The Referral Source You're Ignoring (Hint: They Already Love You) - Day 15

Your highest-converting referral source is already inside your building.

In this episode, I break down how one simple seasonal referral campaign generated 15 referrals, 3 move-ins, and over $20,000 in first-month revenue... from a $250 basket.

We’re talking about:

• Why family referrals outperform advisors
• The real math behind referral fees
• The 3T Promo Strategy: Timing, Theme, and Trigger
• How to make it ridiculously easy for families to refer

Your families already love you.
They just need the right moment and the right tools to encourage them to talk about your community, your staff, your care.

If you want occupancy growth without draining your margins, this one is for you.

Pick one season. Launch one campaign. Watch what happens.

COMING SOON:  I’m gearing up for Marketing Bootcamp Live Intensive January 28th:

• Momentum Marketing Bootcamp 10 week program) 
• Compass Rose XL cohort (12 months) for new owners or under 50% occupied starting February

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Transcript

Tiffany Updated voice: 0:00

Did you know the best time to ask for a referral might actually be during spring cleaning season, which is only about two weeks away. Let's talk about how seasonal promotions can become your secret weapon in growing occupancy. One of my community managers one time had been trying to increase her referrals for months. She mentioned it casually to families during their visits, and she put a flyer in the lobby and just the regular stuff, but nothing was happening. Then she had an amazing idea. What if we made referrals fun? What if we just had a good time with it and tie it to theme family events, maybe like St. Patrick's Day. So she went all in and bought a massive gift basket. I'm talking four feet tall, filled with all types of products like gourmet food and wine, and drinking glasses, candles, the works. All themed out for the season. Then she wrapped it up in green, cellophane. Tied it with a big, big, um, shamrock bow, right? The cost to the community was about$250, and what she did is she put it in the lobby with a sign. You don't have to be Irish to get lucky. Genius, right? Refer a family this month, get entered to win, I think is what she said. Well, every time a family referred someone, they got a raffle ticket At the end of the month, they drew a winner at the family dinner, which of course had a St. Patrick's Day theme that went along with the basket. Corn, beef cabbage, Irish soda bread was all on the menu. The whole, kit and caboodle. Do you know how many referrals she got? 15. 15 referrals in one month. What could you do with 15 referrals? Seven of those referrals actually came in to visit the community. Three of them moved in within 60 days. That equated to over$6,000 in community fees.$11,250 in recurring monthly room rate. Um, it was about over 2,900 and recurring care costs for a total of$20,000, over 20,000 in move-in revenue in the first full month from a$250 basket. Is your jaw dropping right now? You are like genius. How come I didn't think of this? But here's what made it work. It wasn't just the basket, of course, it wasn't just the Irish thing, it was the timing. You see, March is when families are gathering for spring events and they're doing spring cleaning. They're discussing summer plans, graduations, mother's Day, father's day. This is when they're having conversations about fresh starts. My sales manager didn't create the conversation. No, she just made it easy for families to share the solution when it naturally happened amongst their network. And that is the power of seasonal referral promotions, and that's what we're gonna talk about today. How to turn your happiest families into your best marketers by timing your referral campaigns to the seasons when people are already having those conversations. If you don't know me yet, hi, I am Tiffany Hill Allen, and welcome to episode 15 of our 21 Days All Things Senior Living Marketing series. Here's the truth. Your families want to refer you. They just need the right timing, the right incentive, and the right tools to make it easy. Let's dive in.

Tiffany: 3:43

Uh huh. Welcome to Start With Occupancy, the podcast for senior living owners, operators, and sales professionals./Hi, I'm Tiffany, marketing strategist and former corporate baddie who got tired of producing results for wall street and wanted to make a change on main street./I provide quick tips, idea nuggets, and case studies to help you with proven sales, marketing, and business development strategies along with leadership concepts so that you can inspire change, impact lives, and improve outcomes for the aging, their families and your teams./I'm committed to equipping you with the tools, the knowledge and resources that you need to excel in your business./With experience working inside senior living companies, large and small, I've developed a deep passion for advocating for the aging adult and those who care for them, all while driving business growth./So whether you're already in the senior care industry or maybe you would like to be, if your mission is to serve them, my mission is to serve you./Join me as we unravel the strategies and tactics that drive success in your business while making a difference in someone's life./The goal is to touch, guide, and impact the lives of 10 families per month!/Are you with me? It's time to be inspired, gain practical tips and own your future.

