Learn 3 Keys how a Senior Living Community Achieved 98.4% Occupancy!

Senior Living Executive – March/April Edition

What Devices Are Prospects Using to Find Your Website?

Enjoy your weekend!

I continue to be amazed at how many friends in my age group (30s & 40s) are unfamiliar with senior living options. I’ve helped way too many friends this year finding home care and hospice providers, as well as assisted living and nursing & rehab units. But just this week, at lunch with some friends, I mentioned that I couldn’t wait to move into a beautiful CCRC where all of my needs & wants will be met.  I looked back to blank stares. One friend asked me to elaborate because she couldn’t imagine what I was talking about. So I told them all about a specific local community, the beauty & options. All the services and amenities, including housekeeping & laundry service,  dining options, a gym & pool with a trainer, transportation, bank branch, etc… all of the social groups & activities and so on. They were amazed and started asking more questions about pricing, health care needs, and other options.

I was happy to share my knowledge and I hope it helps my friends, their parents, and a community marketer some day. But what this really tells me is that the retirement communities need to find more ways to get the younger generation in the doors! I will probably call the marketer at the community I mentioned and ask her if she wants to invite these ladies for lunch and a tour. I can’t think of one of my friends who wouldn’t want to live a care-free lifestyle surrounded by their friends. So, how can you get this message to this age group?

Look for opportunities to host events for those in this age group: Junior League, Rotary, The Chamber, ladies groups at local churches, local Moms groups, or even nearby PTAs. Offer a service (see previous post on gift wrapping), or have a bake sell for those in the surrounding community. Maybe start by finding a “champion” or 2 in this age group in the area who can start spreading the news of what a great community you have! Maybe she can host a lunch with friends at your community monthly?

There are many ways to get to the Gen Xers & young Baby Boomers. Start including them in your marketing plan, as we are thinking about our future and planning, and we all want to live the good life! Show us how we can with you.

In a “bad” economy, everyone seems to scale back. After all, if you’re not making as much, you shouldn’t spend as much, right?  Maybe not… I’ve recently read & heard just the opposite, that in a bad economy, you should extend yourself and spend more to get ahead of your competition. This rings true specifically in advertising.

If things are truly “slower” than usual, and you have less residents or clients, there might be money budgeted to operations that are available. Less people & work, should take less man power and supplies, thus remaining budget. You can request to “borrow” money from these accounts. As ammunition in your request, you can show savings, as most media options are offering deals compared to their former published rates.

When others are not advertising, your message will stand out and be remembered. So take advantage of the economy to get the most for your business!

Have you extended your budget in this economy?

Have you gotten a great deal?

Has it worked out in your favor?

Share your story/suggestions with us

Does your community have a social media presence?  Are you active on Facebook or Twitter or blog regularly about happenings at your community?  If so, you are continually looking for good content to keep your posts interesting and keep the subscribers coming back.

One good source is living all around you!  Your residents have stories to tell and many are more than happy to tell them.  They may want to share tales of their lives, how they made the decision to live there or discuss great activities or outings at the community.

Getting the residents involved in a community’s social media adds the human touch to the property, tells the story of their past and promotes many of the positives at a community.  It is a great way to stimulate the creativity of residents and promote a community, all at the same time.  If you have a social media program, discuss it with your residents and see how many volunteers come forward.

If the residents at your community are involved in social media, tell us about it here.  Has it been a positive for them and the property?  Has there been any downside?  Please share your experiences!

Thanks, Doug

Is your community green?

There are so many options out there for those considering senior communities, and so many considerations. For those who feeling particular environmentally friendly, there is a new movement spreading through senior living facilities to cut back on environmental impact.

Green senior living facilities can do a number of things to help the environment. From regulating the quality of indoor air to using green building materials (recycled or locally produce), green senior living can really make a change for the world. Other steps green retirement communities have taken include reducing carbon emissions, implementing a water conservation plan and following EPA Energy Star standards.

An invaluable tool for discovering green senior facilities in your area is GrayIsGreen.org. A unique resource, GrayIsGreen.org offers tips to better green senior living as well as helping greenies find a retirement community that fits their lifestyle. The group also has helped set the standard for green senior living, creating a number of guidelines and auditing tools to really help determine the effects of environmentally friendly actions.

