Easy Adaptions to Aging-in-Place

I just finished reading an article in USA Today on aging-in-place remodels for boomers that are getting to be “the age” where a few modifications can be a big assistance to staying put in the golden years, and have to say, when I saw the list of most popular aging-in-pace updates, compiled by our friends at NAHB, I thought, “Some of these are an absolute no-brainer, they’re so easy to implement.”

A percentage of projects remodelers have done in the last year to be able to age-in-place: (For a complete aging-in-place checklist, click here.)

Grab bars 78%
Higher toilets 71%
Wider doorways 57%
Added lighting/task lighting 45%
Non-slip flooring 20%
Easy to read thermostats 13%

They’ve got the numbers, stability and spending power...make a few easy adaptions to meet their needs and you’ll uncovered a unique marketing niche, or you may discover you keep a resident you otherwise might have lost.

A Gift of Optimism

I grew up in a small town in Wisconsin full of hardy German citizens. The winters, particularly “back in the day” were long and unyielding, generally starting in mid-November and ending in April. (To provide some perspective to warm weather inhabitants, it was nothing for my Dad to warm up the car for 20 minutes before we ventured out.) That’s a lot of cooped-up in-house time for a kid...and a mother. The minute the thermometer hit 20, Mom mummified my sisters and I in wool scarves and snowsuits and sent us outside to play, deaf to our pleas to be let in because “we were so cooooldddd!”. We built snow forts, made snow angels, threw snowballs and...we survived to enjoy a hot bowl of chicken noodle soup for lunch. The people in my hometown would declare, after hearing this story, “That’s good for you. Toughens you up.” I would agree, and add that it also develops a sense of optimism.

A Wisconsin winter can include weeks of nothing but gray weather and dirty snow. Very depressing stuff, yet most of the people I know from the area possess an incredible sense of humor and a wonderfully optimistic attitude. They know how to persevere. I would imagine, though I have never lived it, the people in a state that survives hurricane after hurricane are much the same way. Perseverance breeds optimism.

Being optimistic, in the typical sense of the word, ultimately means one expects the best possible outcome from any given situation. Optimists generally emerge from difficult circumstances with less distress than do pessimists. They seem intent on solving challenges head on, taking active and constructive steps to solve their problems - as if they know, “this too shall pass.”

A client of mine, Jim Schloemer, CEO of Continental Properties, shares my hometown. During a recent session, he approached me and told me how his mother, every single morning, even on the grayest and coldest of Wisconsin days, would walk into his room throw open the drapes and say, “Good morning, Jim, it’s a beautiful morning and time for you to rise and shine and show the world all that you can be!“ While not as poetic, my mother would prance in, flip the shades and sing, “Rise and Shine!” in the most cheery of voices. My conclusion; a positive outlook was bred in us to the point we became inherently optimistic through repetition and practice. We laughed as we confessed to using the same tactics on our own children. And, much as I hated the sound of that shade rolling up then, I now remember it fondly.

A more simplistic time, perhaps, without the daily barrage of bad tidings so abundant and easily accessed today. Will things ever get better? Of course they will. Change is inevitable. The important thing is to stay cheerful and know that tomorrow is another day, and even if it’s gray, it’s a beautiful opportunity to show the world what you can do. Imagine, if just for a day, every person you knew, actually lived that. We’d be unstoppable.

Happy Christmas to all!

How Much Is Too Much?

Last summer, I ordered Omaha Steaks for my dad, (Sales Guy Extraordinaire), for Father’s day. He loved it, and if I do say so myself, it was an excellent gift, the kind that keeps giving for a while. When I ordered, I must have inadvertently missed the uncheck button to receive “future offers and updates” - you all know what I am talking about here.

Within days, they started coming...and have never stopped. Since November, I have tried to save almost every offer received. (There are so many, I have a problem keeping it all organized). Omaha Steaks has worked very hard to stay in front of me. A little too hard. I ordered their product once, in June, and have not established myself as a regular. At this point, presumably due to the holiday season, I am receiving, on average, at least one email per day, up from the average of one every three days in September, October and November. (There is a noticeable gap in October - I may have deleted them, and I did go through an unsubscribe phase about that time...but don’t want to proclaim, if I’m not sure I did.)

Anyway, I get an awful lot of “buy meat” mail. Trouble is, the more they “get in my face”, the more distasteful steak has become to me. It’s just too much. I’m tired of seeing my daily “Act now before it’s too late!” promotion. I have no sense of urgency to buy, because I am pretty sure I’ll have an equally impressive offer in my box tomorrow. Have they no other customers? Why won’t they give it a rest? To stay top of mind with me doesn’t mean you have to send me a new email every single day.

Where’s the mail that asks, “Have you been seeing too much of us? Should we back off a bit?” That’s the one I would reply to. I have no objection to receiving a monthly promotion from Omaha Steaks. I like their product. It is not, however my priority or my life.

The same holds true for follow up. There is a fine line between obnoxious and committed care on the part of the leasing professional. When we lose sight of the client and concern ourselves more with “getting the sale”, is true intention revealed to the customer and serving as a turn-off to the product?

The answer, of course is letting the customer, as much as possible, decide and control their experience. That’s hard to deliver when you’re being evaluated based on parameters and specific follow up metrics; contact within 24 hours, within 48 hours phone call, etc.

How much is too much? And how do we define that? How do we provide parameters while still understanding there is no one path to the sale? I don’t think it is enough to say, “I keep calling or emailing until they tell me to stop.” I am going to tell Omaha Steaks to stop, but the damage has already been done. Once viewed as a special treat, premium product, I now simply see another blue light special. Lots of caps, lots of exclamation points, lots of “only 10 minutes left” behavior. It all seems a bit desperate.

What do you think?