By Steve Moran

I am talking about some sort of magic, of course. One day as people drive by where your community sits, there is instead an empty lot . . . would anyone notice? Would anyone care?

It’s another way of asking this big question:

WHAT IMPACT IS YOUR SENIOR LIVING COMMUNITY HAVING ON 

YOUR BROADER MARKETPLACE ?

Not Talking About the Obvious

Clearly, if your community were to disappear tomorrow, your team, your residents, and their families would notice and care. Though in some cases it might very well be a feeling of “good riddance” rather than sadness or despair. Though I am sure despair would apply to your communities.

Worst-Case Scenario

The worst-case scenario would be that people would notice because they were glad you were gone. They perceive your community as something that clogs traffic, makes parking hard, and wakes them up in the middle of the night because of emergency services responding to a call.

Why This Is Important

There are 4 reasons why this is important:

  1. If there would be joy if you were gone, I think it is fairly obvious that you have a tremendous opportunity to figure out how to make your neighbors love you. It will make life easier and likely lead to some referrals. It might even help with recruitment.
  2. If you are invisible to your local community, it means that every time a prospect walks in your door you are selling from scratch. Imagine how much easier the selling process would be if prospects knew you as that place that was making a positive impact in your location. And imagine how much easier closing would be if they already knew that you were the place that really cared about the neighborhood, about families, about older people.
  3. If people in your local community don’t know about you, then when they need senior living they might just pass you by. What if there is an older person who needs your community and would benefit from your community but they didn’t move in simply because they didn’t know you were there and their family didn’t know you were there. That would be a terrible loss for them.
  4. Higher occupancy means more resources to serve your residents and your team. More economic success means you will be able to do better at what you do best.

This is worth thinking about. How would you answer the big question above?

Go change the world, one act at a time.