Welcome to Marketing 2 Seniors, my name is Diane Masson and this site is for senior living professionals.
I have filled up Continuing Care Retirement Communities, Independent Living, Assisted Living, Memory Care, Skilled Nursing Care and new developments for over 16 years in four different states.
The Book, Senior Housing Marketing, has 12 keys to increase your occupancy and holds a 5-star rating on Amazon.com.
Come on in, join my blog for sales tips and advice. Then consider if it’s best for just you to read my book, the sales team or your entire operational team. You can learn more about the book and order it on Amazon … Here’s wishing you 100% occupancy!
Marketing 2 Seniors Blog
Expert Tips to Increase Occupancy
13 Quick Tips to Increase the Occupancy by 3%!
Focus on personal and team occupancy goals (visualize success). Expect the entire senior living sales team to have a good attitude. Treat every initial lead as hot until they cool off. Listen to prospective residents and solve their problems. Don’t listen when they say, “I am not ready yet.” Give a wow tour! Introduce prospective residents to multiple residents and staff. Always inquire about a senior’s timeline on making a move. Ask for the deposit – every time. Have fun. Represent a beautiful and clean retirement community. Call potential senior residents or their boomer children the next day after the tour. The sales team needs to believe and treat every walk-in or Internet lead as though they are ready to move in now! 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 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:...
No hot leads? Seriously?!!?
Are hot leads attitude or reality? I say attitude! Some senior living sales people expect a prospective resident to walk in and say, “I have my house on the market and I’m ready to move into your retirement community.” How often does this happen? It could happen 20% of the time. This means 80% of the time, a sales person needs to build a relationship, document it in the database and do the dreaded follow up phone calls. Oh yeah, it’s called work. If it was easy selling senior living, retirement counselors would be paid minimum wage. With proper nurturing, over time, a cool lead can become warm and a warm lead can become hot! Too many senior living sales people say they don’t have any hot leads. Yet, if you were a little mouse on their shoulder, while they met with a senior…. This is what you might hear the prospective senior resident say, “I’m not ready yet (NRY).” In sales they say, don’t listen to the first no. Well I say, don’t listen to the first 10 NRY! The senior can still be a hot lead (ready to move in a few months)! NRY simply translated means I am scared. It’s hard for a senior to give up their home of 30, 40 or 50 years and move. It’s a lot of work. The more time they spend at your retirement community the better. They will fall in love with your residents. Then the senior can decide they will gain more by moving into your retirement community, than what they are giving up. The mindset of the...
15 CCRC Move-Ins in One Month?!!?
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...
Ready for Boomers Texting Your Food?
My husband Chris and I received this unappetizing text, with a photo of food, from our friend Dave in rehab. This was the text: Chris: How are you, what are you doing? Dave: Nothing, this is my meal… Chris: That looks horrible. Dave: Yeah tell me about it. This tastes as good as it looks – which is terrible. Diane: Which rehab are you at? Dave: XXXX in Federal Way, WA. Diane: The food looks disgusting, I am so sorry, how have the other meals been? Dave: Just as bad… Would I ever recommend this place to anyone based on this photo – no way! Get ready for the boomers texting their meals to their other boomer friends. Institutional food is a thing of the past. Most retirement communities offer chef prepared meals now. The boomers have a discriminating palette and won’t tolerate bad food. Are you proud of the food you are serving at your Rehab, Skilled Nursing Center, Healthcare Center, Long-term Care Facility, Assisted Living, Independent Living, Memory Care or Continuing Care Retirement Community? Would you eat it? 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...
Strategizing Hot Leads?
Are you strategizing out your next move with warm and hot senior housing leads on a daily or weekly basis? A senior living sales person should always take time to reflect after an appointment with a prospective resident. Immediately input notes into your lead database system (like REPS). If you wait until the end of the day or don’t use a database system, this could be negatively affecting your occupancy. Jot down some key situational information: Where are they living now? Home value? What prompted his or hers visit? Is anyone helping them now? What is their greatest concern? Are they lonely? Health issues? Pets? What is most important to them in a future home? Which apartments did you show them and which one did they like best? Assets? Monthly income? What did they like best about your retirement community? Could they see themselves living in your community? Timeframe for moving in? As a senior living sales person reflects on the above situation, a strategy for the next step in the sales process can start to formulate. It is extremely beneficial to run this by a sales collogue, your director of marketing or your executive director. I don’t care how many years that you have worked in this business; two heads can strategize better than one. I discuss hot leads with my teams every week. Team members contribute excellent suggestions to help a warm lead become hot or help turn a hot lead into a move-in. Strategizing leads can be the spice of life to help increase your occupancy! It works!!! Please comment to join the conversation and interact...
