by Diane Masson | Jun 14, 2015
UN-ENGAGED EMPLOYEES HAVE CRACKS THAT NEED REPAIR!
Is there a crack in your armor? Are you living on empty and have nothing left to give your family or job? Maybe you are a full-or part-time caregiver for an aging parent or a senior with dementia? Perhaps you are in a senior living sales slump?
You can’t help anyone else or be productive at work unless you take care of yourself first. Look for joy in the moments. You may be going through a dire time. Maybe your parent or one of your senior patients is dying. Perhaps your daughter or son has some kind of health or school trauma. Possibly you just learned that someone scheduled to move into your retirement community has changed his or her mind. It may have been the one you needed to hit your sales goal this month. Sigh…they are going to stay home and wait for a crisis. You start asking why over and over.
Don’t become jaded and harden yourself with a giant wall to protect your emotions. It’s mentally checking out and called un-engagement. Your family, senior prospective residents and coworkers can feel your wall.
If you work in senior living sales, we can’t help every senior. Only the ones who choose to plan ahead. Do you feel overwhelmed with what’s happening in your personal life? Is your lack of sales getting you down? Well it’s time to go find your rainbow. Are you wondering how to get started? Feed your mind with positive thoughts. Schedule time to heal yourself!
10 Recharging Tips:
- Go to a live concert, stand in your shower or drive down the road singing at the top of your lungs.
- Sit by the ocean and wiggle your toes in the sand.
- Fly down the road with the wind in your face on a bike or motorcycle.
- Hold a baby or play with small children.
- Take a Saturday to read a book.
- Hang out with your friends.
- Spend time in nature – amongst the trees, watching the river go by or gazing at a lake.
- Soak in a bubble bath surrounded by candles.
- Go to a sports game in person. Cheer on your favorite team.
- Build a fire and make s’mores!
Recharge today, so you can change your world one senior or family member at a time.
Let your family and job see your heart when you speak. They will be moved and feel your sincerity. Seniors can tell if you want what’s best for them. Suddenly seniors who were “not ready yet” become ready to move into your retirement community. Conviction in your voice can move a mountain.
Shake off the negative. Don’t focus on the junk. I created a spiritual foundation of faith that can sustain me when I have a tough day. You can too. We all have moments of weakness. Believe in your ability to change a senior’s or family member’s life today.
In every encounter with family or at work, we either give life or drain it.
Do you give life to those around you at work and at home? Are you so worn out from working that you have nothing left to give your family? It’s your choice to be a giver or taker to those around you. Have you taken time to recharge yourself recently?
Exciting news! Diane’s CCRC teams are breaking records and hitting aggressive occupancy goals this quarter. They all participate in a weekly book review led by Diane. The book review helps the teams stay on track, improve sales skills and build team camaraderie. They just completed learning the 12 keys in Senior Housing Marketing: How to Increase Your Occupancy and Stay Full for senior living professionals. It was written by Diane Twohy Masson.
Credit to Gallop: Only 30.5% of employees are engaged at work.
Everyone of us knows at least one senior that needs to move now. Here is a resource to help you or them make an informed decision. Diane Twohy Masson’s new guide book for seniors, “Your Senior Housing Options,” is available on Amazon.com with a 5-star rating. It reveals a proactive approach to navigating the complex maze of senior housing options. It will help you understand the costs and consequences of planning ahead or waiting too long. Learn firsthand tips from someone who is currently advocating for two aging parents.
Among the thousands of seniors she and her teams have assisted in finding the right senior living community, the most difficult case has been helping her own parent. Masson spent two years exploring senior housing options with her mother before finding the ideal Continuing Care Retirement Community for her. After eight years in this independent living setting, she helped her mother transition into an assisted living community. Seven years later, even as a senior housing expert, Masson struggled with the decision to move her mother into a skilled nursing community.
More related articles by Diane can be found at Tips2Seniors.com or like Tips 2 Seniors on Facebook.
by Diane Masson | Jun 7, 2015
What’s your 30-second commercial?
