Marketing 2 Seniors | The Blog
with Author: Diane Masson
Are Your Over Qualifying Prospective Senior Residents?
Sometimes there is tremendous pressure from management to make sure a prospective senior has the financial resources in order to move into your retirement community.
First, engage the customer and make sure they are in love with the lifestyle and connect with what your senior living community has to offer, before you start grinding on them for financial specifics. Build Value First or Your Senior Prospects Will Run Away!
Even savvy seniors can disqualify themselves. They consider themselves poor even though they have a mortgage-free home to sell, social security, a pension, possibly an annuity, about 30% have long-term care insurance, IRA’s and of course some type of savings. Many seniors have worked with an attorney to set up a trust and now have limited their resources. Sometimes these seniors have to get financial permission from the trust in order to move into your retirement community.
Keep financial qualifying loose, until the senior is really excited about moving into your community. For example, you may be a Continuing Care Retirement Community that requires twice the entrance fee in assets and 1 ½ times of the monthly fee in income. Say something more friendly like: “Each person (couple) is unique, some seniors have more assets and less monthly income and other seniors have high monthly incomes and are a little lower on the assets. Generally we are looking for 1½ times to 2 times the entrance fee in assets and 1½ to 2 times the monthly fee in monthly income. Many things are considered assets like rental income or long term care insurance.” Then shut up…or you can lose the sale.
Let them speak next…if you have built a trust relationship, they should open up and start sharing their assets and monthly incomes. Most people sitting in front of you qualify. It is very unusual if they don’t. Please make a note that many children can pay the needed difference too. Always remember to build value for your senior living community first!
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 Blog: http://marketing2seniors.net/blog/
Burnt Pizza Can Be Like Senior Housing – Does this describe your Community?
At the Seattle airport, Wolfgang Puck had some beautiful pizzas in the display window. I ordered one and mine was well done – almost burnt. Should I have taken it back? I ate it. It was good enough…then when I walked by the display window again…I had to look…the display had a burnt pizza. Why would anyone showcase burnt anything? If you make pizzas, how hard is it to make them perfect (I was in the pizza business for 3 years early in my career)?
How are you showcasing your retirement community? How is your phone being answered? Is it answered within one or two rings? When guests arrive at your community how are they greeted? Does the receptionist stand to greet them? Are guests offered water on hot days and coffee on cold days?
Are first impressions a priority for your organization? Or is everything good enough? Is your 85% to 90% occupancy good enough? What would it take to go to 95% or 100%? How are you differentiating yourself from your competitors? Is everyone in the neighborhood, just getting by and just good enough? Why not stand out from the senior housing pack and go above and beyond? How about exceeding expectations? What about giving a WOW experience?
What does it take to give a WOW experience? Sometimes it is only a 5% to 10% difference, but it takes a team approach! Some communities are making changes and watching the occupancy grow! What is making the difference?
1) Pull in the driveway of your community with the eyes of a customer on a regular basis.
2) Have someone mystery shop your community to find out how guests are greeted by telephone and in person.
3) Offer refreshments to guests.
4) Find out what the prospect’s needs are and why they came today.
5) Listen!!
6) Ask open ended questions to discovery their needs, wants and desires.
7) Listen!!
8) Invite them on a tour tailored to their needs.
9) Every staff they encounter needs to be smiling and welcoming to them.
10) Introduce prospective residents to key staff.
11) Check in with them to see if what you are showing them addresses their needs and if they can picture themselves or their family member living at your senior living community.
12) Ask for the deposit and determine next steps…don’t be pushy…it is in their best interest to have a plan for his or her future, so the children will not have to put them some place in a crisis situation.
Your senior living community has a choice to be the best you can be with first impressions or just be good enough – an almost burnt pizza…
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 Blog: http://marketing2seniors.net/blog/
Which Internet Lead Referral Company Provides the Most Value?
When all the smoke and thunder blows away, which company can provide me the best quality leads that will increase my occupancy immediately? Keep reading for the answer. I was shocked to find out in my research how many Internet leads a senior housing community has to go through in order to get two sales – the answer can be about 100!
This is my third article regarding researching senior housing Internet referral companies. All the major players do a pretty good job of differentiating themselves from each other. Some companies seem to do a better job of identifying and targeting qualified leads than others. Some have great web sites, live care advisors, blogs or have fantastic placement on the Internet. A majority of the legitimate leads tend to need some help with the activities of daily living.
