The benefits of senior living are clear. The lead generation shows it.
The question, then, is why conversation rates don’t show it too.
“We’re going to get four or five out of ten people, yet we have three times that many in,” Jeff Gronemeyer, Regional Sales Director of Harmony Senior Services, said in a recent podcast interview for One On One Sales Academy.
Gronemeyer is among the senior living sales executives using Prospect-Centered Selling® (PCS) techniques promoted by One On One Sales Academy, the learning platform for senior living sales founded by PCS creator David A. Smith.
Surveys used by Sales Academy show that tour-to-move-in conversion rates are currently around 10%, and have been for some time. In other words, rates are stagnant even though lead generation is not.
This is why professionals like Gronemeyer are changing the way operators approach sales. With 90% of prospective residents saying “not yet,” he sees opportunity to not only improve a community’s occupancy but the overall quality of a company — and the industry as a whole.
“When you have a good sales team, you have a great operation,” Gronemeyer said. “And when you have a great operation, you really do change the world for seniors.”
Here is a look at how sales teams are using PCS — and how data from ProMatura highlights the wide-reaching potential of their approach.
How the five pillars of PCS support more effective sales
In addition to lead generation, senior living operators spend a lot of time and resources on talent acquisition, development and retention. This includes training for direct care staff, dining, activities directors and others, with obvious benefits to residents.
What also supports a better overall senior housing experience is full occupancy. To achieve this, providers could shift some of their marketing resources towards sales. They can place an emphasis on developing selling skills as they do with resident services.
“If you could find a way to get sales onto the state survey, it would be a lot better for the sales organization,” Gronemeyer said.
Data shows that nine out of 10 qualified prospects who tour will not make a decision to move at all — not to your building, nor a competitor’s. So where do the resources that can improve conversion rates need to come from?
“That’s really the million-dollar question,” he said. “And I think the devaluation of the sales team is just that. Sales itself isn’t seen as a skill that isn’t easily replaced compared to a nurse or a business office manager or a chef. Those skills seem more important and difficult to acquire than somebody who can talk to people. We’re viewed as a lot more interchangeable.”
Every senior living salesperson has heard the common prospect refrain: “I’m not ready yet.”
This is where PCS comes in. Now in its fourth decade, the PCS methodology has proven to fill communities by following its five pillars:
- Paradigm shift from a product-centered approach to a prospect-centered approach
- Connect with buyers through empathy and trust
- Untangle the emotional resistance to change
- Plan to advance toward a prospect’s own readiness to move or buy
- Metrics and management to track and promote what matters by using better KPIs
Two decade’s worth of data shows the gap in sales performance
“I’ve seen tons of growth in this industry, significant improvements in the product that’s offered,” ProMatura Group CEO Edie Smith said in a recorded Sales Academy presentation. “But at the same time, we really haven’t seen the improvement on the sales side.”
Since 2003, ProMatura, an independent market research firm, has been running a large-scale mystery shop study to analyze sales techniques, starting with the initial call.
“What we were trying to learn was, how well were the sales counselors following that Prospect-Centered Selling model?” Smith said. “So, to what extent were they really learning about the prospect?”
ProMatura tracked a fixed set of attributes from mystery shop engagements, to see which types of questions were asked during a call or tour. While there has been some fluctuation over the years, the conversations consistently focused on general amenities more so than personalized benefits or questions that aimed to learn more about prospective residents and their families.
“This is where we see that selling in this industry is really transactional and not person-centered,” Smith said. “They scored higher in those areas because they were talking about the services and the features.
The current standards for senior housing sales engagements give rise to the first pillar of PCS: shifting from a product-centered approach to a prospect-centered one. Sales teams will continue to face increased demand. By focusing on those who Gronemeyer sees as one third of all qualified prospects — those who are not ready to move, yet — the impact could be far reaching.
“Being able to convert more leads into actual residents in these communities can have a significant impact on the penetration rate of the industry,” Smith said. “If we are at 90% occupancy now, nationwide, then an increase of four percentage points in our penetration rate would fill those empty units.”
Given that full occupancies support reduced expenses and better resident experiences, then investing in sales effectiveness as an industry could pay off not just for operators but also the people they serve. The key driver, according to supporters of PCS, isn’t in generating more leads or focusing on their community’s benefits. It’s knowing how to more effectively convert the leads you already have.
This Views article is sponsored by One On One Sales Academy. To learn more about their new online learning portal, membership program, and mission to help more older adults make a confident decision, sooner, visit oneonone.com/academy.
The post Grow Sales, Not Leads: How Prospect-Centered Selling Answers the Occupancy Question appeared first on Senior Housing News.
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