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
Have You Hired a Closer or Order Taker 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...
How to Get Momentum Again in Senior Living Sales
Are you losing senior residents faster than gaining new ones at your retirement community? Welcome to 2013, where older and frailer new residents don’t spend much time at your senior living community before moving onto a higher level of care or meeting their maker… If you have more move-outs than move-ins year after year, your occupancy has slowly dropped. It’s time to get the big “MO” back – that’s right momentum! Are your owners only looking at the bottom line and demanding for the occupancy numbers to increase? Or, are your owners willing to strategize with sales and marketing to look outside the sales box and figure out how to make the building more attractive to younger seniors? The later is the key…it can be a one-year process of improvements and upgrades. (Hint: Younger seniors live at your retirement community longer!) The results can be phenomenal! A community I work with in Southern California just had 7 CCRC entrance fee sales in 8 days! Yes, some younger residents, including couples are moving in too. The CCRC community looks fantastic now after extensive renovations! The sale team is excited and all the scheduled move-ins generate urgency for other prospective residents to move-in now, because the apartment home inventory is dwindling. What are you doing to attract younger seniors and build momentum for occupancy? 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...
To All the Senior Living Professionals Who Follow My Blog
To All the Senior Living Professionals Who Follow My Blog I appreciate all the great comments over the years and respectively ask for your vote in the Seniorhomes.com – “Best Senior Living Awards!” Diane Twohy Masson’s Blog has been nominated as one of “2013 Best Industry Resources.” Click on the picture link below and vote twice by clicking once for Facebook and once for Google Plus. I thank you advance! Vote for Marketing 2 Seniors Join the Conversation on How to Market 2 Seniors Please continue to comment on my blog posts 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:...10 Training Tips For Senior Living Sales People in 2013
1) Identify your sales team’s attitude toward the occupancy goals – do they believe they can hit the occupancy goal? – if not – check out my blog tip from last week – Sales Meeting Tips to Increase the Occupancy in 2013. 2) Are they differentiating your senior living community from the competitor down the road? Never say anything bad about the competition, but always highlight your retirement community’s strengths. 3) Have you set a quota for a certain number of calls per week and is the director of marketing or executive director tracking it? Sales people just want seniors to come in and put down a deposit. A lot of sales are made with that quick follow up phone call to invite the senior back again for a 2nd or 3rd look. 4) A “wow” tour, including painting a picture of the lifestyle, can make the monthly fee look like a bargain… 5) Do you have exciting events that draw new faces into your community and inspire 2nd and 3rd looks to move forward? 6) One negative word, like calling your community a facility, can cause a senior to back away from the move. Who wants to leave their beautiful home and move into a facility? 7) Have your focused on selling to personalities? Some analytical drillers want every scrap of paper you have ever published on your community to make a decision and other seniors can walk away from information overload. Tailor each tour to the personality of each customer… 8) Focus on each senior’s hot buttons, like not being a burden to their kids… 9) Are you...Sales Meeting TIPS to Increase the Occupancy in 2013!
It’s time to grow your senior living occupancy in 2013! Let’s motivate the sales team on how to achieve your senior housing community’s goal. I assume you already have a budget of how many projected move-ins are required and the projected amount of move outs for your retirement community (The number of move outs seem to get higher every year – doesn’t it?)? For those of you in smaller communities you may be having a sales meeting with yourself or one other person. The rest of you probably have a team of 2 to 4 sales people to motivate. Some sales people get very overwhelmed with the yearly goal. When they hear that 50 CCRC entrance fee move-ins or 120 assisted living move-ins are budgeted, you can look for the squirming in the seat and eye rolling. This means they don’t believe. Well, it’s your job to believe the occupancy goal and encourage your people to believe. Here are some tips to turn them into believers. Break down the yearly occupancy goal into monthly goals. How many sales are needed per month? What is each person’s monthly sales goal? For a Continuing Care Retirement Community (CCRC) with three sales people and a goal of 50 move-ins – that’s 4 sales a month and about 1.3 sales per person per month. Calculate how many tours are needed per person and how many calls on average will draw in the tours per month. For the same CCRC example it ends up being: 60 tours a month and 1,200 team phone calls per month or 20 tours and 300 calls per month...A Short Fun Senior Living Sales New Year’s Poem
Is it time to grow your retirement community’s census, Or just entertain the residents and be festive? It takes sales stamina and focus, To accept some sales no’s with no fuss. Give your determination a sense of finality, To rise above “the get by” mentality. Keep calling the database, Don’t pause on the hot lead chase. Because seniors just need some education, To deter each and every objection. Ultimately, your senior living community will win, Because making a great sales commission is not a sin! It’s your choice to be a senior housing hero! Let the competition end up with a big fat zero! 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.net...Give Your Residents a Hug Today – Happy Holidays!
