Cinco de Mayo Events

The most significant event yesterday was our (Virgin) Margarita Hour that was held at 4 PM. It was the first of 3 events that we have scheduled to celebrate the Cinco de Mayo weekend. We have the big event scheduled today at 12:30 - Cinco de Mayo Festival. There will be a BBQ outside with lots of Mexican food and entertainment. All of these events are designed to bring in prospective residents but always end up being just another event for our residents. We had no new faces yesterday, and as far as we can tell, there have only been about 5 or 6 RSVP's from non-residents that are planning to attend today's event.

The extra hour that we were called in to spend yesterday was pretty much a waste of time, as we thought it would be. First of all, we stood around for much of that hour waiting for Terri and Charlie to get enough free time to explain the presence of the individual that was going to spend 30 days in our community from the home office sales staff. We met with him later in the day and he is a carbon copy of all the other sales managers in the company - go for the throat type sales pressure to get people to sign. He used one example during our conversation of the kind of pressure that should be used: "keep calling them until they return a call. Just because they ignore your calls doesn't mean they aren't interested." Translated, he thinks someone has to threaten to sue you for harassment in order to stop calling. I guess I'm getting too old to believe that high pressure sales beats out relationship building.

Our final day of the work week is today and it isn't any too soon. We are taking care of business and will decide how much longer we want to endure this unpleasant micro-management by the company. If it weren't for the satisfaction we get from helping the residents and watching our relationships build with them, we would have left a long time ago. It appears more and more than our initial goal of a year or two was overly optimistic. We  are now shooting for an end sometime around the end of August which gives us a chance to save some money and leave this pressure while we still have our sanity...