Why Not Building A Waitlist Is Costing You Move-Ins (And Money) - Day 20

When you finally hit 100% occupancy, it feels like the finish line. But, it isn’t.

Because in senior living, turnover is inevitable. Residents move. Care needs change. Families relocate. Life happens.

And if your occupancy strategy begins only after a room opens, then you’re already behind.

In this episode, I share the story of one of the most driven sales managers I ever worked with...someone who hit 100% occupancy in an emerging competitive market…and then asked the question most never think to ask:

“Now what?”  The answer?

Build a pipeline so strong you have no lost revenue days.  Yes, that means creating a waitlist, nurturing future families, and staying top of mind long before they’re ready to move. Because occupancy is not a destination. It’s a process.

In this episode, I walk you through how to stop scrambling every time a resident moves out and start building a sustainable occupancy engine instead.

Inside this episode:

✔ Why full communities should NEVER stop marketing
✔ How to identify families who aren’t ready yet, but will be
✔ How to create a waitlist families actually want to join
✔ Ways to keep future residents engaged while they wait
✔ How to fill rooms faster when availability opens

If you’ve ever panicked after a move-out…This episode is for you!

FREE RESOURCE: COMING SOON: 20 Creative Ways To Follow Up 

Want first access? Email: tiffany@startwithoccupancy.com

Subject line: WAITLIST

What's Next? Day 21: From Overwhelmed to Occupied: Your 90-Day Marketing Roadmap

The final episode in the series! Whew...

We’re pulling everything together into a practical action plan so you know exactly what to focus on next.

IF YOU ARE LOVING THE SERIES,

Share this episode with another operator. Subscribe so you don’t miss the final episode of the 21-Day All Things Senior Living Marketing Series.

And if you're ready to strengthen your sales systems, inquiry process, follow-up strategy, and move-in conversions:

Enrollment in the Deep Dive Discovery opens May 27th.

Enroll early for preferred pricing plus advance access to select implementation tools before the live training begins.

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

Transcript

Tiffany Updated voice 0:00

I believe it was the second year of me being a regional. I hired a sales manager who was confident that she could increase the occupancy of her new community if she got hired. Like, she was so extremely confident in her ability to get this new community to a hundred percent. I don't think I've ever hired anyone quite like her before. She had this dog determination, and she was an eager type A personality. So all I had to do was really tell her, give her directions, and give her a goal, and I could really consider that goal done. She thrived, like really thrived on challenges, and no one could stop her. And one thing I remembered about her was that she was so engaged in the training, and she always asked a lot of questions, a lot. But I will tell you this, in doing so and being that diligent, she figured out a way to navigate through any and all of the challenges within the community and outside the community to achieve that one hundred percent within a reasonable early amount of time. We were just like, "Wow." And this is a community that was in an emerging competitive market, meaning new competitors were coming in. So once she received that 100% occupancy, and we all cheered her on, and her team, because no one does it in silo, she asked me intently, because she was always on high intensity. I'm saying that you can't see my hand up above my head, but when I say this woman was intense, it was almost like scary intense, right? But she said, "Well, now what? I received 100%. What do I do now?" And I said, as we all celebrated her and this milestone, and reassuring her, by the way, that she was a superstar because she thrived on not only, achieving her goal, but also basking in positive reinforcement and recognition. What I replied to her, "You know what? You achieve the goal of every community in this company. This is the goal, and you did it so well." I said, "However, you didn't reach the golden grail. The golden grail of senior living is to set up your pipeline so you have no lost revenue days." So she said, "Well, exactly what is that, and how do I do it?" She was so funny. And I said, "You know, it is when you start a wait list for the families who are inquiring, who are interested in moving in, and you keep them engaged. And then when a resident moves out, you move the new resident in the very next day. That way, you will not have an empty apartment on any day of the month, even with your move-outs." Now, this community averaged about anywhere between three to four move-outs a month. But I saw the determination in her eyes, and we started to plan for the execution of what was gonna be required and the coordination of her team and with the resident and the families and the physicians to do the proper paperwork for all of this, and more. I'm promising you, this is, it's a job. But she was the type of person who absolutely thrived on this type of stuff. And this amazing woman not only achieved it for the first time within the next month, which she was not only happy about achieving, but her inner peacock was really, like, was showing. But she did it again and again and again and again, nine times over. Do you hear me? Nine straight months, my sales manager maintained 100% in a forty-two-unit community in an emerging competitive market with no lost revenue days. She was simply amazing. And it's important to remember That many owners and operators and sales managers forget that being full today does not mean you'll be full tomorrow. Turnover is inevitable. Residents pass away. They move to higher levels of care. They move closer to family. It's not if you'll have a resident turnover, it's when. And if you don't have a pipeline of new residents and families interested who are ready to move in when a room opens, you're going to scramble every single time. Well, that's what we're gonna talk about today. How to build a waitlist and nurture prospects so that you stay full even when turnover happens. And we're gonna talk about how to create a pipeline that keeps your community occupied long term. How to stop scrambling and start planning. I'm gonna share with you the tactics and the strategies to make all of this happen. And by the way, yes, if you're wondering, she not only got a raise, but she also got a promotion. Hi, I'm Tiffany Hill Allen, and welcome to day twenty of our twenty-one days All Things Senior Living Marketing series. Let's dive in.

