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For most senior living communities, their reputation precedes them, be that a good or a bad thing. However, prospective residents may not always have the same image that you’ve worked hard to achieve.

While your own actions and your marketing outreach certainly have a positive impact on the reputation your community enjoys, there are other factors that can work to damage it. When major national media outlets started running stories concerning the bankruptcy of Erickson Retirement Communities, CCRCs across the country began hearing questions about their own financial stability. Recent congressional hearings on consumer protections for CCRC residents have had a similar result.

While these and other situations may have an effect on your community’s reputation, they also present opportunities, if approached the right way. You have a chance to educate prospective consumers, and the media, about your business model, your organizational strength and the benefits living at your community provide residents.

GlynnDevins is hosting a webinar at 11 a.m. to noon CDT on Wednesday, August 11, entitled “Reputation Management: We didn’t do anything wrong!” The presentation, featuring a former TV and former newspaper reporter, will discuss reputation management for senior living communities, as well as current news topics likely to skew impressions, such as tax-exempt status for not-for-profit CCRCs, congressional review of CCRC contracts and disputes with various unions.

Register now for this free webinar from GlynnDevins, the leading senior living marketing agency.

In marketing circles, we talk a lot about breaking through the clutter of the thousands of advertising messages the average person is exposed to each day. More and more, organizations and agencies are pushing the envelope, so to speak, further and further in an effort just to get noticed by consumers.

It’s certainly true that you have to stand out enough to gain your prospect’s attention. But, the simple fact is, that being different, wacky, oversized, excessively colorful or odd doesn’t guarantee success. Because beyond getting noticed, you have to capitalize on the little amount of time and attention someone gives in order to make a strong connection with them. Because no matter how interesting-looking your marketing piece is, no one pays attention if they don’t think it speaks specifically to them.

At GlynnDevins, we look at creating marketing pieces as a two-pronged approach. First, you must have standout creative, which entices people to take a deeper look beyond their initial glance. That can be an image, a headline, an email subject line, etc. At the same time, that creative look, image or packaging has to quickly connect people to your core messages. In the case of senior living, those core messages should address the emotions and issues of the senior audience who may be considering a move – independence, a desire for respect, preservation of dignity, and a desire to maintain and even enhance an engaged and vital lifestyle. Those messages are best supported with facts and accurate representations, not marketing fluff.

For us, breaking through the clutter comes from being more relevant, rather than just being different. It takes more than flash or being humorous to start a productive relationship with a new prospect. You have to convince them, quickly, that you understand their values, wants and needs. Let them know exactly what you will bring to their lives beyond what they already have.

Different and unique is great, as long as your audience can instantly discern why they would even consider your community in the first place.

A co-worker sent around an interesting video of Simon Sinek speaking at the 2009 TED seminar. In the piece, Sinek explained his ‘golden circle’ theory: Most businesses market their products by first telling consumers “what” the company offers, then “how” they make it different, and lastly telling them the “why” behind the company.

Sinek contends that the most successful companies communicate to consumers using the completely opposite approach. The best companies explain the “why” behind their organization, then talk about “how” the product they offer delivers on that “why,” before finally getting to the “what” of all the product features. According to Sinek, this is more effective, because it speaks more directly to how consumers make buying decisions. It also helps consumers understand that they believe the same things as your organization does.

I can’t do justice to the entire rationale of the presentation in this space, so I’d suggest you watch it for yourself here. But I do think the concept has serious merit when it comes to senior living marketing, especially for CCRCs. Consider Sinek’s theory in relation to the three most common objections to moving to a CCRC:

• “I’m not ready yet.”
• “I don’t want to live around old people.”
• “It costs too much.”

What do these three objections all have in common? They are all value statements about why someone doesn’t want to move to a CCRC. They have very little to do with the actual physical community and its features. In fact, by the time you hear these objections, the consumer generally has already seen for themselves or been presented a full list of amenities. They get “what” the CCRC is, they just don’t get “why” they should move. Let’s look at the objections one at a time:

“I’m not ready yet.” This statement recognizes that the product is necessary and has value as the consumer ages. But the consumer is saying they don’t see “why” they should give up their current lifestyle to make the investment right now. Telling the consumer you have multiple dining venues, a state-of-the-art fitness center and scheduled transportation doesn’t overcome this objection. You have to talk about why the community offers independent living to begin with – so residents can get more from their vibrant, independent lifestyle, extending it instead of surrendering it.

“I don’t want to live around old people.” This statement is the consumer’s way of saying, “I’m scared of seeing what my future might bring, so don’t remind me of it each day.” Again, talking about what you deliver — quality, personalized skilled nursing and memory support care — won’t overcome this objection, it will raise it. You have to discuss how CCRCs are designed to keep the consumer from becoming one of those “old people” they don’t want to live around. At a CCRC, you get wellness and fitness programs that help you stay healthy, and therefore, independent. You get social events that keep you engaged instead of becoming isolated. You can attend cultural and educational events to keep your mind focused and sharp. In short, a CCRC lifestyle is conducive to feeling and acting younger, not aging faster.