Tiffany Updated voice: 5:14

Alright, let's break down what referrals actually cost you. Let me ask you something. How much are you spending on referrals right now? There are several ways to get referrals, right? The three most popular buckets that I have in my head is you can reach out to related professionals, medical professionals, non-medical. You can pay a senior living advisor, which many of you are doing, or you can activate your own families and staff. So today we're going to look at the advisor and the families since there's a cost to having senior living advisors work with you. And if you're working with one, listen, I am not knocking them. I have worked with so many throughout my, my time, and they serve a purpose. But if you're only using them or primarily using them, you're probably paying a lot of money between 3000 and$7,000 every time someone moves in. And for some communities, they pay even more than that, and that's not always sustainable. Especially if you have a large number of move-ins every month because your community is big and you have a large number of move outs and move-ins, or you're small and your margins are razor thin. So let's just do some quick math together. If you need six move-ins this year, and you're paying$3,000 per referral, that's$18,000 in referral fees. For a small community with tight margins, that's a lot of money. But here's the thing that really gets me. Not all those referrals who move in actually remain, remain there for the whole year. They don't always stay. So you might be paying 18,000 for six move-ins, but you could end up keeping only four of them past the first, I don't know, four, six months. Then you're paying again for another referral fee for another move in. And by the way, when we're talking about retention, some communities, who I manage, who sometimes had up to 30 to 50% turnover within a year of their residents. So if you have a 50% or a hundred percent turnover, that means all that moved in had to move out because of, you know, higher level of care, because of the inevitable that's happening at that age. Um, because of, uh, dissatisfaction, any of those things, now you have to pay that money again. And so today we're talking about a better way, a way that your costs can be less, your conversions can be better, and it will actually fill your community with residents who stay. Let's look at family referrals. When one of your current families refer someone, maybe it's their friend from church, or their coworker or their neighbor, you are not paying a third party. You are rewarding the family directly. So you're basically diverting those funds in a different place that might be more beneficial to you. Um, in the long term, most communities pay families anywhere between$1,500 for a referral. Um. Or more in incentives, and they usually are paid 60 to 90 days of the referral move in not within 30 days or right at the 30 day mark. So it gives you more time to have the rent come in to pay the referral. So let's just say you pay an average of$1500. Let's just say this is gonna be our example. Okay? Here's the difference. Don't forget about this major difference that when you have a referral from these referral sources, they also convert at a much higher rate. Here's why family referrals convert so much better when someone's friend says, my mom lives there and she loves it. That carries weight. You're not just another community that they may have found on Google. You are the place their trusted friend recommends that trust transfers. And because of that, seven out of 10 times, they're not even going to shop around. They're coming to you because you already have the answers. And if you do a great job with discovery and the process and the sales process that we've talked about, you are going to reinforce what the friend told them about you, and they won't even look much further. Because again, they're saying my mom lives there and she loves it, and that's gonna have more weight. Let's say out of every 10 family referrals about four to six actually move in. And, that's pretty good. Typical 33%, sometimes 40%, I have seen up to 60 per percent conversion rate that is double or triple the rate of conversion that you will get from advisors. And that is probably, oh my God, 10 times to rate a conversion. I say 10. Yeah, more than 10, um, times the rate of conversion if they're just online from digital marketing, when you're looking at online people that are coming to your community Family friend is going to win out at a higher conversion rate to actually move in. And the cool part is they stay longer. Why? They came because someone they trust told them you were the right place and now they have connections together through you. So let's do the same math. If you needed six move-ins, but you're paying$1,500 per move in, for the family, right? if you do a family and you're only doing$1500, that's six move-ins, same number.