Moving My Mom 1000 Miles From Assisted Living to Skilled Nursing Care (Part 2)
Organizing a move of this magnitude is a pile of paperwork combined with a daughter’s worry of every possible outcome going wrong. The long story short is it took my husband Chris and I, seven hours to move my mom with vascular dementia 1000 miles. Is it the best thing for her – yes! Did it almost kill me – yes! But there were blessings along the way including moments and memories of complete clarity that I will always treasure. I still see my mom in my minds eyes as her former mentally astute self, but now she can’t remember what she had for breakfast. Why I am moving my mom is shared in Part 1. My Mom’s Moving Day I had a 50/50 chance that she would be having a good day, when we arrived at her assisted living community for the move – it was a BAD day for her. She was anxious, hungry and wandering around for some attention. I talked to a caregiver and took her to breakfast in the dining room as my husband packed her suitcases. The goal was for her not to be stressed out about moving and we accomplished that goal. Two days before the move, we had organized her entire room and decided what we were taking, what had to be shipped separately and what was going to goodwill. She never knew, because we took turns with her. On the way back from breakfast, my mom sensed that something was up. When four people were outside her door, she asked why. They scattered and a caregiver gave the morning medications...
Moving Mom 1000 Miles – Assisted Living to Skilled Nursing
Well, it is a complicated process moving a parent from an assisted living to skilled nursing. Add 1000 miles into the equation and prepare for asking a tremendous amount of favors and help with no physical eyes on the situation. This is my story… My mom has lived in a Continuing Care Retirement Community in Seattle, WA for 15 years. For the past 7 years, she has lived in Assisted Living. Her ailments have progressed to diabetes, severe vascular dementia, incontinence and now all symptoms indicate breast cancer. Short-term memory loss and 90 years of age does not equate to any invasive procedures or surgeries. When I visit her one-day, she has no memory of my visit the next day. I could not stomach her completely alone (no children in the same state) and moving to the next level of care or a hospice community. So my husband and I decided to quickly move her to Southern, CA, before she could not travel anymore. All professionals who know my mom and I have been very supportive of this move. Here are some of things that had to be put in place for this transition: Coordinating with the assisted living team where she lives, a nurse consultant to assess her and be our eyes in another state, her doctor, a home healthcare agency to take her to the doctor, the social worker at the HMO, the skilled nursing community that she was moving to, the federal government regarding her medical insurance and a Medicare representative. The paperwork and logistics included filling out 27 pages of a Medi-Cal application, finding 22 additional documents for Medi-Cal, providing all the...
How Do You Pamper Your New Move-Ins?
Do you treat them like royalty? Yesterday at Disney World they introduced the 11th princess, Merida (from Brave), and you know what they did? All the other princesses came out to meet her and make her feel welcome publicly. Some of you work in rental communities, where senior residents can give a 30 days notice at the drop of a hat –- if they are not happy. Those of you with entrance fee Continuing Care Retirement Communities typically have a 90-day 100% refund – if the resident is not satisfied. Recently, I have seen seniors moving from one senior living community to another, because the resident had poor transportation service, bad hamburgers or care promises not kept. Seriously??!!?? Why aren’t senior living providers working harder to keep their clients? Remember the first day of high school? Walking into the cafeteria for the first time and wondering who to sit with or who would accept you? Residents can feel the same way, when they move to a new senior housing community. This fear can easily be off set by arranging dinners with different resident hosts for the first week. How are you rolling out the red carpet at your retirement community for new residents? Do you have someone dedicated to greeting new move-ins? Are other residents reaching out to them and showing them the ropes on how to order in the dining room or the other little nuances of your community? How are new move-ins integrating with the other residents? Is there a focus on treating the new residents like royalty? Do your maintenance, housekeeping and dining service teams all...
