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Those of us who have been in the senior living field for eons are always interested in new info to add to the myriad of accumulated knowledge and experience. But what if you want to accelerate your knowledge base? Hurry up the process.

We suggest you think about an MBR (Most Beneficial Reading) infusion to speed up your understanding of the field and the target markets.

Here’s a suggested start on a reading list to expand your understanding:

Serving the Ageless Market, by David B. Wolfe, McGraw-Hill, 1990: It’s classic, has proven itself over time, and if you only open the book and read the Six General Principles of Marketing, the Seven Principles for Maturity Markets and Seven Key Factors for Maturity Markets on the inside front cover, and check out “The One-Minute Guide to Understanding the Mature Consumer,” on page 164, you’ll know more than most grad students about the mature market.

Prime Time Women, by Marti Barletta, Kaplan Publishing, 2007: Senior living marketing is often directed at women, who make many of the final decisions – and sometimes we don’t pay enough attention to the different way women think. You can read The Executive Summary at the end of the book and learn a lot.

The Mature Mind, the Positive Power of the Aging Brain, by Dr. Gene D. Cohen, Basic Books, 2005: Puts the kibosh on declining mental abilities as we age. Reveals how the mind continues to grow and flourish well into the later years. Discusses creativity and aging and reinventing retirement.

Dot Boom, Marketing to Baby Boomers through Meaningful Online Engagement, by David Weigelt and Jonathan Boehman, LINX, 2009: How to rethink your copy and your strategies in marketing to the older adult by making an emotional connection through messaging and imagery. The top ways are storytelling, conditional positioning and appealing to the senses. Begin at www.dotboombook.com.

Okay, that’s the first semester. More to come.

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Legacies are strange and wonderful things, as my family discovered recently as we pondered several hundred pictures our parents had gathered over the years.

The photos became a wonderful, entertaining experience. My sister and I had no idea who some of the people were, but we did discover that our parents had been happy and they had had a lot of fun during their long life together.

Those of us “in the biz” of senior living prefer to think life is all sunshine and roses for everyone in their waning, frail years in the enchanted land of retirement. However, the reality often is that people get sick and become angry, and those final years are difficult for everyone involved.

The last two years of my father’s life he was bored, unhappy and unwilling to do much to make things better for anyone, including himself.

Now that there has been healing since his passing and it’s time to fix up the family home to sell it, there were boxes and closets to go through. And pictures, lots and lots of pictures to look at, identify and decide what to do with.

We discovered the silly times, big and little celebrations, funny clothes and hysterical hair-dos. We laughed out loud at the fashions from eons ago that are in style again. We realized that in many ways we hadn’t known our parents as individuals. They’d been mom and dad to us, but they’d been amazing, interesting people to their friends and siblings. Somehow that part had gotten lost in the waning years of their illnesses.

Pictures make you think about legacies and the spoken or written word, and we wished we had more of the stories to go with the photos, and had spent more time listening to the hopes and dreams of these dear people, instead of becoming irritated at their reluctance to embrace the frailness that had come to partner with them.

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The first thing you have to know about being older is that it’s a surprise to almost everyone.
 
Those of us of a certain age certainly understand age spots, thinning skin and hair. Perhaps we move a little slower than we used to, but – trust me – inside lives and breathes a younger self who can barely believe the image of their parent in the mirror.

Old is not a specific age. You know people who seem old at 45 and others in their 70s or 80s who seem young and vibrant. There are people in their 90s who are working daily on their investments, painting wonderful pictures or writing books that younger folks will marvel at, enjoy and buy.

So, what else is different about being older?

Because it’s starting to happen to me, I find some people’s reaction to my older self often is rude or solicitous. Salespeople, who often seem to choose their preferred customer and it isn’t the person they’re talking to, respond to me and those who are EVEN OLDER as if we are hard of hearing, slow to comprehend – or the one that brings the young, more abrasive me to the forefront – like someone’s cute pet.

Those of us in senior living know that the older target market members are savvy, bright, experienced, knowledgeable, and have the means to do what they want to do or buy what they want to buy.
 
When dealing with an older person, take a moment to look beyond any physical frailty or your own stereotypical reaction and meet the “real” person. You’ll be combating the last “ism” is this country.

Ageism is alive and well in the everyday world and that’s really the surprise when it happens. It’s what’s different about being older.

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It seems like an oxymoron to think that, just when Boomers have been convinced to think about down-sizing, they may actually outgrow their existing home … or the one they are about to build or buy for retirement.

The more precise statement is that people’s needs often change to the point that their home is no longer appropriate. Anyone’s health and/or mobility may change quickly – and if it does the choice is either to move, or put in expensive and inconvenient renovations. (Do you feel the perfect sell for a CCRC here?)

Several important concepts apply to this issue. “Universal design,” as the name implies, means that one set of design principles should be applied when it comes to accessibility. In other words, whether you are a young child, healthy and athletic 40-something, a slowing-down senior or confined to a wheelchair – your home ought to be able to accommodate you. Universal design fits nicely with another principle, the goal of “aging in place”. The AARP has statistics showing that 84 percent of Americans 50+ would like to age where they live now.

Some of the obvious steps to look for or incorporate include:

• Wide doorways and hallways
• Level (or ramped) entrances between rooms
• Ramped entry(ies)
• Tall toilets
• Grab bars for showers & tubs
• Non-slip floors
• No glare lighting
• Contrasting paint
• Lever style handles on doors
• First floor master bedroom
• Provision for future elevator (if building or remodeling)
• Kitchens and major appliances on the main floor
• Kitchen counters at varying heights to fit a range of users

Incorporating universal design principles in new construction can add about five percent to the cost, compared to that 30 percent of a home’s value retrofitting can cost. The National Association of Home Builders has a Certified Aging-in-Place Specialist program to help builders and designers.

Some states and counties are considering mandating universal design elements for all new housing. Since most of the items listed above already are in place at a CCRC, it seems checking out one of 1800 in the U.S. might be the easier way to go for the Boomers and better crowd.

Resources: NAHB Aging in Place; Universal Design Institute; Blueprint for Boomers

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It’s not news that the country is aging, but the fact that the average U.S. head of household is just six months this side of 50-years-old is pretty startling, according to AdAge.com.

And then factor in these changes:

• regional demographics are diverging more than ever before;
• the West is young and multicultural;
• the mostly white Northeast is old and many communities are nearly childless; and,
• a rapid and economically vital flux of immigrants.

As the U.S. ages, it is more common than ever for older people to live in places where there are few or no children.

In many New England towns only one in five households has any children. (National average is one in three.) The six New England states are among the 10 oldest states by median age – leading the nation with an aging consumer base.

By contrast, the Western region has: 19 percent non-Hispanics; 42 percent of all Hispanics; 46 percent of all Asians; and, 24 percent of the nation’s children.

Two key variables driving states and regions apart as consumer markets are interstate migration and immigration. The latest population estimates from the Census Bureau show the arrival of eight million immigrants in the period between 2000 and 2007. Two-thirds went to the South or West.

Most people who move are young, and they either bring their children with them or have children later. The long-term effect is to make some states or regions older and others younger consumer markets.

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