Challenge
Lenbrook, a high-end, not-for-profit Life Plan Community in Atlanta’s Buckhead neighborhood, was in the final stages of securing financing for its expansion, Kingsboro at Lenbrook, when the COVID-19 pandemic struck.
Solution
Lenbrook had already been working with a Love & Company senior sales advisor, so its proactive approach enabled a quick mobilization and nimble response to this challenge. The empowered and dynamic sales team at Lenbrook worked closely with an experienced and responsive sales advisory team. Together, the partners proved it’s possible to secure and sustain deposits for a senior living expansion—even during a pandemic. THE STRATEGY Lenbrook had to act quickly. Love & Company understood the urgency and helped the team pivot to the “new world of senior living sales and marketing.” This meant leveraging today’s latest tech tools while also going back to basics with a strategic twist. Love & Company senior sales advisors introduced the following COVID-19-specific tools to help the Lenbrook team set up and operate remotely: -Toolkits for home visits including iPads, a digital selections guide, digital floor plans and virtual tours -Off-site coaching with an emphasis on using technology to build relationships -Training on active listening, selling during economic uncertainty and overcoming new prospect objections related to the virus -Small-group event options and ideas Love & Company equipped Lenbrook’s director of sales and marketing with specific sales tools and tactics that were proving most effective amid the pandemic. Regular coaching sessions helped the sales team embrace the emerging methods and technologies that would help them retain deposits. In addition to adding technology to the sales toolbox, the team also anchored its retention efforts in one of the most basic sales tenets: phone calls. Without in-person events, the Lenbrook sales team had to change its mindset and use phone calls to cultivate genuine relationships with depositors who were concerned about the present and future. Love & Company’s team-based approach also ensured that the director of sales and marketing at Lenbrook would not be navigating this challenge alone. She could lean on Love & Company’s expertise, while remaining in control and in charge of building up the sales team to achieve the organization’s goal. This engagement also effectively empowered the sales team to focus on selling the expansion, which freed community leadership to focus on the day-to-day operational challenges of COVID-19.
Results
With both the increase in connected calls and the caring, authentic messaging within them, the sales team nurtured depositor relationships and kept Kingsboro at or exceeding 60% reserved. By the end of September, the team received four more Kingsboro deposits and secured 12 letters of intent for the existing community Lenbrook now has a well-nurtured lead base that has responded positively to phone outreach.
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