Your Marketing Reputation – Implications and Promises
Do you and your retirement community’s reputation align? I love it when I hire a senior living sales person and they say, “I want to make sure this community will deliver what I promise to the customer.” Then they may go on to share a horror story of a previous senior living provider and how this was not the case. It’s hard to imagine these sad stories and how seniors can be mistreated. In today’s world of social media, blog posts and online commenting – operations at senior living organizations have to work hard to maintain an excellent reputation. Around 97% of a retirement community’s employees are operations (taking care of the residents) and 3% are the friendly faces to increase the occupancy. Sales and marketing represent the good faith promise of taking care of a senior or someone’s parent in a compassionate, respectful and timely fashion. I believe longevity of staff plays a key role in providing consistent quality care and services in independent living and Continuing Care Retirement Communities settings. A well run operational team is even more important in the higher levels of care like assisted living, memory care and skilled nursing care where the senior residents are most vulnerable. Does the right hand always know what the left hand is doing? Executive directors (E.D.) and administrators can be the glue that connects operations and sales. An excellent operations team is a key to enjoying a great reputation of quality care with local hospitals and doctors. Residents and guests will always speak out about the food quality; this can make or break new sales. A great...
Misclassifying Leads Can Decrease Move Ins
After the initial tour are you or your senior living sales people classifying the lead correctly in your database and following up with the prospective resident appropriately? What is your retirement community’s definition of a hot lead? Many senior housing professionals only classify a lead as HOT if: The senior says they want to move someplace right away. They tell you their home is on the market. The adult child says their mom or dad is in the hospital and can’t move back home. Here are some more lead situations that I would classify as hot (Even if they say – “I AM NOT READY YET!”): The senior is considering putting their home on the market. Someone wondering how long they should continue living in their home. Telling you they are about a year away, but also saying it has been difficult managing in a two story home. My spouse has just been diagnosed with… Prospects don’t jump up and down and say I am an easy sale. Senior Living Sales is an art and it’s up to us to read between the lines. If someone comes to see you in person, they should be a warm or hot lead until they clearly indicate they are not. They walked into your senior living community for a reason… Post-analyze their situation in the quiet of your office. This can help you strategize how you can help move someone forward the next time you talk to them. Some sales people (particularly green sales people) can benefit from strategizing with their boss to determine the next course of action with a prospective...
Persistence
Yes, this blog post is about one word for senior living sales people today! Do you have it or not? Persistence is 100 phone calls a week, when you don’t have many tours happening. Persistence is believing a senior will move in eventually, even when they say they are not ready yet. Persistence is calling back your sale, just to make sure they are okay – when they may be very stressed out about moving to your community. Persistence is continuing to smile and dial after hearing 15 no’s in a row. Persistence is calling someone back after they hung up on you a week ago (they were only having a bad day and now they are fine). Persistence is generating the energy between 3:00 to 5:00 PM to continue calling the database. Persistence is calling someone the next day after a tour or an event, while the prospect’s emotion is still high. Persistence is asking a senior what their time frame is for moving in, after they said they are not ready yet. Team persistence is calling through your retirement community’s database every four months. Persistence is leaving a message for someone once a month for year and they finally walk in your office, recognize your voice and say they are ready to move in now – yes this happened to me. This blog post is dedicated to the FBI in Boston, who persistently tracked the bombing suspects. 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...
Burned Out in Senior Housing Sales or Over Stimulated?
Are you worn out and exhausted? Is it an effort to get up and get to work each day? What happened? You love your senior housing job – what’s wrong? It is called burn out, burning the candle at both ends. Think about how work and home life has changed in the last 20 years. Smart phones live with us 24 hours a day. The line has blurred between work and home and senior living sales people are getting fried out emotionally. Are you cooking dinner with the smart phone on the counter in case someone calls or texts you? People are in restaurants having $20 to $30 dinners and texting…this is not a nice experience for your table companions. Get off the electronic leash for a few hours or a half-day. My boss is taking a cruise and will have no cell coverage for 10 days. My first thought was oh my gosh, I will be cut off from contacting her. My next thought was – boy is she lucky! Could you go without electronic stimulation for a day or a week? Could I do it? It would be very difficult. But I would adjust after a day or two and so would you. Take time to recharge. If you are introverted, you recharge better by yourself. An extrovert recharges through the energy of their friends. Know what helps you recharge and spend one day recharging your personal batteries. Your work and your family will both benefit. Please comment to join the conversation and interact with other senior living professionals on what is currently being effective to increase...
