by Diane Masson | Apr 28, 2013
After the initial tour are you or your senior living sales people classifying the lead correctly in your database and following up with the prospective resident appropriately?
What is your retirement community’s definition of a hot lead?
Many senior housing professionals only classify a lead as HOT if:
- The senior says they want to move someplace right away.
- They tell you their home is on the market.
- The adult child says their mom or dad is in the hospital and can’t move back home.
Here are some more lead situations that I would classify as hot (Even if they say – “I AM NOT READY YET!”):
- The senior is considering putting their home on the market.
- Someone wondering how long they should continue living in their home.
- Telling you they are about a year away, but also saying it has been difficult managing in a two story home.
- My spouse has just been diagnosed with…
Prospects don’t jump up and down and say I am an easy sale. Senior Living Sales is an art and it’s up to us to read between the lines. If someone comes to see you in person, they should be a warm or hot lead until they clearly indicate they are not. They walked into your senior living community for a reason…
Post-analyze their situation in the quiet of your office. This can help you strategize how you can help move someone forward the next time you talk to them. Some sales people (particularly green sales people) can benefit from strategizing with their boss to determine the next course of action with a prospective resident.
Can anyone share how they read between the lines, helped a senior solve their problem and it resulted in a move in?
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
by Diane Masson | Feb 24, 2013
What Is The Best Incentive You Have Ever Given In Senior Living?
Discounting can be the owner’s operational nightmare and the sales persons best friend. Incentives cost the company money and affect the bottom line. Just giving away one month of rent can cost $2000 – $6000 depending on the retirement community. Yet, empty apartments are losing revenue month-after-month. Should you or should you not use incentives?
I believe that incentives can permanently ruin some sales people. Some sales people can ONLY sell apartments with incentives. When the gravy train stops they don’t know how to just simply sell an apartment at regular price to a senior. Seriously?!? In my opinion, this is right up there with someone who is simply an order taker in senior living.
The benefit of incentives is bumping up the occupancy to get ahead of the move outs in a very short period of time. Every senior living community has to look at their financials and determine what is best for them. If you have more two-bedrooms than one-bedrooms, an incentive on two-bedrooms can create balance again in your inventory. It is a funny thing in our industry – how every five years the surplus of a certain size apartment switches. Right now everyone seems to want a one bedroom…
Here are some common assisted living and independent living incentives:
- One free month
- The fourth month free
- No move in fee or a discount on the community fee
- A free TV
- A moving or downsizing allowance
Continuing Care Retirement Communities can use the same or different incentives:
- 90 – 100% Returnable entrance fees
- A percentage off future healthcare
- Paying for the move completely
- Discounting apartments that are the farthest walk from the dining room
- A discount off the entrance fee if a prospect commits to moving in within a short period of time
Do you use incentives? Which ones? Which incentive in your career resulted in the biggest flurry of sales for your retirement community? My favorite incentive of all time was a 100% returnable entrance fee at a new community that I opened. It worked like a charm! Within months, 70% of the building was spoken for, so we could start construction.
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
by Diane Masson | Feb 17, 2013
Are you so busy selling at work, that you thank a co-worker for their help as you race down the hall to your next appointment? Sales and marketing in senior housing cannot exist without operational support. To pull off a fantastic event, it takes great dining services, housekeeping and maintenance teams. Often the activity department is helping out too.
When moving residents into an apartment, it’s a collaborative effort between sales, maintenance and housekeeping. Once the resident moves into their new home at your retirement community, it takes the integration of the dining and activities team to help the senior feel settled. Take a moment to slow down and invite a few key department heads to lunch this week.
6 Tips when you take your senior housing co-workers to lunch:
- Appreciate how each department wants the senior residents to have a great life. Ultimately, all the department heads love the residents and want to do a great job serving them.
- Explain how sales and marketing appreciates the other departments. Share a few stories of how residents have shared with sales and marketing about how they have been helped by maintenance staff, housekeeping or had an incredible dining experience…
- Develop a deeper working relationship. Your lunch will create a shared experience. Ask – what are their biggest challenges now? Share what marketing challenges have happened recently and how many calls or appointments you do on weekly or monthly basis. (They may think you just sit in your office and chat with people on the phone or in person. How hard can that be?)
- Solve an on-going challenge without being in someone’s office or “territory.” For example: Every community could use better collaboration and communication in regards to apartment renovations.
- Take a moment to laugh. Show that sales and marketing is human and wants to enjoy the journey with them!
- Pick up the check and say thank you again! The other department heads will love you and feel appreciated.
How does your maintenance, housekeeping and sales teams coordinate to have the apartments ready for a move-ins? Are you organized enough to have 50 or 100 move-ins this year? Figure out how to improve as a senior community team over lunch. My meeting is scheduled for Monday…
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
by Diane Masson | Feb 3, 2013
Did you hire a closer or an order taker for your senior living community? Both can be good listeners, but there is a huge difference. One can increase the occupancy and the other will complain that people “ARE NOT READY YET!” Many seniors desire to move now – do you want them to move into your senior living community or a competitor?
The first order of business is hiring a fantastic senior living sales person that fits with your current staff and has the ability to talk to your prospective residents like you would yourself. Be patient and don’t hire the first person that “might” work.
An order taker lets the customer take the lead through the tour. For example a senior says, “I don’t have a lot of time and want to see a two bedroom.” The order taker would take them to the two-bedroom and then wonder why no one buys from them.
A closer will listen to what the senior or boomer children demand to see. Then the closer can suggest to the family to have a quick sit-down, to determine exactly what is most important for them to see during the visit. Then they can tell the prospective resident(s) that a tailored tour for what is most important to them will save them a ton of time. People eat these comments up like candy and love that you want to save them time. The closer introduces the pricing of a studio and one-bedroom before the tour begins, because that two-bedroom price could be too rich for the senior’s blood (this strategy alone can increase sales by 25%). So even though the customer demanded to see a two bedroom, the closer may never show them one.
The closer guides them throughout the tour and asks key questions and builds rapport as they walk down hallways. Every minute and every word that comes out of a closer’s mouth is designed to either build value for the retirement community or learn more about the needs and timing of the prospective senior resident.
Senior living sales closers strategically show prospects high value areas of the community during the tailored tour. This can happen on the way to the apartment that the senior can most likely afford now.
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 | Jan 27, 2013
Momentum in Senior Living
Are you losing senior residents faster than gaining new ones at your retirement community? Welcome to 2013, where older and frailer new residents don’t spend much time at your senior living community before moving onto a higher level of care or meeting their maker…
If you have more move-outs than move-ins year after year, your occupancy has slowly dropped. It’s time to get the big “MO” back – that’s right momentum!
Are your owners only looking at the bottom line and demanding for the occupancy numbers to increase? Or, are your owners willing to strategize with sales and marketing to look outside the sales box and figure out how to make the building more attractive to younger seniors? The later is the key…it can be a one-year process of improvements and upgrades. (Hint: Younger seniors live at your retirement community longer!)
The results can be phenomenal! A community I work with in Southern California just had 7 CCRC entrance fee sales in 8 days! Yes, some younger residents, including couples are moving in too. The CCRC community looks fantastic now after extensive renovations! The sale team is excited and all the scheduled move-ins generate urgency for other prospective residents to move-in now, because the apartment home inventory is dwindling.
What are you doing to attract younger seniors and build momentum for occupancy?
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