$1,500 per move-in, that's 9,000 in referral fees. Out of those six, five stay pass the first 90 days. For a small community, that is huge. For any community, that could be huge. But here's the catch, and this is the important one, family referrals don't just happen on their own. You need to have a system, and that system needs to be timed correctly. One thing I want to say, this is not just about saving money. Obviously that's something that you need to do in your business is find ways to save money so that you can make your money go longer and really use it in other areas.'cause every time you pay a high paid referral, that's less money that's going towards residents and staff. I recognize that and understand that. But it's also about getting a a higher type of inquiry into your community. When someone comes in from a referral from a family that you have or someone who trusts you, they're going to be higher quality for conversion sake. And when people are, pre-sold before they even call you or walk in because someone has told them so much about you, your community, your care, your staff, they stay longer for a trusted source, and you have a better relationship with that person, So how do you get your families to actually refer people? It comes down to three things. I call this the three T promo strategy. It's the timing. It is the theme. And, the triggers. When you get the timing right and the theme right, and the triggers right, referrals become now your lowest cost, your highest converting source of inquiries, period. You want to launch your program and your campaign when families are naturally gathering, right? Whether it is at a cookout, at a family reunion, at a, um, you know, at a church function, when are they naturally gathering? That is number one, timing. Number two, the theme is, are you matching your promotion to what they're already celebrating? Because this will put off triggers, which is number three in their mind that will make it. Ridiculously easy to refer to you because you have already planted seeds in their mind about your community, what you have going on, and it just will make it an easy discussion. So the concept for this is launch them during natural peaks. I advise you to do that. Let's think about when do people talk about life changes. because when families are together conversations about their parents happen also naturally. So your job is not to create the conversation, is to, again, make it easy and share solutions that, that they have had in their lives when it comes up. And by having the promotion, you are going to help with that. So let's go over what some peak seasons are so that you can really, you know, get an understanding of what I'm, I'm saying, I'm sure you guys understand, but let's do some examples so that you can start planning. Spring cleaning, right, it's March Easter. in April, right? You also have other event gatherings, like St. Patrick's Day in the example. You also are going into May, which is Mother's Day, right? Father's Day in June, Talking about March, families are decluttering, they're organizing, they're making fresh starts. They're now into the new year looking at having, um, natural conversations. Maybe it's time to downsize mom's house and find her a community Your campaign could be spring into a new community, refer a family, refer a friend. Graduation season, that's where you can plan now. Graduation season's in about three months. Families are celebrating life transitions. The sandwich generation is feeling it, right? You have kids graduating, which means more freedom, and then you have, they're taking care of mom or dad. So the natural conversation is what happens now when the kids are out the house, I can focus on mom, um, or I can focus on me and I need to make decisions about mom. Right? Your campaigns could be about celebration of the next chapter and refer a family and, we give$500 scholarship or we, um, go towards a college fund of one of our, our employees or to one of your family members. You can do so many different things with it that aligned with your community. In August and September, you have back to school. You can start planning that now. It launches in six months. Families are gathering at school events and football games and open houses, and parents are sitting in bleachers together, having conversations. Um, again. These are natural conversations. You know, how are you managing with your mom? And, you know, or I'm struggling with this with my mom. And so these conversations are having happening in the bleachers, right? Your campaign is,"Who's invited to the cookout",'cause Labor Day will be around that time too. Bring a friend to our family barbecue and, refer them and you can get X amount of money or a free month for your mom. Again, that's another one, right? I'm trying to think of these real quick. Um, Thanksgiving is November. That's nine months away. Families are traveling home. They're going to go see their parents for the first time in months. They're going notice any changes in their behavior or condition that they couldn't see over the phone. So a natural conversation might be, did you notice dad's memory is getting worse to the sister and he's nudging her? Right? Um, your campaign could then be"Share the gratitude" and talking about all the things that you're grateful for, um, and how your community can tie into that. Um, and a lot of times, to be honest, January, February is sometimes the biggest time for referrals because people are making resolutions and fresh starts. That's a whole 11 months away and caregivers really are exhausted from the holidays. They're ready for a change. The natural conversation is this year I need to find more help for my mom. I can't do this a whole nother year. Or something is happening, you know, over the holidays that's like red flags and they're realizing it. So your campaign could be"New Year, new peace of mind. Refer in January and we will double the reward." It'll be$3,000 going towards mom's rate until she'll have one month off, right? There's so many different ways that you could do that. Right now what I want you to do or right after the podcast, pull out your calendar and mark these five seasons, or you can create your own