Memorial Day weekend is great.  It gets us thinking about those that fought for our country, ushers in the summer, usually means gatherings with friends and family and hopefully entails grilled meats.  Its a meaningful weekend for retirement and assisted living communities to honor residents that are veterans and people to fly the flag.  As you plan out your weekend activities, here are a few articles for your edification.  Enjoy your celebration, whatever that means to you!

Listen, listen carefully, then use what you learn to get deeper information and get your sale!

http://trmann.com/wordpress/2011/05/sales-team-listening/

Quick response is an essential quality if you want to succeed in sales, help is on the way:

http://www.ciscoco.com/2011/05/are-you-really-giving-your-leads-quick-response/

A question that needed to be asked?   Should we apologize to skunks?

http://www.marklampkin.com/

Have a great weekend, df

As part of the month long celebration of Older Americans, today is focused on Senior health and fitness.  I cannot commend enough those activity directors and employees that make sure the residents in their communities stay active.  You are doing a great thing that pays benefits to that person, their family and your community.   No matter what your age, staying active contributes to bettering all aspects of your life.  It has been proven that staying physically active improves your mental health.  If your community doesn’t do a good job of promoting activity, get involved!  No matter how minor the exercise, it is better then nothing and for those communities that are feeling the effects of the economy, you can do a lot of fun and healthy activities with very little equipment.

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As we continue to see an increasing demand for New LifeStyles’ guides to Senior Living and Care, we are faced with challenge of making sure that people that need the guide can find it and the people that don’t know the usefulness of the guide can stumble upon it.  What’s new in our distribution strategy?

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Two SEO Heads are Better Than One

Does Your Discharge Experience Reinforce Your Brand?

Senior Living Business-June 2011  Best Practices Q&A: Digital Marketing

May/June 2011 LeadingAge magazine

I will apologize now to anyone I may offend. This is not directed at any one person, but a reminder to all of us as marketers…

Why is that people feel compelled to answer their phones when they are in a meeting or appointment? Then act like you have disturbed them & they have to call you back. Really??? Then why in the world did you answer? It’s not like most phones don’t show the number the call is coming from… If I was the person you were meeting with, I would feel really unimportant if you answer an incoming call while we are talking!

I have been making sales calls this week & at least 3 people have answered their phones (office or cell) and then whispered to me that they are in a meeting, seminar or appt., so they will have to call me back. We make a lot of calls in this office, some sales calls, some follow-ups, and an equal part returning calls. And we all have the same experience.

As marketers, we should be even more cognoscente of impressions. So as a courtesy to those you are meeting with and those calling you, please don’t answer your phone if you are not in a position to talk. I understand when people are busy or driving and can’t take down a number, so they ask you to email the information, or refer you to someone else that can help, but answering the phone just to say you are unavailable & hang up is not only rude to the caller & whoever you are meeting with/listening to in person, but a waste of time for everyone! Let your voice mail answer & handle when you can do so properly. 

Think before you answer! Thanks!

You’ve just had what you thought was one of your best one-on-one sales presentations with a prospect for your services or your community.  They seemed very interested, and you felt you had discovered their needs and motivation, and you were feeling really good about this new soon to be customer.

Then you heard one of the following statements when you recommended that they proceed with a commitment to take the next step to buy your services or move to your community:

“We’re just not ready.”

“We’ve got to think about it.”

“Our kids need to approve.”

“Our Mom (or Dad) needs to be convinced.”

“Your price is too high.”

“The apartment/room is too small.”

“We can’t sell our house.”

“The economy is too bad to move right now.”

“What am I going to do with my stuff?”

We are seeing more sales people in senior living establish trust with the prospect, conduct an effective discovery, make a great presentation of the service or community, and end up with the customer leaving without a firm commitment to take the next step to advance the sale, or to get the commitment on that visit.  What has happened?

The sales person had not been able to adequately address the type of sales objections shown above!

If you would like to learn tried and true, and some really new ways to handle some of today’s Senior Living Sales Objections, then you must attend this free Webinar.  Rick Hunsicker, one of the industry’s leading sales and marketing consultants and sales trainers, will present to New LifeStyles clients, his proven techniques for overcoming the most common sales objections heard today, including the important price objection.

Click Here to reserve your spot on Thursday, June 2 at noon Central Time (1:00 Eastern, 10:00 Pacific).

Space is limited

Beautiful weekend coming up in Dallas.  For those suffering through the flooding or other weather related issues, we offer our deepest sympathies.  Here are some interesting articles to get you through the week:

Great advice on working with clients and within our industry:

http://pathsmariamzinn.blogspot.com/2011/04/remember-your-grandmother-saying-you.html

A little thought provoker on customer service, some points we should all address:

http://tinyurl.com/3qfw2db

Giving up on direct mail?  Not so fast:

http://www.ciscoco.com/2011/05/don%e2%80%99t-waste-money-with-direct-mail-really/

Have a great day, df

Today, New LifeStyles will shut down shortly afternoon and take in some Ranger baseball for our spring outing (unless heavy storms wreak havoc on the Metroplex).  The last few years we have had picnics, with extremely competitive kickball, saltine eating contests and grilled delicacies.  As a company, we try to have some type of social/fun activity every three months or so including Labor Day Bowling and the Holiday Party. 

As a management team, we all feel it is important to do fun things as a company and see each other in a different environment.  As a smaller company (around 30 people), we are able to choose activities that will appeal to most employees and also allow employees to have input.  This helps ensure that people will want to participate and not feel forced into things.

Are there downsides to non-business company functions?  Sure.  People can have a little too much to drink and cause problems or offend other employees.  People can get a little relaxed, not understanding it’s still a company function and not treat fellow employees with respect.

But, overall, I feel the company outing or function can help people get to know others, build friendships and benefit both the employees’ job quality and the overall company morale.

What activities and functions does your company have?  How is participation?  Are there dissenters?

Would love to get your input, cheers, Doug

Follow-up pics : ) Postponed due to rain after 4 fun innings… You never know with Spring outings… Go Rangers! 

I was recently asked why we don’t have more pictures of communities on our senior living site. I explained that it was an option for our advertisers, but most choose to display their logo instead. Why is this? Is it because they didn’t have a nice picture of their community, or their community isn’t that great looking from the outside, or was it just easier for them to email a logo? Although most logos are nice looking and add some color, a lot are simply the name or part of the name of the community or parent company. So is showing the logo really adding value? 

If you have looked for a home recently,  did you even consider those that didn’t have pictures included? From real estate agents  to apartment locators and online retailers all know the value of pictures.

According to a Future Now client, images can lift conversion rates by 147% by showing products “in context.”

37signals.com reports, “A Realtors’ association survey found that when it comes to web features that buyers consider “very useful,” 83 percent cited pictures, 81 percent cited detailed property information and 60 percent cited virtual tours (due to minimal offerings at that time).”

So consider adding a picture of your community. There is no charge to change  your image on our site and we can do it at any time! Just send us the image.

And per the quote above, we also offer a free Services & Amenities Table to all online advertisers so we can offer “detailed property information”. Click here to complete yours.

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