Boost Your Occupancy Podcasts

Episode 7 - Boosting Your Occupancy with Guests Paul Morgan and Karen Gray of Wallacea Living.

In this episode of Boosting Your Occupancy, Ali Powell is joined by Paul Morgan and Karen Gray of Wallacea Living, to discuss:

  •  Wallacea Living overview
  • Creating awareness and interest pre-opening – marketing approach
  •  Importance of community relationships
  • Events focus and successful delivery
  • Reframing later living positively – Generation Joy campaign
  • Sector is about helping people live better lives – to thrive socially, physically, and emotionally
  • Transparency about the offering and benefits has been key to building trust
  • Building trust and emotional connection
  • Customer experience is seen as a critical differentiator in the sector
  • Deep discovery – all about the person and customer psychology
  • Importance of creating a vibrant, inclusive lifestyle and community
  • Making visits memorable and use of technology and interactive tools
  • Consistency coming from a values-led culture and recruitment
  • Sales is everybody’s job
  • Strong hospitality influence
  • Personal touches – Paul and Karen’s latest holiday and concert experiences

Episode 6 - Boosting Your Occupancy with Guest Speaker Debbie Harris, Autumna

In this episode of Boosting Your Occupancy, Ali Powell is joined by Debbie Harris, Managing Director of Autumna, to discuss:

  • The evolution of Autumna and the launch of OpenScore
  • OpenScore has over 60 data sources – including live customer satisfaction ratings, self-assessed information and regulatory ratings – are aggregated in real time to generate a transparent score between 0 and 10
  • The critical role online directories play in how people search for care homes and retirement villages
  • Why a strong directory presence should be part of a wider digital marketing omnichannel – supported by engaging videos, compelling testimonials, and clear, accessible information
  • Building trust through transparency – and why sharing key details like fees is non-negotiable
  • The growing focus across the sector on self-funding clients – and what that means for marketing strategy
  • Why excellent customer experience is more important than ever
  • Importance of not missing calls out of hours (evenings and weekends) – has a huge impact on missed revenue opportunities
  • How increasing competition is driving the need to raise the game in marketing and sales to boost occupancy
  • The brilliant basics that make the difference – from rich discovery calls, capturing key information, excellent personalised tours and timely follow-ups
  • The vital role of CRMs and sales consultants in enquiry conversion
  • The rise in customer expectations – and the need for the sector to elevate its approach
  • Practical, actionable tips to help you increase occupancy

Episode 5 - With Lex Cumber, Sales & Marketing Director for Untold Living

In this session with Lex Cumber, Sales & Marketing Director for Untold Living, we cover:

  • Lex’s background and experience
  • Understanding customer psychology in the context of Integrated Retirement Communities (IRCs)
  • The critical role of psychology in the purchase decision • Customer centricity vs. product centricity
  • The shift towards person- or prospect-centred selling • The complexity and nuance of the customer journey
  • The fact that over 60% of the purchase decision is driven by trust and emotional factors
  • Practical tips to enhance effectiveness including spending more quality time with prospects, building connection, untangling obstacles, advancing conversations, and the vital importance of timely responses
  • The two-part nature of the journey: 95% is about moving away from the family home, and only 5% about moving towards a retirement community
  • The urgent need to accelerate sales rates
  • The importance of delivering excellent customer service at every touchpoint – from phone calls to tours to follow-up
  • Focusing on what really matters: measuring key conversion ratios such as:
    • Visit to Move-In (USA: 20%, UK: 15%)
    • Lead to Move-In (USA: 10%, UK: 2%)
  • The UK’s need to stop resisting change and adopt new sales approaches – focusing on controlling the controllables • The importance of capturing and benchmarking the right data
  • The call for greater professionalisation in sales – robust processes, clear methodology, and having the right people with the right skills (e.g. empathy and active listening)
  • Learning from international best practices – including extended opening hours, using AI to support marketing and sales, and consistently tracking Net Promoter Score (NPS)
  • Addressing the perception and knowledge gap around the sector
  • Being honest with ourselves when something isn’t working
  • The wish that more people were genuinely obsessed with customer service and experience • A recommendation to read Unreasonable Hospitality
  • The desire for a consistent, sector-wide way to measure customer experience in IRCs – for the benefit of both operators and customers
  • The increasing attractiveness of working in the sector

Episode 4 - With host of Care Home Management (CHM) host Alan Rustad

For a care home to remain viable it must maximise its occupancy rates. But keeping occupancy levels high is no easy task. 

In our special podcast we look at:

  • Customer-centered selling
  • Customer psychology and selling change
  • Most common challenges to keeping occupancy high
  • Ensuring the critical foundations are brilliant
  • Digital marketing to reach families (decision-makers) and residents
  • Prioritising marketing and sales as the growth engine to getting customers
  • Techniques and tips to boost quality lead generation and sales conversions
  • Troubleshooting through my ‘Occupancy Optimiser’ programme and Sales and Marketing strategies
  • How care homes can ensure they keep residency levels as high as possible?
  • The importance of sales and marketing
  • Turning enquiries into residents

Join Ali Powell, CEO and Founder of Commercial Acceleration as she talks to host of Care Home Management (CHM) host Alan Rustad

Episode 3 - With Honor Barratt, Birchgrove's Chief Executive

In this podcast we are delighted to be joined by Honor Barratt, Birchgrove’s Chief Executive. We cover:

  • Birchgrove
  • Reasons why Honor and Ali are so passionate about the sector
  • Impacting loneliness and bioge vs chronological age
  • Achieving 100% occupancy and a waiting list
  • The importance of off-plan sales on sales velocity
  • The lifecycle of fill-up and the different sales skills required
  • Recommendations for improving sales rates – including follow-up, home visits, try before you buy, call handling
  • Customer perception and awareness and the time for the UK to reach a tipping point
  • Importance of data and insights
  • Key metrics and need for a common language and more benchmark data
  • Rental growth
  • Shortage of affordable retirement living
  • Inspiration from hospitality and intergenerational

Episode 2 - Optimising Conversions

In this session with Margot we cover:

  • The current occupancy situation
  • Importance of sales velocity on driving revenue and profitability
  • The stigma in the UK
  • The complexities of selling in the retirement living and care sector
  • Re-thinking
  • Average sales lifecycle durations
  • Managing the leads efficiently to convert
  • The key conversion metrics to focus on
  • Assessing the customer journey to optimise it
  • Aligning sales and marketing

Boost Your Occupancy Podcast

Episode 1 - Fill up faster

In this podcast we cover:

  • Angela’s career with LifeCare Residences
  • The huge opportunity for retirement living
  • Insights about the campaign that won the Retirement Living Best Marketing Award
  • The two target audiences for LifeCare Residences
  • The importance of a customer centricity and how this is brought to life
  • The main marketing priorities for 2024
  • Recommendations for shifting the negative customer perceptions of the retirement living sector
  • 3 Tips for boosting occupancy
  • Why Marketing in the retirement living sector is a great career choice
  • Successful ROI metrics on marketing

 

Quote of the podcast: “I think this is joyful, I don’t think there is anything better than living here”