Look Like a $10M Community With These 3 Tech Tools - Day 12

Families don’t just want information.  They want and need reassurance.

In this episode, I discuss how intentional communication helps prospects and families feel connected, calm, and confident in your care.

I am sharing simple, accessible tech tools to strengthen relationships, reduce anxiety, and stand out from larger communities without overwhelming your budget.

I am going over:

• Why silence creates more fear than over-communication in senior living
• How to use modern communication tools to build trust and retention
• The Three P’s of Tech Communication: Personal, Proactive, and Promotional
• When to use video, text, email, and updates and why it matters
• How small communities can outperform big-box operators through connection...EVERY TIME!
• One simple tech action you can implement this week

Key Takeaway To Remember:

You don’t need more tools.  You just need the right tools and use it with intention.

Free Resource:

COMING SOON: Tech Tools Cheatsheet
Want it early? Email: tiffany@startwithoccupancy.com

What’s Next:

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

If you’re loving this series:

Share this episode with another operator, we’re all in this together!

Subscribe so you don’t miss the next part of the 21-Day All Things Senior Living Sales & Marketing.

And if you're ready to increase your move-ins in 2026, join the Momentum Marketing Bootcamp. Founding cohort launches in January 28th with special charter pricing.

Take what you need. Share what helps. Come back for more. 🎧

Want to support my caffeine filled nights editing the podcast, you can buy me coffee by clicking on the support the show link 😉

Transcript

Tiffany Updated voice: 0:00

Let me tell you about a moment with a family member that I will never forget. I was a sales manager at my first community when a daughter rushed up to me in the lobby, her mom, one of our residents, had just been discharged from the hospital. Nothing serious. She was just tired after a little stay at the hospital, right? But this was the first time that her mom had been admitted to the hospital while living with us. Now, this daughter traveled frequently, often out of the country for work, and when I saw her face, I saw something I'll never forget. It was like a mix of concern, gratitude, relief. I can still see her face today. Her mom had been admitted while she was on a work trip, but our team handled everything. We did what we always do, coordinated with physicians and discharge planners, arranged the transportation, updated her primary care, got the medications and the orders. We did it all, but here's what made the difference. Within 10 minutes of her mom being sent to the hospital, that daughter got a phone call and when we couldn't reach her, we sent a text. Once we connected, we kept her updated. We sent her a photo of her mom sitting up and smiling during one of our weekly hospital visits, because yes, our team would visit our residents when they went to the hospital. I sent her a short video message showing how excited her mom was about the goodies We brought her while she was in the hospital and gave her a brief, very nonclinical update of the expected discharge date and what's going on. That daughter looked me in the eye and said, Tiffany, I've never felt so connected to my mom's care from so far away. You didn't just tell me she was okay, you showed me. She's okay. That's the power of modern communication tools, and that's what we're talking about today.

Tiffany: 1:53

/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 over 15 years of 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: 3:25