Tiffany 4:50

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 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 6:21

Here's what I see operators and salespeople do all the time. They stop marketing when they hit 100%. They don't track their inquiries from families, and this is more on the operators in small assisted livings that I see this thing, 'cause in corporate we track everything. But, not tracking the inquiries from families who aren't ready yet. Usually they let them go, and they don't follow up after the initial call, after the initial, "I think we're gonna think about it" or, "We're not ready yet." They don't invite the prospective residents to events at the community when they're full. That's all I've seen as I've been working in this arena, outside of corporate. And what they're doing is they're not building relationship with the families who are just looking. And so then when rooms open in their, m- you know, residential assisted living or 16-unit assisted living or 23, unit assisted living, there's panic and scramble, and they call everyone they can think of and then lose weeks, sometimes months, of revenue because they were unprepared for that move-out. Now, here's the truth that many do not know or understand when they're first coming into this world, is that occupancy isn't a destination. Yes, we strive for it, but it is a process. You don't just arrive at 100% occupancy and then stop. The key is that you have to maintain it, you have to nurture it, and you have to protect it, and the way you do that is by building a pipeline, a wait list of potential residents who are ready to move in the moment a room opens. Now, today I'm going to give you my strategy based on working with this particular sales manager for that building and how I also nurtured a wait list that will keep you full long-term. The first thing is understanding your prospects. Who's not ready yet? The key is to identify who's not ready to move in today, but will be ready in three to six months. I call this my sandwich method. The current people I was working with is the one side of the sandwich, the bread on that one side. The future for the month, based on historical data and trending metrics, is the bread on the other side. That tells me who's gonna call in, how many on average calls in, how many people I typically convert. it would tell me, you know, what I could expect. So I would have the people I'm already working with and the people that, um, are, are coming in for that month. But right in the mid-middle, those were my people I was nurturing, and they filled the middle of my sandwich. And these are the people who could move in any day because I have been nurturing them all along. So when we project our projections for the month, I'm looking at who I'm actually working with right now to move in and who on average would come into the system, and then there was always that one in the middle And here's the important thing to remember. Not every inquiry is ready to move in immediately. Some families are just looking, and that is okay. Some are just planning ahead. Congratulations, that is also okay. Some are waiting for a specific event, like maybe selling of a house, um, working through family dynamics, um, a health decline that they're waiting for. Those sometimes are your just lookings. And most people ignore these opportunities and dismiss them because they're not ready now. And I have heard people advise families, Call us back when you're ready," or, "Let us know when it's time," And then they never follow up with them. But here's the truth. These potential move-in opportunities are gold because they're thinking about senior living. They're researching. They're planning. And if you stay in touch with them, guess what? You'll be one of the first people that they call when they are ready. Why does this matter? It's because the latest statistic that I seen was that the average family researches senior living and senior living communities for months before making a move. So if you only focus on those families who are ready to move in this week or this month, you're missing eighty to ninety percent of your potential pipeline. And here's how to identify them during a discovery call and what you can say Can I ask, what's prompting you to look at senior living right now? Or why do you feel like your mom needs assisted living right now? And if you listened to it earlier, I gotta look at what day it is, and I'll put it in show notes, but that is the inquiry call, right? We're doing the questions. So the answers that you're looking for that they will probably say is that, "We're just starting the process to look," or, "I'm not ready yet, but we want to be prepared," or, "Mom's doing okay right now, but we know things could change." another frequent one that they say is, um, "We're waiting to sell our house first," or, "Our caregiver is leaving in three months, so we're planning ahead." And that's usually a family caregiver. another one I hear is that, "We're just gathering information right now." These are your future residents. Another question I always ask is, what