Pay Per Move In – In talking with a lot of administrators, in a variety of senior housing options, they tend to shy away from paying an entire month of rent for a move-in. It is a big chunk of change and I have personally experienced several bad outcomes with this choice. One challenge was when we offered the 2nd month free to get move-ins. The Internet company received one months rent, we gave the 2nd month away for free and the residents moved out at the end of the 2nd month. Yes, it cost us money to have these people live at our assisted living community.
I have also had great results with pay-per-move-in in the past, including increasing sales by 10% per month with straight independent living or assisted living rental properties. The key was working the leads immediately, because the Internet lead company would send the same lead to 5 or more of my competitors. The retirement community who called the lead first won and he who followed up two or three times also won.
Monthly Subscription – Monthly subscription Internet leads are not as high quality, because no live person filters them. About the only advantage I can see, is your community will be included in the paid search field at the top or side of a Google search (within that referral source). This will run you about $150 or more a month for this benefit.
Pay Per Lead – The companies that provide pay-per-lead have a wide variety of outcomes depending on their level of filtering the leads. You will pay $35 to $50 per lead with results ranging from 2% to 8% turning into move-ins. This means that every 50 leads your company calls will turn into a sale in the worse case scenario. The average for one company was about 4% or one sale in every 25 leads. One company claimed that the best quality sales people could produce one sale out of every 12 leads. Why the discrepancy? They said that lead results were better for those sales forces that proactively used quick follow up when the lead was received and then continued with multiple attempts of connecting with the prospective resident. I have found this to be 100% true with those I coach.
So the bottom line is the better the sales people, the lower the cost per lead. Internet leads come in, then sales people are supposed to turn them into tours, so they can become sales and finally become a move-in. What can you do if your sales people don’t manage leads effectively and you need to increase your occupancy now? A couple ideas would be to hire a sales coach or have stricter monitoring and management of metrics to set goals in your sales lead tracking system, both of which would help to increase existing performance on all your leads.
Pay Per Tour – There’s a new model that I’ve recently come across, pay per tour, which seems to address the efficiency and ROI challenges of all the existing models. This model addresses the lead efficiency issue that I’ve seen with some companies managing Internet leads while getting a reasonable effective cost per move-in.
It’s a new program being launched by Seniors for Living and based on their preliminary data they show an average of a move-in for every 4 to 7 tours (depending on the community).
The cost is around $400 per tour, so if my sales people provided great tours, an Internet move-in would only cost me around $2000. This would save me the hardest and most time-consuming part of the sale process which is following up the lead and qualification to get to the tour. I have spent 14 years in senior housing and have trained hundreds of sales people on how to turn inquiries on the telephone into great senior living tours so I know what it takes to get to a tour.
This pay per tour sounds like it will be the best approach, particularly for those retirement communities with sales teams already spread thin from their other sales activities. As part of my researching for this blog series and speaking with Seniors for Living I have begun working with them on their advisor training to help them refine their process to generate a better tour and the best overall experience for prospects and communities. Since this is a new approach I’m eager to see how this works with wider use by more senior living communities.
I look forward to hearing your feedback on all these models. What’s your experience?
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 Blog: http://marketing2seniors.net/blog/
I’m Not Ready Yet!!!!
When you hear a senior prospect or family member say these words – what runs through your mind first? How do you respond? Do you believe them? At every encounter with a prospective resident, someone always buys the popcorn – either the sales person or the senior!
Recently, I was going through some retirement community’s databases and lead after lead after lead had a “NRY” as the number one response in the notes. I had to ask, “What is “NRY”?” The retirement counselors in unison said, “Not ready yet.” I thought quietly to myself, “Why the heck would anyone put such a negative assertion in his or her database?” The next time they look at the lead, they are going to immediately think that it’s a crappy lead.
I believe that every lead is great! If someone hangs up on me, the prospective resident is just having a bad day. I have actually called these back again and they have been receptive, come in for a tour and eventually moved in.
