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From being “caring and proactive” to increase conversions to training sales teams to handle different aspects of both marketing and sales in a “centralized system,” many providers are We are making significant changes to our sales practices for customers.
This comes as carriers are making strategic investments in new sales-related technologies to increase their effectiveness over the next five years.
These were all themes I heard at the 2024 Senior Housing News Sales and Marketing Conference, which drew about 300 people last week in Tampa, Florida.
In this week's members-only SHN+ update, we share our analysis of the event and provide some key takeaways, including:
- Why senior housing providers need to think differently about sales practices to increase conversions
- The importance of harnessing the power of social media engagement to improve sales
- How operators are being put in a tough position as marketing independence increases
New sales processes are 'essential' to meet demand
While senior housing sales teams have embraced many changes over the past four years, executives have begun making significant changes to their sales processes. This follows an “alarming” trend in senior sales teams' communication habits with prospects and slower conversion rates.
Some businesses require their entire staff to at least understand the basics of customer service when dealing with prospects in order to improve conversion rates, keep prospects engaged and include them in the sales cycle. We take the approach of being responsible. That's because lead times and the amount of time a prospect spends in the sales process will typically be longer depending on their level of acuity.
Take Altis Senior Living, for example. The McLean, Virginia-based provider focused on memory care and assisted living cited the fact that while inquiry and lead volume increased in 2023, conversions were below target numbers. We recently implemented a new sales process. This is something I recently heard from another business owner. .
“We felt it was imperative to get in front of all departments and demonstrate their role in sales,” Amy Beth Depreker, senior living vice president of sales and marketing at Artis, said during the panel discussion. “First impressions make all the difference.”
Depreker went on to say that Artis executives urged sales leaders to be “compassionate and proactive” in controlling the sales process, and that they made the life-changing decision to move to an emotionally-prone community. He emphasized that he has led potential customers on a journey to For prospective customers and their families.
Merz Photography representing Senior Housing News and WTWH Media“You have to have empathy, but you also have to help them make a decision and push them off the fence to implement it. That's where compassionate aggression comes in,” Depreker said. added.
This topic was also covered in other sessions, with Allison Vanderford, senior director of sales at Buckner Retirement Services, speaking about the need to be “compassionate and proactive” in the senior housing sales process. She said that the tone of the argument resonated with her.
On the same panel, Beztak Vice President of Senior Living Jason Kohler made a related point. He explained that Beztak's salespeople voluntarily completed the Strengths Finder assessment, which revealed interesting insights into what “selling styles” are most effective. There were two main sales styles that were prevalent within the team: motivator and facilitator. Facilitators are more empathetic, good listeners, and tend to seek out “win-win” solutions, while motivators are “more of an influencer” and are more likely to encourage progress through the sales process. He said it was motivating.
“Overwhelmingly, 10 to 1, our top sales performers are more motivated,” says Kohler.
This finding surprised me, given that I often hear about the importance of empathy in senior living sales and the need to find and hire naturally empathetic salespeople. Kohler emphasized that empathy is certainly important, but Beztak is now interviewing job candidates with more emphasis on motivational traits. I took this to mean that senior housing providers should reconsider their assumptions about what makes a good salesperson and not prioritize empathy too much in hiring. . Kohler challenged the idea that empathy cannot be taught, pointing to “substantial research” that shows otherwise.
In other words, when senior housing providers try to balance compassion and aggression, they may improve conversion rates by prioritizing aggression over current practices.
The Mississippi-based operator, Claiborne Senior Living, has “cleaned up the clutter” within its sales process, eliminating old practices such as handing prospects a folder at the end of a tour. According to Brooke Saxon-Spencer, Claiborne's vice president of marketing, the folder has been replaced with documents customized with pricing, level of care, and other aspects that help shape the sales process for prospects.
“Make sure people are comfortable from the beginning. And you need to discover and personalize [prospect] It’s an experience,” Saxon-Spencer said during the panel discussion.
