Every senior living lead should have a short-term and long-term strategy. An initial call-in goal is to get a senior living prospect to come to your building for either a tour or an event.
You should create short and long-term goals for each walk-in prospective resident too.
Here are 10 walk-in tour goals with number one being the highest level to achieve:
- The highest level is having the senior move into your senior living community. Way to go! You helped them find a solution for their needs.
- Scheduling a move-in date – this means their house sold and they are ready to move in now.
- Depositing on an apartment – congrats it is a sale!
- Coming back to choose an apartment – don’t make any assumptions or they will walk away without selecting an apartment.
- Coming back to discuss financial requirements – it helps to have the administrator involved. It is always humorous for someone with one million dollars to wonder if they can afford your community.
- Coming back to discuss health concerns – this may or may not be the official health assessment. I have had seniors with arthritis wonder if they will qualify.
- Coming back to dine with residents – this is usually encouraged by you the sales person. Let your resident’s magic work on your prospect.
- Attending an event – let them imagine the lifestyle of your community.
- Touring a second time – invite them back to dine, look at the perfect apartment or meet some residents/staff.
- Wanting to ask more questions – this is fantastic, it means they are interested. Help them find a solution to their needs.
Every walk-in tour should have a follow-up strategy noted in your database. ALWAYS call them the next day. Continue building on the relationship from your initial tour. Then watch your occupancy rise!
Please share your strategies, 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.
Hi Dianne,
Your posts are always such a good read. Thank you! I’d love to hear your thoughts about partnering with a great real estate team who specializes in working with older adults. I’m a real estate agent and this is exactly what my team does. We partner with a number of senior housing communities and really become an arm of their sales/customer service team. We get into the seniors’ house, have a very good idea about the challenges they face to moving, the timing of the sale, and because we know moving into the senior housing community almost always works the best, this partnership really helps the senior housing community keep tabs on what is happening with their new resident! Of course, I’m biased, but our clients tell us how appreciative they are of how smoothly things go for them because we work with the senior housing community to iron out the logistics of the move.
I’d love to hear your thoughts about this team approach!
Hi Lisa,
I love it and believe in partnering with real estate professionals. What area of the country do you work?
Diane
I am a licensed RE Broker- SRES and a senior living national sales manager. I encourage sales representatives during training to get involved with an SRES early in the process of them starting and included them in events and offer a space for them to meet with clients at the senior living community and then take next steps if they are comfortable with the agent. Real estate and senior living need to work together on this emotional move. They can also help each other by sharing databases for events etc.