It would be very easy to treat all employees and co-workers the same.  We could just use one way to evaluate, one way to reward and one way to motivate.  However, that is a recipe for disaster, as the office place is a diverse cross section of society.  People who differ in background, age, values, goals and everything else you can think of are motivated and react to the same treatment in as many different ways as there are people.  To be effective in running a business or department or to flourish in your position, you must get to know everybody and appreciate what makes them tick. 

Here are some of the types to look for and what motivates them (in general, as there are combinations):

The Eager Beaver – always looking to advance and take on new challenges.  Sometimes need to be slowed down to make sure they accomplish current goals in an exemplary manner.   While they want to advance, they need to know that it needs to be earned.  Find out the motivation for their eagerness.  Is it financial gain, career advancement, easy boredom?  Knowing this can help you manage them in the long run and set their path effectively. 

The puppy dog – always needs a pat on the head (not literally, you could risk a lawsuit).  Set their goals clearly and make sure to acknowledge accomplishments with verbal praise and public recognition.  If they are not getting the praise, you will know it and make sure you can explain why and what they need to improve.

The company soldier – a great employee.  Self-motivated and always working toward the common good of the company.   Will take on things and run with them.  Work with them to make sure they don’t take on too much and get burned out.  Don’t take them for granted and think they are fine and don’t need your attention.  They are the future of your organization!

The clock puncher – good, solid employees that just want to do a good job, but aren’t looking to move up.  They take pride in their job, but are happy where they are.  These people are your bricks.  Work to improve their skills and give them new responsibilities when possible, but don’t worry about their lack of upward mobility.  Every company needs this group. They are reliable and will take care of the day-to-day.

The defensive specialist – always takes things personally and get defensive.  Can interpret even the simplest of instructions as an attack on them.  Try to work with them face-to-face instead of via e-mail so there is not mistake in your message.  Be very exact with instructions or constructive criticism.

The distracted – the cell phone rings, the internet and e-mail beckon, carpool is waiting, kids have projects, plus, they have a job.  Set parameters on what is acceptable.  Monitor them closely until distractions are reigned in.  Other employees will see how much time they spend doing other things and will feel they are entitled to the same. 

The dead weight – exactly that.  Make sure you have accurately assessed and given them time and knowledge to improve, but when it’s a lost cause, you cannot afford to keep them around.  It’s not fun to dump dead weight, but the entire company’s success depends on doing just that in a timely manner.

These are just a few of the types of employees and co-workers found in today’s office jungle.  As a manager, it’s crucial to understand each of them and know how to motivate, reward, etc.

The sooner you recognize that there can be no cookie cutter approach, the sooner you will improve your skills and make your company a more efficient, more enjoyable place workplace.  df

Last week, New LifeStyles unveiled our new website “look and feel” featuring a clean, easy to navigate home page, search function and book ordering page.  It is designed to be both an efficient vehicle for our advertisers to get great exposure and an easy-to-use, informative source of valuable information and quality housing, care and services for seniors, their families and caregivers.

Below some of the new or improved features on the site:

• The look of the home page.  Simple and clean, the user can easily see the benefits of the site, can start a search immediately or order a guide in a very short amount of time.  Other subsidiary features of the site are easy to navigate and the home page gives you a quick, to the point explanation of our mission and purpose.
• There are less questions on forms, this will lead to more completed forms and quality information for advertisers.
• The site has ties to our social media campaign and gives the user more options to share ads and information on the site with friends and family.
• The registration process has been moved to the end of the site so the user can see the benefits of registering before going through the process.  The registration form is also shortened, which should lead to more registrations and online leads.
• There are more methods for the user to save searches, giving the site more “stickiness”
• Advertiser features, such as links, tours, featured ads, etc are more strongly highlighted, making these options clearer to the user and driving more traffic to advertiser sites, features, etc.
• As always, any advertiser can log-in to check traffic, leads and more.

We invite you to visit and perform a search, check your community or company information.  Then, shoot us an e-mail and let us know your thoughts.   Thanks!   Doug

When you receive a call, e-mail or visit from a potential new resident or client you focus on selling your community or service, getting all the important facts and benefits to the person and then setting up a plan for the next step in the process.  Sound, basic strategy that should be used by you, your marketing team and all individuals working with potential new clients or residents.  But, do you include listening and observing in your strategy?  Gathering useful nuggets that can help you improve your next tour or your approach with the next inquiry?  You should, as you might be able to learn something from every interfacing you have with a prospective new resident/client and their family.