The smiles and tears were so joyful to see! My entire senior living marketing staff presented a small beautifully wrapped Christmas tin (with chocolate inside) to each resident ambassador who helped marketing in the last year! Maybe they gave a tour on a weekend, had lunch with a prospective resident, helped new residents feel welcome, spoke at a marketing event or allowed marketing to show their home. As we gave each gift, we EACH said thank you and gave them a hug! The residents loved it and were just blown away! They each had five hugs! It is not too late for your senior living community to do this! Show your appreciation to your resident ambassadors this week with a New Year’s gift…it only cost $3.00 per resident. 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.net...5 Tips on How to Sell Senior Living During the Holidays
Call your senior living database now to increase occupancy for early 2013! I elaborated on this in my last blog… Why this is the BEST TIME of the Year TO CALL Your Database! Suggest for a senior and their family to enjoy lunch at your retirement community! Visiting family and the senior need to eat…why not have it be at your senior living community? As they eat, maybe they can picture themselves living there. Most boomer children will advocate for their senior parent to move into senior housing when they see how nice the quality of their life can be… Invite hot and warm prospective residents to join your residents for some live entertainment or when the local school kids come by to sing. Offer seniors, who don’t drive, either a ride to your community or go out and do a home visit. This visit could be the tipping point to them moving into your community. When someone is visiting at your community, ask for the order. First do the proper warm up, discovery, listen to their needs, learn their hot buttons, build value for your community and figure out how to solve their problem. Then invite them to sit down again. Look them in the eye and say, “I know you love your home of forty years! And you have shared how difficult it is to manage stairs and your concern of falling down them when you do the laundry in the basement – right? After everything you have seen today and the wonderful lunch we enjoyed, do you believe you would have a better quality of...Why is this the BEST TIME of the Year TO CALL Your Database!
The last couple of weeks before Christmas and New Years is a key time to call your senior living database. When visiting family members (like boomer children) say, “Mom or Dad – let’s start exploring retirement housing options for you.” The senior can say, well The Village or Freedom Village just called last week… The Boomer children will say, “Great, let’s go check that community out first.” Many sales people spend their entire precious selling time – attending resident holiday parties, enjoying carolers or other live entertainment. This is not the time to sit back on your laurels and hope your retirement community will miraculously get fuller in 2013. The work ethic of a senior living sales person before New Years can dictate a surge of move-ins in early 2013. This is an opportunity to jump the census by 2 – 5 percentage points! It’s time to smile and dial, because this is the best time of the year to call your database. Many seniors are lonely and you may be the only phone call they receive during their entire day. Able-bodied seniors drive or fly to see children and grandchildren for the holidays – so they may not be home. Frailer seniors have to hope their kids will come visit them and are usually home. Either way, the children may notice a change in their senior parent(s) and start exploring options. Make sure your senior living community is top of mind with the senior – it only takes a simple phone call! Call Your Database Now to Increase Occupancy for Early 2013! Diane Twohy Masson is the author...10 Worse Traits of Nightmare Applicants in Senior Housing?