Social media is becoming its own beast
From virtual tours to photo galleries to short video content, senior housing businesses make social media management a unique and specialized component of the senior housing sales process, in addition to being used regularly by marketing team members. We are incorporating it into.
“Social media is now becoming its own beast,” Kohler said.
This has led providers to hire team members from outside the senior living industry and organizations to hire social media managers to increase their brand presence and online reach. According to Gottfried Ernst, COO of Cogir, social media is a valuable sales tool that documents the highlights of collective life, while also allowing businesses to quickly reach out to sales job seekers via LinkedIn. It has also functioned as a means of communication.
During a panel discussion I hosted, Jack Miller, Holbrook Life's vice president of business development, told the audience that businesses need to be “more intentional” with their social media channels to drive sales. He said there was, and I had no choice but to agree with him.
In recent years, carriers have moved from managing single social media platforms to video and photo-based content on sites like Instagram and Tiktok. These channels will become even more important in the future as customers increasingly seek more information about their communities in video-based formats.
That orientation has led Holbrook Life and other companies to develop marketing initiatives based on curated experiences for residents that can easily translate to social media platforms.
“We've seen 90-year-olds jump out of airplanes and 85-year-olds swim with sharks,” Miller told summit attendees. “Stuff like this promotes an active lifestyle and makes for great videos and advertising. [the public] They're looking at what we're aiming for. ”
In contrast to high demand, improving visual acuity remains a challenge
Marketing older adults who jump out of planes or swim with sharks is undoubtedly effective in driving the lifestyle-driven demand that fuels the boom in active adults, but at the same time, marketers It also highlights the difficult tensions that individuals must overcome regarding their heightened sensitivity.
Over the past four years, operators have seen the average age of their resident base increase as residents come to the community later in life. And new residents with an average of a dozen chronic conditions are also entering assisted living communities.
I believe that this progression over time and sharpness is a trend that the industry must continue to combat, and that operators are certainly innovating and looking for ways to reach residents faster. This was another theme of the event. This is evidenced by the fact that some carriers, including Holbrook and LifeStar Living, are launching country club-style membership models to expand their sphere of influence before prospective customers consider a move. Masu.
At Holbrook Life, the average age of residents at the Illinois level is 85, Miller said.
“What matters is how we pivot,” Miller said during the panel discussion. “We introduced this country club model to extend that sales cycle.”
Optima Living, a Canadian carrier based in British Columbia, is a great example of how sales cycles are moving from lengthy processes to shorter ones. Demographic data shows that by 2043, one in four Canadians will be over the age of 65. Karim Kassam, co-founder of Optima Living, reviewed sales data and said the company's sales cycle has been shortened from up to 18 months to two to eight months now.
“Our salespeople are being asked to think differently,” Kassam said during a panel discussion.
With the average age of Optima residents rising from 79 to 84 in 2020, Kassam said organizations with ILs and active adult members should ensure they don't “take away their independence.” , stated that it is necessary to define which areas of support will be provided.
“It's a difficult balance. You want to always be full, but you also have to make sure you don't infringe on the existing community and create an imbalance. As operators, we need to think seriously about this. ” Kassam said.
Regardless of the approach, reducing lead times also emerged as a theme at the conference. Operators across the continuum of care are looking for ways to shorten the time between a prospect entering the sales cycle and final occupancy.
Trilogy Health Services, a Louisville, Kentucky-based senior housing and health services company, is making adjustments to help families accelerate their transition from home to the community, said Stacey Woods, Trilogy's chief growth officer. The company is considering adding an interior space planner to assist with this. .
“I think there is great potential to become the provider of choice and significantly shorten the sales cycle and make decision-making easier for families,” Woods said during the panel discussion.
This raises a crucial point: businesses need to change their sales habits to account for the new normal of demographics, average age, and increased acumen. There is no one-size-fits-all solution to this problem, but operators must evolve or face stagnation.