Here are some things to observe/listen for when receiving a call or e-mail, guiding a tour or meeting with a senior and/or their loved ones:

1. What questions do you receive via e-mail?  Are these answers that should be on your site or marketing materials and if they are there, do they need to be emphasized? 
2. Listen to the tone of the caller.  Are they stressed and rushed?  Are they more in an information gathering mode?  Try to glean this from the conversation to help you determine the timing of your next step.  Can you answer all questions?  If not, are the answers easily accessible?
3. Write down some of the questions asked by callers and e-mailers.  Go over these with other individuals that come in contact with prospective new clients or residents.  Make sure they are consistent and confident with their answers.   Most of all, make sure your community or business has the right answers.  If not, do your programs need to be expanded?  Does the meal plan need to be updated?  Is it time to upgrade your common areas, rooms or computer systems?  If it’s important to the client, it better be important to you and your staff.
4. When touring your community, where do people pause and really their surroundings?  When looking at a specific room or apartment unit, what details do they spend time on?  What rooms are gone over in detail?  What questions are they asking?  Listen for emotional shifts after a question or tour of a specific area.  Follow-up questions after your answers are very important.  Does their pace pick-up or questions cease after a certain point?  Remember where this happened, as something may have turned them off to your community or business.  Don’t be afraid to ask.
5. When talking to current residents as part of a tour, observe the interfacing between current and prospective residents.  That’s where the little details that are important may come out.  Also, listen to the answers of your residents.  You may sense underlying issues with them or things that need to be improved if their answers are short and evasive.  They might not say something negative, but their body language and hesitation may speak volumes.

While the primary goal of a tour, consultation, phone call or e-mail response is to succinctly present the selling points and lead to the next step toward closing the sale, don’t forget to be planning for future marketing plans, looking for ways to improve your community or honing your presentation to prospective residents or clients.  Listen and observe, you’ll see and hear volumes!

At New LifeStyles we offer 3 different kinds of leads. I‘ve recently been asked a few times to clarify the lead types, so thought I’d outline here:

LifeStyles Leads (E-Leads) – These leads consist of people who order the New LifeStyles guide, online, via phone, and sometimes even with an old fashioned letter. When we have interaction with those ordering, we qualify them by asking a few questions like for whom they will use the guide, immediacy of need, type of housing/care wanted, geographic area of interest, etc… We do not require answers to these questions, so some leads do not contain all requested data, but we do our best to get the data & pass everything we get to the advertiser. Leads are sent to the full page advertisers in the guide ordered. In other words, everyone who orders a Dallas guide will go out as a lead to the full-page advertisers in the Dallas guide. Leads go our nightly via email. If you don’t get leads one night, don’t panic, there may not have been any orders for that guide that day. I strongly recommend that the person receiving these leads review them before contacting these leads. If the person is looking for a nursing home in Dallas, there is no reason for a retirement community in Ft. Worth to contact them. This is a waste of everyone’s time & resources. Also pay attention to their chosen method of contact. If someone asks to be emailed, don’t call them unless it’s a follow-up call after an initial contact. Even if the preferred method of contact is not listed, if the person ordered online & listed an email address, you may want to reach out to them via email first. Put yourself in their position of getting a call from someone you’ve never contacted. “How did you get my name & information?” Reach out in stages.

Online Leads – These leads consist of people who have registered on our website (not required) and have then done a search to bring up your online listing. Again, we ask some qualifying questions and pass all of the information on to you. To be eligible for these leads, you must purchase an online option. Again, these people have not specifically requested information on your community/service, but the lead includes the search that person performed on our site. So if they searched all levels of care in a large area, they may just be looking for some general info. If they continued to narrow your search and your services match their searches, then reach out. The lead will also note if it is a return visitor which could indicate a hot lead returning for further information. Again, I suggest contacting these people via email initially since they are apparently doing online research and comfortable in that arena.

Information Request Form Leads – These are about the hottest leads you can get! These are people contacting you thru an email form on your ad for specific information, like rates, dietary concerns, pet policies, etc… To get these leads, an advertiser must purchase an online Information Request Form (included in our Preferred Position Package). All emails from the form will then be sent directly to that advertiser.

As with all leads, all need to be handled in a timely manner with respect to the end user. A lady in FL ordered one of our guides four years ago. Per our privacy policy, her name went out to certain advertisers. She was ok with this, but what she is not ok with is even after requesting to have her name removed from the potentials list, one community in that area continues to send her information to this day. She not only doesn’t want to move there, but does not have good things to say about this community, which equates to bad word of mouth for them on top of the waste of time & money. So keep your lead pipeline clean and use these leads to their full potential to get the most ROI from your ads with New LifeStyles.

New LifeStyles follows a strick posted Privacy Policy regarding dissemination of personal information.

In many situations, people’s first reaction to a perceived problem is to find a way to throw some money at it.  When trying to generate increased traffic, leads and consequently new residents or clients this might mean investing in additional advertising avenues or increasing your spending with current print and online channels.  Before you do this, step back and invest time in reviewing and improving your current internal systems.  Make sure to look at the following, for starters:

“Lead Entry Points” – Potential residents and clients can walk through the door, call you on the phone, e-mail through your site or a portal that houses your information, or even ask any member of your company questions at a grocery store.  Make sure you identify all of the people that come in contact with leads.  Give them firm guidance on questions to ask.  Along with personal data, needs, timing and contact information identify the source of the lead and carefully track these sources.   This will allow you to make sure you are spending your dollars in an efficient way.  It’s great to get the lead, but it’s huge to know the origin.  Your advertising dollars may be paying off and you won’t know until you stop and the leads dry up.  Don’t let this information get lost in your hurry to get them in the door for a tour or consult.