When someone says they are not ready yet, do you blow the person off like I see some sales people do? Are you just looking for a quick sale on a silver platter or a 30-day move-in? Well then you are missing a ton of sales and this is why the occupancy is down at your retirement community. Real sales people know that persistence pays off. I have called people every month for one year and then they turned into a sale! Those can be the most gratifying sales!
Do you have a Negative Nellie working your precious (expensive) senior housing leads that could be potential move-ins? Believing Betty understands that each lead could be worth thousands of dollars and calls with enthusiasm and passion. The customer needs to hear us smiling through the phone and feel our energy and excitement when they arrive in person. We need to believe in our leads and keep calling them back…
When someone says they are not ready yet, they are one fall or one diagnosis away from suddenly wanting to move immediately. Don’t schedule the next call for one year away, because it’s not the golden goose quick sale. Understand the frailty of the senior customer and schedule to call them on a quarterly basis or your competition will get this move-in instead of you!
So when a senior tells me that they are not ready yet…this is great…they are interested for the future. The first thought that runs through my mind is: I need to educate them more about the lifestyle! The second thought I have is: What did I miss saying? Did I build enough value for health services? After I learned about them through discovery, did I tailor the tour to their needs? I need to fill the retirement community today, one year from now and 5 years from now! So if someone wants to wait a year or two, no problem… my positive contact with them can speed up their decision. Then when they suddenly want to move in, whom will they think of first? Well, the nice lady on the phone who was never pushy and always had their best interests at heart…of course!
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 Blog: http://marketing2seniors.net/blog/
Trying to Evaluate Senior Housing Internet Referral Choices?
Every one of us is so busy in senior living sales and marketing. Some of you are pure sales and others are juggling marketing with sales. With walk-ins, tours, and phone inquiries happening constantly, who has time to research Internet exposure and lead referral companies? Maybe I can help…I have been looking into this for a few weeks and have learned a lot.
You can do “Pay for Click,” which means you buy high placement for key words that show up in a Google search. Ever wonder how companies get in the colored box at the top of the screen with a Google search or have placement on the right hand side of your screen? Every time someone clicks on that link, you pay, no matter what. If someone is looking for a job, the phone number to your community to talk to a resident or simply click but have no interest, it can cost you 50 cents to $5.00 or more. When I looked into it, there were almost 400 versions of the keywords independent living, senior living and senior housing. The cost was going to be almost $1000 a month for a ten-mile radius. Are you kidding me? They had not even included key words such as assisted living, skilled nursing care or a Continuing Care Retirement Community yet!
Another easier choice for those of us in senior housing seems to be the Internet lead referral companies. They buy all the clicks and key words, so they take all the risk. Most of them have a live person talking to the inquiries, so by the time we get the lead at our community, we may have a viable person who is interested in our senior living community.
There are three main types of Internet lead referral companies:
- Pay after a move-in
- Pay-per-lead
- Monthly subscription
The quality varies through my experience depending on which company you select and your type of senior housing. There are pluses and minuses to all three choices. The plus to paying after a move-in is, obviously, paying for performance only. The minus is this can be the most expensive option with the cost generally being one month of rent. Pay-per-lead companies charge between $35-$45 a lead. The plus is that most of the companies have a person confirming which type of senior housing the prospect is interested in and making sure they understand it is private pay. The down side is most of them have around a 2% conversion rate into a sale. Monthly subscriptions can charge around $150 a month, so the cost is good, but they don’t have a live person filtering the leads, so you can receive a lot more garbage leads.
One benefit of all Internet referral companies is finding their sites in the paid search boxes on Google. People searching online have hit key words regarding senior housing and start exploring their options through Internet referral sources. You can add photos, videos, a description of your community, prices, floor plans and some Internet referral sources even link back to your website or your social media.
So what’s the purpose of adding Internet leads into your marketing mix? More people are finding senior housing online than ever before and when someone is doing a search online – you want to be found.
Check back in a couple of weeks and I will be sharing which Internet lead referral companies I believe are the most effective and the best value for the money spent.
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 Blog: http://marketing2seniors.net/blog/
Choosing Rental Versus Entrance Fees in Senior Housing
Many seniors or adult boomer children looking for housing struggle to understand the difference between selecting a month-to-month rental choice vs. selecting an entrance fee at a Continuing Care Retirement Community. I have seen people create excel spreadsheets in order to understand what may have better financial implications in the long run for their family member.
