Marketing Magic for Residential Assisted Living

Mike: Welcome back to the flipnerd.com REI Classroom where experts from across the real estate investing industry teach you quick lessons to take your business to the next level. And now, let’s meet today’s expert host.
Gene: Hey. This is Gene, the Founder of the Residential Assisted Living Academy and your host for the REI Classroom right here on FlipNerds. Today, we’re going to be talking about magic marketing, the marketing magic for residential assisted living.
Mike: This REI Classroom real estate lesson is sponsored by theinvestormachine.com, FlipNerd’s private investor coaching program and your blueprint to investing success.
Gene: You know, people ask me all the time, “Gene, you have a house. You’ve got the business open. But how do you find people to move into the house? I mean how do you get the word out or what do we do for marketing?” So I’m going to give you some secrets, some tips, so listen carefully. Number one, there is no secret. I mean, hey, it’s not like I put up a billboard. All of a sudden, they are going to see it and come. Yeah. If you put up a billboard, some people will see it. So what you do have to have, let’s cover our basics. We need a website and it’s got to be a good website.
I think the FlipNerd’s website is awesome. Every time I go to that and I talk to Mike, I’m like, “Mike, this is awesome.” And every time I do, he says, “Yeah, it’s good, but we’re redoing it. We’re doing another way.” And it blows me away because it is really good. That’s a great example of an excellent website. So you do need a website, but it’s not if you build it they will come. You need to have the right keywords in there. There’s a term, used to be a lot more popular, SEO, right, search engine optimization.
Now here’s the deal. You and I, we’re not techie. So you and I are not the people who should be doing that. Hire professionals to get the eyeballs to come to your website. But if you do it properly, people will see your website. But here’s the real issue. When mom needs help, she needs it now. She’s not going to go to a website. “Let me check it out. Let me see 28 different things.” They’re going to get a recommendation from somebody else.
So I’m going to come back to that because I said there’s no magic, but there is. So, number one, you do need a website. Number two, you need a brochure. That brochure, that handout, that piece of paper, the tactile aspect of there’s something in hand that people now can pass from one to another is important. It’s got to have all the basics of where you are, who you are, what you do and so on. Make sure it’s done right. It’s no misspellings. The phone number works.
I have seen all kinds of crazy things that you really let that go to print. So, the brochure, business card. Don’t get fancy. You really don’t need like ninja stars that are made out of Mylar and holograms. You need a business card that’s got your name, your logo, your email and so on. Make sure it’s big and bold for those of us who need a little help on the visual side. So business card, brochure, website, those are kind of your basic things that you need for any good and proper business.
Now, the next thing. Let’s go to the next level. Let’s spend some money, because you don’t make money unless you spend and invest some money. That’s just a key to life, guys. You get what you pay for. If you’re not willing to invest in yourself and your business, who are you expecting to do it for you, right? The government. Come on, this is not a charity. It’s a business. You put money in, God willing you get money out. If you do it right, you will not lose. If you do it wrong, it doesn’t matter anyway.
So here’s the deal. You got to have the website, the brochure, the business card, but we also have to do some other things. So where do people go? That if they are looking for a place for mom, where are they going to go? Where are there eyeballs going to be at? Number one, think about the demographic. Who is really the client? Is it the senior living in that house, that home that you’ve created or is it the kids of? If the mom who is living in the home is 85, the kids are probably 55. So where do those 55, 60-year-olds go, live, hangout, operate? Who do they listen to?
Now this is an event-driven business. So what happens is somebody falls. They are sick. They go to the hospital or a doctor. They say, “Wow, mom needs more health and I can’t stop working. I can’t give up all my time. I need to call somebody in or I need to bring mom to some place. So I need to make a decision now.” So they ask for a referral. They are going to go to their doctor, the hospital, an elder, an attorney. They are going to go to somebody and say, “Where do you think I should go? Who do you know?”
So I’m going to cut through the clutter and say, word of mouth and referrals are really the magic. That’s really where it’s at. And here’s the deal. You can’t really buy that. You can’t really pay for that directly. We do it indirectly by taking somebody out to lunch, buying them a box of chocolate, tickets to the game. Building a relationship does take time. It’s an effort. But if you think about it differently, instead of putting an ad in the Yellow Pages like they did many years ago, some of you have no idea what I’m talking about. What’s a Yellow Page, you put that in the kitty litter? Well, yeah, you may as well at this day and age.
But the point is instead of putting an advertisement in a newspaper or magazine, take that same $500 a month and use that to take people out to lunch, to bring them a gift, to stop in and say hello, take your time, invest some money and some effort to build the relationship. So when it comes time for mom and dad, they need help, that referral comes directly to you. That’s the magic of marketing for assisted living. Hey. This is Gene. I’m the Founder of the Residential Assisted Living Academy. I’m your host for the REI Classroom here on FlipNerd. It’s been great and I’ll be back and I’ll see you very soon.
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