is the timeline or what is the timeframe that you're looking to move your mom, dad, whoever, into a community? And why this works is because you're not pushing them to move in today. You're understanding their timeline, their needs, and the time that you have to build trust with them. Now, the next thing is understanding your inquiries and tracking everyone who calls. Potential residents that most people do not track are the families who actually visited but chose another community. Or those who called but never visited. If you're not tracking them, that means you're losing them. And honestly, you can't nurture your future residents if you don't know who they are. You need a system to capture every inquiry, every phone call, every email, website forms, walk-ins, and track where they are in the process. In my Deep Dive Discovery Workshop, we discuss the stages of the customer journey, their concerns, their hesitation, and how to help them navigate through their decision. And if it's the right solution for them. The key pieces of information for you to record and to track at minimum is the person's name, their phone number, their email, the date that they inquired or called into your community, the source, meaning how did they hear about you, the status, where they are in their decisions journey based on your conversation with them. you wanna know their loved one's name and use it often. You wanna know the current living situation that that person is in. What is the timeline? When are they ready? What are the reasons that they're looking for a, a senior living community, and what is their budget or financial situation? I went over all of this at length in day two of the series, so if you have any questions about it, go down to day two of this twenty-one-day series. There are several ways to help you keep track of all of this, here are two simple ones I wanted to drop in your mind. One is just a simple spreadsheet, like Google Sheets or Excel, and the other one is a CRM, customer relationship management system, if you don't know what a CRM is. And there are several that are specific to the senior living industry, but they tend to be a little bit costly. If you're a small operator, you can use Zoho, or you could utilize something like Pipedrive, or you could use Assistly, which is very economical. The key is you use one system where you can track everyone. Not sticky notes, not your memory, just one system. Now, the next thing is to prioritize. Who's the closest to needing the care? Once you know who they are, you can then segment them into where they are in their journey based on the stage. This will also help you with planning, prioritizing, and scheduling your time and your energy based on who's closest to needing the care the most. I have broken down the stages into six segments. It is called the Decide Blueprint. It is created so that you can categorize where they are in their decision-making process from the beginning all the way through to move in. So the first one is discovery. That is the initial phase. Then there's exploration, curiosity, indecision, direction, and experience. It is actually going through every phase of the move-in process. And this is the phases that each typical family experience. They may skip over one, or they may put two together, but mostly every family goes through this experience when they're in the process of looking for a senior living home for their family. And so by utilizing this, it helps you to know what solutions, what are their hindrances, what are their hesitations, and it helps you to go through all of it. I have found it helpful for my team tremendously in matching their actions and how they follow up with people to the needs of the family and the prospective residents. If you want to learn more, just FYI, we discuss this in depth in my deep dive discovery training. So that is the training if you want to know more about the sales process, and we go really deep into this. However, some people segment by the timeframe alone. So for instance, tier one might be the most immediate, AKA hot lead. That's anyone who's looking at moving in between zero to thirty days. These are people who are ready to move in, they're actively visiting communities, and they're ready to make a decision soon. Tier two is like warm, one to three months. They're researching options, waiting for specific events like selling a house or something to happen before making that move. Tier three is cool. This is anyone that is looking at three to six months. They're planning ahead. They're not really ready yet, but they're thinking about it, and they're gathering information. The last is tier four. This is cold, and these are over eighteen months looking at moving in. These are very early in the process, just starting to do the research. There's no immediate need. Personally, I don't particularly like using these terms. I don't like using this is a hot lead, this is a cold lead, this is a warm lead. I have moved away from that many, many years ago because of a letter that a family wrote. It was an open letter to the senior living industry, and