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Diane Masson's Tips & Articles
How Many Calls Does Your Senior Living Team Make Per Month (part 2)?
There were such a variety of responses to “How Many Calls Does Your Senior Living Team Make Per Month,” I am choosing to expound with a more in-depth part 2. Senior living sale professionals responded with call requirements from 20 calls an hour to 40 completed calls per week. Someone else’s retirement community had mandated 53 connected calls per month. Here is one response: “Diane, I have enjoyed reading your blogs on seniors, which are informative with best practices. This one on “How Many Calls A Month” made us gasp with the large number of calls a sales team is expected to make nowadays. 500 to 1,000+ calls a month must be only cold calling behind a closed door and doing nothing else like sales events, tours, refurbishment oversight, building relationships with future residents, community and church relations, follow up on leads and inquiries, application process, and administrative team projects.” Nancy My response: These calls were not cold calls, so here is a more detailed explanation. My example in part one had a marketing director with 469 calls and her two team mates with 340 and 315 calls respectively. These sales calls included: call-ins, voice-to-voice call-outs and left messages. I believe if someone leaves a great message, seniors will call back. Our requirement is 75 calls a week or 300 per month. This is not one isolated goal. Another goal is 20 initial or repeat tours per month. This tour goal does not include post-closing appointments after a deposit has been taken. Yes, these senior living sales people have other responsibilities including three events per month (all day), responding...
How Many Calls Does Your Senior Living Sales Team Make Per Month?
Recently, I received an email from retirement counselor at a four-year-old Continuing Care Retirement Community (CCRC) in California. He talked about being busy making 500 calls per month. I asked if that was 500 calls for just himself or was it 500 calls for the team of three senior living sales people? The answer was 500 calls for the entire team. Just an FYI for administrators and senior living sale people – 500 calls for a senior living sales team of three is not great. Each retirement counselor should be personally generating 300 calls or more in order to increase the occupancy. We track database calls with all my senior living sales teams. For the month of October, one of my CCRC marketing directors rocked with 469 calls. Even with all her responsibility, she set the pace. One of the retirement counselors generated 340 calls and another made 315 calls. These three team members produced 1,124 calls in one month! This included inbound and outbound calls. This CCRC team is one of the hardest working teams that I have ever encountered. What is the result? Tours, tours and tours! What comes from tours? Move-ins! Move-ins increase your occupancy and generate revenue. How many calls are you and your teams creating per month? Do you track it? You should! Please share your success, 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...
Choosing Senior Living Resident Speakers for Events
Do your residents speak at your senior living community’s events? Are you afraid of what they might say? If you don’t let residents speak, then your senior attendees are missing out. How can seniors really know what it is like to live at a retirement community or assisted living? The most effective way is for them to hear it from a peer. Yesterday, I had a fabulous resident speaker at the Oktoberfest event for Freedom Village in Lake Forest, Ca. Richard spoke from the heart for about four minutes. His opening line was, “Welcome to my home.” He explained why he, his wife Barbara and Lily (his Chihuahua) moved to a Continuing Care Retirement Community (CCRC). Richard shared some cute stories including when his wife initially tried the food at Freedom Village. She had declared, “The food is delicious and we are moving here.” He also said, “I was walking through my apartment the other day and just stopped to tell my wife, how happy that I am living here at Freedom Village.” He retired from law enforcement and explained why he felt very safe and secure at his retirement community. He mentioned volunteering at the local hospital and how you can live any kind of life you want. Sometimes he just enjoys reading a book in his apartment and at other times he has the opportunity to be social at dinner or at events. I had no clue what Richard would say. Was it a risk? Yes! But it is important to make your best guess selecting a resident to speak at your senior living event. Richard and...
Advocating for Mom in Care Conferences
An adult child or power of attorney plays a crucial role at a care conference. You can literally hold the pieces of the puzzle that an assisted living, skilled nursing care or memory care need in order to enhance the lifestyle of the resident. No one alive knows my mom better than me. She cannot always advocate on her own behalf, because she has vascular dementia. If I asked her, “What would you rather have for dinner, prime rib or salmon?” My mom would say, “Diane you know what I like, you decide.” Even with her dementia, she knows that I will select her favorite choices from the past. Recently, at my mom’s care conference in skilled nursing care a puzzle started to come together. My mom was having episodes of greater confusion. It might be three days in row and then she would be fine again. Was my mom’s dementia getting worse or was it something else? Would she need to start a new drug? As we were brainstorming possibilities, I remembered how lack of sleep could intensive my mom’s dementia in the past. We figured out that the bed alarm of some of her recent roommates was affecting her sleep. When she experienced less sleep, then she would have episodes of greater delusion during the day. It was an aha moment, so now they are going to focus on roommates who don’t need constant alarms going off. Hopefully my mom will improve. As a Boomer child, I have to be willing to accept that my mom’s dementia is getting worse, but maybe my advocacy can continue to...
Is Visiting Your Senior Living Community Like Going to the Dentist?
