If you want to take the heart out of a sales rep, give him or her a database full of unqualified leads. Then, watch them turn, in desperation, to online providers, or worse, leave your community for another sales job.

By Susan Saldibar

Top sales people will tell you, sales is a balancing act. Or maybe more like a “spinning plate” act. All three plates must keep spinning all the time – short term leads, mid-term leads and long term leads. If they don’t, the sales department risks a lopsided year, with January surges and April busts.

The race to the bottom is on. But no one wins.

What often happens is that, in efforts to keep the short-term prospects moving, sales neglects to properly nurture and move the mid-term and long-term prospects along. So, they need more and more of the short-term to keep your rooms filled. Thus, begins a race to the bottom for the desperate, acute care prospects. And, if they are using an online provider, such as A Place For Mom, they are fighting five or six other community sales reps for the same, weary lead.

The online providers, by the way, love the fight, since they are getting paid by those five or six operators as they claw away. A neat little game. But it serves them and no one else.

This is why your best sales rep is leaving you: Too many leads. Unqualified ones.

I recall a conversation Tom Goldman, COO for SoftVu (a Senior Housing Forum partner) had with Steve Moran in one of his “Conversations” videos. It had to do with how hard sales works trying to qualify hundreds of leads, most of which won’t go anywhere. Tom had said, “Most communities tell us they don’t have a problem with not enough leads; they have too many. Sales often wastes a lot of calories figuring out which leads are qualified.”

So, if you want to take the heart out of a sales rep, give him or her a database full of unqualified leads. Then, watch them turn, in desperation, to online providers, or worse, leave your community for another sales job.  

Technology has stepped in to end the vicious cycle (and revolving sales door).

Enter big data. And deeper databases, according to Tom Goldman. Add in some pretty cool technology and you have SeniorVu, SoftVu’s dynamic new lead acquisition and management platform. But what’s important here is the transition this technology is helping sales to make:

  • From huge, general mailing lists to smaller lists containing highly granular information

  • From mass-generic email blasts to highly personalized, targeted emails

  • From passive, third party listings to active digital marketing programs

  • From purchasing lists in bulk to evaluating each lead and purchasing individually, a la carte

What do you want your sales reps doing? Low value, time wasting tasks or high value selling?

Why is this technology important? Tom would tell you that it gives senior living communities the kind of information set that liberates them from the clutches of online lead providers and gives them leads they can actively work today and close faster. Also, that using this kind of technology lets you edge out others who are reluctant to abandon their online lead providers’ security blanket, as flimsy as it may be.

But anyone who has ever sold for a living would probably tell you the real benefit. It takes them out of the demoralizing, low value, time wasting task of sifting through and trying to connect with people who have no desire to connect. And, it lets them use their talents to bring high value residents through your doors.

Could that be why your best reps are leaving? Maybe. It sure wouldn’t hurt to find out.

To learn more about SeniorVu, or to receive your own personal demo, send a quick note to [email protected]. For more information about SoftVu, they invite you to visit their website.  

Connect with SeniorVu and never let a lead hit the ground again . . . ever. Call 816-759-2586 today.

Click on the button below to download a PDF copy of this article: