1. Brookdale Sales Toolbox Overview
Brookdale provides our rental community settings for Independent Living, Assisted Living and Memory Care with a flexible Sales Toolbox that allows local teams to have in their pocket a short-term financial incentive if a customer is at the point in their path-to-purchase that this tool is appropriate to the customer’s expressed need. This tool is placed in the hands of Sales Professionals to use their professional judgment of when a customer needs a financial offer to motivate their move-in decision. While we hope to convey the full value of our services and to obtain the full market rate without incentives, some customers seek “a deal” and this Sales Toolbox will give you the leverage needed to be responsive to your customers if your current vacancy situation justifies this.
Vs. May 14, 2015

2. Sales Toolbox - Eligibility
All rental communities are eligible to use the sales toolbox
The toolbox applies to Independent Living, Assisted Living and Memory Care product lines.
Entry Fee IL and Skilled Nursing are excluded
Private Pay customers are eligible for a sales toolbox offer
Medicaid and other government funded customers are not eligible for a sales toolbox offer
Sales toolbox offers may not be combined with national sales promotions or other sales promotions
Note that sales toolbox incentives are short-term, not permanent monthly rate discounts

3. Sales Toolbox Financial Positioning
All sales toolbox offers are processed as a short-term incentive credit on the resident’s statement after move-in.
But you should position the value of the incentive according to your discovery with the customer.
If you hear that the cost of the relocation is a stumbling block, then correlate the value of your incentive offer as helping them cover that cost.
If you hear that they really want some physical upgrade to the apartment, and you have an approved vendor they can work with, position the value of the incentive to offset some or all of their unit upgrade costs.
If you hear that a competitor waived their community fee, relate the incentive in a comparable way.
Or if the size of the incentive you are eligible to offer is more substantial, you may consider applying the credit over multiple months of their residency. (This short-term incentive cannot be split between more than three months, but it can be applied to other than the first three months. Applying this to more than three months will require accounting for this as a “long-term incentive.)

4. Sales Toolbox Varies by Local Situation
See variability of vacant unit bands that correlate to % of BSR Market Rate for different product line capacity sizes:
A small product line with fewer than 50 units can offer a 20% incentive of the market BSR when they have 3 to 4 vacant units.
They can offer a 40% of BSR incentive when they have 5 to 7 vacant units
They can offer a 80% of BSR incentive when they have 8 to 9 vacant units.
And they can offer a 120% of BSR incentive if they have 10 or more vacant units
As product line capacity increases, vacancy bands are expanded to sustain rationale across all settings that roughly correlates to occupancy % within that product line
Note again when product line vacancy is low, the expectation is to obtain full market rate with no incentive. If you are almost full and have a customer that requires an incentive, refer them to a sister Brookdale location where their vacancy situation allows them to extend an offer.

5. Sales Toolbox Calculator
An Excel file, available to download from Brookdale Brandworks, has embedded formulas and tables that simplify your calculation of the appropriate incentive offer for each vacant apartment within each product line.
Enter 1-5 in the blue cells of the toolbox, following the instructions, and you’ll know the incentive you have in your pocket as you begin your customer conversations.
Here is what the calculator display looks like, and note the option of a hyperlink to a recorded live demonstration of how to use the tool.

6. Sales Toolbox Large Campus Example
Campus with 310 total apartments – 225 IL, 55 AL and 30 MC
IL has 27 vacant apartments
Calculator selects 20% BSR incentive
AL has 3 vacant apartment
Calculator indicates no incentive
MC has 1 vacant apartment
Remember – product line capacity and vacancy – not campus capacity and vacancy. As the vacancy situation changes during the month, these % of BSR incentives may change.

7. Sales Toolbox – Example of Offer Variability During Month
AL portion of AL/MC community with AL capacity of less than 50 apartments
5 vacants on 1st – offer incentive of 40% of BSR
8 vacants on 15th – offer incentive of 80% of BSR
11 vacants on 30th – offer incentive of 120% of BSR

8. Sales Toolbox – Key Points
The calculations of your sales toolbox incentive vary according to your local situation as it dynamically changes during each month:
Based on Product Line Capacity, not campus capacity.
If you have more than one product offering, you’ll enter the total apartment capacity into the calculator only for the product line where you have vacant units.
The vacant unit levels built into formulas correspond to capacity based on the following size variations:
Less than 50 apartments
50 to 74 apartments
75 to 99 apartments
100 to 149 apartments
150 to 199 apartments
200 or more apartments