Hey there, I'm Tiffany and welcome to episode 12 of our 21 Days All Things Senior Living Marketing series. Today we're diving into the tech tools that will transform how you communicate with families, tools that will set you apart from every big box community in your area. And if you're thinking, well, Tiffany, I am not tech savvy, don't worry, I'm going to make this super simple that you can follow and give you some recommendations. Fair enough. All right, let's go. So, you know the saying that no news is good news that doesn't work in senior living, I see two camps here. There's the operators who think frequent communications overwhelms families. Um, and then I also see operators who only share what is necessary. To me, both are kind of wrong. There's a medium in there. Silence does far more damage than over communication. And when I started in this industry in 2011, we had only four communication tools. The phone, the fax, Hey, all right, I'm dating myself. Email and text messaging. And that was. Families still complained even with those things about lack of communication because there has to be intention in how you're utilizing communication and how often you communicate. Today, we have dozens of tools available, but most communities are either using the wrong tools for the situation or no tools at all. That silence is costing you move-ins and causing retention issues. So now before I overwhelm you with a list of tools, let me give you a kind of framework to remember, um, because this is going to help you even in how you position which tool to use, at what time, and what the reason for the tools are. So the goal isn't to use every tool, so I want you to keep that in mind, but it's to use the right tools for your community and your families. I'm gonna break this down into three categories based on whatever you're trying to accomplish, right? So we're gonna just call it the three P's, as in Peter of tech. Um, and you'll see why there is the personal, the proactive, and the promotional. So let's start with the personal. The personal are tools for one-on-one connection that's for your prospective families. The proactive will be tools for, um, to, uh, keep families informed, like existing residents. And lastly, your promotional tools. These are tools for showcasing your community with referral sources, and with partners. So let's start off with the first P, which is personal, your one-to-one connection. These tech tools really are for connecting with prospective families during the inquiry to move in journey. Remember, in episode 11, we wa we, um, talked about the three Cs of follow up, right? So if you haven't, um, checked that out, look at day 11. I say episode, I meant day 11 of the series. And so follow up was what the main theme was. So these tools that I'm gonna talk to you now, make that system work. We talked a lot about private video and private video has always been like my secret weapon after visits AKA tours. And if you know, you know, I don't do the word tours, I would send a personalized video. Not a generic,"thanks for coming" email or call. Hey, I'm just checking in. No? You know, several times I took a video where I'm standing in the room that they loved, or that they talked about or that they was interested in talking about, the specific things that they actually mentioned. And then what I did is that we would connect that way and they would be. It would, it would bring them to their remembrance. Side thing to think about too in this is that most families. Are not just visiting your community. They sometimes are visiting. I think the average last time I checked was 10, 10 communities. So how are you going to look different? Because if you go to 10 communities over a period of two weeks, um, and some people do it in two days. You're not gonna remember which community has what. That's why the videos are so impactful or anything that you can do to bring them back into your community or bring back their remembrance of your community. I am not gonna repeat the whole story about how I used the video in day 11, but I will encourage you to listen to it to understand how impactful it can be when used as a tool in your communication toolbox. the way that you can take videos where you are is through a tool called Loom. It is free, it's easy, it's perfect for beginners, and it's just, you know, something that they can share with their other family members. Um, then there's a second tool called Vimeo. Now when I give you these three, you have a choice. It's not for you to, you know, you go on all of them, pick which one you like and which one seems perfect for you. But Loom is also another, um, is the one that I just talked about, is also good for communication with your team too, by the way. That's so total side note. But Vimeo is the second one. It is paid. I think you get two videos per month. Um, and it's more professional and there's no competitor links at the backend, like as if you was to utilize, let's say YouTube unlisted. Um,'cause YouTube is a little bit of a setup that can overwhelm people. Um, and then the third one that you can choose from is called Descript And if you really, um, are into maybe podcasting in, in the future or communicating with your team through Descript where you can do video messages, then that is another really good one to use. My recommendation is to start with Loom. It's free, it's simple, and it works. And I think you get like 25 videos that you can do or um, um, I can't remember if it's per month or per year, but at least it can get you started. So what I'd like you to do right now is to pause this episode. Think about the last family visit that you had inside of your community. Did you send them a generic email? Or do a generic phone call, or did you do something that showed that you were actually listening to what was a concern to them? There may lie your answer for why they may have chosen another place to go to. This is a very high touch, high connection type business, and so any way that you can get that touch to be