by Diane Masson | Nov 9, 2014
Rated by Amazon Editors as one of the best books of 2014!
“Diane’s book is an important resource for the senior housing industry. It contains tips and advice to help the novice, as well as the experienced marketer, build or maintain census. It is also a terrific guidebook for executive directors or administrators to use in managing the marketing function.”
— Chris McKenzie, VP Marketing, PR & Communications, multi-site CCRC organization
“Smart senior housing professionals understand that full occupancy means better cash flows and an improved bottom line. Diane’s practical, relevant strategies and tactics are must read material for any senior housing professional wanting insight on how to best fill and maintain full occupancy at their community. Presented in a positive and direct manner, this book is full of useful information delivered straight from the front line.”
— Richard M. Mazza, senior housing consultant, development & finance professional; former Chief Accounting Officer and Interim CFO
“A useful guide for both non-profit and for-profit senior housing organizations, with checklists, ideas, and reminders of essential elements all good managers and sales people need to be effective in filling senior living homes and apartments. Diane’s techniques can bring immediate results.”
—Thomas Becker, retired CEO & President of Pacific Retirement Services
There are 14 more testimonials on Amazon. If this book has helped you or your organization, please share your experience on Amazon or in the comment section below.
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. Currently, Masson is setting move-in records as the regional marketing director of 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 2014 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.
by Diane Masson | Aug 24, 2014
Is there anyone else struggling to hire a quality senior living sales person? My search in Hemet, CA has been ongoing for four weeks. The majority of applicants are unqualified and present poorly composed resumes.
Where to look?
- Craig’s list can have a high success rate to find some senior living operational candidates but I have had no luck hiring senior living sales people through this resource.
- LinkedIn has been good to me in the past, but I only received 8 applications in one month and it cost me $395.00. It was very disappointing and an expensive dead end.
- Career Builder has produced the most viable senior living sales candidates.
Quality of resumes?
- Overall, I have seen the most poorly written resumes of my life in the last month.
- Typos and format mistakes galore, candidates should have a professional or savvy friend review his or her resume before applying for a job.
- Are nurses, EMT’s, mechanics and others in completely unrelated disciplines mistakenly seeking a senior living sales position? Or are they just completing three job searches for unemployment?
Customer service experience is not sales and closing experience!
Order takers need not apply! Sales and closing experience means having a sales track record with a closing ratio. It’s a person who has overcome objections and persists until they get the sale.
No senior housing experience?
The last two people I hired had no experience in senior living sales. They did have a passion for seniors and a background of sales and closing experience. One of them was working in the healthcare profession and the other called on healthcare professionals as clients. One of my specialities is training what I call “green” (no experience in senior living) candidates.
Interview process?
- My first interview is over the telephone to see if he or she can be clearly understood, has a great phone voice and can sell me on why I should offer them an in-person interview.
- The second interview is in-person with the Human Resources Director and myself.
- The third interview is with the Marketing Director and Executive Director.
- One person literally interviewed herself! Next! They would not stop talking!
The Results?
- 60 applications
- 10 phone interviews
- Three second interviews
- One third interview
- Zero hired
Anyone out there in Riverside County, CA?
The Village is proud to be a debt free* Continuing Care Retirement Community (CCRC) and has been serving seniors in Hemet, California for 25 years. We are honored to be voted as the Best Retirement Community in the Inland Empire for 8 consecutive years! Our 13-acre campus, including Independent Living, Assisted Living and Skilled Nursing Care, has been completely remodeled.
We are seeking a highly motivated Senior Living Sales Professional, internally referred to as a Retirement Counselor. In this role, you will increase occupancy by proactively generating sales leads and following up on all traffic generated through advertising, promotions, events, phone visits, and in-person home visits. Our Retirement Counselors offer tours with prospective residents and provide customer service to our current and prospective residents.
Responsibilities:
While this is a sales and closing role, you will get leads from hosting walk-in guests, events, phone calls or responses to advertising and marketing campaigns. You will combine inside, and outside public relations to build a professional, local network to help increase referrals and the CCRC occupancy. You will share the impact of: “A guarantee of care for the rest of your life.” Our retirement counselors use a consultative soft sell approach with prospective residents and explain the value of our senior services, benefits and how we differentiate from other senior housing competitors. Other duties will include completing reports, competitive studies and tracking leads.
