Identify Your Key Competitors
You’ve been working with a family for months, and you’ve just learned that they selected another community.  You thought your community was the best fit for their loved one – the services, amenities, pricing and apartment style they were looking for.  You’re wondering why and what you could’ve done differently, if anything.
You have an awesome resource in your A Place for Mom partnership: we provide the Lost Move-ins Report, a competitive market report so that you can see to which communities you’re losing potential residents, by what level of care, as well as average monthly fees for your market.  It is incredible data.  Recently a Vice President of Sales emphatically endorsed the Lost Move-ins Report as his favorite report in Partner Central.
So let’s break it down:
Where to Find the Lost Move-ins Report
Firstly, log in to Partner Central (if you haven’t already logged in, click Login, then Sign Up for Free Now.).  On the orange navigation bar, select Reports.  You’ll see a number of impactful reports offered to you through our partnership.
For the Lost Move-ins Report and some others, you can select particular date ranges.  And if you are a Regional Director, Vice President, Owner or other such leader, you can narrow your results by particular communities or regions.
The Summary Chart
The Lost Move-ins Report leads with a summary of the number of move-ins you’ve cultivated through our partnership, as compared to potential residents you lost to competitors.  This report is based on the referrals we’d sent to your community.
You’ll see levels of care, as well as Respite and Home Care activations.  Within each of the levels of care, you’ll see the actual average monthly fees for the number of residents you moved in or lost.  For Assisted Living and Memory Care communities, the monthly fees are rent and care charges, giving you an apples-to-apples comparison within your market – particularly since so many organizations calculate care costs differently.
If you identify a significant gap between your average monthly fees and your competitors, you can use this to your advantage – whether you convey through the inquiry process that you’re a value option within your market or whether you emphasize the additional services, expertise and amenities if you’re the price leader in your market.
Your Win Rate
Part II of the Lost Move-ins Report identifies your Win Rate, which is the ratio of referred families moving into your community versus moving into one of your competitors.  If you are part of a larger organization, you’ll also see the Win Rate for your siblings.
Your Competitors
Part III of the Lost Move-ins Report lists the individual communities to whom you are losing potential residents and grouped by level of care.¬† Within the listing of your competitors, you‚Äôll also see the variance of initial budget ranges for referred families.¬† This is important because we know families will often select communities above their initial budget range – see previous article. Our top-performing partners often view the initial budget range as a ‚Äústarting at‚Äù figure, rather than a firm budget.
If you are new to your community, the Lost Move-ins Report identifies your competitive set so that you can conduct your competitive analysis.  If you are a tenured Sales Director or Executive Director, you may identify some competitors whom you weren’t aware of or whom you thought weren’t a factor in your niche market.
Expert Tip: If your market has seen a number of new construction or new competition in the past year, consider pulling a Lost Move-ins Report for the first half of 2017 and compare it with the same period this year. 
As you review your competitors, you may also see trends in losing to communities who offer particular levels of care.  You can use this information to further tweak your selling approach and to highlight your community’s value.  For example, if your community offers Assisted Living and Memory Care, and you see a trend in losing potential residents to Independent and Assisted Living communities, you may have an opportunity to better highlight the range of activities and social and clinical support offered by your community, as well as your proactive approach to maintain and improve your residents’.
What other data do you feel would be helpful in your competitive strategy?