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Join in on the conversation about Senior Housing and the Silver Tsunami with Diane Masson, a senior housing expert for over 16 years. Throughout this site you will find priceless information for both professionals working in the senior housing industry… and for seniors who are seeking the inside secrets to the best options for housing available today!
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Diane Masson's Tips & Articles
“Just Go in Your Diaper…”
My good friend’s mom fell on the Chicago ice in zero degree weather. She called out for help and no one answered. His mom was literally laying on the sidewalk in Chicago with a dislocated shoulder and a very bruised hip. She was lucky to have her cell phone in her pocket, but at 93 years old could not figure out how to call 911 on the flip phone. Then she was double lucky to have her wireless house phone to actually call 911 for help. So my friend flew from Seattle (Home of the famous Seahawks) to Chicago to go help his mom. What a burden for an adult child to be responsible for an aging parent who lives across the country. The mom’s doctor highly recommended a rehab community and said it was excellent. My friend checked his mom into the rehab and went back to her house to sleep. Well, the mom ended up calling him at 4:00 AM and said, “Get me out of here!” This is what happened… When the mom hit the call light to go to the bathroom, a very pregnant caregiver appeared and said, “I can’t lift you, just go in your diaper.” Later, when the mom hit the call light again for some water, another caregiver appeared and said, “You still have water left in your glass, drink that first.” Then she just walked away. In the morning, when the mom complained to the head nurse, the result was angry excuses. So the mom called her doctor and heads started to spin at the rehab. The administrator came in to...
Wouldn’t life be simpler with less stuff?
This thought stuck me today, when I saw a homeless man with nine carts of stuff. I had to take a picture of it. How could he ever move to a new location? It would be no easy feat to roll nine carts of stuff along. Prospective senior residents considering a retirement community or assisted living have to feel the same way. It is so overwhelming to think about moving years of memories and stuff. A frail senior may feel it is easier to just struggle in his or her home with navigating stairs, managing a walker, asking neighbors to transport them to medical appointments and eating TV dinners. The quality of a senior’s life in this frail condition is not good. But the flip side is they get to live amongst all their stuff. It is interesting to watch the adult Boomer children get into the mix. Some want mom or dad to continue in the family home and either can’t see or ignore the reality of the parent struggling to just eat, bathe and take medications. Other children see the danger and can’t sleep worrying for their parent’s safety and health condition. This is our reality as senior living professionals. We must never forget how hard it is to move and what a chore it is to downsize our stuff. Our compassion is what compels many seniors to move into one of our communities. Thank you for each senior that you personally helped facilitate move into a retirement or assisted living community. I believe they have a better quality of life with more nutritious food, a greater...
Showing Un-Renovated Apartments? Bad Idea!!!!!
This picture is worth a thousand words. What is the state of your available apartments? On a recent trip to Oregon, the best place in town had this in the tub. I wanted to throw up. Really? Yet, I have seen this and worse when mystery shopping senior living communities. Your maintenance team is overworked and they don’t have time to do apartment renovations. So many senior residents are moving out…maintenance can’t keep up. So senior living sales people have to show apartments that are not clean or renovated. Is this fine at your retirement community? Non-renovated apartments have sold that way before, right? Wrong?!!! This is a poor long-term strategy and bad first impression to fill the building and increase occupancy. Don’t listen to the maintenance team blues! Here are four quick solutions if your retirement community is in this boat… Only show model apartments period. Never ever show a disgusting apartment that someone just moved out of. It is not available to show ever!!!! If you don’t have model apartments, make arrangements with a few residents to show their apartments. It’s always nice to have one or two residents who say you may show their apartment anytime. Have housekeeping clean up the disgusting apartment now, before it is shown to single a person. (I know this is double work for housekeeping, cleaning it before and after renovation. The extra clean does help sell apartments and improves first impressions.) The fourth choice is to pay an outside company to renovate apartments at your senior living community. I know it costs more money than doing it in-house. Please look...
How to Make Your Personal Sales Goals Multiply by 10!