A couple of key question to ask yourself in your search for senior housing are:
- How long do you plan to live? (I know it’s a tough question, but are you living a healthy lifestyle now? The age of parents at death can be a small factor, but how you treat your body with exercise and eating healthy is considered a key to aging well now.)
- Do you have long-term care insurance? (Having it can be considered an asset, but it comes with an expensive monthly fee and some policies have limits of two or three years of maximum care in a skilled nursing center. Older policies do not include in-home care or assisted living, so check your policy.)
- Can your savings and assets survive, if you and/or your spouse needed assisted living or skilled nursing care for 5 or more years?
The average cost of Skilled Nursing Care on a national basis runs between $6,500 and month and $9,500 a month according to a national Metlife survey. Why is this cost important? Because this is a cost that can quickly wipe out your savings account.
Month-to-month retirement community rentals offer no protection for the future…what if you live there for eleven years and run out of assets? If you can’t make your monthly fee – you would be asked to leave period. There is no long-term contract with you. We have all read articles in the newspaper talking about someone spending $300,000 plus at a rental community over the years and then being turned away because they ran out of assets. You might be asking yourself – could this really happen to someone?
Well, my own mother ran out of her resources after living in a Continuing Care Retirement Community for eleven years. She had not anticipated living in a higher level of care for three plus years. It was horrible when her annuity and assets shrank and she was unable to pay the full monthly payment at her Assisted Living. The great news is that she was not asked to leave. Her Continuing Care Retirement Community in Seattle had never asked anyone to leave because of financial reasons. What a relief for my mom and my family…
Many Continuing Care Retirement Communities offer a guarantee of care for the rest of your life, if you outlive your resources. What incredible peace of mind this provides for residents and their family members. Yes, this guarantee comes with the price of an entrance fee and those vary nationally. I represent a Continuing Care Retirement community in California, whose entrance fees start at $55,000. What a reasonable price, it’s less than the cost of one year of Skilled Nursing Care… Plus, when a resident pays an entrance fee, the monthly fees at Continuing Care Retirement Communities tend to be much lower than month-to-month rentals.
What are your thoughts on rentals versus entrance fees?
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 Blog: http://marketing2seniors.net/blog/
Interviewing 5 Internet Lead Choices – To Increase the Occupancy!
All the big players in senior housing have a budget for Internet leads. With all the Internet lead companies vying for your dollar – how do you choose? We all want to get the best bang for our buck – and we want results – move-ins now!
Pew research has indicated that 50% of seniors are online users now and that 70% of web savvy seniors get online every single day. Baby boomer adult children are surfing the web researching options for their aging parents. Is your online presence strong?
This month I am going on a search to determine which senior housing Internet lead referral companies can bring the best the results for some companies I represent. My strategy is to interview 5 of the top national players who provide senior housing leads.
This is what I want to learn:
- What’s better – paying a full month’s rent for a move-in or individually paying for Internet leads?
- How many Internet leads does it take for a move in?
- What kinds of filters do they provide, so my leads are the best quality?
- If a lead is no good, do I still have to pay?
- Will too many garbage Internet leads discourage my salespeople?
- If the Internet lead person moves in and then moves out in two months, do I still have to pay a full months rent?
- For Independent Living and Assisted Living leads, how are the leads income qualified, so I don’t end up with low-income or senior apartment leads?
- Can they find entrance fee applicants for a Continuing Care Retirement Community, so I don’t end up with just rental leads?
The typical senior housing marketing mix results can now include: 20% or more of move-ins being sourced as Internet leads. At one time, I represented 14 properties that eventually had over 20% of their sales volume coming from Internet leads. There is no question that the quality of Internet leads varies. Many sales people dislike Internet leads because they think they are all garbage. Every lead needs to be treated as a viable lead. I have had to sell my sales people on how to properly utilize Internet leads, in order to increase move-ins. The challenge was having them believe in the quality of the lead, so the staff would treat them as hot leads. Quick response and follow up were the keys and the results were dramatic! The occupancy started to rise quickly with proper use of Internet leads…
Stay tuned for my results…if you were going to interview 5 Internet lead referral companies, what would be your top considerations?
