How Homework Can Improve A Senior Living Sales Person’s Performance

How Homework Can Improve A Senior Living Sales Person’s Performance

Senior Housing MarketingAre you doing a senior housing sales book review each week?  If not, you should be.  If a sales person is not growing then they are moving backward.  Sales people can get in rut and become complacent.  They can claim that the lack of sales is from the economy or houses not selling.  Well, I am telling you that none of that matters.  It’s the attitude of the senior living sales person, which determines the sales growth.

Book reviews do several things:  First it creates collaboration among colleagues on a new topic.  Plus it has a sales person revisit their own techniques to see if there is room for improvement.  A new word or sentence said at the right time during a tour can spur a prospective senior resident to say yes to a move instead of thinking about it.  Thirdly, the stronger performers can help teach the new or weaker team members.

Now, let’s talk about the homework.  When a sales person is working at a million miles an hour pace, they don’t have time to be introspective about anything.  They barely have time to eat lunch.  Homework – happens at home – where he or she is away from the busy work place and they have time to absorb new material.  Reflection on positive outcomes for work – at home – can help a sales person become more effective.

Senior living sales people want to perform well.  Help them by offering a weekly book review – one chapter of homework a week…

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

Role Playing Can Help Senior Living Sales People Improve

Role Playing Can Help Senior Living Sales People Improve

Role Playing Can Improve Sales Performance

Role Playing Can Improve Sales Performance

Some senior living sales people know it all!  Do you have one of these?  Others are like sponges and thrive learning a new technique or improving their sales performance.

Role-playing as a team can help standardize sales techniques. This could happen at a weekly sales meeting, but I think a retreat format can be more effective.  It’s hard for a senior living sales person to switch off working and jump into role-playing.  It’s better to set the stage in a comfortable atmosphere.  Last week we talked about the importance of a sales and marketing retreat to rejuvenate and inspire the team.

Here are some great topics to role-play:

  • The opening greeting and questions for a walk-in prospective resident
  • Discovery questions – make sure seniors don’t feel interrogated
  • Giving a “wow” tour
  • How to prevent objections
  • A variety of closes
  • Asking for the deposit – multiple times

In a team environment, there are always stronger sales performers.  Have them role-play first.  It makes them feel valued and other sales people can learn from them.  If no one on the team knows how to do the role-playing topic correctly or it’s a new technique, always teach by example first.

Everyone hates role-playing, but boy does it work.  Watch the sales increase and your occupancy go up, up and up.

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

Too busy for Senior Living Sales Training?  Think Again…

Too busy for Senior Living Sales Training? Think Again…

Senior Housing Sales and Marketing RetreatWe are all going a million miles a minute in senior housing sales and marketing.  The phone is ringing, walk-ins show up unannounced, preparing and managing monthly events, helping our move-ins get settled, getting new sales, hand-holding upcoming move-ins, weekly meetings, reports and the list goes on and on.  Many sales people eat lunch with prospects and work way past 5:00 PM.

These are the exact reasons that you do need a sales training.  Call it a marketing retreat.  Take a moment to get off the work treadmill and breathe.  Rejuvenate and refresh the team.  Remember why you love serving seniors and connect with some like-minded colleagues.

Pick a few topics that need improvement or clarity.  Have a sales and marketing consultant or regional manager organize the retreat format.  Make it fun…with prizes and a nice lunch to pamper them.  Have it be all about improving their performance, so they can become more successful.

Depending on the size of your senior living company, some make the sales retreat experience a half-day, a whole or several days.  It’s best to bring all the communities together at one time or break it down by state or region.

The marketing retreat goal should be – creating an opportunity for each senior living sales person to gain new knowledge and feel inspired. The sales people need to feel supported and appreciated by corporate and know that each of them are valued as individuals to the company.

Next week, I am going to talk about how role playing can help senior living sale people.

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

Deciding To Use Incentives Or Not In Senior Living?

Deciding To Use Incentives Or Not In Senior Living?

Incentives in Senior HousingWhat 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

6 Reasons Why You Should Take Your Senior Housing Co-workers To Lunch

6 Reasons Why You Should Take Your Senior Housing Co-workers To Lunch

Senior Housing Co-worker LunchAre 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:

  1. 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.
  2. 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…
  3. 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?)
  4. 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.
  5. Take a moment to laugh.  Show that sales and marketing is human and wants to enjoy the journey with them!
  6. 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

Have You Hired a Closer or Order Taker In Senior Living?

Have You Hired a Closer or Order Taker In Senior Living?

Order Taker or Closer in Senior Living?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