she explicitly was like, "I don't want my mom to be re-referred to as a hot lead." Her letter was scathing of the industry and how we utilize terminology, and what it highlighted to me is that what we say to each other on the inside should not be expressed on the outside. And so I'm very reluctant to utilize hot, warm, and cold and leads. If you notice in my, my conversation, I don't call them leads. I call them prospective residents or prospective families that we're going to be working with. So just FYI, words do matter. Families find it very offensive when you're calling their loved one or their time of crisis, a lead, and they're hot, and they're cold No matter what system you develop, the key is to adjust your level of engagement based on where they are in their timeline. Now, think about the last time you had a room open up in your community. Did you have a list of people to call already? Did you have to scramble? If your answer is yes, this is why having a pipeline is so important So next is, to engage. These are your monthly touch points. Have you ever heard of the saying, "Out of sight, out of mind?" If you have, then you know what it means. If you don't stay in touch with your future residents or their family, they will forget about you, and when they're ready to move in, they'll call the community they remember the most and not you. It's whoever is keeping in contact, checking up on them, seeing how they can help them through this, process And this matters because the average family contacts nine to twelve communities during their search. This is the last time I checked. So if you're the only one who stays in touch to educate them, to engage with them, to guide them, you'll be the one that they decide to choose. How do you engage with potential residents and families that you'll be working with? Number one is the touch point, right? Your very first touch point should be like a thank you call within twenty-four hours after they have come in to s- to, see you if they visited or even after the initial discovery call. You can call them and say, "Thank you. I'm confirming your visit." Or call them as, or call them after the visit, say, "Thank you for visiting. Checking to see if you have any questions from the visit. I know it was a lot that we went over." Those are like a touch point, right? The second touch point might be an email. The third one might be an i- invitation to an event. The fourth one could be another call, So we went through the follow-up process in an earlier episode. I believe it was day eleven, um, where we actually discuss what a follow-up sequence look like. So if you're interested in learning how to follow up with your, um, prospective families and/or prospective residents if you own a independent senior living company, then you can listen to that. Don't forget, though, this little simple thing means so much to so many people, especially in this age group, is sending a handwritten note or a holiday card with a personal note inside when you have the opportunity. Sometimes I would sit and look at all of the people who have called me in the last six months, and because of my notes, I would remember what was going on in their life, and I would get little cards from the dollar store, 'cause I think it's like back then it was two for a dollar, and I would write a handwritten note and put my business card in there, and sometimes that would be enough to spur a phone call. So when you're saying to people that you are thinking of them, and you're being honest, because you're sitting there, you're looking at it, and you might say, "Well, I wonder what happened to this family," or, "I wonder what's going on with them," or, "I wonder how Miss Judy's doing or how Miss Cynthia's doing." And you send that little personalized note, it means a lot to people. The idea is that you're saying, "We're here when you're ready." And that is such a nice touch and is so rarely utilized, it can go a long way. There's one community I remember that even the maintenance director wrote notes to prospective residents and their families when they came in. If he met them, he would actually send out a note to them, which was s- that is so awesome. Remember, you're not being pushy. That is not the goal. You're being helpful. You're staying on top of their minds by providing value to the family. Next, you want to formalize your waitlist so prospective families feel like they have a spot reserved. When you're full, families assume that they can't move in, so they stop thinking about you. But if you have a waitlist, they feel like they are in line. They feel like they have a spot reserved. They are more likely to wait for you instead of choosing another community, especially when you put it down on paper and you take a deposit. A waitlist creates urgency and commitment. It makes people feel like they're a part of something exclusive, and it gives you a pool of people to call when your room comes open. So here are the first steps of building that. Number one, you want to create a fully refundable waitlist depositor form and decide on an amount that would hold their