more solid it's going to be good for you. Now inside my deep dive discovery live training that I do, I walk you through creating your first three video templates. The confirmation video before they come in, the thank you video and the follow-up video. We record them together in the session and you leave with templates that you can use immediately. But for now, just know this, videos work. The second P is proactive. There are tools for communicating with families that are your current residents, and this is where retention happens. You worked hard to get the resident. Now it's time to keep them and keep their families happy because when families feel informed, they feel calm. And when they feel calm, they trust you. And it also helps minimize or mitigates issues. Customer service failures is what we call it in the industry, if they should come up. Now I'm in Florida, So let me tell you about hurricane season. Every year, it seems like we get families especially if it's a hurricane year, calling like: is my mom going to be safe? Are you guys evacuating What I'm gonna do? And depending on the hype and hysteria of the hurricane, it can be a very, um, how do I say? Mm, challenging time. One of the companies I worked for created a hurricane update system using mass text messaging. Now, this particular company was very digital savvy because my VP was very on the cutting edge of digital. Everything digital from eBooks and, and pay per clicks. Like she was just amazing. I learned so much from her. But during the move in, we would ask families, how do you want to be notified if there's a hurricane? And in Florida we should say when there's a hurricane. But we gave them a QR code that they signed up for our alert system. And when they were hunkered down for the hurricane, we sent updates. On a scheduled interval to let them know what's happening, um, company-wide or in that area, and how their loved one was doing. The residents in general, not specifically, but in general. We, um, also used, um, Facebook Live to show what was happening inside the community, um, and that we were monitoring the storm. Their loved one was safe. We secured the building, meals were being served. All of that was kind of like an update. The storm passed, everyone is safe. Power's on, like that type of update is valuable when you are away from your loved one and there's something as scary as a hurricane coming through and you're just seeing news. So if you're able to communicate those things. Where somebody can feel warm, warm and they can feel like, okay, mom is safe, and they know what's going on. It, it hampers down that panic. Right. But you know what happened? We got like zero panic calls. People were so appreciative when they came back home from the hurricane, um,'cause the family would evacuate obviously, and their resident was with us because it was a safer, it's a safer choice typically to do it that way. Um. What ended up happening is that they would bring the staff like pizza and gifts and just, they were just so appreciative. And why were they appreciative? Because they saw what the staff was doing with their mom, their dad, and how they kept their mom and dad safe. If you think everyone else is in a hysteria when hurricanes or natural disasters happening, imagine being 90 years old and being fixated on the news and seeing all this happening and how much of a, I guess in the south they call it a tizzy that you could be in. Um, looking at that. So the fact that you're able to keep their mom, dad, auntie, grandma safe and calm, and, um, entertained and engaged, where they're not thinking about what's going on around them That is peace. Peace of mind. They felt connected. They trusted us and they appreciated us. And the videos of the fun we had in the community during the storm, that's the power of proactive communication. We talked about mass texts. Twilio is one for urgent updates through weather alerts and, um. We through FobFlo. I say we, my friend Cameron Barker has that through FobFlo. He does it, um, with larger communities. Um, and for the smaller ones, I have it through my BlueBeacon360 that we can do that with. Um, the other one that you can do is email newsletters. That's another great way of updating your families. Um, like once a month, what's happening in the community. Um, you could use Beehiv. Um, MailChimp or Constant Contact. Any one of those three would be good. I prefer if you're gonna. Decide between MailChimp and Constant Contact. Constant Contact. I had a bad experience with MailChimp, so I'm not a big fan of them, but Beehive is another really good one, um, that is coming up the ranks when it comes to newsletters. And then if you are wanting to make it audio, a private podcast through Buzz Sprout or Hello Audio is amazing for you to give. A voice like, Hey, this is what's happening in our community. And it could be like from the chair of, uh, owner's notes or manager's notes. I mean, you could really make it engaging and it will set you a world apart from those big box communities because, um, I'm telling you, they're not doing hardly any of this. My recommendation again is start with one. If you're in a weather prone area, start with mass texts. If not, then start with a monthly newsletter. Um, these are just some of the things I think that would be good. And of course you have to know your. Your, your families and you know, the residents in the area that you're in. If you're in an area where people not getting signals, then obviously, You know, some people are in bad signal areas, then that may not be the right thing to do. Right? So you have to fix it and, um, where it, it's good for you, your community and your families. Now, I know what you're thinking. I don't know, know. But I think I know, that this may sound expensive and complicated, but I promise you it's not. Most of these tools that I just named to you are either free or very, very low cost options. I think Buzzsprout might be$12 a month and the time that you invest in setting them up, you'll save 10x times