by Diane Masson | Jun 23, 2013
Are hot leads attitude or reality? I say attitude! Some senior living sales people expect a prospective resident to walk in and say, “I have my house on the market and I’m ready to move into your retirement community.” How often does this happen? It could happen 20% of the time. This means 80% of the time, a sales person needs to build a relationship, document it in the database and do the dreaded follow up phone calls. Oh yeah, it’s called work. If it was easy selling senior living, retirement counselors would be paid minimum wage.
With proper nurturing, over time, a cool lead can become warm and a warm lead can become hot!
Too many senior living sales people say they don’t have any hot leads. Yet, if you were a little mouse on their shoulder, while they met with a senior…. This is what you might hear the prospective senior resident say, “I’m not ready yet (NRY).”
In sales they say, don’t listen to the first no. Well I say, don’t listen to the first 10 NRY! The senior can still be a hot lead (ready to move in a few months)!
NRY simply translated means I am scared. It’s hard for a senior to give up their home of 30, 40 or 50 years and move. It’s a lot of work. The more time they spend at your retirement community the better. They will fall in love with your residents. Then the senior can decide they will gain more by moving into your retirement community, than what they are giving up.
The mindset of the sales person dictates how many hot leads they have. Believe – truly believe the seniors are ready to move in sooner than what the prospective resident actually says to you. Typically just cut the time frame a senior says in half.
Please share your success, failures or comment 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 for sale at Amazon.com. Masson’s book will be required reading at George Mason University in the Fall as part of the marketing curriculum. She is currently consulting with Seniors For Living and two debt-free Continuing Care Retirement Communities in Southern California – Freedom Village in Lake Forest and The Village in Hemet, California. Connection and partnership opportunities: Email: diane@marketing2seniors.net
by Diane Masson | Feb 9, 2013
It only takes 15 minutes or less per day to engage in social media! Has your retirement community entered the twenty first century with social media yet?
Some of the larger senior housing organizations have wonderful social media programs. Sunrise Senior Living posts great blog content multiple times a week. Emeritus sends out engaging monthly email blasts. Other organizations with a nationwide presence have a staff who are dedicated to social media.
What do you do if you are a stand along retirement community or only have a handful of senior living communities in your portfolio? You can still do social media for 15 minutes a day. Seriously – I am doing it at two Continuing Care Retirement Communities (CCRCs) in Southern California.
First, you can either set up some social media yourself or have it professionally done for about $1000 per community. I had mine set up professionally. Then I trained one person at each CCRC to add content. At first it took them some time to get into the swing of it, but now they can create three or four posts at time and then schedule one post to be released online at a time – one per day using Hootsuite.
We post – fun stuff the residents are going to do, show pictures of what the residents or employees have done and repost interesting articles that seniors would like. The 15 minutes timeframe per day includes taking pictures of some of the resident activities, a plate of food or searching for a image on line to share. And yes, we have signed photo releases… Post your upcoming marketing events and engage with prospective residents.
You can pay extra money for followers, but we have let it grow organically. Employees, residents and family members are getting engaged and we even do the Fan of the Week on Facebook. Freedom Village and The Village each have Facebook accounts, Twitter, Google + and Pinterest.
As local seniors pick one of our CCRCs, the Boomer children that live out of state can see and connect with their parent’s selection through social media – this has had a positive impact on sales. Our most popular posts are residents and employees pictures that go viral.
How is your social media going and has it created or confirmed any move-ins for you yet?
Please comment 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 for sale at Amazon.com. Masson’s book will be required reading at George Mason University in the Fall as part of the marketing curriculum. She is currently consulting with Seniors For Living and two debt-free Continuing Care Retirement Communities in Southern California – Freedom Village in Lake Forest and The Village in Hemet, California. Connection and partnership opportunities: Email: diane@marketing2seniors.net