thinking about, again, when do people naturally gather and talk and what those conversations are, and tailor your campaign around those natural conversations. The first one I'm gonna challenge you to do is March 1st. Launch that spring cleaning referral campaign that's two weeks away. Or if you said, I need a little bit more runway, Tiffany launch May 1st make it a graduation season campaign. Um, you know, um, do August 1st. You know, make it a back to school campaign. There's so much that you can do. The key is to start planning today. The planning and execution is what's going to determine the success of it. The second part of that, which we talked about was timing. The concept is that your referral campaign is not a sales pitch. You don't want your families to feel like they're pitching their friends. Um, and this matters because when your theme matches the season, it just feels organic. It feels like they're sharing, not selling. And they're sharing a solution that they found has helped them in their lives during a natural conversation. If the spring cleaning is your theme, your message could be"help a family declutter the stress and find peace in their life". Your incentive that you can offer them is refer a family and get a free month for your mom or a spa day for yourself. Another theme we talked about, um, already is the graduation theme, so your message could be your kids are starting their next chapter, give mom the gift of hers, refer a family and will donate$500 to your graduates college fund. Again, there's so many different ways that you can, um, do this. You have to figure out incentives that is going to be meaningful to your families. The key is don't be cheesy. Make it meaningful. Tie it into what your families are already feeling during that season. The third tee is trigger. Make it ridiculously easy to refer. Families won't refer. If it's hard, right? You need to give them the tools to share you with one click. Just one click. Most referral programs fail because families don't know how to refer. They love you, but they don't know what to say or how to share what you do or your community in a way that doesn't seem salesy. Your job is to make it so easy, they can do it in 30 seconds. So the tools you need is maybe referral cards with your QR code. Hand them out to family events and the QR links will go to a simple referral form on your website, and that way it tracks who referred to you automatically. Scan this code to learn more about our community. Referred by and you have the family name. The other one is email templates. Give families a pre-written email that they can forward to to friends and family, right? You know, the email is simple. Hi, friend. I wanted to share this community that's been amazing for my mom. They're having a special promotion this month. Here's the link. Easy. Right? Social media graphics, give them a shareable post that families can share on Facebook. Include your contact information and a clear call to action. An example might be, um, grateful for the care my mom receives at has your community name. If you know someone who needs help, reach out to them. They're amazing and you give them the graphic, to share on their Facebook page. Or simple, fast, easy is referral form. It's a one pager that has their name, phone number, email, relationship. If you wanna get real, real fancy, you can use automation tools through different systems. When someone fills out the referral form, the referring family gets an automatic thank you email and you get notified immediately. The key is think like an affiliate company. Give your families the tools to promote you. Don't make them work for it. Here's your homework. Create one referral tool this week. It could be a QR code, an email template, a social media graphic. Just one. Make it easy for families to share you, your community, your services, your staff, whatever it is. Now, you might be thinking, Tiffany, this sounds great, but I don't have the time to manage all of this. Here's the good news, so that once you have it set up and you set up a system, it can run on autopilot. You're not chasing referrals. You're creating a system that makes it easy for families to refer to you when the natural moment happens, and that's the difference between a referral program that fizzles and one that fills your community. Here are some practical tips to make your seasonal referral programs and promotions even more effective. Number one, tie your rewards to community values, relevant values. Don't just offer cash. You can offer something that aligns with your community values or that of your families. For instance, a charitable donation, refer a family, and we donate X amount of dollars to the local food bank, or the Humane Society, or the Veterans Association in your family's name. You have to know who your family is, obviously, to make sure that it aligns with what is important to them as well. Oh, another way is you can partner with a local vendor. Refer a family get x dollar gift card to that local restaurant or spa or shop or something like that. You know, it doesn't have to be the gift basket. It can be based on family experiences: refer a friend, and you get a family dinner package to take your mom out to, wherever mom would like. Again, these are things that align with who your residents are and who your caregiving families are. Another one I mentioned before, which works really well for families. And it's not cash out your pocket, it comes out to your revenue, which is a free month. So it could be a free birthday month, right? It could be the