spot. For us, it was five hundred dollars. Some people do fifteen hundred. It just depends on what you decide that you want. I would suggest that you hold it in a separate account so that you can issue a refund at any moment's notice. Because when somebody says that they want their waitlist money back, you have to give it back to them. So if it's in a separate account that is not commingling with your other stuff. we used to advise people that their checks would be issued to them and received within seven to ten days after canceling their deposit or just requesting to be, taken off of the waitlist. The things that you wanna include in this form, cause I know that's what you're asking and thinking, is the name, the phone number, their email, their loved one's name, the preferred room type, um, might be the room number, the preferred move-in date or range of dates, their budget range, and any special needs or requests. Step two of that is to explain the waitlist process. So here is some of the verbiage that we used. Right now, we're at full capacity, but I'd love to add you to our waitlist. Here's how it works. When a room becomes available, I'll call everyone on the waitlist in the order that they signed up. You'll have forty-eight hours to decide if you want to move forward with moving your loved one in. If you do, we'll hold the room while we complete the assessment and the rest of the paperwork. If you're not ready yet, We'll contact the next person and keep you on the waitlist for the next opening." Did you see how that goes? Step three is that you want to follow up with the waitlist prospects monthly. By doing so, you're keeping engagement going Understand that the waitlist isn't just a list. It's an actual system that you're creating for staying in touch and converting people who have inquired about moving into your location and who've liked you when rooms open. So the next thing is to in, is to invite people to your community. While they might still be on hold, there's nothing to say that they can't come in on special holidays, if you're having something special at your community, if it's a guest coming in, if you're doing anything special for a resident and/or a staff member even. Any time that you can get people fully engaged in your community while they're waiting is good. This important step is one where many people forget to implement most times. They put people on a wait list deposit and then just hold them off on the side in a file cabinet. That is not how you do it. You need to engage them, invite them to your community, have a wait list, party. invite them out to an event that you're doing, off-site even. By inviting them to events and special programs, it can help solidify their decision that you are the place for them because they get to interact with the other residents, they get to interact with your staff, they get to really get a feel of your community and get excited about the waiting before moving in. Events are the best way to keep prospects engaged and excited about you and your community. Because when they attend, they can fall in love with your community all over again. And when the rooms open, they will be ready. Events shows them what life is really like living with you, and it is hands down one of the best things I did. One of the things I particularly did is I would have a, um, experience a day with us. And so I would invite people, and I say not people, but like one at a time, um, who was on a wait list or those that was highly engaged and wasn't sure And I would say, "Experience us for a day." And I would have them come in at ten o'clock all the way till three o'clock or four o'clock, where they can actually have lunch, hang out with some of our residents. We would have an event on that particular day, like maybe clowns coming in or pet therapy or whatever have you, and they get to experience our community for the day. And that really, really worked. So these are just some ideas that you can do to help keep people engaged. The next part is to nurture. How do you continue nurturing that relationship so that it gives you an opportunity to personalize their experience? The community that stays in touch the longest is the community that has the greatest opportunity for move-ins or for future family influencer referrals. And you understand what a family influencer is. Whoever that POA is, or whoever is leading the charge will tell their friends and their colleagues about you. So when you keep them engaged through nurturing and wowing them, your opportunity for referrals grows and, and increases. I have a list of twenty ways to nurture a prospective resident or their family, that will be available after the series. So DM me, twenty ways, and that way I will know. So I look at all my DMs, whether it's on Facebook, Instagram, wherever, even in, on my YouTube channel. So definitely in the comment section, write twenty ways, and that way I will get it out to you The final stage in this process is to convert your waitlist prospects into move-in residents when a room opens. Therefore, when a room opens, you need to move fast. Call your