MichaelSullivan
Sales Specialist
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May 6, 2009, 8:06 AM
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A Primer on Training Sales Associates for Active Living
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By Michael P. Sullivan - 50-Plus Communications Consulting - www.graymoney.biz
After conducting training programs for retirement living locations for a number of years and learning what works, I am including a primer for training sale and support staffs. Previous columns have dealt with sales aspects that work with people of age. All of these sales columns are meant to get your sales force to think about how to use this information to sell to this important homebuyer.
As a rule, older buyers take more time in making decisions, especially major decisions that affect their living conditions, their finances and their health. They tend to want more and more facts. They think about things longer. Generally, they are in no hurry to get things done. From their experience, they know that quick decisions may often be regretted.
Here are a few rules of the road: Use words that depict people in their 50s, 60s and 70s as maintaining their independence – the key concept for convincing them that your active retirement community is for them. They are largely active and self-sufficient and don’t at all think of themselves as “old.”
Give them plenty of lifestyle options about your retirement community and let them decide. A key attitude for seniors of all age is they want things simplified but they don’t want to lose control.
When the topic is complex, relate new concepts to what they already know. Use words that provide anchors to previous concepts.
Enhance the experiential benefits of your active retirement community. There are likely many of those. Engage them in the experience, if you can, in the selling process.
They are looking to buy into a lifestyle that either recreates their younger years or gives them a sense of pride in where they live.
Notice expressions of motivational need for self-fulfillment. Consider what they want to do in their lives, such as changing careers, living differently, residing elsewhere, and pursuing avocations. Explain how your facility and community in general allows them to do what they want to do.
Understand their causes. Part of the shared experience of older Boomers in their formative years relates to social consciousness. Often, those causes relate to their lives in the formative years – the late teens and early 20s. Find what their causes are and then connect to them.
Activism strikes a responsive chord with Boomers. Probe to learn if altruism or “giving back” to the community, a near-by church or some other organization is a hot button.
Ask this key question, “What do you want to do in retirement?” For Boomers the “what” is usually significant and very individualized. How can you help them do it? First, you have to understand what they want to do – in the first five years, in the next five, on and on.
Understand their search for relevance. They need to be needed. They want to sense a feel of mission. Can your active retirement facility become an enabler?
Explain things by telling stories, relevant ones that touch emotions. Modern brain research shows that story telling increases the flow of adrenaline to the brain and helps us store and recall.
By Michael P. Sullivan, President, 50-Plus Communications Consulting, Charlotte, North Carolina, (704) 554-7863. Mike consults and trains staff at retirement facilities, homecare living firms, financial services and health care organizations. His book, “101 Easy Ways to Increase Business with Boomerplus Clients” is available on his website, www.graymoney.biz. Contact him at mps50plus@aol.com.
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(This post was edited by MichaelSullivan on May 6, 2009, 8:07 AM)
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