We’ve all been at a party when a new acquaintance asks, “What do you do?” What is your response? Is it engaging and interesting? Or does your heart drop, because you have to talk about work and you end up sharing a boring list of your duties or mumble your exact job title?
Every one of us can improve our 30-second commercial and make it captivating to the listener.
Here are a couple of tips of what not to do:
- No laundry list of duties
- Don’t just give your job title and company name
At Seattle’s Pike Place Market, a company that sold fish seven days a week decided to make it interesting. They were determined to have fun and engage the customers. So the motivated employees started throwing the fish that customers were purchasing. Now they are a huge tourist attraction and sell lots of fish.
If you work for a senior living company and simply state you work at an assisted living or skilled nursing community, it sounds boring. Saying, “We improve the quality of seniors lives everyday,” – makes your acquaintance ask a secondary questions of – how? Everyone typically knows an aging parent, grandparent or senior neighbor. In the remote possibility that you do not, you probably know a friend who is dealing with an aging senior who needs help. Ninety-nine percent of the time, people need advice for an aging relative and you can end up helping them or suggest they consider your senior living community (which is wonderful for them, your company and you).
Maybe you already use your 30-second commercial on a daily basis? Or you use it occasionally when you attend chamber of commerce or networking events. Each of us can improve our commercial and make it more appealing to the listener. Your fellow networkers and social acquaintances will appreciate you making an effort.
So what is your 30-second commercial? Is it interesting enough that someone asks you a follow up question?
If you share your 30-second commercial in the comment section on my blog page, you will automatically be entered to win a copy of my new book, “Your Senior Housing Options.” The best commercial will win and be announced in the comment section of my blog on Saturday, June 13th.
Everyone of us knows at least one senior that needs to move now. Here is a resource to help you or them make an informed decision. Diane Twohy Masson’s new guide book for seniors, “Your Senior Housing Options,” is available on Amazon.com with a 5-star rating. It reveals a proactive approach to navigating the complex maze of senior housing options. It will help you understand the costs and consequences of planning ahead or waiting too long. Learn firsthand tips from someone who is currently advocating for two aging parents.
Among the thousands of seniors she and her teams have assisted in finding the right senior living community, the most difficult case has been helping her own parent. Masson spent two years exploring senior housing options with her mother before finding the ideal Continuing Care Retirement Community for her. After eight years in this independent living setting, she helped her mother transition into an assisted living community. Seven years later, even as a senior housing expert, Masson struggled with the decision to move her mother into a skilled nursing community.
More related articles by Diane can be found at Tips2Seniors.com or like Tips 2 Seniors on Facebook.
Diane Twohy Masson has worked in senior housing since 1999. She is an award-winning certified aging services professional and the author of Senior Housing Marketing: How to Increase Your Occupancy and Stay Full for senior living professionals.
by Diane Masson | Feb 1, 2015
5 Tips! Go Hawks!
Five sales at one Continuing Care Retirement Community (CCRC) in one week! Are you and your team hitting these numbers? How is it possible? Here are a few tips:
- Have a sales retreat to appreciate your senior living sales team and make them feel valued. Have you taken the time to do this or are you too busy to “waste” a day of work? It could be the most important day to improve the sales team’s attitude and turn around your occupancy.
- Our retreat focused on setting individual sales goals and building self-esteem and confidence.
- Each sales person was recognized for his or her achievements in 2014.
- The retreat created two types of energy: individually and with the team. This energy blossomed into momentum.
- Have you created a marketing plan that brings new people to your senior living community on a regular basis?
- Does your team call back every tour the next day even if they say, “I’m not ready yet.”?
- Is your entire operational team focused on first impressions of guests and prospective residents?
- Are your residents 100% satisfied and sharing their enthusiasm with prospective residents?
Focus on these five tips and watch your occupancy increase for 2015.
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.
