living Team Make Per Month,” I am choosing to expound with a more in-depth part 2.  Senior living sale professionals responded with call requirements from 20 calls an hour to 40 completed calls per week.  Someone else’s retirement community had mandated 53 connected calls per month.

Here is one response:

“Diane, I have enjoyed reading your blogs on seniors, which are informative with best practices.  This one on “How Many Calls A Month” made us gasp with the large number of calls a sales team is expected to make nowadays.  500 to 1,000+ calls a month must be only cold calling behind a closed door and doing nothing else like sales events, tours, refurbishment oversight, building relationships with future residents, community and church relations, follow up on leads and inquiries, application process, and administrative team projects.”  Nancy

My response: These calls were not cold calls, so here is a more detailed explanation.

My example in part one had a marketing director with 469 calls and her two team mates with 340 and 315 calls respectively.  These sales calls included: call-ins, voice-to-voice call-outs and left messages.  I believe if someone leaves a great message, seniors will call back.  Our requirement is 75 calls a week or 300 per month.  This is not one isolated goal.  Another goal is 20 initial or repeat tours per month.  This tour goal does not include post-closing appointments after a deposit has been taken.

Yes, these senior living sales people have other responsibilities including three events per month (all day), responding to Internet inquiries, weekly strategy meetings, book reviews, overseeing apartment renovations for their clients, and managing his or her move-ins (paperwork, relationship building, setting up health assessments, family tours and etc.).

If you don’t have sales and occupancy goals, then no one has a pinnacle to reach.  This team produced five Continuing Care Retirement Community (CCRC) sales in the last eight days.  They have hit the quarterly move-in goals this year and are currently close to hitting the fourth quarter goal and going to Disneyland.  This year, they have produced the most CCRC move-ins at their retirement community since 2005.

Please share your call, tour and move-in quotas to converse with other senior living sales professionals.  Let’s hear about the variety of quotas out there.  It will also be interesting to know if you are hitting your move-in goals based on your calling goals.

Please share your success, failures or comment below to join the conversation and interact with other senior living professionals on what is currently being effective to increase occupancy on a nationwide basis.

Diane Twohy Masson is the author of “Senior Housing Marketing – How to Increase Your Occupancy and Stay Full,” available at Amazon.com with a 5-star rating.  The book is required reading at George Mason University as a part of its marketing curriculum.  Within this book, the author developed a sales & marketing method with 12 keys to help senior living providers increase their occupancy.   Masson developed this expertise as a marketing consultant, sought-after blogger for senior housing and a regional marketing director of continuing care retirement communities in several markets.  She has also been a corporate director of sales and a mystery shopper for independent living, assisted living, memory care and skilled care nursing communities in multiple states.  Most recently Masson was recruited to consult for two debt-free Continuing Care Retirement Communities in Southern California – Freedom Village in Lake Forest and The Village in Hemet, California.  Interestingly, this career started when she was looking for a place for her own mom and helped her loved one transition through three levels of care.

© Marketing 2 Seniors| Diane Twohy Masson 2013 All Rights Reserved. No part of this blog post may be reproduced, copied, modified or adapted, without the prior written consent of the author, unless otherwise indicated for stand-alone materials. You may share this website and or it’s content by any of the following means: 1. Using any of the share icons at the bottom of each page. 2. Providing a back-link or the URL of the content you wish to disseminate. 3. You may quote extracts from the website with attribution to Diane Masson CASP and link https://www.marketing2seniors.net For any other mode of sharing, please contact the author Diane Masson.
How Many Calls Does Your Senior Living Sales Team Make Per Month?

How Many Calls Does Your Senior Living Sales Team Make Per Month?

Senior Living CallsRecently, I received an email from retirement counselor at a four-year-old Continuing Care Retirement Community (CCRC) in California.  He talked about being busy making 500 calls per month.  I asked if that was 500 calls for just himself or was it 500 calls for the team of three senior living sales people?  The answer was 500 calls for the entire team.

Just an FYI for administrators and senior living sale people – 500 calls for a senior living sales team of three is not great.  Each retirement counselor should be personally generating 300 calls or more in order to increase the occupancy.

We track database calls with all my senior living sales teams.  For the month of October, one of my CCRC marketing directors rocked with 469 calls.  Even with all her responsibility, she set the pace.  One of the retirement counselors generated 340 calls and another made 315 calls.  These three team members produced 1,124 calls in one month!  This included inbound and outbound calls.  This CCRC team is one of the hardest working teams that I have ever encountered.

What is the result?  Tours, tours and tours!  What comes from tours?  Move-ins!  Move-ins increase your occupancy and generate revenue.  How many calls are you and your teams creating per month?  Do you track it?  You should!

Please share your success, failures or comment below to join the conversation and interact with other senior living professionals on what is currently being effective to increase occupancy on a nationwide basis.

Diane Twohy Masson is the author of “Senior Housing Marketing – How to Increase Your Occupancy and Stay Full,” available at Amazon.com with a 5-star rating.  The book is required reading at George Mason University as a part of its marketing curriculum.  Within this book, the author developed a sales & marketing method with 12 keys to help senior living providers increase their occupancy.   Masson developed this expertise as a marketing consultant, sought-after blogger for senior housing and a regional marketing director of continuing care retirement communities in several markets.  She has also been a corporate director of sales and a mystery shopper for independent living, assisted living, memory care and skilled care nursing communities in multiple states.  Most recently Masson was recruited to consult for two debt-free Continuing Care Retirement Communities in Southern California – Freedom Village in Lake Forest and The Village in Hemet, California.  Interestingly, this career started when she was looking for a place for her own mom and helped her loved one transition through three levels of care.

