Hi, my name is Jen Gasper, and I’m a coach with Hurricane Marketing Enterprises. And this is part two of the three-part series on asking for the business. If you didn’t catch part one of the series, you need to go back and watch that first.
Today, I’m gonna be talking a little bit about specific ways you can ask for a referral in an assisted living community. Now I don’t know if anybody else out there is like me, but when I first started in the industry, working within the assisted living communities was the hardest for me to wrap my head around. I thought to myself, well they’re already paying to be in an assisted living community.
They’re getting the services, such as help with the bath or medication administration, or even transfers at some point. Why would they need our services? But it wasn’t until I really stopped to think about the different clients that we are working with and how we are helping them in an assisted living community.
I also found many times that sometimes my marketing representatives within that community, they didn’t understand how our services could be beneficial within them, as well. And so it took me to go and help train them with the words I used for asking for a referral to make them think, gosh, we really could use your services for this resident or that resident.
And so now I’m going to give you some things that you can say to help paint that picture in their mind of who they might be able to send you as a referral. We worked with a lot of clients with dementia, as I’m sure you all do. And so if you think about all the different things that people living with dementia struggle with, you can be a super support in their lives.
And so after you’ve done that lunch and learn in-service on perhaps your dementia specialty program, you can go in there and say something like, we just finished dementia certified training for five of our caregivers. If you know of anybody that’s living in your community right now who could use the support of a dementia certified care specialist, let me know. We are happy to talk with the families about the things that we can provide and the services that we can give them wrapping around what they’re already getting within your community.
Another thing that I like to say is, I know people living with dementia oftentimes struggle with late day, end of day confusion. What we call sundowning. And so going in and visiting with that marketing representative or the executive director on one of your drop-in visits, you can say, by the way, remember when we talked to you about our dementia care program? If you know of anybody who is currently struggling with end of day confusion or sundowning, let us talk to the family. We can be that extra support system that they need in order to have a wonderful quality of life.
Another way that you can say it, do you know anybody who’s experiencing increased cognitive decline that’s also increasing some of the behaviors or perhaps aggression? If so, that’s what we do. Our caregivers are trained to help your residents. Let me talk to them.
Many, many times we provided 24 hour care to somebody who is waiting to transition into a smaller ratio maybe memory community or memory neighborhood within the big community. And so you could go in and say something like, if you have a resident right now who is perhaps needing a little one-on-one assistance or smaller ratio, but you don’t have room in your memory care, we can help them stay safe until there’s an opening.
We can also help them stay safe during that transition, to get them familiar with the routine. Those are the people that our dementia care program is made for and that’s who we would love to help. You can also go in and say, have you noticed any of your residents that have had recent declines in their health? That’s a very general way to ask for a specific referral.
And again, you’re not going in and saying, hey, who can you refer to me today? You are painting the picture, and that’s what it’s all about. These things need to be asked regularly and consistently, and that’s the only way that you are going to start gaining the business after your lunch and learn in-service.
You’ve done a great job with that. Now you need to do a great job in supporting that community on a regular and consistent basis and asking them specifically for who you can work with in their community.
I’m gonna stop for there today, but part three will be coming up, and I’m going to be talking again about assisted living communities and how you can help them think outside of the box with people who are not yet living in their community. You won’t want to miss it. Until part three, next time.
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