free month the month of Christmas. Um, so every time you refer a family, and they move in, you get one free month the first time. The second time you get$1,500 gift card I remember one time we did it for a family where it was for a wardrobe. You know, they won a thousand dollars for a wardrobe. There's different ways of doing incentives, be creative with yours, and something that your families would like, not something that you would like. So that's important. And why this works is because when the family reward is aligned with their values, they're going to be more motivated to refer. Tip number two, promote it everywhere. Don't just put a flyer in the lobby and hope families see it. Promote your referral campaign in family newsletters, that you do monthly. Put it in lobby signage, a poster with a QR code. Put it on your social media, um, at family events that you have at your community. The key is that families need to see it and they need to see it often seven to 10 times before they even remember. So don't assume that if you mention it once, that families remember, okay, they're busy just like you are. Um, tip number three is to track everything. You need to know who referred who'cause obviously there's an incentive involved. When the referral came in, when the referrals moved in, You need a simple tracking system. A Google sheet with columns is good. Um, that has the referer name, who they referred, the date they referred, the date they moved in, the reward amount, the date that it was paid. Or you can use a CRM, um, or you can use an old fashioned referral box for the paper. And you know, upfront, sometimes people do that. There's all different ways of doing it, but you want to make sure that you track it on the backend because if you don't track it, you can't improve it. And if you don't pay the rewards quickly, families won't refer to you again. Tip number four. Thank families immediately. When a family refers someone thank them within 24 hours, please do that. Send a handwritten note that says Thank you. Call them personally. Send a small gift, even flowers, a gift card. And why this matters is that even though you already have a bigger incentive, is included in this. Um, sometimes. Again, there's a process of move in. So they may refer someone and just the referral itself warrant a, a gift card to Starbucks. That's$10. If they move in, then they get the, the bigger reward, right? So you want to keep that activity that they have done going. And so the way to do that is to reward the small things because the small things lead to the big things. So gratitude automatically creates loyalty and loyal families refer even more. So your quick win this week is to design your spring campaign, whatever that campaign is going to be, whether it's St. Patrick's Day, spring cleaning, um, mother's Day, Easter, whatever you're going to do, choose your theme. Anything. Choose your incentive, whether it's cash, whether it's a donation, whether it's a free month. Choose the incentive and then create your trigger. How are you going to do it? Are you gonna give them a QR code? Um, a little card that they can give out to people? An email template that families can forward. Social media, graphic. Make it easy. And launch March 1st. Announce it in your March newsletter. Put signage in your lobby. Mention it at your next family event. That's it. One campaign, two weeks to prepare, launch it. Just make it happen you guys. Now if you're thinking Tiffany, I want the complete family referral calendar with campaign templates for every season, incentives and structures and all the different things that you know you provide. That's exactly what I have in the Momentum Marketing Bootcamp. We're going to go through this in the bootcamp. It's a 12 month referral campaign calendar with themes and stuff for every season, pre-written email templates and social media graphics that you can utilize incentive structures and recommendations for what works from small communities to large, tracking systems, all of that is all gonna be included. So from head to toe. So if you go over to start with occupancy.com, you can join the wait list there. But even if you don't join, launch that one campaign this quarter, your families are ready to refer you. You just need to give them the tools. Okay? So don't forget, start with occupancy.com and join the wait list for Momentum Marketing Bootcamp. All right, let's recap. Today we covered the three T promo strategy for turning your happiest families into your best marketers. Your action step this week is pick one season in the next 90 days and design a simple referral campaign. Just one. Test it. See what happens. Hey, listen, what if you only get five referrals? Would you be happy with five referrals? I want you to remember if anything, your happiest families want to refer you. If they love you, they want to tell it more people about you, and they want you to be successful, they're proud of the care that you and your staff provide, and they're grateful for what you have done for their loved ones. Give them the tools they need to make it easy for them because the truth is word of mouth referrals are the highest converting, the lowest costs that you can have, and they're the most trusted, so they're pre-sold before they walk in, and they stay longer. It's a win all the way around for all of you. So stop guessing when to ask for referrals. Start having those conversations today and watch what happens. Until next time, I'm here to inspire, change, impact lives, and improve outcomes. I'll see you in the next episode.