It can be so simple to alleviate someone’s fear by giving a simple explanation of what to expect in the coming minutes or hour. If you skip this simple step at your senior living community – learn what can happen. Yesterday, I was at the dentist for a routine crown. I received a crown 20 years ago and had no bad memories or fears coming to the appointment. Once I signed that I would pay for the crown, there was zero explanation of what would happen next… It was tough hearing, feeling and smelling procedures in my mouth with zero knowledge of the reason. Could he have not taken a moment for some quick explanations to elevate the fear of the unknown? The dentist did warn me about the pounding that was about to come. That was my only warning. He asked me to open up and bite down on something squishy, then he just walked away and left me. What was in my mouth and why? Well it turned out to be a crown mold that needed to set in my mouth for 8 minutes. When the dentist came back, I had pretty much made a decision to never go to this dentist again. When a prospective senior resident arrives at your senior living community, they can have fears. A senior can fear being sold, giving up his or her home of 40 years, change in lifestyle, losing the size or view of the current home, downsizing, moving, mortality, being accepted by other residents, losing control and etc. Simply take two minutes before touring a prospective senior resident and...
Are You Breaking Records in Senior Living?
My teams just concluded a senior living marketing retreat in Southern California. It was a time to step out of their fast-paced selling lives to be nurtured and valued. It was a celebration of breaking records. One Continuing Care Retirement Community (CCRC) had the most move-ins since 2001 and another CCRC had the most move-ins since 2005. Wow!!! The top four CCRC sales people were highlighted in an honor roll. Each of these people hit their personal move-in goals three quarters in row. The top sales person had 10 CCRC move-ins this last quarter alone. They each spoke about the secret to his or hers success. There were a variety of humble answers, which included: nurturing client relationships over years, persistence, good events continually drawing in new prospective senior residents, increasing the number of repeat tours, studying sales techniques to improve their craft, the housing market improving and the on-going sale training provided. The retreat included: celebrating accomplishing quarterly goals, sales training, best practices discussions, our weekly book review of “How to Win Friends and Influence People,” personal time management to increase database calls and a wonderful breakfast and lunch. The sales people loved having an opportunity to hear best practices and sales experiences from their cohorts at another community. What are you doing to honor your sale people and celebrate success? It is tough having to accept constant rejection on a day-to-day basis. This is what makes senior living sales people extraordinary. Give a shout out to your sales people through this blog and send them a copy. Tell them they are special today. Please share your success, failures...
Are You Harried and Do Your Senior Living Prospects Know?
Every single one of us has had a personal family crisis, health emergency or had a dear friend that it going through a major calamity. Too much drama in our lives can be overwhelming. Then we drive to work at our retirement community and try to leave it all at home…Are you successful? It’s hard…. Some of us have personalities that envision the glass as half full and others see it half empty. Everyone has different strengths and weaknesses. Is your self-talk telling you everything will be all right in the long run or are you only seeing the worst-case scenario? How is this affecting your work? A senior living sales person can get frazzled with numerous sales, move-ins, calls, scheduled tours and reports the administrator or their boss expects them to do. Suddenly a walk-in tour arrives. Do you share your troubles with the prospective resident or keep them to yourself? It is always shocking to me when a stressed senior living sales person shares their personal challenges with a prospective resident. What do they hope to accomplish? The senior came into the retirement community to explore their senior housing options. Now, his or her focus is taken off making a move to your retirement community and it lands on the senior living sales person’s troubles. A senior living sales person can actually sabotage his or her potential sales. This is turn affects occupancy. Is your senior living community’s occupancy down, because of stressed and over-sharing sales people? Have you experienced it? What tips can you share with the rest of us? Please share your success, failures or...
What is a Senior Living Sales Person’s Deepest Desire?
One of the greatest human desires is to be appreciated. A lack of appreciation is the number one reason why a senior living sales person takes a job at another retirement community. Did you know that a person could literally go insane with a lack of appreciation? It’s true! Have you analyzed yourself lately? How are you at appreciating your senior living co-worker, your family or even your spouse? Are you already defending yourself inside your head? I thought that I was doing a good job too, until… my senior living sales teams started a new book review. Yes, we started reading one of the greatest books every written – “How To Win Friends and Influence People,” by Dale Carnegie. Do you have a favorite book that you refer back to every year or two? This book is mine. It suddenly puts me back on track to be a caring human being again. It’s funny how we can get in a rut without knowing we are in a rut. We get so busy and focused on accomplishing the goals that we forget to treat people the way we would wish to be treated. The book suggests highlighting key phrases to refer back to and reading each chapter twice. Here are three great principles that I need to utilize everyday: Don’t criticize, condemn or complain. Give honest and sincere appreciation. Arouse in the other person an eager want. Every single one of my team members commented on how he or she treats a senior living prospective resident better than a co-worker or family. Do you? Do you want to start...