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 Blog: http://marketing2seniors.net/blog/
4 Things That Can Make Your Senior Living Sales Team Olympians!
1) A great Olympic attitude – every single day! The attitude of a senior living sales person can literally increase or decrease your occupancy. Every gold medalist Olympian has an amazing story of adversity that they overcame with a great attitude. Some of the new Olympians even gave up on their sport for a year or more and then came back to win with a positive team spirit and an amazing coach! Does the senior living sales coach at your organization have a winning attitude that is contagious to the team? Can you feel the energy in the office and at your retirement community marketing events?
2) Believing like an Olympian in the community with 100% conviction! If the targeted occupancy goal is 95 percent at your assisted living and you are running at 90 percent, 85 percent, or less, how can you function under this pressure? How can you keep this stressor out of your interactions with the customer? Are you Unbelieving Ursula—wringing your hands and scratching your head? Or are you Believing Betty—charming prospects by painting a pretty picture of their potential lifestyle in your amazing community?
3) Having the work ethic of an Olympian! Move-ins don’t happen without follow up calls and tours period. Are you personal texting and chatting with residents or making 15 to 20 calls a day – EVERY DAY! This will result in a minimum of 5 tours a week! With enough potential residents walking in the door of your Continuing Care Retirement Community, it’s just a matter of them recognizing that your community is the best! Olympic senior living sales people ALWAYS ask for the deposit at every single appointment!
4) Emulating a selfless attitude like an Olympian! One hundred percent of the marketing team’s focus should be listening to customers and understanding their needs. This information is helpful in customizing your retirement community’s features and services to satisfy those needs. There’s no greater fulfillment in life than to help other people improve their lives. If you bring this attitude to every appointment, and there are enough people walking through your doors, occupancy will take care of itself. Many sales people believe their work is more than a job. They consider it a social service or a ministry. These folks are making a difference in the world, building one relationship at a time. Are you this type of senior housing marketer?
Your prospective customers will feel your Olympic attitude and passion. This alone will intrigue them and keep communication progressing with strength. They know intuitively if you are looking out for their best interests or merely want to fill the building for a commission. Your verbal and nonverbal communication in a customer meeting says it all. If you’re listening 100 percent, you don’t have time to talk about yourself. Every word that comes out of your mouth will be for the prospective resident’s benefit.
Please share how you or your senior living team is performing to a gold medal standard of excellence!
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.netBlog: http://marketing2seniors.net/blog/
The Benefits of a Weekly Marketing Book Review in Senior Living!
Does your team need to recharge their enthusiasm? Has the marketing team gotten off track? Do you need to sharpen your sales techniques?
Try a weekly marketing book review. Whether your senior living team is one sales person and the executive director or your team consists of three to six marketing people, it’s time to get the creative juices flowing again! If a sales team is not learning and growing, it becomes complacent and stagnant.
First, select a book to review. There are lots of great choices out there. Look around on Amazon.com, ask your sales people for ideas or get suggestions at senior housing conferences. My marketing teams are currently reading “Senior Housing Marketing – How to Increase Your Occupancy and Stay Full,” by Diane Twohy Masson. (Yes, this is my book.) We have completed four chapters in five weeks. Our next book review conference call is chapter five scheduled for Tuesday.
It has been wonderful to watch the teams grow together. Participants include entrance fee sales people for independent living in Continuing Care Retirement Communities, assisted living marketers and skilled nursing admissions. They come from five areas and as the weeks progress the team members feel freer to share what has worked or has not worked in their area and other team members benefit from their experience.
We have had some great discussions including how many calls (in the existing database) it takes to get X amount of tours or people coming to the community for events. Best practice numbers for one team member were 157 voice-to-voice calls in 3 weeks, which resulted in 23 families coming into view the community. These are great numbers and after the call, other team members started asking for help on how to do this themselves. It seemed to bring out a natural – healthy – competiveness amongst the team.
Everyone starts thinking team and has a better understanding of the goals, because they are discussed at the weekly book review meeting (if you have multiple teams – do a conference call). Executive directors, regional marketing directors and directors of sales and marketing in senior housing often assume that everyone on the team knows the goals. Maybe they do or maybe they don’t. Why not review the goals weekly during your team book review? The number one goal is to have 100% occupancy, but what do they need to do this day or week in order to hit that goal this month or this year? Break it down for them and be their coach and mentor during the book review…try it… it works like a charm!
