Ideas in the Wild: How David Smith is Turning the Speed-to-Lead Selling Paradigm on Its Head

In It’s About Time!, David Smith chronicles his thirty-plus-year journey in senior living. He reveals how to turn deep-seated resistance into successful conversions. His field-tested technique, Prospect-Centered Selling, is based on a theoretical model adapted from the psychology of change. It’s a strategy supported by data-driven metrics and a purpose-built CRM platform. David’s methodology is disrupting the universally accepted speed-to-lead paradigm.

This book provides case studies and is a step-by-step guide that will show readers how to double their close rates, drive higher occupancies, and achieve faster fills. It will not only boost sales performance, but will also help hundreds of thousands more people get ready for a new and vibrant chapter in their lives. I recently caught up with David to learn more about the book.

What happened that made you decide to write the book? What was the exact moment when you realized these ideas needed to get out there?

I had been leading fillup and turnaround campaigns for senior living communities around the country for more than 30 years. During that time, I learned that selling senior housing is unlike any other kind of sale. It was both out of necessity and being inspired by the people who were facing this major life change that led me to develop a Prospect-Centered Selling approach, one which I promoted to the industry.

Around 2018, my partner and co-founder of Sherpa, Alex Fisher said, “David, you need to write a book about PCS.” This was at a time when we had just landed a significant new Sherpa customer. Capturing this particular company demonstrated to us that demand and acceptance of PCS and Sherpa was likely to fundamentally change the way the senior living industry “sells.” For the first time, we were witnessing PCS acceptance outside of the specific people and companies that we had done consulting engagements with.

During this same time frame, we began scaling up Sherpa’s internal resources with professional, full-time PCS trainers. They needed and wanted a uniform presentation of PCS to use as an ongoing teaching and training guide.

What’s your favorite specific, actionable idea in the book?

Big decisions often take time. In my industry, senior living sales, it’s all too common for the sales process to be fast and impersonal. Are you a hot lead or a cold lead? This isn’t how big-ticket items like senior living should be sold, nor is it an effective way to spend your selling time.

When it comes to a complex, emotionally laden, multi-call sale, we can help facilitate readiness and significantly improve conversion rates. Helping potential customers, “get ready” to make a reasoned, confident buying decision requires empathic connections, purposeful questioning, and the investment of time.

My intention initially was to bring PCS to senior living sales, but this methodology has applications to not only a complex sale, but to guiding someone through a major life change or decision. Slowing down and taking time to form meaningful connections has value not only in the business world, but can transform relationships of all kinds, whether it be family, friends, or colleagues.

What’s a story of how you’ve applied this lesson in your own life/business? What has this lesson done for you and your business?

I first learned the value and impact of Prospect-Centered Selling in 1988 while trying to fill my flagship senior community, The Gatesworth. I was failing miserably using traditional residential real estate sales techniques. Through trial and error and over many years, with different product and care types and in many different locations across the US and Canada, while working hands-on with prospects and sales counselors in the Leasing Office, I assessed the nature and sources of resistance.

With help from Alex, we researched to find a theoretical framework to use to explain and describe the decision-making process from the buyer’s emotional perspective. We then adapted a model using theories and data from the world of sales (Neil Rackham); and from the psychology of change (MI, Prochaska). We then launched a purpose-built CRM that supported PCS. Finally, we have now captured extensive sales performance data that further clarifies and supports the PCS methodology, especially when combined with Sherpa’s technology and metrics.