8 Tips for Selling to Baby Boomers


Your continued success in selling retirement properties to Baby Boomers depends on your ability to connect with their uniqueness. By understanding how those in their mid-40s to mid-60s and older adults are different as they age, you can connect more effectively with prospects and sell more properties. Here are eight sales tips to help you:

1. Find out what’s going on in their lives
They want to know what your community offers, and balance those against the experiences they want in retirement. Ask them, “What do you want retirement to be like?” You’ll find their answer to be very individualized. Show them how your community will satisfy their needs. Use direct quotes from other satisfied Boomer buyer like themselves to explain your case.

2. Be authentic
Boomers in reality are professional “consumerologists.” They have bought it all and have in-depth experience both good and bad. They know inherently when your sales pitch is not true, or lacks realism. Begin by showing you care about them. They want to be treated as individuals not as prospects. Most of all, they want to trust you.

3. Relate to their families
The sense of family is a deep, emotional feeling that drives most purchasing behavior. Show them your interest in families with pictures of your own children or relatives. Talk about your family. More than 80% of people over age 60 are grandparents. Focus on the emotional connection between older adults and their grandparents. Describe ways in which living at that location can enhance those family relationships.

4. Connect with the right side of the brain
Modern research shows that story telling increases the flow of adrenaline to the brain and helps us store and recall more easily. Images are stored in a different place in the brain than the words that describe those images. Tell stories about other buyers.

5. Control the physical setting
Make sure they are comfortable in your office. Offer them the most comfortable chairs. Have several sets of reader glasses nearby for them to use if they forget their own. Use a large barrel pen so it’s easy for them to write.

6. Don’t call them “senior citizens” or “Boomers”
Research shows that about half of people of age don’t like these terms. Don’t use labels. If you must, refer to them as, “people like yourself, whom I deal with.” Treat them as individuals, something that is very important to them.

7. More sensitive to feelings than intellect
Decisions are made on the basis of feelings, not intellect. Intellect is used to understand; feelings are used to decide. When looking for a reaction to what you have presented, ask them, “How does that feel to you?” not “Does that make sense to you?”

8. They want independence and never want to lose control
Use words that depict people in their 50s, 60s, and 70s as maintaining their independence. It’s the key concept for selling as retirement nears. Give them several options and let them decide. A key attitude for Boomers, especially, is they want things simplified but they don’t want to lose control. They want to make the retirement housing decision.

For information about my retirement community sales training programs, contact me at [email protected], by phone at (704) 554-7863.

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