Is this you?  Is this your senior living sales person?  Unless you have 10 to 15 tours a week, you have time to make follow up phone calls.  Some people share this song and dance with only having one or two tours for the week – really?  Come on…what are you really doing?

A legitimize excuse, for not making calls, would be having five move-ins for the week!  That’s a lot of paperwork!   If you were organizing a health fair with twenty venders to generate more leads – would also be worthy of a pass.

Time management is a beautiful thing and not everyone has this gift.  Sales people need coaching, goals and daily targets to achieve.  Break it down, to connecting with 15 people in a day.  Recent averages for my successful sales people would be about 30 phone calls in a day to achieve 15 voice-to-voice contacts (this can include call-ins, but mostly call-outs).  Out of the 15 voice contacts, they averaged scheduling 3 to 6 appointments per day for prospective residents to come to the community.  Two people, who were called in one day, were actually interested in moving in soon.  One person said, “The timing of your call was perfect, it’s time that I move into a retirement community.”

Phone calling success in senior housing includes inviting them to exciting events at the community, which you should have on at least a monthly basis.  Chapter six in my book Senior Housing Marketing – How to Increase Your Occupancy and Stay Full is Great Events Can Fill Your Building.

An almost imperceptible time drain can include taking too much time talking to residents and/or helping residents.  We love them so much and it’s so much easier to shoot the breeze with residents instead of hearing another “no” on the telephone from our database.  Our residents deserve dignity and respect.  But let’s look at all the employees at your senior living community… 97% or more of the employees are hired to take care of the residents.  Less than 3% handle the marketing to fill the building.  Marketers should redirect the resident to the 97% or more of the operational employees who are being paid to serve them.  I believe in the two-minute rule, any resident can have one to two minutes and then say, “I would love to talk longer, but I have a phone call, meeting or tour that I need to do,” (whatever is really true).

The bottom line is that proactive marketers make follow up phone calls the next day after a tour and on a regular basis communicate with their database.  Start increasing your occupancy today…

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.netBlog: http://marketing2seniors.net/blog/