© Marketing 2 Seniors| Diane Twohy Masson 2013 All Rights Reserved. No part of this blog post may be reproduced, copied, modified or adapted, without the prior written consent of the author, unless otherwise indicated for stand-alone materials. You may share this website and or it’s content by any of the following means: 1. Using any of the share icons at the bottom of each page. 2. Providing a back-link or the URL of the content you wish to disseminate. 3. You may quote extracts from the website with attribution to Diane Masson CASP and link https://www.marketing2seniors.net For any other mode of sharing, please contact the author Diane Masson.

 

Give Your Residents a Hug Today – Happy Holidays!

Give Your Residents a Hug Today – Happy Holidays!

Give your resident a hug today!The smiles and tears were so joyful to see!  My entire senior living marketing staff presented a small beautifully wrapped Christmas tin (with chocolate inside) to each resident ambassador who helped marketing in the last year!  Maybe they gave a tour on a weekend, had lunch with a prospective resident, helped new residents feel welcome, spoke at a marketing event or allowed marketing to show their home.

As we gave each gift, we EACH said thank you and gave them a hug!  The residents loved it and were just blown away!  They each had five hugs!

It is not too late for your senior living community to do this!  Show your appreciation to your resident ambassadors this week with a New Year’s gift…it only cost $3.00 per resident.

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/

Is Your Senior Living Team – Only Going for the Easy Sale?

Is Your Senior Living Team – Only Going for the Easy Sale?

Phone Calling Brings Sales in Senior LivingEvery senior living sales person loves the easy sale.  A senior walks into your community, his or her home has just sold quickly and now they HAVE TO MOVE in the next 30 days.  Or a family member’s parent is in the hospital and the doctor has stated they can’t return to their home, the senior must move to assisted living now.  Will these easy sales fill your retirement community?  No!!

The words patience, dedication and persistence come to mind – to reach out to the reluctant customers who can fill your senior living community.   When someone comes in to tour your community, first impressions are everything.  The sales person needs to take the time and compassion to find out what prompted their visit and show how their senior living community can be the answer.

When a senior or family member says they are “Not Ready Yet,” don’t blow them off!    It simply means they don’t have enough information to make a decision yet and they need to come back and see you again.  The prospect is scared!  It is a big decision to move out of a home they have lived in for 30 to 50 years.  Most seniors don’t make the decision to move in a one or two hour meeting with a senior living sales person.  Give them the compassion and care they so desperately need… Call them the next day and find a reason for them to visit again – maybe it’s a lunch, an exciting event or showing them one more apartment.  Turn their reluctance into excitement.

If they don’t answer, keep calling.  Senior living sales people are not making enough calls on average, it’s easier to go talk to a resident than hear rejections, no’s and hang ups on the phone.  Call two days in row…make the 2nd message on their recorder different from the first and then say, “Please give me a call back or I will try you back.”  If I were listening to my voicemail, I would think – “Oh, I better give them a call or they will keep calling.”

Then when they call you back, invite them to visit your senior living community again and the chance of selling them on a 2nd or 3rd tour are even higher!  At Continuing Care Retirement Communities in California, it is taking 5 or 6 visits to turn a reluctant customer into a sale…  How many visits on average are your prospects making to your retirement community, before they decide to move in? It would be fantastic to hear averages from all over the country…

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/

Does Your Senior Living Sales Team Need Sales Training?

Does Your Senior Living Sales Team Need Sales Training?

My new senior living sales teams went from selling need driven independent living rentals (which is a piece of cake) to successfully selling CCRC (Continuing Care Retirement Community) entrance fees.  The organization completely transformed.  Do you want this for your team or do you just want to improve occupancy?  Start investing into some type of training through a sales training or book review.  Watch your team grow and start getting excited about selling again…this is a fun and rewarding business…

Do you have an experienced sales team at your retirement community and the sales are just not happening like they used to?  Or do you have some brand new team players that need to learn everything?

Is It Time for Sales Training?  Hopefully you have someone in your organization that can take a half-day or a whole day to build some team camaraderie and put the sales team back on track.

Here are 5 reasons to invest in Sales Training as soon as possible:

  1. Your team(s) may just be burnt out or could be in a rut…
  2. What if there are 10 basic things to warm up a customer and they are just leaving one out?  A refresher course on the basics could help…
  3. How to steer the customer through the sales process…
  4. Are they focused on listening to the customer or have they progressed to just giving a tour and being an order taker?
  5. Do the sales people realize that if the prospective resident gives the same objection at the end of every tour, adding some key stories into the presentation can cure it?

What if your budget can’t afford sales training and no one in the organization has the know-how or the experience to be the trainer?  Start a book review…one chapter a week.   Pick the right book, there are so many to choose from.  My teams just completed an entire book called Senior Housing Marketing – How to Increase Your Occupancy and Stay Full.  (This is a book I wrote to help experienced and brand new sales and marketing people improve quickly.)

CCRC entrance fee sales are on the upswing now…the economy is improving… Is it time to kick-start your senior living sales team?

Please share your stories of success, so we can all benefit!

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/