“It costs too much.” The consumer is saying one of two things. The first is that they actually do not have the financial resources to pay the costs. So this group isn’t ever buying from you, simply because they can’t.

The second group is saying, “I don’t see the value for what I have to pay.” This group will actually buy from you if they believe their money is being well spent. So will they be able to better justify the expense by knowing your chef offers an exceptional dining experience? This group can afford to buy a nice dinner whenever they want it at a number of places around town. Or do they need to hear that they’ll meet a wide variety of other interesting people to dine with each evening? Most seniors consider friends to be priceless, especially as their social circle shrinks.

I think Sinek’s point is well taken when you look at your CCRC marketing materials. Everyone has a list of “what” elements their community offers. But does that list really include the elements that are going to motivate someone to move in? Or do you need to first establish the person’s buy-in as to “why” a CCRC matches their lifestyle, values and goals for the future?

We all know that independent living residents at CCRCs live, for lack of a better term, independently. They come and go as they please, setting their own schedules. It’s a great arrangement, unless one of them happens to “wander off” and goes missing.

The problem of missing seniors is growing across the nation, and it represents the most likely potential image crisis that CCRC communities might face. With the aging population, especially among CCRC residents, it’s not just those in memory support areas who are at risk of “wandering off.”

A May 4 article in the New York Times entitled, “More With Dementia Wander From Home” outlined how for the first time, many law enforcement agencies say that searches for “wandering” seniors have overtaken other searches for missing people. The trend is being fueled by the explosion of Alzheimer’s and dementia among seniors, and the fact that many people starting to show the initial signs of these conditions are still trying to live independently. And each case tends to generate substantial coverage in the local newspaper, television, Internet and radio news.

So in addition to asking yourself if your community has an emergency plan in place to deal with this type of situation, you need to consider if you have a crisis communication plan that will guide you in handling the media attention that follows. If one of your IL residents “wanders off,” who in your organization is going to address the media? What is your media statement going to look like? How do you explain the difference between someone living in IL versus memory support? What is your community policy on checking on the safety, well-being and ongoing ability of residents to live independently?

These questions are all important because it’s amazing how quickly your community can be thrust into the glare of the spotlight through no fault of your own. Suddenly, an IL or even AL resident doesn’t return within a few hours from a short trip, they don’t show up where they are expected or their family can’t reach them. Your community conducts a welfare check on the resident and searches the campus. No one knows where they are. Someone close to the person finally admits that the resident had been showing signs of confusion, memory loss or agitation.

Soon, the family is filing a missing person report with the police, law enforcement issues an advisory to the media asking for assistance to locate the person, and the family and media are questioning the community staff as to why no one knows where the resident might have been going. And the longer the person remains “missing,” the more involved the media becomes.

Those of us working in senior living understand that while staff, and even other residents, tend to keep an eye on each other, IL residents don’t check in and out each time someone leaves the campus. But that’s a misconception the public and media tend to have ─ that senior living communities watch over and protect their residents.

If you don’t have a crisis communication plan in place, you need to develop one outlining your media and public response to situations like these that might occur. The best protection for your reputation is being prepared to answer the inevitable questions.

I was asked by a community to do some media outreach surrounding their exceptional dining experience, their executive chef, and their five-star dining atmosphere. My first question to everyone I talked to from the community was, “What sets your dining apart from other senior living communities?”

I received a lot of the typical answers: resident-focused staff, customer service training, making dishes from scratch with fresh ingredients, knowing our residents’ tastes, and adjusting dishes to meet dietary restrictions.

Don’t get me wrong, all those elements are important in quality dining. But just by sharing those concepts, I probably didn’t convince you that this particular community’s dining experience is unique or extraordinary.

What is convincing is giving you a specific example of how all these elements are brought together in a tangible way to deliver an intangible concept – exceptional dining. I need a story that illustrates the community’s dining story.

During an interview, the community chef told me that a couple of residents wanted to try beef tongue, so they came up to her and requested it. The chef was hesitant to put something so exotic on the menu. But the residents had asked for it, so she researched it, came up with a recipe and made beef tongue an entrée selection one night. It turned out to be a very well-received dish, not a one-time walk on the wild side.

Has beef tongue been on your community’s menu lately? Would your residents even think to ask for it? Would your chef know how to prepare it and then actually serve it? Would you want to be in the room watching the reactions as a bunch of seniors tried beef tongue for the first time?

Just hearing the beef tongue story gives you an entirely new perspective on how dining operates at this particular community. Beef tongue certainly made dining more memorable than “adjusting dishes to meet dietary restrictions.”

It’s the little stories that tell the bigger story of your community, especially with the media and consumers. People will stop for a few seconds to hear about serving beef tongue to seniors.  Reporters love examples like this, because they are, at their heart, storytellers.

Next time you have an abstract concept or community value to explain, uncover the small stories that give people the bigger picture of why your community is truly different or unique. If you want to talk about personal attention, stop the next three residents you see and ask them to tell you their best experience with your staff. Or simply go to the kitchen and ask if anyone has ever requested beef tongue for dinner. Because it’s likely that the stories you hear are the very stories your community should be telling.