Providers MBK Senior Living, PSL Work Old Leads, Harness Tech in Era of Sales Cycle Disruption

The Covid-19 pandemic injected uncertainty into the typical senior living sales cycle — and in 2022, that hasn’t changed.

While operators are hopeful that the industry will settle into a “new normal,” the rise of the omicron coronavirus variant coupled with lingering caution from consumers in some markets are still altering typical sales cycle metrics. And in the meantime, sales leaders with companies that include MBK Senior Living and Presbyterian Senior Living are still expecting the unexpected as it relates to how long senior living prospects take to go from lead to move-in.

For operators like MBK, the pandemic has forced sales teams to get more creative and adapt more quickly in how they attract residents and their families into the community, according to Vice President of Sales and Marketing Christy Van Der Westhuizen.

“The state of play is always changing,” Van Der Westhuizen said during the recent SHN Sales Summit, held virtually. “The one thing that I think will not change is our need and commitment to educate our prospects and families.”

Gone are the days of inviting 200 prospects in for lunch and a tour, said Presbyterian Senior Living (PSL) Vice President of Sales and Marketing Kristin Hambleton. Now, operators are having to connect with residents and their families on a much more personal level to move them in.

“The pandemic made us speed up embracing these different ways to connect with people and nurture the sales cycle and … has changed ways in which we approach things like infection control, and safety for visitors and residents,” Hambleton said. “So in those regards, we’re in a new normal.”

For both companies, nurturing prospects in 2022 has meant connecting with existing leads, including some who have been on the sales journey for a decade or longer. At the same time, they have wielded sales tech to make the most of their sales teams’ efforts.

Evolving metrics

The pandemic disrupted sales cycles in 2020, that much is clear.

For some providers, the sales cycle lengthened during the early days of the pandemic as prospective residents became more hesitant to make the move into senior housing. For others, such as those with higher-acuity assisted living communities, the sales cycle compressed in 2020 as they focused more on urgent move-ins.

At the outset of the pandemic, Irvine, California-based MBK saw its sales cycle compress as longer-term prospects waited it out and needs-based move-ins continued to flow.

Van Der Westhuizen remembers stepping into the office of MBK President Jeff Fischer in the spring of 2020. The pandemic was just a few months old at the time, and conditions at the time were much tougher for sales teams than they are today.

“I said, ‘Jeff, the move-ins aren’t happening, we’re just not seeing the move-ins we’re used to,’” Van Der Westhuizen recalled.

Fischer said in reply that the company’s sales teams should “stay focused on the behaviors of success, and the results will follow.”

Dillsburg, Pennsylvania-based Presbyterian Senior Living was in a similar boat when the pandemic hit. Hambleton recalled the operator took a “wait and see approach” as sales cycles shortened.

“In early June, we opened things back up again to let people move in, and we took an aggressive approach,” Hambleton said during the panel at the SHN Sales Summit.

Flash forward to 2022, and both companies are seeing the fruit of their labor.

MBK’s independent living segment has “rebounded splendidly,” with occupancy hitting 100% at some communities. Sales cycles are also back to pre-pandemic levels in the company’s assisted living and memory care communities.

Presbyterian is similarly seeing indicators of pre-pandemic sales cycles in its independent living segment, while things are “still coming along” in the operator’s assisted living and memory care settings.

“In [assisted living], the conversion rates for the inquiries that we are getting are through the roof,” Hambleton said. “The people who are coming are definitely needs-based, higher acuity — and, they’re converting and they’re converting quickly.”

Sales cycle strategies

Both operators credit creative thinking and flexibility in their strategies to maintain and follow up on leads in their sales funnel.

For Presbyterian, it also took “a holistic team approach,” according to Hambleton. Instead of spending time making as many phone calls as possible in one day and scheduling as many tours as possible, the company’s sales teams took it slow to nurture leads and build rapport and trust.

As Hambleton noted, the company also took an “aggressive” approach to independent living by setting a concession of about 25% on rates lasting 120 days.

In all of 2021, Presbyterian’s assisted living sales team reported an inquiry-to-tour conversion rate of about 31%, and a tour-to-sale conversion rate of about 55%. In the fourth quarter alone, the company’s assisted living tour-to-sale conversion rate hit 67%.

On the independent living side, the company saw “mostly normal” conversion rates of about 25% inquiry-to-tour and 28% tour-to-sale.

Faced with a downturn in leads in 2020, MBK doubled down on nurturing prospects still on their senior living journeys, including those that inquired as far back as 10 years prior. In fact, there are some advantages to turning to old leads, according to Van Der Westhuizen.

“You already know their history, you know their background … so it’s easier to create a new relationship if you already have those nuggets of gold,” she said.

The company also began sharing individual communities’ sales metrics with the entire company with the aim of gleaning useful strategies. As of mid-January, MBK’s average inquiry-to-tour ratio was 29% across all levels of care.

Like Van Der Westhuizen, Hambleton also sees the value of revisiting old leads for follow-up.

“Everybody wants a short sales cycle, but what I tend to find is that those are the more higher-acuity, needs-based people — the faster they come in, the shorter they stay,” she said. “You’re going to have those outliers where they’re in your pipeline for 10, 15 years, and you’re going to have people who come and fall in love with your community and decide within three months — the balance is the right approach.”

Another tool in MBK’s sales toolbox is creative follow-up techniques. For instance, Van Der Westhuizen likes to give prospects a freshly baked good from the community’s kitchen as a way of saying thank you, and stay on their radar in the process.

Texting is another valuable tool that MBK wields in its follow-ups.

“We have seen significant responses with text messages, especially with videos attached,” Van Der Westhuizen added.

And both companies rely on marketing automation technology to help stay on top of the game with regard to long-term prospects.

One area Hambleton and Van Der Westhuizen have differing opinions on is lead aggregation from services such as A Place for Mom and Caring.com.

Although Presbyterian prefers person-centered selling strategies that eschew the need for lead aggregation, MBK “looks at every single prospect that comes to us,” including those that come from lead aggregators.

“We really work hard at creating relationships with folks at the lead aggregators, and get to know them personally,” Van Der Westhuizen said. “So, when they are talking to someone over the phone or live chatting with them, we’re top of mind.”

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