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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
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...Learn More About Senior Housing
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