The Village is an equal opportunity employer. EOE/M/F/D/V
If you are interested in this position, the complete job description and requirements are listed on careerbuilder.com or please send your resume directly to me at dmasson@fmcwest.com and reference this blog post. Come and be part of a team that has been breaking sales records for two years! You will be personally trained by me, start participating in weekly book reviews and report directly to me. I look forward to meeting you in person. Diane Masson
Your tips could help others improve on a national basis, so please share by commenting on this blog. If this weekly newsletter can help your sales and occupancy – why not sign up today so you don’t miss a single one?
Diane Twohy Masson writes this weekly blog to support and engage with other senior housing professionals. Her first book is Senior Housing Marketing – How To Increase Your Occupancy and Stay Full. Many sales teams and organizations have used the 12 keys contained in this book for their weekly book review. Diane is working on her second book to help seniors select their senior housing options.
© Marketing 2 Seniors| Diane Twohy Masson 2014 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.
by Diane Masson | Jan 19, 2014
This picture is worth a thousand words. What is the state of your available apartments? On a recent trip to Oregon, the best place in town had this in the tub. I wanted to throw up. Really? Yet, I have seen this and worse when mystery shopping senior living communities.
Your maintenance team is overworked and they don’t have time to do apartment renovations. So many senior residents are moving out…maintenance can’t keep up. So senior living sales people have to show apartments that are not clean or renovated. Is this fine at your retirement community? Non-renovated apartments have sold that way before, right?
Wrong?!!! This is a poor long-term strategy and bad first impression to fill the building and increase occupancy. Don’t listen to the maintenance team blues! Here are four quick solutions if your retirement community is in this boat…
- Only show model apartments period. Never ever show a disgusting apartment that someone just moved out of. It is not available to show ever!!!!
- If you don’t have model apartments, make arrangements with a few residents to show their apartments. It’s always nice to have one or two residents who say you may show their apartment anytime.
- Have housekeeping clean up the disgusting apartment now, before it is shown to single a person. (I know this is double work for housekeeping, cleaning it before and after renovation. The extra clean does help sell apartments and improves first impressions.)
- The fourth choice is to pay an outside company to renovate apartments at your senior living community. I know it costs more money than doing it in-house. Please look at it in a new way…every month that an apartment remains empty, the senior living organization loses $2,000 to $6,000 in a monthly fee.
Please give sales and marketing the tools they need to create great first impressions and sell it now. Showing models works great for a senior just looking or thinking two or three months out. If you want those 48-hour move-ins or two-week move-ins, then clean up the apartments that need to be sold now.
Please share your successes, 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. Currently, Masson is setting move-in records as the regional marketing director of 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.
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 | Jun 16, 2013
Then add another 17 Continuing Care Retirement Community move-ins scheduled for these two California CCRC’s in the next 3 months…This has been the result of a good work ethic for the previous 3 months.
- 300 calls per month per sales person
- 20 tours per month per sales person
The sales will come when the work ethic is in place – trust me – it works.
Break the monthly goal down to a daily goal of 15 calls and one tour per day. A new senior living sales person can easily do it. A director of marketing with sales responsibilities can do it too.
In order for the two senior living sales teams to have this much success – they need to be backed by amazing operational teams that support marketing 100%:
- First, you need to have enough leads walking in the door and coming to events. Hopefully your corporation supports marketing with an adequate advertising budget.
- Do you enjoy a great reputation of serving excellent food? Our chef is a tremendous support to my teams and makes events and tours memorable.
- How is your health care reputation? Do the local hospitals and doctors recommend your assisted living, skilled nursing or memory care? If they don’t – fix it now!
- Guests need to drive up and see beautiful landscaping, a well cared for building and an ultra clean retirement community. It may be time to remodel if it’s been 10 years or looks tired.
- Friendly residents and smiling staff – these two can make or break sales and my communities have both!
- Can prospective senior residents SEE your residents having fun with an amazing calendar of events including regular live entertainment, exciting outings and themed meals? Seniors won’t move to a boring retirement community.
- Transportation can even increase sales by their willingness to pick up prospective residents and bring them in for a tour or an event.
So set a monthly sales goal for your retirement community and have everyone participate in achieving it. When the sales come, it is not for the glory of marketing, it’s an entire retirement community’s achievement. Everyone wins and the residents love having new vibrant seniors to connect with at dinner and activities.
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