Do you have a personal sales goal for 2014 in your head? There are huge benefits if you write it down on a piece of paper. According to a Harvard study and sales guru Brian Tracy, only 3% of people have written goals and these people accomplish 10 times as much. If you want to accomplish 10 times as much this year, take 15 or 30 minutes to focus on your goals. Do you want to hit the minimum move-in number required by your retirement organization? Are you better than average? What is realistic? What is possible? Writing down your goals is a key to accomplishing them, but what if you make it fun by animating your goals? If your goals could stand up on your desk and dance around, what would they look like? Here are a couple of ideas: Cut out pictures from magazines and make a collage of your goals. Draw a picture of your goals. Turn a piece of clay or silly putty into your goal. Write your goals with Crayola washable window markers or lipstick on your your bathroom mirror. Make a short power point of your goals. Whichever method you select, keep your goals visually front and center on a daily basis. Speak them into existence and have a prosperous 2014. Please share your 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...
6 “New Year Keys” For Occupancy Momentum!
Kick start your sales momentum in 2014! Here are 6 keys that your senior living team can do simultaneously or add one technique per month to increase occupancy. Decide to be proactive instead of reactive with your retirement community’s database. Set a goal of talking to the entire database this year. Make so many calls per week and per month. Call back every tour the next day. Create a new “wow” tour and teach other department heads the new tour. Study and learn a new closing technique. Ask for the deposit on every tour! Build strong relationships with prospects by caring about the senior’s best interests and not your paycheck. They will feel the difference. Generate new avenues for more prospective seniors to learn about and come to your senior living community. Start the New Year with excitement, learn a new technique and hug your team! Group hug for everyone! Please share your 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. ...
New Senior Living Beginnings in 2014
Look at your senior living community as you would a brand new baby. It’s going to be a new year! Bring your sales team together (even if it is just you), reflect on 2013 and start over in 2014. If you have 100% occupancy – congrats! If your retirement community is at 80%, 90% or 95% occupancy, it is time to start fresh. If you keep doing what you did last year, you will end up with the same results. Set new goals for 2014. A book called “Senior Housing Marketing – How to Increase Your Occupancy and Stay Full,” could turn your census in a positive direction. Good luck and Happy New Year! Please share your 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. Most recently Masson was recruited to consult for...
Senior Living Communities Are Open 365 Days A Year
Here is a shout out to all the special senior living employees who are working on Christmas this year. Every Boomer child who cares about his or her parent appreciates your dedication. You may be cooking or serving the grand holiday buffet in an Independent Living Community, passing medications in an Assisted Living Community, calming anxiety in a Memory Care Community or providing 24-hour care in a Skilled Nursing – Thank You! This Christmas, my mom is in Freedom Village Health Care Center. When I visited her on Thanksgiving morning, I saw smiles and joy in the eyes of the skilled nursing staff. Today, I am grateful that quality staff surrounds her and that she will be savoring her favorite coffee on Christmas morning. Are you working on Christmas this year? Share your community name and what you do! Let’s spread some Christmas cheer! 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. Most recently Masson was recruited to consult for two debt-free...
3 Simple Holiday Impressions to Increase or Maintain Occupancy
Boomers flock from all areas of the country to visit their senior parents during the holidays. Many will come to your senior living community…are you ready? One of two things will happen after the visit: they will either decide to support their parents moving into your community or they will move them out of your retirement community. First impressions for Boomer children are critical to your occupancy. Here are 3 simple tips to either increase occupancy or maintain occupancy over the holidays: Have the receptionist stand to greet all visitors with a welcoming smile. If the receptionist is engaged on the phone, a warm smile and eye contact will acknowledge the guest. When a Boomer says they are visiting his or her mom, inquire who the parent is and give a positive comment about your resident. Ask if you can give the Boomer easy directions to the resident’s apartment or have someone escort them if it hard to find. Make them feel 100% important. Be ready to have someone give a “wow” tour at all times. A staff person or resident should be on call. Don’t make someone wait 15 minutes as you call around the community sounding desperate on the phone. It makes the guest feel guilty and makes them wonder what kind of care you would give his or her parent. Ensure that a huge stack of brochures is available at the front desk. It’s very tacky to say that you are out of brochures and the marketing department will be here the next day…the sale is lost. Finally, if you have a fireplace in your lobby,...
Scrooge or Sales with Holiday Calls??!!??