Part 1 last week, described the top 12 traits for hiring a successful senior living sales person at a retirement community. Now let’s flip the coin over and maybe some nightmare applicants can improve themselves for future interviews in the process. Let me share what happened with the most unbelievable applicant recently. When he returned my call, I set a phone interview for the next morning at 8:00 AM. The next morning, I asked him if he had looked at our website. He said that if I could send him a link, then he would take a look at it later. Seriously? I started to laugh, because it was so ridiculous! He then asked if it was a requirement to look at the website before speaking with me further. I was still trying to be nice and gently said that he knew from the previous evening that we were going to have an interview this morning – why would you not prepare for it? Well at that point he did not want to talk to me any more… Here is my list of 10 worse traits of senior living sales applicants. Feel free to add to the list or share an unbelievable hiring experience of your own: 1) Constantly interrupts during the Interview and does not listen – Stop it! 2) Tells me they are ONLY motivated by money – There is such a thing as being too honest! 3) Has a history of 15 or less phone calls per day – What did you do all day, if you did not have any prospects? 4) Say they have...Top 12 Traits Needed to Fill a Senior Living Community?
What is your recipe for hiring a successful senior living sales person at your retirement community? There are so many qualified candidates, what are your must have personality traits? When I interview, here are the qualities that I look for in no particular order: 1) Phone Experience and Voice – The applicant needs a great phone voice to even qualify for a live interview with me! What is their history of making calls? Have they made 50 calls in at least one day of their career? How many calls did they need to make in order to have one live customer? Phone calling can be one third of the job to fill the building. It is crucial to have ongoing phone contact with our leads to make cool leads – warm, warm leads – hot and hot leads turning into move-ins. 2) Real Sales Experience – They need to be able to give examples of how to warm people up, find communality, do discovery and educate the customer on a wonderful service. I need to be able to visualize them describing our Continuing Care Retirement Community or Assisted Living. I don’t require a background in senior living sales. 3) Closing Experience – What is their closing ratio? How many live customers do they need in order to achieve one sale? Did they close me? 4) Listener – If they practice good listening skills with me, then they can do the same for the customer. This is vital… 5) Teachable – Are they willing to learn and grow? Some people want to live in a rut. I want someone who...Marketing a Twenty-Year-Old Senior Living Property?
Is this you? Then you are in one of two situations – either your owners have renovated in the last 5 or 10 years or everything in your senior living property is original… 1) A Renovated Twenty-Year-Old Senior Living Community? If your retirement community owners have renovated – thank your lucky stars! It is awesome to be able to tell prospective seniors that a great sign of a quality organization is how well the building is kept up. Tout the age of your building and make it a plus for future senior residents. Yes, you may have limited community space or smaller apartments than your newer senior living competition, but competition could have insurmountable debt from financing in the last 5 years. I am finding that older communities have more flexible payment plans for seniors who are considering an entrance fee for a Continuing Care Retirement Community (CCRC). 2) Original Furnishings and Tired Looking Senior Living Community? Do you need to avoid the PUMPKIN carpet that has multiple stains in the dining room? Are the couches covered with throws, because of the discoloration? Is the carpet threadbare in spots? This is a sales person nightmare. What can you do? Well, there are many in our industry who face this daunting sales task everyday! You have two hopes in my opinion. First, let’s hope that your quality of care is amazing and secondly that the operations team has done everything in their power to have a clean, fresh smelling building. The best defense is often a strong offense. You can say, “You can go down the street to live in...8 Keys to Create Compelling Events that Drive Sales in Senior Living
Do you have 50 plus prospective residents at every event? If not, why not? Here are just eight keys to keep in mind when planning great events that can fill your building. 1) Pick a theme that would compel a senior to leave the comfort of their home, spend $4.00 a gallon on gas to drive to your retirement community and want to invite a friend to enjoy the experience with them. 2) Organize your event, so every first impression is excellent. Have someone out front directing parking, greet them at the door with a registration table, train tour guides, your community should be spotless, have an exciting program and maybe most important – present excellent food and beverages for their enjoyment. 3) The goal is fill your building! If you are going to have live entertainment, there must still be a 10 to 15 minute program with a resident testimonial. Or maybe you are going to have a Power Point of your benefits and what differentiates you from other senior living communities? Don’t be boring… 4) You only have the senior’s attention for about 1½ hours maximum, so if you spend the time feeding and entertaining them, they will be too tired to tour your community. Strategize out every minute they are going to be in the building. 5) Invite them to come back and spend more time, so they can get a better feel of your retirement community. It’s hard for people to decide in 1½ hours where they are going to spend the next chapter of their life. 6) There should be at least 1/3 new...Calling it – “The steak is the shoulder of a cow” – In Senior Living?
