by Diane Masson | Jan 31, 2016
Or is it easier to say, “I am too busy!” And you work through lunch again?
Burnt out employees in senior living can become cranky and irritable. It can affect the quality of service to senior residents. The grouchiness can wash into home life too.
Do yourself a favor and invest in yourself and your team.
Start a new book review with your senior living sales or operations team. Read one chapter a week or two chapters a month. Select a book and have each person apply the principles in each chapter to his or her senior living position.
One of my teams is reading, “Senior Housing Marketing – How to Increase Your Occupancy and Stay Full.” Its focus is written for retirement communities, but the principles can easily be converted to assisted living, skilled nursing or memory care communities. Feedback from teams on a nationwide basis has insisted this book has helped their occupancy grow.
My sales teams are currently reading, “How I Raised Myself From Failure to Success in Selling,” and, “The Greatest Salesman in the World.” “The Greatest Salesman in the World,” book has you read a scroll three times a day for one month before you move onto the subsequent scroll with the next principle. This is the third time in my life reading this book daily for 10 months. Each time it changed my life in a positive significant way.
Start growing yourself and your team! Watch your attitude soar! The occupancy will follow in an upward direction. It is guaranteed!
Diane Masson has worked in senior housing for 18 years and is the regional marketing director for two debt-free Continuing Care Retirement Communities in Southern CA (Freedom Village in Lake Forest and The Village in Hemet). Her first book “Senior Housing Marketing – How to Increase Your Occupancy and Stay Full,” is being utilized by senior housing professionals across the country. Both her first book and second book, “Your Senior Housing Options,” have 5-star ratings on Amazon.com.
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
![Is There A Strawberry On Your Plate – In Senior Living?]()
by Diane Masson | Nov 4, 2012
On my recent flight to Seattle, I had the most plain Jane lunch plate presentation ever in first class. It was literally a sandwich on the plate. Seriously?!!? No chips, cut up fruit, piece of parsley, a piece of lettuce with a tomato – nothing! The stark whiteness of the plate surprised me. Then I started thinking, why didn’t they at least put a nice red strawberry on the plate like they used to – what happened? Is Alaska Airlines cutting costs? How much could twelve strawberries cost? My impression of food in first class was not a “Wow” experience.
Has your senior living community cut too many operational costs too? Could it be affecting the first impressions of your community and keeping the occupancy down? Are you serving guests refreshments in real glasses or china? Or have you cut refreshments out all together or serve them in cheap syrofoam? Are there fresh flowers in the lobby? As you walk down the halls, are the walls streaked black from walkers and electric carts? Have the corner edges and doorways of apartments been banged and dented from electric carts? When was the last time you refurbished the lobby? Is the furniture getting old and tattered?
Marketing directors and sales people cannot work miracles! If your occupancy is down, invest in some “Wow Strawberries” to make a great first impression! It keeps your current residents and family members thinking positively about the retirement community. Happy residents can mean lots of referrals.
A chef in one of my Continuing Care Retirement Communities said, “The very first bite is always with the eyes.” When lunch or dinner plates are served in your senior living community dining room, what do they look like? Are they a “wow?”
The details make the difference…can you afford 12 strawberries?
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/
![What Can Make Your Senior Living Community Extraordinary?]()
by Diane Masson | Oct 7, 2012
Every senior living community struggles to differentiate themselves from their competitors. How can you do it? When a customer walks in the door – how can they feel an immediate difference with your community? Let’s take a moment to compare restaurants – which can be so alike too…
My husband and I decided to treat our selves to Sunday brunch at Laguna Beach. We didn’t want to go to the expensive tourist choice on the bluff. Hmm, where to go? We picked a place that looked good, but was not on the ocean side of the street. The wait for a table outside (it was 80 degrees) was 2 hours. We decided to eat inside and we had a small view of the ocean.
Five extraordinary experiences happened at this restaurant that blew us away. Our waiter was wonderfully attentive, the overall service was outstanding and the food was incredible – none of these made it extraordinary. Here are the five things that did:
- The waiter welcomed us the moment we sat down, asked if we had been there before (we said no) and then he assured us that we were going to have the most incredible brunch (Wow!).
- When my husband asked where the restroom was (after he tried to find it himself) a server did not just point in the right direction, they actually escorted him (Wow!).
- Then my husband returned to the table, a staff member anticipated his arrival, picked up his napkin and as he sat, put it on his lap (Wow!).
- The plates were removed within 20 seconds of each of us finishing our food (Wow!).
- Now listen to this one, they quietly wiped the water up that had sweated from the ice water glasses, so our table was perfectly clean again (Wow!).
In my opinion, this dining experience, at the Sapphire in Laguna Beach, was comparable to the finest service that I have ever received at Canlis – the most famous and expensive restaurant in Seattle, Washington that serves Presidents and Kings (I was lucky enough to go once on a “big” birthday.)
If your retirement community, assisted living or Continuing Care Retirement Community only did #1 – with every guest – what would happen to your occupancy? I am a big advocate of speaking positive into existence! Do you actually tell people when they arrive at your community that they will be in for a treat and that you are excited to show them around and introduce them to some staff and residents?
I would love for you to share something you or your staff does to make your senior living community extraordinary for people visiting your campus for the very first time? Who’s first?
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/
![Are Your Over Qualifying Prospective Senior Residents?]()
by Diane Masson | Sep 24, 2012
Sometimes there is tremendous pressure from management to make sure a prospective senior has the financial resources in order to move into your retirement community.
First, engage the customer and make sure they are in love with the lifestyle and connect with what your senior living community has to offer, before you start grinding on them for financial specifics. Build Value First or Your Senior Prospects Will Run Away!
Even savvy seniors can disqualify themselves. They consider themselves poor even though they have a mortgage-free home to sell, social security, a pension, possibly an annuity, about 30% have long-term care insurance, IRA’s and of course some type of savings. Many seniors have worked with an attorney to set up a trust and now have limited their resources. Sometimes these seniors have to get financial permission from the trust in order to move into your retirement community.
Keep financial qualifying loose, until the senior is really excited about moving into your community. For example, you may be a Continuing Care Retirement Community that requires twice the entrance fee in assets and 1 ½ times of the monthly fee in income. Say something more friendly like: “Each person (couple) is unique, some seniors have more assets and less monthly income and other seniors have high monthly incomes and are a little lower on the assets. Generally we are looking for 1½ times to 2 times the entrance fee in assets and 1½ to 2 times the monthly fee in monthly income. Many things are considered assets like rental income or long term care insurance.” Then shut up…or you can lose the sale.
Let them speak next…if you have built a trust relationship, they should open up and start sharing their assets and monthly incomes. Most people sitting in front of you qualify. It is very unusual if they don’t. Please make a note that many children can pay the needed difference too. Always remember to build value for your senior living community first!
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/