waitlist prospects immediately, in the order of priority. Help them to understand the urgency needed at this time for their decision to move forward, especially since you have other families also waiting. You also have to move fast with the assessment and the paperwork. It may require more from your team to get the room ready quickly and the assessment done and the rental agreement signed and the physician paperwork delivered and to make this all happen seamlessly, but it can be done. And if no one on your list is ready, then expand your outreach. If you have gone through your waitlist and no one's ready to move forward, that's okay too. That means, "Okay, I gotta hit the ground running." And so you wanna promote the fact that you have a rare opportunity, an opening of your highly occupied community, and you want to make that exclusive. Post it on social media that a room just became available, call us today. Email your entire prospect list. of people that's not on your waitlist. Call families who have visited but did not move in. Reach out to your referral partners and let them know, "Hey, we have been one hundred percent for the last six months, and we just had an opening available." By doing that, it shows other people want to live with you. And they stay with you. And so this opportunity may not always be available. If they want to have that quality care that your community provide, they need to move fast. Now, just so that you know, I also had a wait list at my community when I was a sales manager in a community, and my community was always highly occupied. So we weren't always a hundred percent, but we were always in between ninety-four, ninety-three to ninety-eight, sometimes ninety-nine point four percent. I always ran a wait list. You don't have to be full in occupancy to build a wait list. Hint, hint. So anyone who says that they're not ready now, you can build it right away. One of the ladies who deposited to be on my list lived in a different state, but wanted to move closer to her daughter and her family after her sick husband, who was on hospice, passed away. It was nine months of nurturing, checking to see how she was doing, asking if there was anything that we could do from afar as a community, to help support her. And when he did pass away, she moved in. She said it felt so seamless, like we were family already, 'cause we had been talking back and forth. That is what nurturing does when the intention comes from the heart, and the process is implemented with precise execution. And she was one of my most memorable residents for so many reasons. I'm not gonna go over it now But she even came with her own stripper pole She had it installed because she had a scooter and was paralyzed on one side of her, her body, and so she used that pole to scoot herself over onto her scooter from her bed. It was... I wanna say classic. She was such a classic person, so funny, so unconventional. but it was one of my most memorable waitlist, depositors that I was able to help nurture and move in. I will never forget her. I loved her so much., That's the power of a waitlist. That's the power of staying in touch with prospective residents and families even when you're not full. If you have followed along through this episode, you will see that the acronym for this process is pipeline, wink, wink. You'll see in the show notes So let's go over some practical tips to help you build and nurture your waitlist. Tip number one is don't stop marketing when you're full. The biggest mistake operators make is stopping their marketing efforts when they hit a hundred percent occupancy. The things you wanna keep doing: answering your inquiry calls with urgency, inviting prospective residents and families to your events and your community. You wanna continue posting on social, and you wanna send out monthly emails to your professional referrals. Build relationships with your referral partners, so when you're ready to pull the lever and tell them that you have an availability, they will be your champions to say to a family, "They don't have availability all the time. They are really good," They will push a family towards you. Why this works is because you're building a pipeline for when turnover happens, and I promise you it will happen. Tip number two is create a waitlist VIP experience. Make your waitlist feel special. Some examples of this might be to have a welcome to the waitlist packet that, of information about your community, about what's going on, in your side, your community, or with your staff. Invite them to exclusive waitlist-only events that you put on for them. That could be a lunch at Metro Diner something about being on a waitlist that I used to do is I had them pick out what color accent wall they wanted, or what kind of ceiling fan that they want, and a part of that community fee is that we would pay for those things to be done for them, by being on a waitlist. Send them monthly updates on their waitlist position. This makes people feel like they're a part of something exclusive and that they're more likely to wait for instead of choosing another community. The