The first impressions of the dining experience at your senior living community can affect occupancy…or someone coming back… Is your community twenty years old and does it look it? Can you add fresh flowers on each dining table to spruce it up? Are linen tablecloths and napkins a standard? Or have you cut these items from your operations budget? You may have a great chef, the best service and a beautiful dining room, but the wrong words can also leave a bad impression… On a recent trip to Seattle, my family decided to go to McCormick and Schmicks – a nice dining restaurant on the water. The waiter greeted us and shared his steak and lobster special of the day. Hmm, I thought – that sounds good. We asked what type of steak it was. Then he said, “The steak is the shoulder of a cow.” He walked away from us, so we could contemplate the menu and we immediately started saying – what??? Why would someone talk about the steak as the shoulder of cow, which is not very appetizing? My sister-in-law said, I envision a cow with a hacked off shoulder.” We all started getting grossed out and laughing. When the waiter came back, we teased him and told him that the shoulder of a cow did not sound good. He apologized and said he forgot the proper term to say which was “Terrace Major.” We all agreed that was not appetizing either. What descriptor words are on your retirement community’s menu? Is the dining staff trained to sell the food? We’ve all been to fine dining...Is There A Strawberry On Your Plate – In Senior Living?
On my recent flight to Seattle, I had the most plain Jane lunch plate presentation ever in first class. It was literally a sandwich on the plate. Seriously?!!? No chips, cut up fruit, piece of parsley, a piece of lettuce with a tomato – nothing! The stark whiteness of the plate surprised me. Then I started thinking, why didn’t they at least put a nice red strawberry on the plate like they used to – what happened? Is Alaska Airlines cutting costs? How much could twelve strawberries cost? My impression of food in first class was not a “Wow” experience. Has your senior living community cut too many operational costs too? Could it be affecting the first impressions of your community and keeping the occupancy down? Are you serving guests refreshments in real glasses or china? Or have you cut refreshments out all together or serve them in cheap syrofoam? Are there fresh flowers in the lobby? As you walk down the halls, are the walls streaked black from walkers and electric carts? Have the corner edges and doorways of apartments been banged and dented from electric carts? When was the last time you refurbished the lobby? Is the furniture getting old and tattered? Marketing directors and sales people cannot work miracles! If your occupancy is down, invest in some “Wow Strawberries” to make a great first impression! It keeps your current residents and family members thinking positively about the retirement community. Happy residents can mean lots of referrals. A chef in one of my Continuing Care Retirement Communities said, “The very first bite is always with the eyes.”...How to Help a Struggling Senior Living Sales Person?
Occupancy is down, the pressure is up and your retirement counselor or marketing director is not performing like they used to… The economy and the presidential election are just excuses for low occupancy. The first thing is to check the sales person attitude. Do they smile as they exit their office on the way to meet a walk-in tour? Can you observe their enthusiasm as they show a prospective resident the retirement community? When you walk by their office, can you hear animation and passion in their voice as they explain the community and invite someone to come visit? If the answer is no to any of the above, I suggest that you actually accompany them on a real tour. Find out exactly what is going on… During the tour be a silent rock and don’t interject at all. Even if you see or hear mistakes, just take notes… If you interrupt, the sales person will lose their flow, become more nervous and you won’t get a true picture of a tour from start to finish. The opening of a conversation is just as important as the close at the completion. Did they steer the customer toward making a decision? Were they listening more than they talked? Did they find out what prompted the visit to your community? How was the warm up and discovery? Could you say it was conversational? At what point did they ask the prospective resident or family member how they felt about their current situation or being at the community? Ultimately, did the prospect open up? Was the tour tailored to the customer’s desire...Is Your Senior Living Team – Only Going for the Easy Sale?