Consider implementing some of the tips to make your community a choice for those going green and gray.

We are continually looking for great places to distribute the FREE New LifeStyles guide to senior living and care.  As always, we need your help!  If you come across a location where our guides could be picked up by those that can use them, snap a picture.  We will grade the pictures on benefit to our demographic, as well as originality, humor and artistic quality.  If you can’t snap a picture, send us your suggestion, those will be eligible, too!  We will post the best pictures on our Facebook and Twitter pages!  Top three suggestions will win $25 gift certicates to Starbucks or Target. 

E-mail the pictures, telling us the location, to newlife@newlifestyles.com

(make sure New LifeStyles is available in your area, for a complete list of our areas of coverage, log on to www.newlifestyles.com )

Contest ends February 15, 2012.  Thanks and have fun!

Expectations: Do You Have Them?

The Pulse of Your Community

How Do You Get Your Message Out – Content Marketing – Part 5: Broadcasting Your Content

Do you discuss T.E.A.M. with your senior living team?

Jan/Feb edition of Leading Age Magazine

With capital at a premium and financial stress prevalent throughout the industry, acquisitions continue to increase in the senior living industry.  Large companies with decent balance sheets continue to look for ways to expand and spread their infrastructure across more revenue producing units.  This can have both positive and negative effects on the communities that are being acquired.

On the positive sign, communities struggling to provide quality care and services receive a boost in support, often times receiving facelifts and updates to the property.  New programs brought in by the acquiring company may add to the quality of life where the previous owner had been forced to reduce or eliminate expenditures that weren’t considered vital to the health and well-being of the residents.  This could include activities and outings that while not vital to residents’ health, are vital to quality of life.  There also may be improvements in dining options or quality.

On the other side, corporations may send down new policies and procedures to the acquired communities that may hurt the personality or culture of a property.  Staff may be reduced and corporate may look to share staff between properties in the area.  These factors can lead to a complete change in the personality of your community, as the staff and activities can shape the culture.  This type of scenario has lead to residents leaving a local property that I am familiar with and made it more difficult to sell the lifestyles to perspective residents.

If you are involved with a community that is being acquired, talk to the acquiring company as soon as possible.  Show them what makes your community unique and fight to maintain the culture that has made your community’s lifestyle so popular amongst current and perspective residents!

January/February Edition of Senior Living Executive

Thank you for your positive feedback on our free client webinars in 2011!  To continue on that path, we will continue to offer quarterly educational webinars to our clients, starting this month with:  “Opening Relationships” with your prospects vs. “Closing Sales”- Your new approach to successful new client development

New LifeStyles clients are invited to participate in this free marketing webinar presented by Rick Hunsicker, a nationally recognized expert in senior living sales and marketing, about a new approach to sales in senior living.

You will gain insight into a different approach with your prospective new clients, family members and professional referral sources, that moves you away from closing sales, and leads you and your customer toward building strong, long term business relationships.

Rick will present examples of what you should say in the early and later stages of your presentations to your prospects and referral sources to help you gain more and stronger relationships that ultimately results in more sales and referrals. 

Join us on January 26

Space is limited. Reserve your Webinar seat now at: https://www3.gotomeeting.com/register/529526334

Title: “Opening Relationships” with your prospects vs. “Closing Sales”- Your new approach to successful new client development Date: Thursday, January 26, 2012 Time: 12:00 PM – 1:00 PM Central Time After registering you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the Webinar. System Requirements PC-based attendees Required: Windows® 7, Vista, XP or 2003 Server   Macintosh®-based attendees Required: Mac OS® X 10.5 or newer

We will continue the webinars in April with “How to Stop the #1 Leak in Your Sales and Marketing this Year” with Mona Hilton. In July, Reece Franklin will present “The Perfect Pitch Piece” and in October Patty Cisco will cover the current state of affairs and how to market despite them.

If you have missed any of the webinars in 2011, you can watch them on your schedule at http://www.newlifestyles.com/clients/webinars

As always, thank you to our clients! we hope you find these webinars helpful. Please send us your feedback on other topics you would like to see covered.