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 Blog: http://marketing2seniors.net/blog/
Do You Educate the Customer on Senior Housing & Healthcare Choices?
It’s always beneficial to become the customer’s friend by being a resource for all senior living information. Learn your market choices and share as much information as possible, so the senior or their family can make a good decision.
It’s always good to ask the prospect, if they have just started exploring their options or find out if they are further along into research mode. Seniors and baby boomer adult children, who are just starting out, often need some basic information. How you present it, depends on what senior housing option you represent. When people are making a move, it’s always a good idea to figure out the costs of future health care, home maintenance and services (such as dining, 24-hour emergency call system and housekeeping).
1) One option is for seniors to stay in their own home. Some seniors choose to live with children or have their adult children live with them. This is a great option if someone’s son or daughter is a repair person, great cook and willing to drive them to doctor appointments, when they are not able to drive.
2) Staying at home with home healthcare. Home healthcare can provide a qualified person who can help with medication management and assist with the activities of daily living. Costs average $21 an hour on a national basis, which can quickly turn into $15,000 a month with full time care.
3) Moving into a condo provides for most of the maintenance, repairs, home upkeep and yard work. It can come with home owner’s association (HOA’s) dues of $300 – $1500 a month.
4) Independent living – retirement communities, who offer one level of care, can have strict health requirements, but many communities are allowing in-home care to people’s apartments so they can remain in residence longer. In-home care averages $19 an hour nationally, so just 8 hours of help a day can add up to over $4700 a month. The $4700 a month would be in addition to the monthly rental fee. It varies by state, if the in-home care has licensing and trained staff requirements.
5) Independent living – retirement communities, who offer two levels of care, may or may not have stringent health requirements. If they offer both independent living and assisted living, they tend to be less strict, because they can provide services for two levels of care. The disadvantage is that independent seniors are living with frailer neighbors. Research the cost of independent living and the cost of assisted living (find out what is included with the rent – is any care included – or is care all added on separately?). These prices vary depending on how many meals and services are provided.
6) If seniors wait too long to move when they are independent, they can move directly into an assisted living community, where they can enjoy 3 meals a day and 24-hour care support. Some assisted living communities charge one all-inclusive rate and others charge extra for bathing assistance, medication management, incontinence care, etc. Assisted Living basic rent costs between $2100 and $5700 a month on a national level with bigger rooms and additional care costing more. In Washington State, I personally knew people that paid $9000 a month for heavy assisted living services.
7) Skilled nursing care or rehab is something that people never select as a choice. Typically something happened to the senior that caused a hospital stay and their doctor recommends that they recover in a Medicare certified skilled nursing care or rehabilitation center. This is 24-hour skilled nursing care and can be a short-term stay for a few weeks or a month. Long-term care residents typically cannot get out of bed on their own and live in this environment on a permanent basis. Costs can run nationally between $128 and $678 a day for semi-private room. I have typically seen daily costs in the mid-$200’s for a semi-private room and up to mid-$400 for a private suite on the West Coast.
8) Continuing care retirement communities (CCRC’s) have health and financial thresholds that must be met, in order to move-in. A large number of CCRC organizations, through their foundations, may offer a guarantee of care for the rest of the senior’s life. This can be a powerful choice, to know that if something happened to a senior’s finances that they would have care for life. CCRC’s typically offer independent living, assisted living and skilled nursing care, all on the same campus. A one time entrance fee is usually requested that can run anywhere from $60,000 to over $2 million. A percentage of the entrance fee can be refundable back to someone’s estate. There are many varieties of returnable options. The monthly fees of CCRC’s are typically lower than month-to-month rentals for the same square footage.
There are a variety of qualities for all the above choices. Learn your area’s choices and help be an educational resource to the customer. They will appreciate you more and hopefully select your retirement community. Encourage seniors to choose wisely, it’s not just about price, but the quality of services and care that are provided. A good question to ask a prospect would be: What senior housing option gives them the most peace of mind?
Every town, city and state has different pricing. My national price quotes came from: http://www.metlife.com/mmi/research/2011-market-survey-long-term-care-costs.html#findings
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: @market2seniorsWeb: www.marketing2seniors.netBlog: http://marketing2seniors.net/blog/
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