Being able to effectively establish sales activity goals for senior living salespeople is an important activity for sales leaders. Establishing benchmarks for sales activity is key to effectively measuring sales success. We take a look at what benchmarks are, which ones are important, and why your senior living CRM should incorporate them.
What is benchmarking?
Benchmark is a way to measure performance over time. Establishing benchmarks requires data and analysis of the data. In senior living companies, benchmarking sales activity can be used to compare properties in the portfolio, or to evaluate performance of a salesperson. For example, if your salespeople across all your senior living properties average 5 outbound call attempts every day, but the sales people who are making 10 attempts every day are successfully achieving monthly move-in goals, then your benchmark for outbound call attempts should be 10 per day.
Which sales benchmarks are important?
In our blog “The 7 Key Sales Cycle Metrics Every Owner-Operator Should Watch,” we identified some of the most important sales metrics in senior living sales. Here is an overview of those metrics that you should be benchmarking as a regular part of managing your sales teams, why your CRM should incorporate them.
Speed to Lead
What it is: Speed to Lead is a measurement of how fast a salesperson is responding to new leads.
Why your CRM should track it for benchmarking: The faster they respond to a lead’s initial contact, the more positive an impression your senior living community is going to make on them, and the more likely they are going to want to come in for a tour.
Lead to Tour Ratio
What it is: Lead to Tour measures how many of all the leads that entered the funnel actually toured the community. It whether they called, walked in, filled out a contact form, or were a referral from any source.
Why your CRM should track it for benchmarking: Lead to Tour is informative when compared to the next metric, Inquiry to Tour. Ideally, they should be equal; if they’re not, it may indicate that the salesperson is not successful in connecting to all the incoming leads.
Inquiry to Tour Ratio
What it is: Inquiry to Tour measures how effective the salesperson is at getting an inquiry (i.e. a lead that the salesperson has made a connection with) to come in for a tour.
Why your CRM should track it for benchmarking: As mentioned above, a significant difference between Lead to Tour and Inquiry to Tour may indicate a problem with the salesperson making connection with incoming leads.
Tour to Move-In Ratio
What it is: Tour to Move-In measures the number of prospects who have toured the community who then go on to move in.
Why your CRM should track it for benchmarking: It can indicate that the community may have issues that cause prospects to decide not to move into the community. Issues can include the quality of the tour, the condition of the community, how the community stacks up against its competitors, and a lack of follow-up by the salesperson.
Average Time/Effort to Sale
What it is: Average Time/Effort to Sale is a measurement of the intervals of time between each stage in the sales process (i.e. lead, prospect, tour, deposit, move-in).
Why your CRM should track it for benchmarking: Knowing how much time and effort a salesperson invests to get a lead to move in is tremendously helpful in calculating and forecasting the occupancy of the community.
Net Move-Ins / Move-Outs
What it is: Net Move-Ins is a positive number when there are more move-ins than move-outs in a given period of time. Net Move-Outs is a negative number when there are more move-outs than move-ins in a given period of time.
Why your CRM should track it for benchmarking: Increasing occupancy in senior living communities requires more move-ins than move-outs in a given time period – month, quarter, or year. The primary goal of sales professionals is to be net-positive so that occupancy increases. If the community is showing an ongoing net-negative trend, it’s an indication of either not enough move-ins or too many move-outs. Either of these requires a closer look to identify problems in the community. Remember – it may not be a sales problem!
Days Occupied/Vacant
What it is: Days Occupied/Vacant is the number of days a unit is occupied and vacant per month.
Why your CRM should track it for benchmarking: This is a great “work harder not smarter” sales performance metric because it allows you to compare the lead sources your residents came from so your sales team can focus on the sources that are most productive. It also helps to highlight units that are harder to sell and may need some creative ideas to sell.
Percentage of Stalled Prospects
What it is: Percentage of Stalled Prospects is how many of the total prospects are not progressing through the sales funnel.
Why your CRM should track it for benchmarking: Salespeople keep prospects moving through the funnel by following up with them and closing them to a next step in the sales process (like giving a tour, scheduling purposeful follow-up, making a home visit, or getting a deposit). If the sales professional is not performing the necessary activities in the sales system, the prospects are going to cool off – and most likely look elsewhere.
Senior living sales leaders who understand the importance of tracking key sales metrics can help to guide their senior living communities and salespeople to success. Although not a complete list, these 8 metrics are among the key ones that you should be tracking. Your senior living CRM is an important tool to help establish benchmarks for these metrics and to evaluate your sales teams against them.
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