“Get them to the right person” – In a lot of cases, the person receiving the lead will be responsible for taking them through the process.  If not, make sure all entry points know where the lead should be directed.   This MUST be done in a timely manner, as competition is fierce.  Everyone is very busy and those not directly involved in the marketing process have other priorities.  Give clear guidance on how to process leads quickly and get them to the right person, while still maintaining tracking of the leads.  Make it simple, but stress the importance.  A lead is a terrible thing to waste!  If there is a way to financially incent all involved, do it!   It is a worthwhile investment.  There are many lead tracking systems in the market.  Most can fit into your budget and will help you track crucial marketing information.

“Close the File” – Make sure every lead is closed.   It’s easy to figure out what to do with the information of a lead the turns into a client.   What do we do with the rest of them?  Are they planning for the future?   Get them in the system as a follow-up with the correct timeframe and contact.  Do they have even the slightest future potential?  Put them on a newsletter mailing list or other method for future contact.  When certain a lead is no longer a “live”, purge it from your system.  It makes it easier to deal with quality leads and avoid making a bad impression through sending “spam” to uninterested parties.

We are all trying to do more with less these days.  As such, we must maximize our assets, which in many cases means training all involved in the process and updating systems that are in place, without investing additional dollars.  Before making drastic changes in spending, invest time in reviewing and upgrading what is already in place.  Whether you are a small home health provider or large retirement or care community, it’s worth the investment.

With Phil seeing his shadow, the forecast calls for six more weeks of winter.  But, here at New LifeStyles, we have a lot going on to warm things up.  During February, we will be unveiling our upgraded web site, a new edition of our newsletter, an animated, interactive media kit and much more.

• Around mid-month, look for the “new” NewLifeStyles.com!  A great new look, with new features, a slick design that is very user friendly with clear directives that will make finding your community or business simple.  It will clearly present your information, links, tours and more!  Please spend some time on the site and let us know what you think.
• The latest edition of the New LifeStyles E-Newsletter should hit your inbox by February 20^th.  Look for informative articles, helpful tidbits and more.   If you would like to contribute and article or sponsor a future newsletter, let us know and we will send you statistics on the newsletter and rates.  Don’t receive our newsletter?  Send us your e-mail and we’ll add you to the distribution.
• If you are interested in knowing more about both the print and online advertising options at New LifeStyles, we have a new animated, interactive media kit now up on our web site.  After reviewing everything available, you can contact us for closing deadlines, rates, statistics and more.

 The following print guides close in February:

• Nevada – focusing on the Las Vegas area and greater Reno
• Portland and Seattle – these two guides cover the extensive options available in the Northwest
• Connecticut/Rhode Island – with extensive distribution over both states
• Oklahoma – concentrating on the fine options available in Oklahoma City and Tulsa
• Atlanta – a great resource for the Atlanta area and surrounding counties, with great distribution and market presence

For more information, contact us immediately!

New LifeStyles.com presents these new online tours:

• Isle at Watermere in Southlake, TX (assisted living)
• Cottages at Chandler Creek in Round Rock, TX (Alzheimer’s/Dementia care)
• Fairwinds – West Hills, California (retirement/assisted living)

Take a look at these and see if a reasonably priced online tour can help your marketing efforts.

New LifeStyles took more than 10 newly designed or re-designed website live in January.  To get the lastest information on our web design division, friend New LifeStyles on Facebook , connect with us on LinkedIn, or follow us on Twitter.

It’s going to be a great month at New LifeStyles, we hope it will be a great month for you, too!

Doug

Here at New LifeStyles, we plan on bringing you relevant information, advice and guidance that can help you in your quest to effectively and efficiently reach your marketing demographic and increase you leads and sales.

We will tap experts to contribute to the blog and pass along valuable articles and links that will increase your knowledge, save you time and even entertain at times.

What type of content will you find here?  A lot of that depends on what we hear from you, as this blog is a service to our partners.

Some of the areas we will cover:

• Trends in print and electronic media
• New advertising options that will help increase your exposure and traffic
• Maximizing the effectiveness of your marketing pieces
• News from the industry and world we operate in that effects how we are doing business and how we will need to do business in the future
• Contributions from experts on senior housing, care, products and services passing along their advice on important topics
• Statistics from the ever changing world of internet marketing and how to use them to your advantage.

Start contributing today!   Give us your feedback on what you would like to see in this blog and what you DON’T want to see.

Are you an expert in a relevant field and want to contribute articles, opinions, etc.?  Please contact us with your ideas.

We look forward to providing and sharing valuable information with all of our current and future partners and visitors.

 Doug