“Your Senior Housing Options,” will be coming soon to Amazon.com. If you sign up for my weekly newsletter on the right side of this blog, you will be notified when my new book becomes available. Check out my new website: Tips2Seniors.com or please follow me on Facebook.
by Diane Masson | Jan 4, 2015
Are you ready for a high-occupancy New Year? Did you hit your sales and occupancy goals for 2014? Congratulations, if you did. If you did not, draw a line in the sand and start over for 2015.
Here are five goal-setting tips for you and your senior living sales team:
- Have a goal meeting with yourself and then with your boss.
- What is the budgeted occupancy?
- Do you have enough walk-in traffic and leads in your database to generate the sales you need?
- Should you create some events to bring in new faces?
- Are you proud of the first impressions of your senior living community?
- What is your competition doing? Have a plan to differentiate yourself from them. Remember, no negative…
- Determine your “A,” “B,” and “C” players (the definition of “A,” “B,” and “C” players is HERE) and what each of their sales goals will be.
- Meet individually with each of your sales people. “A” players will automatically believe they can hit the 2015 goal. “B” players will believe after you individually coach and believe in him or her. “C” players will usually whine or complain about the goals. (Your coaching may turn them around or you may need to let them go if they don’t want to WORK to hit the goals.)
- Have a kick off meeting for the New Year or a marketing retreat. Acknowledge ALL good and great sales performance from 2014. Your “A” people will love the recognition. “B” people will be proud of their accomplishments. Everyone will thrive in this format and feel supported in achieving their personal and team sales goals for 2015.
- Implement a weekly and monthly tracking system to determine if your team members are on track or need additional coaching support.
Good luck and have a great 2015!
Photo credit: www.stylipics.com
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.
© Marketing 2 Seniors| Diane Twohy Masson 2014 All Rights Reserved. No part of this blog post may be reproduced, copied, modified or adapted, without the prior written consent of the author, unless otherwise indicated for stand-alone materials. You may share this website and or it’s content by any of the following means: 1. Using any of the share icons at the bottom of each page. 2. Providing a back-link or the URL of the content you wish to disseminate. 3. You may quote extracts from the website with attribution to Diane Masson CASP and link https://www.marketing2seniors.net For any other mode of sharing, please contact the author Diane Masson.
by Diane Masson | Dec 14, 2014
Sales offer each of us constant rejection. It takes a strong person to overcome 18 noes to gain two yeses. Some have it in their DNA to power through tough times and others don’t.
- When you are achieving or exceeding the sales occupancy goals – life is good.
- Missing sales goals can be painful and agonizing. Will you be fired?
How do you get back on track achieving sales and start boosting a plummeted self-esteem?
- Work on your self-talk. Keep that tape running in your head on a positive channel. If you can’t shut down your internal negative chatter try step two.
- Listen to positive sales CDs or tapes on your way to and from work. Zig Zigler, Tom Hopkins and Brian Tracy are always great choices to boost your spirits and inspire you with sales ideas.
- Make a decision to be grateful. Think of five things in your life that you are thankful for each morning.
- Find an encouraging mentor to be your cheerleader several times per week.
- Pray to find joy in helping a senior today. You can improve the life of a senior who is isolated in his or her home.
- Read a 25 second poem and get an instant attitude adjustment here.
What have you done to turn your attitude positive? Will you share your tips in the comments so others can benefit?
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.
© Marketing 2 Seniors| Diane Twohy Masson 2014 All Rights Reserved. No part of this blog post may be reproduced, copied, modified or adapted, without the prior written consent of the author, unless otherwise indicated for stand-alone materials. You may share this website and or it’s content by any of the following means: 1. Using any of the share icons at the bottom of each page. 2. Providing a back-link or the URL of the content you wish to disseminate. 3. You may quote extracts from the website with attribution to Diane Masson CASP and link https://www.marketing2seniors.net For any other mode of sharing, please contact the author Diane Masson.