third tip is to use automation to stay in touch. You don't have to manually email every prospect every month. Use automation to your advantage through email marketing platforms like MailChimp or Constant Contact with your CRM systems if you're utilizing, um, some of the n-newer CRM systems, they have automations built in. What you want to automate is m-monthly nurture emails. You want to automate your event invitations. You want to automate your waitlist position updates or birthday and holiday cards. This saves you time and ensures that no one falls through the cracks with automation. And with AI now, automation's so much easier. Tip number four is that you wanna track your your pipeline metrics. You need to know how they're doing and how it's performing. And this might be more for the corporate people, but you wanna take, take a look and see the number of people who are in your pipeline by tier, the number of people who's on your waitlist. What is your conversion rate? What is the average time from inquiry to move in? We actually did this, can't remember what day it is, but I will put it in the show notes too, where we talk about n- understanding the metrics that matter, and these are the metrics that matter. So you also wanna find out where's your source of your waitlist prospects. Where did they come from? You can't improve what you don't measure, and so that is what that episode is about, and I am a wholehearted believer in that. Tip number five, celebrate the wins. When someone on your waitlist moves in, celebrate it with your team, celebrate it with them, make it a party, a whole fiesta. It reinforces the importance of building the pipeline with your team, but it also motivates your team to keep nurturing the prospects along with you. It shows that the system really works, and it does, you guys. I promise you it works. What do you need to do this week? Start your waitlist today. First, creating a simple waitlist form. Call everyone who's inquired within the last six months. Invite them to your community for a visit, offer them the new waitlist opportunity that you are developing Add them to your waitlist and set a reminder to follow up. That's it. So start your waitlist today. Even if you only have three to five people on it, that's three to five people you can call when your rooms open. Now, if you're thinking, "Tiffany, I want this wait list nurture campaign, the six-month email sequence, the event invitation templates, the wait list form, automation setup," that's all the stuff I provide in my Deep Dive Discovery training program. We're gonna be going deep, deep, deep into the sales process from the initial inquiry all the way through to move-in. But this will be with me live, with all the templates, with all of the support Q&A sessions we will have. we will have reviews, so if you have a visit that comes into your community, we can actually do reviews of that as well as office hours. If this is something and a program that you think, "I've been waiting for. I know about licensing. I have all this stuff done, but I don't understand how to move through the sales process," meaning when a family calls in, how do I get them to say yes to my community? That is what Deep Dive Discovery is all about. It is our sales training program. And in this program, we will be starting the next one next week. and so look on startwithoccupancy.com/programs, and you will get more information about it. But even if you don't join, start your waitlist this week, call everyone who's inquired, invite them back to see your community, And then ask to add them to your list. Start nurturing them. All right. In the next episode, we're diving into day 21, From Overwhelmed to Occupied: Your 90-Day Marketing Roadmap. This will be the final episode of our 21-day series, and we're going to tie everything together. I'm going to give you a step-by-step plan for implementing everything we've covered from days one through 20. You're going to want to hear this. Before I let you go, remember this: being full today doesn't mean you're full tomorrow. Resident turnover is inevitable, and if you don't have a pipeline of prospects who are ready to move in when a room opens, you're going to scramble every single time. You're going to lose weeks, sometimes months, of revenue, and you're going to stress yourself out. My goal is not to have you stress out more than what is already there just by having this type of business. But when you build a waitlist and nurture prospects, you create a sustainable pipeline. You fill your rooms in 48 hours instead of three months. So don't stop marketing when you're full. Did you hear me say that again? Don't stop marketing when you're full. Don't stop marketing when you're full. Keep answering those calls, keep inviting people to events, keep building relationships and nurturing people because occupancy isn't a destination. It's a process, and the operators who understand that are the ones who stay full long term. Until next time, we're here to inspire change, impact lives, and improve outcomes. I'll see you in day 21, the final episode of our series.