that in reduced phone calls to your staff and to you. Family anxiety and complaints. Yes. Complaints to the state because of misunderstandings. Trust me on this. And that's if you have an assisted living, obviously you have an independent living, it's independent, but then you don't wanna have retention issues. So now the third P is promotional. This is showcasing your community and there are tools for this that you can have go out to referral sources and prospective families that makes you different. This is your marketing engine. So what tools do we have available to us that helps in um, promotion conversations? The first one, um, is Canva. And you say Canva, isn't that like a graphic design site? Yes. But you can make like super simple websites and it's not like. I mean, they're websites, but it could be like a website that has the activity calendar. You can do videos on Canva, You can send it out as a link to families and, and to prospects. So if it's something that's public facing that you have in terms of promotion that you can do. You can do that simply right through Canva. You can put a QR code for that website on your business cards. So it's live. So people then have a reason to keep your business card because you can tell them, Hey, we have our monthly, um, event on the back that your mom and dad can come to visit, right. Um, or, um, we have our family events that we do monthly or whatever you have going on. You could put right on that website and your business card if you're not utilizing the back of it. This is so FYI. That blank space on the back of a business card, that's real estate, that's promotional real estate. So utilize that as well. And that could be where the QR code go. The other thing, um, is um, or the second tool is the private podcast. We kind of talked about that with the last, um, p um, but this one is. To create a, like meet our team series. Um, you can do a private podcast on that. If you're utilizing Hello Audio, You can do a series on a private podcast of, um, FAQs, make it an FAQ series right where the most questions that a a new family would have. You can record that in your voice. Um, and you can actually do an interview style with your nurse if you have one, um, or your your team. And, you can actually do an FAQ and that can also go to new prospective, residents and families or to professional referrals. What a cool thing for that, you know, for you to be able to send that for again, the last one. Is, um, post-visit surveys. So when people come into your community and after they left sending out a Google form or even through my thing Blue Beacon, that, um, you can gather what their assessment of your community is. This is real time, great feedback, and it can help you become better for your next visit with your next family because you're getting the feedback right away on what they saw from their point of view. I say create one simple page website that showcase your community's personality, um, the things that you have going on. Put a QR code on it, on your business card done. That's the one takeaway that you might wanna do. So here's your homework. Pick one tool from one category, just one. Don't try to implement everything. Pick the one that solves your biggest communication pain point right now, and let that be your starting point. And if you want a quick win for this week, create one video message template. Pull out your phone record a 60 second thank you for visiting video. Save it as a template, and then send it to the next family that visits your community. That's it. One video, one template, one step towards standing out from every other community in your area. Are you still with me? Did I go too fast? Well now, if you're thinking I want to implement all of this, these all sound great, but I don't know where to start. That's exactly what we do in my deep dive discovery live training, We build your entire communication tech stack together. We choose the right tools for your community size, your budget, your families, and set them up. You'll leave with a system that actually works. The first class cohort starts January 29th Can you believe it? And if you want in head to start with occupancy.com/deepdive. But even if you don't join the training, that's okay. Implement one video template to this week. It will make a difference, I promise. Alright, so now let's recap. Today we covered the three P's of tech communication personal- tools for your one-on-one connection with prospective residents. Start utilizing Loom or Vimeo. Proactive- these are tools to keep you current with families and to keep families informed. Um, start with mass texts for urgent updates or a monthly newsletter utilizing either constant contact or Beehiv and Beehiv, B-E-E-H-I-V, and tools for showcasing your community. Start with Canva for a simple activity event website. And don't forget the QR codes. There is a way of doing that. Your first action step is to pick only one tool, one template, and then to, um, use it with only one family this week. That's what I'm gonna just challenge you to do one family. In our next episode, we're diving into how to know when you'll be full, meaning how to be able to forecast and project when you will be full before running out of money. I know you'll wanna hear about this. I know it, but be warned, I'm going deep. It's a numbers cruncher, but it is going to be good. So before I let you go, just remember this, big box communities have bigger budgets, right? They have bigger marketing teams, they have bigger buildings, they have more staff, but you know what? They don't have the ability to move fast, to be as personal or flexible as you in the smaller communities, these tech tools, with the right implementation can level up the playing field for you. They allow you to compete on a connection level, not a size. So go use them. Go be the community that families remember because you actually saw them. And until next time, we are here to inspire change, impact lives, and improve outcomes. I'll see you in the next episode.