9. Sales Toolbox – Key Points
You’ll enter the number of vacant apartments within each campus product line as of the day you are preparing for a customer conversation – i.e. your sales toolbox offer may vary during the month based on the number of actually vacant (no revenue) apartments each day – a dynamic sales toolbox.
If your campus occupancy is less volatile, you may opt to update the Incentive Calculator on a weekly or even monthly basis.
You may also adjust your entered vacant units by considering both pending move-outs and move-ins, to best reflect the evolving situation that will exist while the customer considers their 14-day Sales Toolbox Offer.
Calculated incentives are based on a % of the market (street) rate (Basic Service Rate – BSR) for each particular apartment.
As the number of vacant units in a product line increases, larger % incentives are calculated, based on following levels:
Full rate when you have low vacancies
20% of BSR
40% of BSR
80% of BSR
120% of BSR

10. Sales Toolbox Offer Duration
Extended sales toolbox offers expire after 14 days
This is necessary due to the dynamic nature of community vacancy levels.
Thus, listen and understand each customer’s situation before you offer a toolbox incentive.
If they are early in their path-to-purchase process for a non-urgent move-in decision, extending an offer too early could turn-off a customer.
When you sense a customer is in the window of making a move-in decision, extending a 14-day sales toolbox offer may be the nudge they need to take the next step.
If you extend an offer that expires without a customer decision, you will have to determine when the customer is ready whether your vacancy situation allows you to extend a refreshed toolbox offer, which may be higher or lower than your original offer, depending on the then current situation.

11. Sales Toolbox Documentation
Download from Brookdale Brandworks the “Sales Toolbox - Time Limited Offer” form.
The customer does not need to sign this form – you write in their name, the apartment number and type they expressed interest in, the amount of your incentive offer, the offer date and the date 14-days later that the offer expires along with your signature, the community name and contact information.
Provide the customer with the original of this completed form.
Keep a copy of this form in your prospect file for reference during your follow-up with the customer during the 14-day offer period.

12. Sales Toolbox Documentation
You also have the Brandworks option to download, edit and use one of the four editable flyers to support your verbal linking of your offer to the particular customer need you documented with your 14-day sales toolbox offer.
Relocation Costs
Apartment Upgrade
Community Fee
Basic Service Rate

13. Sales Toolbox – Action After Offer
Your most important work comes after a toolbox incentive offer is extended.
Your customer has a 14-day window to accept your offer by taking financial responsibility for an apartment.
Be their ever-ready resource during these 14 days:
Mail a hand-written note thanking them for their interest in your community
Send an offering help if they have questions
Deliver a “Personal Connections” gift to their home that aligns with something you learned during Discovery was important to them
Offer to make a home visit or meet them for coffee at their favorite coffee shop if they have questions to work through
Call on the phone a few days before the end of the 14-day period to arrange to set-up an appointment for completing paperwork if they are ready to make their move-in decision

14. Sales Toolbox Utilization Reminder
The pre-approved sales toolbox is in your hands for selective use to motivate customer move-ins with appropriate incentives that vary according to your evolving local situation.
Use this tool at the right time to help you close as many sales as possible.
Every “close” represents our opportunity to enrich more lives – for the residents we will serve, but also for their family members.
Discover well. Offer appropriately. Change more lives.

15. Sales Toolbox – Residency Agreement Addendum
Brookdale Brandworks presents three Residency Agreement Addendum options for your use when completing new resident move-in paperwork, with options that relate to ways you may have extended your sales toolbox offer:
Credit in first full month of residency
Credit extended to multiple contiguous months
Credit extended to multiple noncontiguous months
Carefully select the appropriate addendum to match your offer and to match how the incentive is entered to the billing system
There are versions of the Residency Agreement Addendum for use by communities that are still using a legacy Emeritus Residency Agreement, to best align terminology between these documents.

16. Sales Toolbox Incentive Processing
Download from Brookdale Brandworks a detailed Billing Job Aid.
This resource includes screen-shots and instructions for the entry of this short-term incentive into our billing systems.
Note again that this incentive is processed as a rent credit.
The incentive is not a “permanent rent discount” – it should be processed to impact one or up to but not greater than three month’s resident statements, based on how the offer was extended. If you spread this to more than three months, the incentive must be entered as a Long-term incentive, which the Billing Job Aid does not address.
In no case is this intended to be a direct reimbursement of submitted invoices from the customer for relocation or unit upgrade costs, whether direct to the customer or through a third-party. The incentive is processed as a rent credit.

17. Sales Toolbox – Other Questions
Along with other resources, Brookdale Brandworks includes a Sales Toolbox Overview document that provides many other questions and answers about how to use your sales toolbox in more unique situations.
Your District Director of Sales is your best resource for coaching on how to use your sales toolbox appropriately