Balancing Discovery vs. Interrogation in Senior Living Sales?
When you initially sit down with a senior prospective resident – what is their first impression of you? Are you like a detective on TV, asking care needs – one after another? Or are you the compassionate sales person who cares and wants to help the senior solve their problem? When I do mystery shopping, I find that 80% of senior living sales people are interrogators. This is an extremely high statistic; this means that only 20% of sales people come across as kind and compassionate. How can you know if you are an interrogator and don’t mean to be one? 1) Don’t get to the nitty gritty details too fast… 2) Do offer a beverage – especially when it’s hot outside– I have been touring on 90-degree days and was not offered a beverage – this really happens… 3) Invite guests to sit down – don’t tell them to sit here or just point to a chair… 4) Don’t shut a prospective resident in your office – this happened to me 80% of the time and causes people to keep their wall up and not relax with you. 5) Don’t sit across a desk from someone, give up your control and meet around a round table, in the lobby on comfy chairs or in the model apartment. 6) Find out about what is most important to the senior or the adult children…why did they come to your retirement community today? 7) Do ask how they are doing (what they are feeling) and take the time to listen! Do you want to increase sales, move-ins and up the occupancy? ...
How to Train a “Green” Senior Living Sales Person (Part 2)
This week I want to share with you which four techniques I used to train a new “green” sales person recently. Last week, I talked about four sales training techniques in “How to Train a “Green” Senior Living Sales Person (Part 1)”: Shadowing an existing sales person, throwing the new “green” person in (with no senior housing experience) to just start selling, sending them out to study the competition and a dedicated all day training. Recently, the first step I used training a “green” sales person was an all day training with the marketing team. This was crucial, so she could have immediate knowledge of how this business works in a nutshell. I interactively taught her and the team how to engage with a prospective resident, build a relationship in a short time and help someone make a decision to move to our community for the next chapter of his or her life. She heard the successes of the other retirement counselors and she started to visualize how easy this business can really be. The second step was letting HR do their thing and allowing her to shadow some quality senior living sale people, so the all day training would sink in a little more. The third step was sending her out to study the competition. This helped her articulate the strengths and weaknesses of our Continuing Care Retirement Community versus the retirement community down the street. She truly saw the business through the eyes of the senior customer and learned what a senior housing interrogation, from one of our neighboring competitors, can feel like. The fourth step was...
How To Train a “Green” Senior Living Sales Person (Part 1)
When a brand new sales person starts, what is most important to teach first? My definition of “green” is that they have never worked in senior housing before. “Part-green” means they have some background in senior housing like working in the homecare industry. I love coaching “green” and “part-green” senior living sales people. So what do you teach a “green” sales person in the first couple of weeks? Is it shadowing an existing sales person? You may or may not be lucky enough to have a quality person they can shadow. It can be very helpful, but it can also get a little boring for the trainee. If this is your whole training program, then you are missing the boat of opportunity. Do you just throw them in to sink or swim immediately? This might not be the brightest idea. They don’t understand the business and what you offer yet. Leads are money, so are you willing to just blow off some potentially hot leads, because a “green” person does not know how they should be managed properly? Some smaller retirement communities have no choice, because they only have one marketer. Or do you send them out to study the competition? This can be very important in the first couple weeks of training and allows them to compare senior housing communities like the prospects would. They can start to articulate the strengths and weaknesses of their own community versus the retirement community down the street. How about a dedicated all day training? You could spend a whole day with an interactive program that explains how the prospect really thinks,...
How Homework Can Improve A Senior Living Sales Person’s Performance
Are 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...
Role Playing Can Help Senior Living Sales People Improve
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...
Too busy for Senior Living Sales Training? Think Again…
We 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...
Deciding To Use Incentives Or Not In Senior Living?
What 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...
6 Reasons Why You Should Take Your Senior Housing Co-workers To Lunch
Are 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: 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. 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… 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?) Solve an on-going challenge without being in...
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