All you have is the present to increase your occupancy. Resident holiday parties, festivities, live entertainment and decorating the retirement community can distract senior living sales from the purpose of filling the building. It’s easy to get stinking thinking and decide that no one wants to move right now and every senior is busy preparing for Christmas. Wrong!!! If you are reading this blog today, it is not too late to get humming again. Let me give you some current examples from two successful Continuing Care Retirement Communities (CCRC) in Southern California: 11 CCRC move-ins scheduled during December at one CCRC and another has six move-ins set. A $5000 deposit was collected yesterday for a December CCRC move-in. One senior living sales person, who had 139 calls for the week said, “This is the best time of year to make calls and learn vital information about prospective seniors families.” When a senior came in for a holiday event, they shared that it was their holiday meal, because they had sat at home eating a “Lean Cuisine” on Thanksgiving. Another senior shared that this was her last year to host Christmas for the entire family. She was exhausted and said she was ready to sell her home and move in early 2014. Many calls said, “I am not ready, let me get through the holidays and let’s talk the first week in January.” (Whom will this senior be talking about with his or her adult children over the holidays? The family will most likely come in to tour around Christmas.) You can learn so much if you make calls this...
Three Solutions to Arguing and Objections in Senior Living Sales
Are you fighting with prospective residents who are in denial? I don’t mean physical punches… After they ask a question or make a comment, are you coming at them with a quick verbal rebuttal? Stop it!!! Many senior living sales people don’t even realize that they are arguing with the prospective resident. It can be very difficult to evaluate yourself and recognize your own faults. Do the best you can to catch yourself saying a “but” or ask a co-worker/supervisor to listen to one of your tours. When the prospective senior says something like, “I love my home and can’t see myself moving.” I have heard sales people say, “But…you don’t see how wonderful life could be here.” Or a senior says, “I am doing fine in my own home.” (They can barely walk and you recognize an unsafe situation for them living at home.) The prospective senior is in denial. It is so common. Don’t fight them, they will just get irritated and go to your competitor down the road. There are three easy solutions to deal with denial. 1) Ignore the senior’s denial and keep educating them on the benefits of living at your community. I don’t mean – shoving it in their face. Some seniors have so much denial that it could take them months or a few years to recognize the benefits of living at your senior living community. Keep inviting them to events. Eventually they can see the lifestyle in your independent or Continuing Care Retirement Community is better than living in their own home. 2) If you work in an assisted living or...
Mean Mom, Nice Mom and Dementia
My theory of 10 years is now officially broken. I believed that if you had a mean parent they turned nice with dementia and if you had a nice parent they would turn mean with dementia. My random sample was everyone that I have ever spoken to about this theory. Well, the tables have turned and my mom has turned mean again. Years ago, the ugly side of my mom was only exposed behind closed doors. The mental abuse for years took a tool on all my siblings and I. In fact, when they each turned 18, all of them moved to other states. I stayed to protect my dad. I figured if she took half her wrath out on me, he would only be subjected to it 50 percent of the time. In college, psychology classes opened my eyes to mental illness and depression. After my mean mom did not attend my graduation or marriage, I was done. A wonderful counselor taught me how to deal with it. When I spoke to my mom and she was mean, I would say, “I am sorry that this conversation is not going the way I hoped, I have to go now, bye.” After I did this three times, my mom’s treatment of me turned around. She has treated me well for 28 years. Now, she is in the late stages of vascular dementia. I got a call two days ago saying she is yelling and swearing at the staff. Oh boy, my nice mom is gone. Say hello, to sundowners syndrome and her living in the past of about 30...
10 Ideas for Operations to WOW Senior Living Sales
Here are 10 bright ideas on how the operations team can WOW senior living prospects and help increase sales and occupancy. Does the housekeeping department touch up the entrance to the senior living community and tour path areas several times per day (particularly in the fall when leaves are everywhere)? Are the retirement community’s walls touched up by maintenance on a regular basis (as they get marked up by walkers)? Will dining services make a WOW presentation of the food and use the china instead of disposal plates and styrofoam cups? Are the receptionists willing to stand up to greet marketing guests? Does the activity director reschedule resident classes in advance, so residents are not angry with the marketing staff on the day of an event (seniors don’t like short notices)? Will the transportation department pick up senior living prospective residents who don’t drive and transport them to and from the senior living community for a tour? Are the landscaping, signage and building exterior in prime condition for first impressions? Does every department head go out of their way to introduce themselves to senior living prospective residents? Has every manager encouraged their frontline staff to smile and greet all guests and residents? Will department heads take two hours per month to help at sales and marketing events? Please share your 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...Learn More About Senior Housing
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