Getting Ahead of the Curve of Senior Living Attrition
Every organization approaches goals a little differently. Some senior living communities set sales and occupancy goals that are never achieved. Each month and year the occupancy dips a little lower with constant resident attrition. How do you get ahead of the curve? Well, someone needs to create a sales and marketing strategic plan for your individual independent living, assisted living, memory care, skilled nursing care or Continuing Care Retirement Community. The plan needs to be implemented and every sales person and operational team member needs to be on board. The focus should be on the simultaneous goals of serving the existing residents and increasing the occupancy with new move-ins. There are twelve keys that I have developed to increase the occupancy of all types of senior housing. Some keys can be implemented immediately for quick results and other keys are a process that can take some time to develop and execute. The bottom line is these twelve keys work and it is my joy to reach 100% occupancy. Here are the keys in a nutshell; the details are contained in my book called Senior Housing Marketing – How To Increase Your Occupancy and Stay Full: Key 1 – Attitude toward Occupancy – Turn Your Change into Dollars Occupancy-driven Marketing Reports that will Wow Your CFO Key 2 – Quit Blabbing! Control the Flow of Information Tip: Five Steps to Controlling the Flow of Information Decreasing Apartment Availability Create Urgency for the Wait List Key 3 – Dare to Differentiate Yourself from Your Competition Keep the Waiting List FULL through Branding Key 4 – Do You Have Proactive or Reactive...
Are Your Senior Living Prospects Dying?
Senior living sales people fall into two different categories: Proactive Reactive Proactive sales people in senior housing call their database – the hot ones, the warm ones and yes even the older cold leads. Reaching out and touching a senior every three to four months can fill your building. Did you know that a senior’s life can change dramatically every six months? It’s true. They may have just been diagnosed with a degenerate disease like Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, diabetes or some type of cancer. Suddenly they realize that they are vulnerable and may need to live in a more supportive environment in the immediate future. A senior who once told you it would be at least five years until they move, can suddenly turn into a one month move-in. For those of you that call your database regularly, your phone call will spur the prospect into moving to your community sooner. For those of you that don’t call your database, you are missing out. That prospect will move somewhere and the community who advertises to them first will probably get the business. Anyone who has been in this business for any length of time has had a prospective resident die. It sucks and you feel horrible for them. Congratulations, you know they died, because you are a proactive sales person. Yesterday, one of my retirement counselors shared that his hottest prospect, he toured last week, had died. He found out after he called and left a message. The woman’s son called him back to say his mom had passed away. The good news was by the end of that same day the...
Surprise Visit to my Mom’s Skilled Nursing Care
I can’t stop thinking about my surprise visit with my mom yesterday. I arrived Sunday afternoon about 2:30 PM to Freedom Village Healthcare Center in California. She was not in her usual places – where was she? A caregiver said, “Oh, your mom is down in the activity room.” I said to my husband Chris, “We really need to pay more attention to the activity calendar, so we don’t visit during those times. I want her to enjoy all the social times and I can visit her when nothing else is going on.” We happened upon the activity calendar and all the activities were done for the day. So what was she doing? As we turned the corner, we saw my mom’s beaming face. She was playing bingo. The caregiver smiled at me and said, “Oh, do you want to take your mom?” I said, “Absolutely not, let her enjoy herself.” It was great to see pure joy – when she said, “Bingo!” What was interesting to me was her interacting with the other residents and helping them play too. My mom has severe vascular dementia. When she speaks it is about 70% non-reality. What a great activity to really stimulate her brain. The caregiver said to me, “We decided to put on a bingo game for them, they like it and it gives them something to do.” Well, bless those two caregivers who created an unscheduled resident activity to help with the resident’s quality of life. This was a huge “Wow” for me and I can’t stop thinking about how happy my mom was. For those of you...
Do Your Senior Living Residents Support Marketing?
Please share in the comment section below – how your residents either support or sabotage the marketing efforts of your senior living community. Are you embarrassed to introduce some of your residents on a tour? Why? Do you fear what some of your residents might tell prospective senior residents? Why? Here is a 5-Step Program to on-board your residents through communication: Dine with key residents to gain their buy-in for marketing. Listen to their stories and build relationships with residents. Create goodwill that will spread through the rest of the community. Speak at the next resident council meeting. Share how important residents are to the marketing effort. Explain how they can help encourage guests to become residents. Teach them the right language to use – such as “community,” not “facility.” Please don’t say, “Do you want to become an inmate in this institution.” (This has seriously happened to me.) Write an article for the next resident newsletter. Have a different theme every month – such as refer your friends and receive $500 on your next monthly bill or thanking them for dining with new residents. Praise supportive residents and how they helped marketing. Create a memo about your next event and post it through your in-house mail system. Residents like to know who and why someone is coming to their home. Invite them to attend the event, if they bring a prospective resident. Apologize to them, if there is not enough room for residents to participate. Start a resident contest for a testimonial – on why they enjoy living at the community. Generate positive energy. Share the top five...Learn More About Senior Housing
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