Every senior living sales person loves the easy sale. A senior walks into your community, his or her home has just sold quickly and now they HAVE TO MOVE in the next 30 days. Or a family member’s parent is in the hospital and the doctor has stated they can’t return to their home, the senior must move to assisted living now. Will these easy sales fill your retirement community? No!! The words patience, dedication and persistence come to mind – to reach out to the reluctant customers who can fill your senior living community. When someone comes in to tour your community, first impressions are everything. The sales person needs to take the time and compassion to find out what prompted their visit and show how their senior living community can be the answer. When a senior or family member says they are “Not Ready Yet,” don’t blow them off! It simply means they don’t have enough information to make a decision yet and they need to come back and see you again. The prospect is scared! It is a big decision to move out of a home they have lived in for 30 to 50 years. Most seniors don’t make the decision to move in a one or two hour meeting with a senior living sales person. Give them the compassion and care they so desperately need… Call them the next day and find a reason for them to visit again – maybe it’s a lunch, an exciting event or showing them one more apartment. Turn their reluctance into excitement. If they don’t answer, keep calling. Senior...Does Your Senior Living Sales Team Need Sales Training?
My new senior living sales teams went from selling need driven independent living rentals (which is a piece of cake) to successfully selling CCRC (Continuing Care Retirement Community) entrance fees. The organization completely transformed. Do you want this for your team or do you just want to improve occupancy? Start investing into some type of training through a sales training or book review. Watch your team grow and start getting excited about selling again…this is a fun and rewarding business… Do you have an experienced sales team at your retirement community and the sales are just not happening like they used to? Or do you have some brand new team players that need to learn everything? Is It Time for Sales Training? Hopefully you have someone in your organization that can take a half-day or a whole day to build some team camaraderie and put the sales team back on track. Here are 5 reasons to invest in Sales Training as soon as possible: Your team(s) may just be burnt out or could be in a rut… What if there are 10 basic things to warm up a customer and they are just leaving one out? A refresher course on the basics could help… How to steer the customer through the sales process… Are they focused on listening to the customer or have they progressed to just giving a tour and being an order taker? Do the sales people realize that if the prospective resident gives the same objection at the end of every tour, adding some key stories into the presentation can cure it? What if your budget...What Can Make Your Senior Living Community Extraordinary?
Every senior living community struggles to differentiate themselves from their competitors. How can you do it? When a customer walks in the door – how can they feel an immediate difference with your community? Let’s take a moment to compare restaurants – which can be so alike too… My husband and I decided to treat our selves to Sunday brunch at Laguna Beach. We didn’t want to go to the expensive tourist choice on the bluff. Hmm, where to go? We picked a place that looked good, but was not on the ocean side of the street. The wait for a table outside (it was 80 degrees) was 2 hours. We decided to eat inside and we had a small view of the ocean. Five extraordinary experiences happened at this restaurant that blew us away. Our waiter was wonderfully attentive, the overall service was outstanding and the food was incredible – none of these made it extraordinary. Here are the five things that did: The waiter welcomed us the moment we sat down, asked if we had been there before (we said no) and then he assured us that we were going to have the most incredible brunch (Wow!). When my husband asked where the restroom was (after he tried to find it himself) a server did not just point in the right direction, they actually escorted him (Wow!). Then my husband returned to the table, a staff member anticipated his arrival, picked up his napkin and as he sat, put it on his lap (Wow!). The plates were removed within 20 seconds of each of us finishing our...Can You Compare Your Senior Living Employees to Disney Employees?
In the last six weeks, I have been to Disneyland five times. Am I a little crazy? I certainly hope so and try on a regular basis to truly enjoy living in paradise. After a series of interactions last night, I was forced to take an overall look at how I was treated by Disney employees. The happiest place on earth did not have happy employees last night. 75% of the employees were grumpy, sullen, crabby, tired and worn out looking. What a surprise, when it seemed that most Disney employees had a sunny personality when I have visited in the past. There was not one smile on any parking attendant at the parking lot. I waited 20 minutes to pay and should have been greeted with a smile, but it did not happen. At the tram, no smiles – only frowns. Going through the bag check, only weary and sullen expressions. When I arrived at the park to go through the turnstile, the employee actually yelled at the person in front of me! No kidding folks, she said, “Can’t you read the signs? Mickey’s Halloween Party entrance is over there!” So that meant I was in the wrong line too and changed lines, before I got yelled at too. After I made it into the park, they were handing out trick or treat bags and I headed to the left, but I was reprimanded to instead head to the right. Now my husband and I were in and heading down main street and it suddenly hit me that it was not the happiest place on earth tonight. What...
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