5 Habits Every Executive Director Can Do to Grow Senior Living Occupancy 

The executive director has perhaps the greatest influence over occupancy growth in their senior living community. In our blog, “3 Reasons to Empower Executive Directors to Be Senior Living Community Sales Leaders”, we shared 3 specific reasons why executive directors should be empowered to be senior living community sales leaders: 

1. They’re responsible for maintaining the mission–margin balance  
   
2. They’re the champion of the culture 
   
3. They hold the team accountable to meet NOI goals and celebrate its successes 
   

 In this blog, we share how executive directors can be their community’s sales leaders.  

5 habits every executive director can do to grow senior living occupancy 

#1: Check your community’s CRM daily 

Nothing gauges the pulse of a senior living community’s sales pipeline like its CRM. In it you’ll find the current month’s in/out net, pending move-ins and move-outs, the day’s tours, and sales activity to benchmark. Checking your community’s CRM each day is a simple habit that takes just 5 minutes for you to take away the day’s most important sales details. 

#2: Begin the morning stand-up meeting with sales  

Not only should you be preparing an agenda with key points for your morning stand-up meetings, starting them with sales reinforces the sales-focused culture in the community. The sales portion of stand-up is more than just an occupancy update, you’ll want to ask the sales director about who will be touring the community that day. The important details to cover are more than age and medical issues, you’ll want to learn about the prospect, their family, and how the staff can personalize the tour experience. Spend 5 minutes on each upcoming tour and confirm the personalization that will take place. 

#3: Make post-tour thank you calls 

Call everyone who tours your community within 24 hours of the tour to thank them for considering your community. It’s a great opportunity to make a positive impression, continue the conversation, provide another connection beyond the salesperson, and allow the prospects to provide you with actionable feedback about your community. These calls have proven themselves to increase closing ratios, which is a strong reason for doing them. 

#4: Commit to doing community involvement and outreach  

Leads referred by professionals in your local community convert at a much higher rate than other lead sources. Community involvement by the executive director is critical to maintaining strong word-of-mouth, reputation, and referrals. If the executive director is not seen, your senior living community will go under the radar of many of these prime referral sources. Promote your senior living community’s leadership – its strength and tenure – and its culture in the greater community. Bring along other team leaders to build their networking skills and to gain exposure to professional referral sources. 

Prime opportunities for community involvement and outreach include the chamber of commerce, service clubs like Rotary, volunteer organizations, churches, and senior support groups.  

#5: Protect your sales directors’ selling time 

Nothing saps a salesperson’s productivity like attending irrelevant meetings and performing activities that are not income-producing. Resist the urge to encroach upon your salesperson’s defined selling time by pulling them into meetings that don’t involve sales or saddling them with responsibilities like lease signings and room turns. Every minute they’re pulled away from time they should be spending on calling prospects is time and money wasted. 

Level up your executive director’s sales leadership skills 

Looking for executive director sales training and ongoing support to drive strong occupancy growth at your senior living community? Grow Your Occupancy is here to help with sales coaching and training for your team, hiring and onboarding support, optimizing your sales funnel (Occupancy Funnel), and more. Reach out to us today at [email protected] and let’s take your senior living sales to the next level.